Water cooling setup..

[Hicks12]

Right heres the question, is it possible to get a WC setup for <£100?. Ive looked at guides and it seems to be possible to use a car or bike radiator, i should be able to find this so afaik this is what i need:

Pump
Tubing
CPU block
Clips


Now is it possible to find pumps cheaper than £70? All i saw on scan that seemed good(specs) was this
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/EK-EK...Plexy-V2-X-Top

If £100 budget isnt possible then closest possible , hoping to get this all bought and setup near my birthday.

Thanks.

[jim]

I remember a thread about this recently, where the basic conclusion was that if you want to spend that kind of amount on watercooling, don't bother - you'd be better off with good quality air cooling.

I can't honestly remember what it was called, but it was in the hardware forum about 2-3 weeks ago.

[peterb]

Right heres the question, is it possible to get a WC setup for <£100?. Ive looked at guides and it seems to be possible to use a car or bike radiator, i should be able to find this so afaik this is what i need:

Pump
Tubing
CPU block
Clips

Well forget the car radiator - unless you want something like that on top of your PC, and can make adaptors for the 1 to 2" pipework! Although I suppose you could use a car heater matrix... still waaaaaay to big though!

Now is it possible to find pumps cheaper than £70? All i saw on scan that seemed good(specs) was this
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/EK-EK...Plexy-V2-X-Top

If £100 budget isnt possible then closest possible , hoping to get this all bought and setup near my birthday.

Thanks.

You reallyu need a specialist Water cooling retailer, there are a number about, this is one,

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...me.php?cat=126

Some more

http://www.watercoolingshop.co.uk/

http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/

http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/cata...x.php?cPath=40

http://www.coolercases.co.uk/

And doing a Google search using the terms water cooling, or water cooling PC will bring up those - and a lot more. However I doubt that you will put together much for under £100 to £130. I looked at water colling a PC, and if IRCC, the block was around £20, the pump around £50, Radiator/reservoir about £35 and then add tube and clips etc at about another £15 and that adds up to £120 - and that was last year.

But shop around, I haven't checked prices recently.

[Hicks12]

Thanks for the posts, so is it really worth getting then?. Id of thought water cooling would be better than most air cooling due to the heatcapacity of water and the effective transfer of the heat. Is it possible to get a very quiet(or silent) pc just with air cooling? At the moment my pc isnt that quiet but not hugely loud but i have 2 intake fans, 3 exhausts, 1 on cpu/NB and 2 on ram now i think the psu is the blame but ill check tonight.

[Infinite]

If you want a quiter pc, just turn off most your case fan. I kinda had the same scenario, I had 3 intake, 2 exhaust, cpu fan, psu, fan, gfx. I turned off almost all the case fans apart from the one cooling my hdd rack and my pc was much quieter. Temperatures only went up marginally, approx: cpu +4, north bridge +6, hdd same, exhaust air from psu was warmer but fan was same speed, graphic card same temp but the fan was spinning slightly faster.

[GoNz0]

the &#163;100 would be better spend on some noctua fans

[peterb]

Thanks for the posts, so is it really worth getting then?. Id of thought water cooling would be better than most air cooling due to the heatcapacity of water and the effective transfer of the heat. Is it possible to get a very quiet(or silent) pc just with air cooling? At the moment my pc isnt that quiet but not hugely loud but i have 2 intake fans, 3 exhausts, 1 on cpu/NB and 2 on ram now i think the psu is the blame but ill check tonight.

I think water cooling has a place and your observations about the thermal capacity of water are true. In an air cooled PC, the CPU fan circulates air over the heat sink (forced convection) and the case fans blow the hot air out so that it can be replaced with cooler cold air (or blow cold air in - but the net effect is the same) and it is these fans that make the noise.

Water cooling takes the heat directly fro the CPU to outside the case, and the fans tend to be larger, with lower rotational speeds, and therefore quieter.

In my situation I have gone for a fanless CPU cooler (large heat sink surface area and have a small fan blowing air out of the case which is mini itx. The PSU is external, so that isn't adding to the heat loading of the system internally. However it is relatively low performance as I am using it as a file/web server.

For high end machine and for extreme overclocking it may be worthwhile (and certainly looks fun to experiment with) but for general use, I don't think that the cost outweighs the benefits, but it depends on your own particular situation, and how much noise you can accept. (And the pump is unlikely to be comletely silent anyway)

[Hicks12]

Yeh some noise is fine, forgot about the pump!. Im gunna rebuild my pc a bit later today and actually find what is causing the noise.

I might actually use the &#163;100 on a bigger case, perhaps the haf 932 later on ofc .

[PeterStoba]

&#163;100 on a watercooling set up is possible.

It won't be a good one though.

For anything good, depending on what you want to cool, it's &#163;150+ for good stuff.

&#163;100 could happen if you had alot of time and bargain hunted on forums etc...

[Hicks12]

Well having a quick look around heres what i thought is worth getting:

Pump-Swiftech MCP355 12v DC pump- £47
Radiator- XSPC Radiator Black- £30( hopefully find a heatcore for free though)
CPU Block- XSPC X20 Delta V3- £36(at scan)

Total:£113 +£15 just for connections/pipe/deionised water

I think it could be possible if i get these secondhand, probably cut it to about £80 and if i did find a heater core from a car that would bring it down to £50.

[peterb]

Well having a quick look around heres what i thought is worth getting:

Pump-Swiftech MCP355 12v DC pump- &#163;47
Radiator- XSPC Radiator Black- &#163;30( hopefully find a heatcore for free though)
CPU Block- XSPC X20 Delta V3- &#163;36(at scan)

Total:&#163;113 +&#163;15 just for connections/pipe/deionised water

That was pretty much the sort of thing I was looking at - although I recall swiftech blocks were better value for my CPU.

I think it could be possible if i get these secondhand, probably cut it to about &#163;80 and if i did find a heater core from a car that would bring it down to &#163;50.

I wasn't really being serious! While it would be possible, even a heater matrix would be big, and I suspect the hose connections would be too. They are designed for thick rubber tube rather than the thin plastic, and so that isn't really viable without some sort of custom made adaptor. (unless you are planning on mounting it on an outside wall, running the tubes in through the brickwork and having some form of intermediate heat exchanger - but now we are getting into "Grand Designs" territory )

[jim]

Just buy some silent fans - check silentpcreview for comparisons and so on. The Scythe Slipstreams are excellent, far cheaper than watercooling and you won't be able to hear them provided you get low speed - again, check spcr. If you need to make the graphics quieter, look at Arctic Cooling, and if you need a quieter PSU then there are a few options open to you.

And also, fans can't leak all over your components and destroy them.

[Hicks12]

Ok im really confused... Ive checked the system and stopped all fan(gpu/case/psu etc) and i could still hear a constant sound of something like a fan which is quiet loud (cross between 92mm fans and 120mm), i dont see where this is coming from as there are no more fans!, any ideas?

[GoNz0]

hard drive ?

boot to the bios, hit pause to freeze it and start pulling power cables till it shuts up.

[peterb]

PSU fan?

[Hicks12]

Yeh your right gonzo, was the hard drives. Now is it possible to "silence" these? Its not vibration its the actual spindle speed i think. PSU seems fine now lol, guess i blamed that for to long.