New setup , and i love it ;)

[racer II]

See my sig for my new specs :w00t:

Stupid noisy fan on my 7900gt will soon be replaced with this waterblock:
http://www.alphacool.de/xt/product_info.php/language/en/products_id/309/cPath/5_18_291/gfx-komplettkuehler-und-gfx-sets/wak-gfx-alphacool-nexxxos-nvxp-3-nvidia-6800-7800-7900.html

And the chipset fan will be replaced with this waterblock:
http://www.alphacool.de/xt/product_info.php/products_id/3546/cPath/5_18_21/chipset-water-coolers/wak-mb-alphacool-nexxxos-nb-sli-1-northbridge.html

Blocks should be here next week :cool:

[clocker]

Do you have the original (blue) or Plus 1 (black) Reserator?

How are the temps...I've always been very curious about it's performance.

Edit:
Pics, please.

[racer II]

Heya clocker , long time ago!

Yes i have the original blue reserator , my X2 4200 runs actually alot cooler then my old xp2800.
Main advantage is the cool and quiet feature of the X2.
My room temp is 20 degrees celcius and my cpu diode temp reads 22 degrees idle right now.
Theres a bug with this dfi mobo and its sensors , so you should add 10 degrees.
(some say less , but better be on the safe side)
Havent seen it higher then 27 degrees after a few hours of gaming.
So that should be 32 degrees idle and 37 degrees stressed.
Altough my reserator still feels cold on the outside , so it could be less.
Damn sensors ... lol

Funny thing is that my xp2800 had an idle temp of 39 degrees and a full load temp after a few hours of 44 degrees celcius
And the reserator felt pretty warm on the outside.

I have some of those wire sensors from my coolermaster aerogate II, so when im going to install the new waterblocks i will tape those close as possible to the cores of my cpu , gpu and chipset.

And hope that my reserator and its little pump will be ok with everything watercooled.

And ill take some pics when im installing the waterblocks.

Edit , wth... i took some pics.
Funny , the cables looks a bit like a mess in the pics.
Probably the angle lol , i did my best with hiding most of them.



http://img153.imagevenue.com/loc105/th_29768_Afbeelding222.jpg (http://img153.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc105&image=29768_Afbeelding222.jpg)http://img143.imagevenue.com/loc285/th_29775_Afbeelding228.jpg (http://img143.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc285&image=29775_Afbeelding228.jpg)http://img142.imagevenue.com/loc116/th_29781_Afbeelding230.jpg (http://img142.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc116&image=29781_Afbeelding230.jpg)http://img106.imagevenue.com/loc49/th_29788_Afbeelding232.jpg (http://img106.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc49&image=29788_Afbeelding232.jpg)

Yes yes i know , uv lights .... but i couldnt resist with this dfi mobo :D

Edit again:
Btw that zalman fan is there to keep the noise from the chipset fan down , it runs slower on lower temps.
So that one will be gone when i have the waterblocks.

[clocker]

Purdy.

How come the tubes are so long...is there a reason they need to be?

[racer II]

Purdy.

How come the tubes are so long...is there a reason they need to be?

Yup , going to cut them when the new blocks arrive.

[clocker]

Ah...a man with a plan.
Well done.

It'll be interesting to see how that little Ehiem pump deals with the added restriction.

[suprafreak6]

how is water cooling better than regular fans...because i know it is..but i just dont get how..
1.Price is more
2.Quieter <Thats the only thing i got on why its better
are the temp differences a big difference?

[clocker]

It all depends on the approach one takes.

Racer's Reserator is all about silence since it is passively cooled- no fans at all, although the tremendous volume of water probably takes quite a while to reach equilibrium.

The other, more standard approach, would utilize a fan assisted radiator and sacrifices silence for cooling perfromance.
Newer radiator designs have been optimised for less restriction so lower CFM fans can be used (hence quieter) without a loss in heat transfer capabilities however, so the gap between pure passive and active systems is not what it used to be when it comes to noise.

In either case, watercooling exploits the fact that water can absorb/transfer heat far more effectively than air alone can.
Typically, one could expect the delta from idle to full load temps to be about half that of an air cooled system- with less noise to boot.

During the winter, with your lower ambient temp, the advantage is less noticable than summertimes.
Even during the hottest dog days of August Sprocket rarely breaches 100F so my safety margin whilst overclocked is quite substantial.

It's all about the ability to overclock....pumping more voltage through components while forcing them beyond spec is easier/safer to do with watercooling than air.

Plus, it looks neat.;)

[racer II]

Well i had some problems.
After a few bsods in winxp when i was playing fear , my card started showing artifacts :(.
And after the last bsod my system still powered up , however there was no image.
Card fried! :blink:

So today i went back to the store where i bought the card , they tested it and they couldnt get it to work.

So i thought it would probalby take a few weeks to get a new 7900 gt extreme , but nope ... they switched the card with a new one :w00t: and made absolutly no problem about it.

So my system is up and running fine again , however i have this nice and shiny alphacool nvxp3 waterblock sitting on my desk .... but im not sure if im going to install it since there are alot of issues with these video cards and i dont want to void my warranty yet. :mellow:

Im not sure what im going to do now... install it and throw away 2 years warranty with a card that has some problems....

