Koolance VID-205-L06

[aksd]

My question is what Liquid cooling system and/or parts would you (you as in you, if it were your system) use to cool 2 OCed (670,1800) xfx 7900gt cards with koolance VID-205-L06 waterblocks. Price is a big concern for me...I would like to spend no more then $150. Please give me your input

I'm looking at a ThemalTake bigwater 735.

Also thinking of cooling my CPU (athlon64 4000+Clhmr not OC'ed)...Think the bigwater 735 could cool the cards and the cpu without problems??

Thanks

 

[CMH]

Personally, watercooling is not a very good way to go, unless you're willing to spend money on it. A good aircooler would give you similar temps as a cheap watercooling system (a.k.a tT bigwater).

It would be hard to put together a good watercooling system for 150 dollars, so someone else might have other input.

 

[aksd]

Thank you for your input.

Has anyone had experience with the bigwater 735 and 745??

 

[CMH]

Okay, reading the reviews here's my conclusion:

The 735 is a huge load of crap, and the 745 is marginally better. The 735 does not give any performance benefit over a good aircooling system at all. According to this review, It performs 1C better than the Thermaltake Big Typhoon (tT BT) (IMO, one of the better Thermaltake products). 1C is not significant, and could be due to random chance (time of day, wind changes, humidity changes, etc). also bear in mind that the tT BT is not the best aircooler out there at the moment as well. You will find that the result is the same in many other reviews.

The same review reviewed a 745 unit as well. The 745 posted 8C better than the tT BT. Significant, but not worth the trouble of actually having a watercooling setup. Higher maintenance, risk of leaks, etc, etc. Same performance can be had with a better aircooler than a tT BT. Try a Soniq Tower or Thermalright Ultra-120+ instead.

The bottom line: tT's watercooling offering is just not worth it. To their credit, alot of their competitor's offerings aren't going to be much better. In the end, you get what you pay for, so unless you're willing to spend much more than that, you're probably alot better off with a good aircooling setup.

 

[aksd]

The truth is the cards and waterblocks have been bought and installed...So I will go with water cooling.

What of the Koolance Exos or Exos 2?

 

[CMH]

If you've already bought the waterblocks, what else is there to say?

Just make sure its properly installed. For graphics cards, I believe just about any waterblock would outperform almost any aircooler. This is because there's not as much space for a huge heatsink on graphics cards compared to CPUs. Remember to get RAMsinks for your graphic card RAM, if your GPU waterblock doesn't come with it.

 

[aksd]

The system is what I need help with (pump,radiator,reservoir)...Even though the TT735 isn't that good of a cooler, would it be enough for 2 oc'ed 7900s? If not perhaps one of Koolance's Exos systems?

The koolance VID-205-L06 waterblocks are a complete graphics card cooler...GPU,and memory

 

[CMH]

The secret is in the waterblocks.

If you got some really good waterblocks for your graphics cards, and happy to go with aircooling your CPU, then those systems would definately be suitable. Better radiators/pumps would show little benefit.

Its the waterblocks that I think are totally crap.

 

[aditaa]

I run the big water 745 kit .... could never be happer. I run two 7950's in sli with the same water block and it went from 85c to 40c. runing the cpu block that came with the kit and it droped cpu from 95c to 45c. the two radators are great.

 

[CMH]

Wow.... I don't recall too many CPUs with running temps of 95C....

Besides, WC is supposed to bring temps down to close to room temps... You'll find many reviews of what I think is the best WC kit around (read: kit), the Swiftech Apec Ultra.

Here's an example review.

Notice that they give m/b temps as well, but didn't comment on it. m/b temp is an indication of ambient temp, and should not be confused with nb temp. The difference between the 2 is more important than the actual temps IMO, but it performs better than the Corsair Cool in both counts.

And we're in luck, someone compared both the Swiftech and Big Water 745....

But then again, you pay peanuts for the BW745 compared to the Apex....

But then again, we compared that to cheaper aircooling products, and found the BW745 performing on par with those... so I really cannot recommend the Big Water 745 at all.....

 

[aksd]

I run the big water 745 kit .... could never be happier. I run two 7950's in sli with the same water block and it went from 85c to 40c. running the cpu block that came with the kit and it dropped cpu from 95c to 45c. the two radiators are great.

Yay!...still looking to get one...Thinking of ether the 745 TT or a koolance inx or exos...probably the 745 TT...

You said you're cooling 2 ghpx card AND your cpu with this system...how do you run it...such as y connectors and what not?