WC the Chipset?

[kiikkuja]

Anyone have any experience in watercooling the chipset? I was thinking of getting one of these blocks:

 

Alphacool nexxxos nbx-sli

Aquacomputer Twinplex Pro SLI

 

or something else in the range 50€ or under. What temps should i expect? My current temps are around 43C idle 48C load so the temps are not that bad but the noise is bothering me alot. :mad:

[jumpman]

some ppl say its not worth it...because it makes the loop more restricted...you should keep that $$$ and buy the JingTing chipset cooler...or whatever the name is.

[d.justice]

i got an Aquacomputer Twinplex Pro SLI water block in the mail, should be here this week, as for flow, i got an low flow system my pump does 120 liters per hour.

 

im exited to see how it performs, i heard that you have a much better chance of hitting high HTT with a cooler chipset.

[Voltes-5]

There have also been discussions that if its too cool, it will restrict your OC. After 8+ hrs of dual prime, my chipset temp is at 48-49 with the stock cooler at 1.65vcore and 1.6 chipset voltage, with the help of a HDD cooler thats strategicaly well placed. TIM is AS5 Ceramique.

[Sorrento]

I am not sure about this "too cool to overclock properly" thing Voltes-5... as much interesting as it sounds I don't think its real. During winter I got the crazy idea of lowering my home temperature to what was outside, around 8° C, and that way the chipset temperature ran at an idle temp of 26° C, and max of just 28° C. The overclocking didn't suffer one bit... however the two 6800GT's started to do crazy stuff, since I am water cooling the voltage regulators, they didn't work unless the were at at least 28° C. Chipset has an IcerberQ 4 on top only.

 

I think the PWM mosfets on the mobo do need medium temperature to do their job more efficiently, however the chipset is just like a regular chip that probably runs better at lower temperatures.

 

Watercooling isn't necesary on the chipset since its made for high temperatures... only reason to cool it with water is to lower the noise coming out from the system.

 

Btw, never going to do that again in my life; the drop house temp during the winter :tooth:

[kiikkuja]

Watercooling isn't necesary on the chipset since its made for high temperatures... only reason to cool it with water is to lower the noise coming out from the system. quote

 

I agree...the temps are fine but the noise of the fans is killing me! I @@@@@@ hate it! If i have the money and the time my dream is to cool the rig without fans or just a couple running VERY slow and quiet.

[jumpman]

HAHAaaaaaaa...sorrento, have you lost it MANNNNnnnnnn? If i wanted to OC my comp beyond the limits...i'd want to see the results...not stand still frozen in front of the monitor.

[Sorrento]

HAHAaaaaaaa...sorrento, have you lost it MANNNNnnnnnn? If i wanted to OC my comp beyond the limits...i'd want to see the results...not stand still frozen in front of the monitor.

Actually the test was to see if my eVGA 6800GT cards had this "cold bug" a friend from Venezuela told me they had. This guy's BFG 6800GT OC could not run if the temperature was too low; he was using a very big heatsink and dropping the room temperature with his huge A/C.

 

At first he thought it was the GPU's fault, so I put mine to the test... it was not the GPU as the test showed: watercooling GPU and RAM on both 6800GT and with the low room temperatures dropped the GPU temperature below of what his GT OC ever got, something like 25° C. But all of the sudden the system froze and I couldn't boot anymore; thats when I thought about the voltage regulators on both 6800GT's, their low temperature could be the reason behind this "cold bug".

 

I rised the room temperature again and tried RivaTuner, which can read the voltage regulator temperature btw, to measure the temperature on which the system would stop working. Dropped the temperature again and this time I got to see exactly when this happened; funny since the temperature wasn't that low since these VR work at higher temperatures, but at just 38° C was when the system froze every time I tried.

 

The good thing about this is how IMPOSSIBLE for anyone out there is to achieve these VR temperatures, plain and simple. Normally a 7800GTX' voltage regulators run at a extremely high temperature of over 110° C, something like 90° C just on the heatsink... and this is what NOBODY cares about; all I have seen so far is people use tinny 40 mm fans on top of the vr heatsink at ocforums.com when doing extreme overclocks. I don't think these voltage regulators are meant for such hard conditions, at least not that hard... keeping them at around 50° would be ideal IMO. I saw a picture of these VR being on fire on a 6800 Ultra once... and like the saying says "a picture is worth 1000 words".

 

As for what does this has to do with overclocking, well its dificult to tell... however I have two video cards that have a 350/1000 mhz stock speed running 24/7 at 440/1180 mhz at very comfortable 50° C max gpu temperature. I haven't increased the voltage by using a diferent bios and haven't done any external volt mod yet but I am sure doing so would let me reach even higher speeds. The fastest I have run the two cards is 460/1200 mhz, but I am not comfortable at those speeds unless its for benchmarks... I think the amount of amps is too much for the system to handle, even with two psu's. Remember this is in SLI mode, not individually.

 

 

As for being frozen in front of the monitor... lol, 8° C is quite comfortable Jumpman. All I was wearing was a long sleeve shirt, it was nothing compared to Toronto's winter, which aren't even too cold in comparison to other places in Canada.

 

kiikkuja you can try the Evercool VC-RE or the Vantec IceberQ 4 heatsinks, and adjusting the fan speed to a lower setting thru a fan controller could make it nearly silent; copper heatsinks require less air speed to function properly. Watercooling is still the best solution, but a tricky one if it will prevent you from using one of the long PCIe slots and thus SLI. I have the Vantec IceberQ 4 right now and with a "warm" room temperature of 26° C the chipset runs at around 38/40° C (idle/max)... very comfortable IMO.

 

Good luck

[ripken204]

i wouldnt do it, maybe just get that zalman passive heatsink for it, thats if u have some airflow.

[phelan1777]

I am debating using a smaller loop for VGA RAM/NB Chip/MOSFET something like a single 120MM rad, just for less noise over all.

[timpanogos]

I thought the cold bugs only showed up with temps only generated via phase change (sub zero)

[Sorrento]

Phase change or any other type of extreme cooling are meant for the processor and the video cards GPU's, not RAM chips or voltage regulators (PWM)... these last ones are designed to work at high temperatures. Cooling them too much and they could stop working. Also not cooling them enough and other types of problems can happen.