Water cooled setup

[Detale]

Bastard!!!

What were the specs at the time of this test?

[clocker]

It was running faster....

[Detale]

lol got me. I'v been struggling with "restart" issues. i keep getting all kinds of Bsod errors and I don't know why. Whenever I try and push her above 3.6 shit goes awry. I don't ever get the same message twice and it flashes so fast I cant see what the entire thing says. Meh head hurts so Im at stock speed for the time being

[Detale]

Well folks here we are again. Time for me to redo my rig. I'm going to get a dual water loop going this time. Here are the parts I have so far.

2 x Swiftech MCP350 pumps
1 x Black Ice Pro 120mm Radiator
1 X HW Labs Black Ice GTX M184 - Dual 92mm Radiator
1 x XSPC Dual 5.25" Bay Res

Swiftech MCW60 GPU block ( thanks to Clocker )

PrimoFlex Pro Tubing
I'm going with a white black thing. One loop will be white and the other black. I don't think I'll be using any UV lights this time, maybe just a few plain white lights to accent the inside of the case if any at all.

I'm still using my Q9550 chip, Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R, Corsair 620HX, and EVGA GTX 260 card, a little older but it works awesomely.

Now I haven't worked out the design just yet as I have a few ideas up in the air. I was even given a ARCTIC COOLING Accelero XTREME for free which will fit on my 260 so I may even air cool the vid card and use the dual loop on my CPU and northbridge I dunno yet. Also as I have mentioned in another thread I may get a new case also, the Antec 1200 over my current Silverstone TJ-07 for no good reason other than I like new cases.

Now this could prove a slight challenge as I ordered one rad for dual 92mm so i could mount it outside the 2 92mm fans in the TJ but I'm sure I could get some adapter to mount it outside with the 2 120mm's on the 1200. Suggestions anyone??

I'll take pics later or tomorrow of some of the parts as I have time. As always suggestions are greatly appreciated guys

[clocker]

Don't bother with the northbridge.
It's tough to do anyway as the Gigabyte has weird hole spacing on the northbridge sink and it's almost impossible to find a block that'll fit.

This might work for adapting your rad but then again, maybe not.

[Detale]

Oh I know all about the NB issues. I have a generic block from EK that I got to work with some new screws but everywhere I read says there's no benefit from water cooling the NB on this board. Maybe I'll just put the heatsink back on and be done with it. I have read the thing gets that hot and is fine. I know on both of these boards the thing does produce a great bit of heat. Still folks say it OK like that.

[Detale]

OK so here we are today. I am surely going to get the Corsair Obsidian


I'm not too sure about the SSD's I keep trying to read up on them because my SSD knowledge is to say the least, sub par. I have read on a few sites like Toms saying "Just to make sure that you have right expectations, it's the access time where SSDs are much, much faster than mechanical drives. The transfer rate on SSDs is faster than most hard drives, but not that much faster (and for writing it's slower than some hard drives)." If this is true I'm not sure if its worth teh money. I would want a drive that's 128GB but my budget is $250 so there are a few options out there but again I'm uneducated on the subject and unsure of the "bang for buck" aspect of things.

Could someone please give me the lowdown in a nutshell if it's worth it or not. The one I have my eye on is the Kingston SSDNow V-Series SNV125-S2BN/128GB for $283, but again for the money I could get a VelociRaptor 150GB for $179 so as I read these stats though I get second thoughts. This is making me nuts!!!

Kingston SSD vs WDC VelociRaptor

Datamarck didn't run into any of the irregularities that HDTune did with regards to access times, and the results require no explanation.


Again, this paints quite a different picture from HDTune, as it's now the VelociRaptor suffering from a low minimum read transfer rate (55.7MB/s), whilst the SSDNow V+ didn't dip below 145.3MB/s. The average and maximum read speeds of the VelociRaptor were similar to previous results, as it tops out just shy of 120MB/s. Pretty quick, but overshadowed by the SSDNow V+ crunching along 20% faster, at over 150MB/s.