Or get some hearing protection and wait 2 years ....

:stars:

And problem number 2 , the chipset waterblock is waaaay to restrictive , no way im going to use this one.
The "canals" in the block are only about 2mm wide :blink:.

So now i have 2 new waterblocks ...... and probably use them as a paper weight.

Ill try to make some pics of the chipset waterblock , so you can see how ridiculous restrictive it is.

Edit the pics:



http://img153.imagevenue.com/loc71/th_44446_Afbeelding240.jpg (http://img153.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc71&image=44446_Afbeelding240.jpg)http://img120.imagevenue.com/loc151/th_44451_Afbeelding244.jpg (http://img120.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc151&image=44451_Afbeelding244.jpg)http://img155.imagevenue.com/loc42/th_44460_Afbeelding247.jpg (http://img155.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc42&image=44460_Afbeelding247.jpg)

[clocker]

You actually have other (and better!) options for chipset cooling on your board.

Move your vid card to PCIe slot#2 (don't forget to rejumper the board to "enable SLI") and it will run just fine at 8x speeds.
You'll see no impact on framerates at all.

This unshrouds the northbridge and allows the use of either the DangerDen Maze block or the Swiftech chipset block- both of which are far less restrictive than your current choice.

[racer II]

I like your idea! :)

Btw the dfi expert mobo doesnt have the jumpers for sli anymore ;)

But the real noise producer is the gfx card , its really loud.
And they say in reviews that this card is silent compared to other high end cards .... i feel sorry for the people with those "other" cards.

[kinson7]

Lols, cool setup ! I'd realli wanna try one of those top end graphics cards, hahaha, but I'm not a gamer, just the occasional Diablo II :p

Btw, Just outta curiosity, and hope you don't find it offensive. Seeing that you didn't hold back, how come onli 1gb of ram? I thought those top end setups now use about 2gb or something. Heheh

But thats just a weird question, hahah. Cool pc ! :p

Kinson

[racer II]

Lols, cool setup ! I'd realli wanna try one of those top end graphics cards, hahaha, but I'm not a gamer, just the occasional Diablo II :p

Btw, Just outta curiosity, and hope you don't find it offensive. Seeing that you didn't hold back, how come onli 1gb of ram? I thought those top end setups now use about 2gb or something. Heheh

But thats just a weird question, hahah. Cool pc ! :p

Kinson

Nope youre absolutely right , its on my wanted list :lol: and i will buy a matched pair 1gb sticks soon ;).

[clocker]

Btw the dfi expert mobo doesnt have the jumpers for sli anymore ;)


Silly me, I missed that in your sig.

With the Expert you wouldn't even need to move the vid card.
Either of the blocks I mentioned will fit with the card in slot#1.


And problem number 2 , the chipset waterblock is waaaay to restrictive
As your system is already a "low-flow" design, I'm not sure that the percieved restriction of that Alphacool block would really hurt things much.
Certainly wouldn't hurt to try it and see.

[racer II]

Thats true clocker.

And for the other waterblocks , there really isnt much room for a chipset waterblock down there...

Anyway , i allready got tired of listening to that stupid whining fan on my 7900gt extreme ... and i thought what the hell.

Here are the pics:

http://img107.imagevenue.com/loc249/th_32150_Afbeelding233.jpg (http://img107.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc249&image=32150_Afbeelding233.jpg)http://img109.imagevenue.com/loc96/th_32155_Afbeelding234.jpg (http://img109.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc96&image=32155_Afbeelding234.jpg)http://img45.imagevenue.com/loc290/th_32163_Afbeelding236.jpg (http://img45.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc290&image=32163_Afbeelding236.jpg)http://img107.imagevenue.com/loc19/th_32169_Afbeelding238.jpg (http://img107.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc19&image=32169_Afbeelding238.jpg)
http://img127.imagevenue.com/loc221/th_32178_Afbeelding239.jpg (http://img127.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc221&image=32178_Afbeelding239.jpg)

Besides ill keep the original cooler in a safe place and if this card also craps out on me , then im sure noone would notice if i put the cooler back on the card and send it rma.
I didnt even wipe away the cooling paste on the original cooler , so nothing can go wrong there :lol:.

There was just one problem with the alphacool nvxp3 waterblock , and that is that it didnt include all the parts that were mentioned in the (crappy translated ) manual.
I almost made a big mistake and put the backplate on it without the proper plastic washers.
The manual only said: put the 4 plastic washers under the backplate of the kit.
Unfortunatly , my kit should have came with 5 thin plastic washers and 4 "large" plastic washers to clear the area under the backplate and avoid contact with some of the components there.
But there were only 4 thin plastic washers in my kit , not 5 and no "large" washers
So i almost installed it with the thin washers under the backplate and im sure it would have caused a short circuit or even worse.
I had some spare o rings from my old zalman passive cooler lying around and used 4 of those and it did the job fine and cleared the space between the components on the backside of the card and the metal backplate.

To be sure , i also used a plastic sticker on the underside of the backplate so nothing could go wrong.

Temps:

New GPU idle temp is 35 degrees celcius , and load temp after playing fear for 2 hours is 38 degrees.

And my cpu temp only changed 1 degree! :w00t: