Radeon HD 4850 Options

[MattDunbar]

Actually, I'm pretty sure water cooling gets somewhat "worse" the more components you have on the loop, due to the extra heat put in the water. I don't have personal experience, but airflow can be optimized so as to ensure heat off the video card is properly vented and doesn't really affect CPU temps, and vice versa. But with water you have to have a sufficient amount of radiators to disipate the heat from both components, as well as a pump that needs to be increasingly more powerful the more tubing and components you put on the loop, and so forth.

 

Of course, if you have the money, a good water loop will outperform the best air, but you need to do your research.

 

Don't most setups which cool both involve a splitter? Considering that I would use one, what pumps/radiators would be powerful enough (my end goal is 3.6GHz on a Q6600 (stock 2.4GHz I believe) and small amounts of RAM/GPU ocing).

 

My budget is roughly $400 max now, and I'm really just wondering what system I should get, not going to lie, I am pretty bent towards the option of water cooling, and willing to fork out the extra cash to be able to get that.

 

I'm brand new to water cooling though and my first question would be:

Should I be buying a kit or parts?

 

Next,

What kits/parts would you recommend, specific to my setup (not just brands please, I don't know what is/isn't powerful enough)?

 

One last question,

If I do get a thermaltake system, is it true that I should probably replace the tubing (read it online somewhere, I don't recall now), but water tends to evaporate more than average through their tubing?

 

 

And thankyou so far, posts from everyone here have been very helpful.

[Verran]

Don't most setups which cool both involve a splitter?

Why would you want to do that? The only person I know that runs splitters is Hardnrg and his water system is the most convoluted mess you'll ever see. I think he'd agree, too

 

For just one GPU and one CPU you don't need splitters or multiple anythings. Just get a good pump, a good 2x120 or preferably 3x120 rad and you're fine. Thermochill rads if you can afford them, Swiftech or BlackIce if you can't. Preferably the Laing D5 pump too (Swiftech sells this same pump under a different name FYI, but I don't know what it is.)

 

If I do get a thermaltake system, is it true that I should probably replace the tubing (read it online somewhere, I don't recall now), but water tends to evaporate more than average through their tubing?

If you get a Thermaltake system, you should replace EVERYTHING. Immediately.

 

Tt water is pretty junky and I would never recommend it.

 

my end goal is 3.6GHz on a Q6600

You're doing it backwards. The water isn't going to make or break your overclock. The chip can do whatever it can do. Why not overclock it first and see what it's capable of. If it turns out to be a dud like a lot of the new ones are, you'll feel silly spending $400 on a cooling system for a Q6600 at 3.0 or 3.2. The stock cooler can do that just fine!

 

If it's a dud, water won't make it go higher. It'll just cost more.

[MattDunbar]

If its a dud I'd say its about time to replace that Q6600 (I'm looking at the Q6700 anyway, moving the Q6600 into my 2nd box), and my temperatures are way to hot to even attempt OCing IMHO.

 

Looking around, anyone have any suggestions where I can get a decent system in the Toronto, ON, Canada area? (if you know the area, maybe even more specifically, in peel region).

Edited May 12, 2009 by MattDunbar

[Verran]

If its a dud I'd say its about time to replace that Q6600 (I'm looking at the Q6700 anyway, moving the Q6600 into my 2nd box), and my temperatures are way to hot to even attempt OCing IMHO.

That's a decision you have to make, but my point is that water is not going to make a bad OC better. A lot of people think it will. They think "well, I've got 3.2 on air, so I'll probably get 3.6+ on water!" Maybe, maybe not. My point is that you may end up spending all this money and still have an OC that could do just as well on $50 air cooling. That's important to understand.

 

Besides, if you figure all the money you're going to spend on a Q6700 plus $400 for water, why not just upgrade to a PhenomII or i7 setup? Seriously, for the $600ish you're talking about you could make a total conversion to a new (better) platform with a high-end air cooler. The performance boost you'd see from that would definitely be better than even the most optimistic gains from going to water.

 

You could move over to a P2 setup ($200ish for a quad, $150ish board, $50ish memory = $400 + $50ish for good cooler) and still have $150ish to put toward a new video card or even a second one to SLI/CF with your existing one. Spending that much on water for an outdated system just doesn't make sense to me. A Q6600 is already 2 generations old, probably 3 soon. Why spend $400 just milking a few more hundred mhz out of it when you could get SO MUCH more for that money?

[00stevo]

Well said.

[MattDunbar]

That's a decision you have to make, but my point is that water is not going to make a bad OC better. A lot of people think it will. They think "well, I've got 3.2 on air, so I'll probably get 3.6+ on water!" Maybe, maybe not. My point is that you may end up spending all this money and still have an OC that could do just as well on $50 air cooling. That's important to understand.

 

Besides, if you figure all the money you're going to spend on a Q6700 plus $400 for water, why not just upgrade to a PhenomII or i7 setup? Seriously, for the $600ish you're talking about you could make a total conversion to a new (better) platform with a high-end air cooler. The performance boost you'd see from that would definitely be better than even the most optimistic gains from going to water.

 

You could move over to a P2 setup ($200ish for a quad, $150ish board, $50ish memory = $400 + $50ish for good cooler) and still have $150ish to put toward a new video card or even a second one to SLI/CF with your existing one. Spending that much on water for an outdated system just doesn't make sense to me. A Q6600 is already 2 generations old, probably 3 soon. Why spend $400 just milking a few more hundred mhz out of it when you could get SO MUCH more for that money?

 

Point taken, I will look into i7 setup, they do look pretty tempting

[pkilway]

If you really want to cool yoru video card you can start by removing the stock fan/heatsink, cleaning the gpu and heatsink/memory then add a little QUALITY thermal grease before re-applying the fan/heatsink to the card.

Quality Thermal Grease/Compunds

 

I bet you can lower your temps about 10C with the clean reseating.