Zalman Reserator

[clocker]

Anyone here have any hands on experience with one of these things?

My local MicroCenter has had a demo machine set up for a few months and it seems to be doing quite well.

I have been in contact with a Finnish modder who has been getting very respectable results with a heavily modified model and the temptation has been growing to try one out...the oddity factor far outweighs the theoretical shortcomings.

My Finnish friend has basically done two things to improve the performance.
First, he extended the inlet to the cooling tower so the hot water from the block is released near the top, not next to the outlet (pump) as is stock.

Secondly, and most important I think, he enclosed the finned tower in a plexi tube topped with a 172mm fan which draws air up the full length of the reservoir and boosts the convection cooling effect.
Although this last mod totally destroys the Zalman's stated advantage of being completely passive, hence silent, he reports that very slow fan speeds are all that is necessary to significantly improve the performance, so noise is still negligable.

I have been toying with a major revamp of Sprocket...one that incorporates several of the big mods that I've implemented in the past, and this might be the topping on the cake.
My case is actually large enough not to be dwarfed by the Reserator's size and I can envision a way to mount it so the unit would be (semi) integral with the case's base, making (limited) movement possible without draining the whole system.
Obviously this would never be a LANparty rig, but then again, it's not now either, so I lose little.

Thoughts?

[kaiweiler]

I say go for it. You were talking to me about your interest in this system over 2 months ago and you still express the same interest. You obviously want it.

[lynx]

Even at ultra low speeds, a 172mm fan will probably still move a considerable amount of air compared to simple convection currents. I'm interested to know what sort of temps can be achieved with a rig like that.

Has your Finnish friend given any indication of the temps he's getting? If he said it took him a long time to get it put together, don't be put off. I have an idea that the some Finns just don't like to get started. Naming no names.

[Storm]

hey clocker....... have you ever finished a project?

every thing i remember you starting on, you stop for a new one lol.....

[clocker]

Has your Finnish friend given any indication of the temps he's getting?

Well, for a while he was confounding the "Reserators Are Crap" Brigade at OCforums by screenshotting temps in the mid-twenties...but he was cheating.

Had the unit outside his window where the Finnish winter was giving him incredible delta values to play with.
That ole arctic sense of humor....

Since building the fan assisted enclosure ( and moving the rig indoors...) he seems to cruise in the mid thirties (load) with a mildly clocked Prescott.

As with any external H2O setup, one of the biggest advantages is the ability to reduce ( if not eliminate altogether) the other case fans, having removed the single biggest internal heat source. System silence is obviously his ( and Zalman's) primary goal.

I have urged him to experiment with alternate CPU waterblocks, but he seems happy where he now stands.
The Zalman VGA block was tried, but discarded as ineffective and too much for the loop to handle ( ATI 9800 Pro's get HOT), plus the added tubing was aesthetically displeasing.

I plan on duplicating his setup almost to a T with a few added features.

Storm....
No, I have never finished anything.
I admit it...I'm a dilettante.

[Virtualbody1234]

dilettante

adj : showing frivolous or superficial interest; amateurish; "his dilettantish efforts at painting" [syn: dilettantish, dilettanteish, sciolistic] n : an amateur who engages in an activity without serious intentions and who pretends to have knowledge [syn: dabbler, sciolist]

Source:
http://dictionary.reference.com/sear...0&q=dilettante

Nothing in there that says: "never finishes a project"!

[clocker]

Damn.

So much for my grasp of the English language.

[tesco]

Well, for a while he was confounding the "Reserators Are Crap" Brigade at OCforums by screenshotting temps in the mid-twenties...but he was cheating.

Had the unit outside his window where the Finnish winter was giving him incredible delta values to play with.
That ole arctic sense of humor....

why doesn't he leave it outside then?

[clocker]

I assume that even Finland has a summer season.
Also, the Reserator has a relatively low flow pump and I'm sure that the extra tube length and head were affecting the performance.

Just a guess, though.