flow is the most important factor in water cooling. anything that reduces flow should be avoided as much as possible. every twist and tun reduces flow so you want to stay away from corners (use smooth turns instead).

adding a second radiator will reduce the flow significantly and will cancel out the benifit. even if you have a powerful pump that can push the water through 2 radiators and still move fast, the second radiator will at best reduce temps by 1c-2c which is a negligable reduction and does not justify the flow reduction, extra fan noise, and extra cost of a second radiator

also... cooling fins on a reservoir would effectivly make that reservoir into a second radiator without reducing flow, that's a win win in my book.

i made my own water cooling rig, and at first did not a reservoir. but i am a mod freak and i have to keep changing things... lol so i added a reservoir (a 5.25" bay resi). not only does it look super-cool to see the water flowing underneath my DVD-RW drive... but it also reduced my temps by about 1c, which is almost nothing but it proves that adding a decent sized reservoir will help the rig more than hurt it.

...by the way CMH......... "You are right, my information is from third party. However, I am trained to look for substantiated information, so I trust that my information is true"...

i'm sure you think that your info is true, but you should not be telling others what to do and what not to do until you have done it first hand. the best teachers are people who began teaching a certain subject after real world working in the field first.

lol there's a free pice of pipe sitting in on of the lines in my system.

?? huh ??

?? ??? ??

I'm presenting another option to people who hasn't thought of it yet, with theory to back it up. Besides, its something thats non critical that can be done (not like you NEED a reservoir for a watercooling setup to work).

I did say a large reservoir will work, so don't get me wrong.

I just said that having a radiator instead of a reservoir will be more beneficial, which you agreed to.

You'd still have to fork out money to buy a reservoir, expecially one as fancy as the one with fins. A cheap used heatercore will cost a fraction of something that fancy (albeit a large fraction )

The second radiator doesn't need to have a fan, it should work just as fine. In fact, having the second radiator might just cancel the need for fans on the first radiator, if you can live with a couple of C higher temps.

You do understand that having experience in the real world doesn't mean anything unless you actually fiddled, and stuffed up a system. Following step by step instructions on the net isn't considered experience. My extensive reading into the topic and how others stuff up, as well as the experiments others have done, will prove much more beneficial.

In the end, its up to the readers to differentiate between believable evidence, and the results from someone's single watercooling setup. Its like comparing someone's blog and a research firm, if you get what I mean.

(It's looks like tape) It something used for pluming and I had a leak on my cpu block were the line in goes.

You're correcting me? ME??? You really think that I didn't know that? Of course you don't need a reservoir, I've done it! I even had a filler on top way before Danger Den Fillport came out. I chose to have a reservoir because it makes everything so easy, not just for bleeding or get rid of air bubbles. You sound like a noob to liquid cooling. Do you even own one? The 5.25" bay reservoir? It SUCKS!!! I had it... That's pre-historic! I had a high output pump and tons of bubles were coming out from the intake even if you fill it to cover the hole. If I fill it up almost all the way to the top, it leaks even with teflon tape. I even replaced it with a new one with new seal and it still leaked. My DVD writer would get wet on top. I actually put a paper towel on the top. I was constantly checking it everyday. I won't even sell it in Ebay because it sucks! Liquid cooling products? I've tried almost all brands except for those cheezy ones. If I'm not happy with the performance, I buy new ones and sell the old ones to ebay.

The reason why I have a big reservoir so that my temperature would be more stable than the smaller ones or the ones without. Yeah, I can never go as low as the room temperature but very close enough. Before, my temp would raised up within minutes especially when I'm playing games. My temps now is a lot lower than it used to. I have more than a gal. of liquid...

Lol, you sound pissed

You mentioned specifically that everyone dabbling in watercooling needs a reservoir. I corrected you there, so don't lay it all on me mister.

I sound like a noob to liquid cooling? I probably am. I'm working strictly on theory here. Do you even know how to fill up a system properly? You don't sound like you do. Getting your DVD writer wet? Thats hillarious, have you heard of waterproofing the system?

Lemme quote myself:

Even if you get the top of the line reservoir, you will still incur that risk.

Also, do you even know the internal workings of the pump? What actually makes it pump? When I go into a topic, I don't just scratch the surface, I go down to all that detail. Whether or not that actually helps, its a different matter altogether.

However, I must say you've got your share of experience with the different blocks out there. Did you learn anything from all that? What makes a good waterblock? Or better still, whats a perfect waterblock?

One last thing: the stability of having a huge reservoir has been mentioned, but I grow very sceptical about lower temps. You said that your temps are alot lower than it used to, care to elaborate? I'll admit I might have made a mistake on that part, but logically, having more water in a system does not equate to losing heat faster. Thats not good Physics. Given enough information, the exact max temperature in the water at a particular point can be calculated within a degree of confidence.

Maybe you'd be interested in running a small experiment: instead of having the reservoir, have the water go through a long tube to simulate the same surface area without having the volume. Theoretically, the max temps should be the same. How long the tube is depends on how big the reservoir, pm me size of reservoir, and how much water you put in it, and I'll give you lengths (metric please).

On a slight tangent, I want to bring around the subject of Newton's law of cooling: In layman's terms, the law states that the bigger the difference in temperatures, the faster something cools.

Relating to watercooling, having more surface area (a second radiator, or adding a reservoir) will not show alot of reduction in temperature unless your whole system was already running quite hot. This explains the 1-2C drop in temperature only. Just for comparison purposes, lets say a single 120mm fan on a BlackICE radiator (takes only 1 fan) will dissipate roughly 200W (many factors involved). Anyone knows what the specific heat capacity of water? Its about 180 J/g/K.

If you need more explaining, let me know.

nobody ever said it loses heat faster, it simply doesn't heat up as fast in the first place.

more water takes more time to heat up (and cool down as well), which is why I originally stated that the temps stay more consistant than in a "resi-less" system.

you need to stop with the theories and go ahead and build one already! sheesh! :haha:

a long tube cuts the flow down more than a reservoir does, so that experiment would be useless

I agree with king, stop stating your theories and laws and just make one!

money is a problem with me. I'm gonna make one soon when I get my new comp. And I' waiting for DX10 cards before I sink thousands of dollars on a box.

I'll do one if someone will send me a CPU waterblock and a GPU waterblock. The rest I'll source myself I'll do all the experiments necessary, and post them here

So you're admitting it doesn't do anything to the max temps? then why are people claiming there's a 1C reduction in temps with a resi?


p.s. even though it cuts the flow down more than a resi, as long as there is decent flow, it doesn't make too much difference for overall water temps.

Also, implementing something without theory backing it up will make you something like an alchemist: trying to make gold without knowing how, and trying a million things just to fail over and over again.