Water Or Air For Sli In Watercooled System

[AstroGuy]

Hey gurus. Quick question. I am building (actually retrofitting) a new system using the Danger Den Waterbox Plus and the matching CPU water cooling kit (with the 2x120 radiator). I have a B3 stepping q6600 (I know) which I am hoping to overclock to about 3 Ghz. I also have dual 512 Mb 8800 GTS cards (g92) and I am trying to decide how to cool them. My original inclination was to shell out the bucks for dual full coverage blocks and connect them in series with the CPU (after). I am concerned, though, whether I would be adding too much heat to this system for the radiator to dissipate and hence hurt myself. I am not particularly likely to do much overclocking on the cards themselves. My other alternative was to switch out the stock air cooler with a DuOrb from Thermaltake and put a couple of 120 mm fans into the top of the case to set up two separate systems (water cooled CPU connected to radiator and Air cooled dual GPUs. Any thoughts on which of these options would be wisest? Difference in cost between the two would be about $125 given the cost of the two DuOrbs. I guess I could also just depend on the stock coolers and save another $100. I already bought the DuOrbs but am considering returning them and going the water route. I suppose the other advantage would be opening up some adjacent PCI slots which are currently consumed with the bulky air cooling mechanism.

 

Finally, would anyone include a Northbridge water block in this setup with or without the GPU water blocks? Is that silly, overkill or just plain dumb?

 

Thanks in advance for any input. Be kind to a newbie.

 

 

Specs:

 

Q6600 B3 stepping

8 Mb ram

Dual 8800GTS 512 G92 cards

Asus p5N32 motherboard

Vista 64

 

Rick

[damian]

you make it seem as if your computer is like a stove. your cpu wont go past 50C with a good aftermarket air cooler even overclocked, your 2 cards wont go past 60C with the stock coolers, and that's with air. Water cooling isnt all that hyped up like it sounds to be. If you already bought the Duo orb coolers stick with them, water cooling them will be around 100bucks for like a 10C drop at most*

[hardnrg]

damian, you obviously have never OC'd a Q6600 lol... my G0 is at 1.58v and it loads up on core0 between 60 and 68

[damian]

Hm 60-68C on water cooling, wow that is high, idk but i have seen a couple rigs with a Q6600 overclockd and its never gets higher then 55C, its probably a different stepping, not sure though i dont really know much about steppings. Anyways the one im talking about had a lapped TRUE and temps were average at 55ishC load and idle at 40ishC not much of a difference in temperature when your talking about a Q6600. Anyways the True also has a modded ultra Kaze fan there pretty loud and have a 133CFM airflow B:) , dont know about the whole "modded" term, dont know how you could mod a fan and a heatsink (unless he meant push-pull configuration) but thats what a friend from xfire told me. BS or not here are some other links to overclocked Q6600 and there temps

 

But you are right most chips out there reach the high 60's and some even at 70s, dont know how people can deal with this for me 54C is my limit.

http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showd...?i=2981&p=3

 

 

EDIT: im interested in getting low temps on a Q6600 that just might be my next goal, to keep it uner 50C. im thinking dry ice, my specialty, which reminds me ill be doing an upcoming experiment with an E2180 and a P45 board should be fun.

Edited June 16, 2008 by damian

[hardnrg]

there are a few things you should realise...

 

overclocked load temps mean NOTHING without vcore...

 

I could get 35

[damian]

"you shouldn't really go giving hard advice on stuff if you don't *really* have experience with them"

did i not say that those results were based on my own work, and results that i heard from a friend. so i would have experience, even the slightest bit, i do.

 

"if you had a Quad, or SLI, or watercooling, you'd know that everything you said is basically wrong"

Hm...well i have run test with a quad, so i would know if im right or wrong. But no i wouldn't know about SLI, or watercooling...why? because i have never used them i just point out what iv read from the variety of articles...so don't get an attitude with me trying to prove me wrong (yeah that's basically what your doing)

 

What i was doing was giving out personal experiences based on my results and friends results. I have no reason to lie, its not like i get anything out of it so i just type what iv heard, and seen. I feel like i did my part by giving out suggestions, not facts, although it seemed like i was giving out a fact in my first post by saying "your cpu wont go past 50C with a good aftermarket air cooler" im pretty sure everyone can notice that it was just something to think about.

 

Even though he has purchased the watercooling setup, another main question was whether he should return his Duo orb coolers for stock or watercooling, my "suggestion" would be to keep them he got what he payed for, and those are one of the hottest coolers on the market (not literally). And he said he doesnt plan on overclocking *much* but they should supply enough cooling for his needs.

 

Now to me it also seems that you dont fancy peoples opinions? if the whole OCC community thought like you, we wouldn't have that "modding" style that most of the enthusiast here take part in, we wouldn't have people buying AMD processors, as its a known fact that the latter is Intel, but an opinion/suggestion/recommendation wold be get what you can for your money. No one would buy ATI cards, because we all know Nvidia is the latter, but the suggestions that are spoken, once again are, get what you can for the money...ect ect...that's just a n FYI though.

 

Man cant we all just get along

Edited June 17, 2008 by damian

[hardnrg]

I don't care if you've played with someone else's rig or not... if anyone gives out wrong information to someone who states explicitly that they are new to performance computing, I will call them out... you could have read it at tomshardware.com, XS, or found out through blood, sweat, and tears... I really don't care where you get your info from, but if almost everything you say in a post is false, I'm not just going to let it slide... sorry

[damian]

But that's just it, my post was from my experience tell my bios, and HWmonitor that you have a problem with the temps, they were in the high 50's but certainly not over 60C, i dont care if you believe me or not anymore, im done with this thread, good bye!

[AstroGuy]

Hmm. Well, I certainly appreciate the input from everyone on this issue. Although there was a lot of good information (and some conflict), I'm not sure I really understand the answer to my primary question. In a dual fan radiator cooled water system, is it better to include the GPUs on the water circuit for cooling or is it better to isolate them on their own air-cooling arrangement to separate the two major heat-generating components? Wouldn't having a dedicated water system for the CPU allow me to push things slightly harder? Isn't this the reason I see those occasional dual water systems running off two pumps and two radiators? Or is this all esoteric nonsense for someone who isn't really going to push the envelope that hard for a Q6600?

 

Thanks again.

[AstroGuy]

Excellent and helpful info. Thanks. I assume you mean that you have two separate water loops/pumps/radiators from your comments. You are not implying that you have a single loop connected with two radiators, correct? Based on this, I could simply start with the CPU and Northbridge on the water loop and air cool the cards, with the plan to add another water loop later if I really lost my sanity and went all out....

[hardnrg]

The problem with putting your GPU and CPU on the same loop with only a 2x120 rad is that when you enter 3D apps/games, the additional heatload from the GPU will raise the loop temperature slightly, and therefore the CPU temp will be taken higher than CPU only load...

 

this raised CPU temp could result in instability... so for a single rad system, you'd really want a 3x120 Swiftech or Thermochill rad to stay more comfortable... 2x120 would be ok if you weren't going to push things too hard (I wouldn't run C2Q +8800SLI on 2x120 though lol)

 

I have two separate loops, yes, and my advice was to cool CPU/NB on one loop and then add a separate loop for GPUs later if you wanted, as you correctly surmised