CrystalDiskMark 2.2:
This application tests sequential transfer read/write speeds, and also randomised read/write transfer rates at 512k and 4k file sizes.


As before, sequential tests bring out the best numbers from a drive. Kingston's SSD is 48% faster than the VelociRaptor in the read tests; although that margin again drops, this time to 20%, in write performance.


The 512k test shows some remarkable discrepancies, as the SSD doles out a 150% thumping in read testing, which dwindles to 38% in write operations.

The 4k test reinforces the previous results; in read tests, at small file sizes, the two technologies performances are worlds apart; however, in a by-now familiar pattern, the write results are much closer.

Windows Boot Time:
A fresh install of Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 was prepared for each drive, and these are the results:


The SSD manages a slender 6% lead here, not really much to "write" home about. Ahem.

Crysis 1.2.1:
This test recorded the time taken to load the first level of Crysis, just after installation.


The second real-world test shows a more decisive win for the SSDNow V+, as it chalks up a 17% win.

Conclusion:
The general trend of results has been unquestionably in favour of the Kingston SSDNow V+. Where Western Digital's VelociRaptor can take the fight to this SSD, and others, is in size. In overall performance characteristics, the venerable VelociRaptor still hasn't been blown away (though the same can't be said for access times and IOPS), but it's clearly not the king of the pack anymore.

So, to answer to the proposition in the introduction, you wouldn't pay AU$20 more, for 4.5 times the capacity, if you're the kind of enthusiast that lives on the bleeding edge. The choice really couldn't be any clearer: 300GB of fast storage or 64GB of really fast storage, for around the same price. Take your pick!

Source: http://www.overclockers.com.au

[clocker]

Could someone please give me the lowdown in a nutshell if it's worth it or not.

My opinion, not at all humble, it's worth it.

I have a very early first gen SATA 1 SSD- no load leveling, no fancy controller, no nothing- supposedly so pathetic that it was given to me free...and during regular use it felt snappier than my 3 disk RAID array.

Admittedly, I underuse my super specced PC...99% of the time I'm just online browsing forii and DLing shit, so your impressions may differ.

As soon as winter clamps down and I stop squandering all my cash on the car, I plan on upgrading to a new SSD.
The plan- which is how I've been setting up my computers for years now- is to get the smallest drive I can find, probably 32 GB, and install the OS on it.

My current C: drive- after nearly a year of use- only takes up 12GB...as everything possible has been stripped out or moved to a different partition.
Pretty much the only things on it are Win7, the browser(s) and a few frequently used apps (Nero, etc.)
All the other programs, especially big ones like Office, reside on a separate partition with a dedicated Program Files folder.
Everything that creates temp files (uTorrent) has been configured to create these files off the C: drive.

Using the SSD as the main drive gave me instant browser access and the whole experience was noticeably faster...especially using Chrome (which is remarkable, you should try it).

For my PC usage, access time trumps all the other benchmarks and nothing beats the SSD for that.
Now that Win7 has finally gotten the sleep function working correctly, I rarely turn the PC off, so boot times are irrelevant.

Hit the keyboard and BAM! it's awake, click the Chrome icon and BAM!, I'm online.
For a while I had the browser set to open with Windows but when the PC resumes from sleep it takes a few seconds to reestablish the network connection, so now I use that "downtime" to run CCleaner and then begin browsing.

Works for me.

[Detale]

Clocker as always I do value you opinion greatly. I am going to get one in a week or so, I still have to do some more research on them, for now I went with the case and a few "goodies" that should come soon. Do you have any recommendations on a 128gb drive at all? Are you up on the SSD scene as of late man?

[clocker]

Nope, not really.

I know there's been a lot of development lately and when the time comes, I'll see what I can afford.
I'll let you be the guinea pig on this one...