corsair nautilus 500 vs. danger den

[edjahman]

I'm kinda ashamed to admit it but I have one of those nautilus 500 watercooling units and it keeps my opteron 165 below 55c at full load. Temp. measured by core temp. Its clocked to 2.7 mhz. with 1.37v. Anyway. How much better would the best setup from danger den be?

 

Thanks

 

--EJM

[disturbed6dws]

55c @ full load @ that low voltage ? .....im sure a conventional heatsink would be better

[Angry_Games]

the "best" setup from DangerDen wouldn't really be all that much better honestly

 

I've run DD for years and now have Nautilus

 

the Nautilus is much much much easier to install (takes about 15 minutes and blammo you are running)

 

the DD stuff takes me about 4-10 hours to get all setup (and you have to have the right kind of case or some serious modding skills etc)

 

the Nautilus isn't to be moved generally, and while it is very good at cooling, it isn't as good as the best DIY stuff from DD or Swiftech...but keep in mind the low percentage differences (ie it isn't like you will see a 30% increase in cooling performance by using DD...more like 1% to 5%)

 

 

however

 

 

if you are going to do the hardcore watercooling (dual rad + 2x pumps + cpu block + 2x full-sized gpu waterblocks), there's no comparison

 

I've got all of that above on my ex-main rig, and the Nautilus on my new main rig (sig rig).

 

The nautilus is practical and excellent, but is no match for overall performance of my ex-main rig (considering I could easily run cpu @ 3600Mhz + both X1900XT's @ 754/846)

 

its like I always say...you got to give a little to get a little...it is up to you to decide what you want to give to gain something (or vice-versa)

[p0tter]

55c @ full load @ that low voltage ? .....im sure a conventional heatsink would be better

 

Yea, I would not be happy with 55C full load. What thermal compound are you using?

 

I used to get 42C load w/ my XP-120 and 38c with my TDX.

[edjahman]

I used as5 and its been on a long time. I was careful and i dont believe i used too much. i assume coretemp is accurate.

[Angry_Games]

Core Temp is the most accurate for measuring cpu core temps in my opinion

[Thasp]

From what I've read about people running the same voltage, in a similar temperature room, on the same CPU, I have noted that I do about 6c.. maybe 8c better than the nautilus with this setup. Keep in mind, I have done no direct comparison at home with the nautilus and this messy DIY cooling setup, this is just what I gathered from a lot of reading before I got the stuff. I could very well be far off.

 

Was it worth the time and effort, and all the mistakes inbetween? Hell no.

 

Keep the nautilus, troubleshoot it, and be happy IMO. If you are one of those people who absolutely must have a DIY setup where you make it and have control over it, go for it, but it really is a pain in the butt when you buy a GPU waterblock that's advertized as 1/2" barbs but not advertized they they're sold seperately, no fun when you buy too little tubing because you didn't know how much you'd need, no fun routing it around your case for sure(and I haven't even bothered trying to put this in a case yet).. it's not worth the effort to go all out unless you find spending several extra hours figuring things out worth the 6c-8c temp drop. Especially when you consider the fact that the nautilus is cheap as hell compared to a good DIY setup - $150 vs $300ish!

 

I got the DIY simply so I could have a powerful pump, and a 3x120mm fan radiator in my window, just for kicks when it gets to be 9-30F in the NYC winter. It not only cools the room when I turn it up, but also keeps the e6400 at 42c coretemp running orthos, 52c running intel TAT stresstest @ 1.55v @ 450x8.. which is awesome. So I guess in the end, it was worth it for the ability to tamper with it, and when I do case it I think I will be buying 20 feet of tubing so I can keep it in the window, to intake cold air in the winter and exhaust the computer's hot air out in the summer. So maybe it was worth it, I guess it depends on how much memory I have left of the setup of the system.

 

A few crazy things I recommend, that helped me. They may not help you, and I do not own the nautilus so I don't know if they even will, but can't hurt to try.

 

Try running a 50/50 water/vinegar mix through the system. I did this, and it cleaned out a hell of a lot of crap.. everything was disgusting. Even after flushing it out, there was still crap in the system the second time! So for weeks I ran a 70/30 of distilled water and 90% isopropyl alcohol.. seemed to do it. I'm not sure how the corsair unit is.

[edjahman]

Ok. I did a re-mount with ceramique and cleaned out the rad. and now my load temps are as follows.....

 

smartguardian-----48 to 50C 100% both cores at 2.8 ghz with 1.5 vcore.

 

core temp.---core 0 55C and core 1 52C same as above.

 

I probably shouldnt expect much better results with the corsair unit. It's just that I want to get 3 ghz. with this 165. I cant help but wonder if I got better cooling then would it be possible?? I was just feeling really lazy when I bought the corsair unit.

 

Does anyone know if OCZ id still going to release a phase unit??

 

 

Thanks Guys.

 

--EJM

[Praz]

48 to 50C 100% both cores at 2.8 ghz with 1.5 vcore.

If it's requiring 1.5V to reach 2800 the inability to achieve 3000 isn't the fault of the cooling. Any good 165 stepping can hit 3000 stable at 1.5V.

[Jeaze_Mcleod]

Try running a 50/50 water/vinegar mix through the system. I did this, and it cleaned out a hell of a lot of crap.. everything was disgusting. Even after flushing it out, there was still crap in the system the second time! So for weeks I ran a 70/30 of distilled water and 90% isopropyl alcohol.. seemed to do it. I'm not sure how the corsair unit is.

 

Is this something you do before you run the system for the first time or something you do after so many months of usage to unclog the system?

[Thasp]

I did it the first time.

 

I noticed the coolant in my system was brown, yellow, red, everything but green. So I drained it into a container, then put the stuff that was already in the bottle, unused, into the same container, and compared.. the one that I had drained from the system was dirty as hell, so I decided to do the cleaning thing. I think you are supposed to do it when you first get the system, though.

 

Now I don't use coolant. I like distilled water + tiny bits of alcohol. If it's a different color, I can be 100% sure that it's not supposed to be there.

[Jeaze_Mcleod]

I did it the first time.

 

I noticed the coolant in my system was brown, yellow, red, everything but green. So I drained it into a container, then put the stuff that was already in the bottle, unused, into the same container, and compared.. the one that I had drained from the system was dirty as hell, so I decided to do the cleaning thing. I think you are supposed to do it when you first get the system, though.

 

Now I don't use coolant. I like distilled water + tiny bits of alcohol. If it's a different color, I can be 100% sure that it's not supposed to be there.

 

Now this was in the case of the DD system and I am thinking that for some reason there was residue specially in the pump from when it was first lubed I guess that might have made it looked that way. Now there is one small factor to consider when using water (distilled or not) and that with time it might cause corrosion inside the pump if there are any metal parts beign used inside the chambers where liquid goes thru. That is why coolant is used because of its inhivitors and it also has a special lubricant to keep the pump running smoothly longer.

 

I happen to know this because this applies to automotive aplication coolants and it is why you should try to avoid using water. Now if the pump that Thasp is using is plastic and ceramic that distilled water is fine eventhough the blocks are still made out of copper. This is just something I would like to point out to everyone that is considering getting a water cooling system.

 

One question that I still had Thasp is what type of vinegar did you use? Just regular plain clear vingar or apple vingegar, etc? Also what type of alcohol did you use (isopropyl.. spelling)?