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Loading ...The Ups and Downs of Water Cooling
mick64
After reading the feature on water cooling in the June issue of CPC, I decided it was time to take the ‘plunge’ and water-cool my rig. My case is an Antec P182, a recent buy that I was not willing to replace. I have limited space for my rig so I wanted to keep the cooling loop, including rads, within the case. Initially, I didn’t want to do much in the way of case modding (this was a mistake) and worked out that I could mount two single rads within the case, one at the front and one at the back. I thought that this would be adequate for cooling my over-clocked Q6600. Rather than going for a kit, I decided to purchase the parts individually. 2x XSPC RS120 rads, an XSPC bay reservoir, a Laing DDC pump, 1/2 “ tubing, Feser One fluid and an Aquacomputer Cuplex XT di CPU Waterblock. The Cuplex waterblock was not tested in the CPC feature but I carried out some research on waterblocks and had discovered that this was one of the best on the market. Once I had all the kit in my possession it didn’t take me long to fit. A minor case mod was required to mount the pump but that was all. Filling the loop was a doddle with the bay reservoir and my rig was soon back up and running. Before installing the loop, my CPU was cooled by a Titan Amanda TEC cooler. This cooler is extremely efficient and I was able to over-clock my Q6600 to 3.6 GHz. Of course, I was expecting to be able increase my over-clock after installing the loop and was exited to see what sort of temperature my CPU was now running at. My initial excitement soon turned to disappointment because the idle temperature was actually higher than with the Amanda and when I stress tested it, the temperature was about the same as with the Amanda. After checking the loop several times, ensuring the waterblock was mounted OK and trying various fan configurations and speeds, I came to the conclusion that it was an air-flow problem. The two rads were not able remove the heat from the water effectively in their present positions. To put it mildly, I was gutted! After a lot of thought and several ideas later, I came up with a plan. I still wanted to keep the loop within the case. So to improve the air-flow I would have to carry out some drastic case modding! I had noted that the CPC feature on water cooling had stated that one of the best cases for water cooling was the SilverStone TJ07B. This was because of the section at the bottom of the case where you could mount a large rad and have clear air-flow across the case. This was my plan; the Antec P182 has a bottom section, similar to the TJ07B that contains a hard drive bay but is big enough to fit a double 120mm rad. I would move the hard drives to the top section, mount a double rad in the bottom section with push-pull fans and cut a hole in both side panels to allow clear air-flow across the case. To cut a long story short, I carried out this plan and my temperatures are now lower than with the Amanda, although I have only been able to increase my overclock to 3.656 GHz (8×457FSB) without it becoming unstable. Although I am still a little disappointed that I haven’t been able to increase my overclock, I am extremely proud of my installation and case mods and there is one good thing; a lot less noise! Please take a look at the pictures below which show my original Amanda cooled rig, my first cooling loop and my rig as it is now…..
Titan Amanda
First Cooling Loop
My Custom Water Cooled Rig
Gunmetal Antec P182 : Antec Quattro 850 PSU : Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP : Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 3656 MHz (8 x 457) : 2Gb 1100 OCZ Gold XTC : nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with DuOrb Cooler (GPU: 700MHz, Shader: 1750MHz, Memory: 1000MHz) : 3x Sharkoon Eagle 2000’s : 4x Sharkoon Eagle 1000 LED’s : Akasa Fan Control Pro : Aquacomputer Cuplex XT di CPu Waterblock : 1x single 120mm rad : 1x double 120mm rad : 2x 80Gb WD Raptors in raid 0 : 2x 500Gb Samsung Spinpoints in raid 0