Quad Core watercooling confusion

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greyz

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hello.

im relatively good with computer knowledge, but watercooling seems really complicated to me.. :(

im buying a intel quad core kentsfield (Q6600?) and i am constantly told for best overclocking i would need watercooling for quad.

so ok watercooling.. can somone explain to me the kind of equipment i need to do watercooling? and how to make it safe.. (leeks and condensation etc)

or even better just say it in a stupid mode so anyone can understand :)

i seem to understand 1 cooling piece, the CPU block, and i was reccomended this one for best quad core overclocking
http://www.dtekcustoms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=182

thanks for helping!
 
First you need to make sure you have the right hardware before overclocking. If you cant get more than 30% overclock from the native fsb of the motherboard its pretty much pointless
 
With as little knowledge as you have on it, i say don't do it. You are putting your computer at risk for probably no performance increase. I don't see how you would possibly fully utilize a quad core cpu, as i cant even max out my dual core. Just go out and get a good aftermarket HSF, and OC 15%-20% on that if you wish.

If you do decide to go against this and do watercool, make sure you know exactly what you are doing, it is not easy.
 
ok sorry maybe i went a bit overboard, i do know what watercooling is, and the basics... i just asked if somone would give me thier 2nd opinion in a nutshell. i have researched it on the net but its quite hard to find all information needed some reason.

and no i do i have a reason for using it, at the moment i am building my dream PC ;). i have been slowly creating it with the small amounts of money i have been getting.. im a very busy person and need my money for other various reasons.

my PC is almost complete, but i want watercooling because i do know if set up correctly with high quality equipment, watercooling can keep the entire main system parts exremely cool, very little noise, and even.. in the future when i need more power, i can overclock.

i mean.. the bragging posts ive seen on various internet forums about their dual/quad overclocking watervsfan.. people have managed to get a max of 3ghz in quad, then almost everyone with water get 4ghz+ per core, and well over 1333FSB and barely push voltage levels.. while maintaining a DAM COLD CPU. not to mention graphics cards.. ram.. the works. i know some of these speeds are pointless.. but the ones that count can be done impressively

of course my PC will continue to use Fans for a good period of time.. this dream pc doesnt need overclocking.. but eventually i will go to watercooling for the safety and future speed.

and sorry to say twite.. a qual core cannot support my needs, ok maybe the best qual core on the market may help with current time gaming.. but i multitask INSANLY :) after using my friends quad core pc.. i need it
 
Uh yeah buddy, but few cpus can break 4ghz at 1333fsb. You would have to have a XQ6700 or XQ6800 to get that, and those both cost about 1k usd. Watercooling is only efficient at keeping 4 cores cool if they are at stock. Yeah sure you can get 4Ghz on a quad but the temps, even with water cooling would be in the high 50's at the lowest.

I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself, or maybe I'm wrong. First the dream machine thing, yeah, if you want to call it that just buy everything at once, then you wont feel so bad when you buy your last part 6 months from when you purchased your case, then at that time there is something new out. The Ghz race is over man, that was back when p4's were in.

If you wont be doing heavy video editing etc or w/e then you wont even use half of your quad. I just got rid of my own. Not only that look up reviews, 9-10 water cooling kits will get you 30-35 degrees MAYBE on a quad. Unless you add a power supply and tec too it, like I plan to do and go for sub 0 temps.

Whatever you decide just dont fry your machine. Although we all have to start somewhere, even in watercooling, its very very dangerous.
 
I have that waterblock, and like you said it is very well reviewed. If you're looking for extreme performance and intend to only have the CPU in the loop then you might consider bowing a Swiftech Apogee GTX. I've read that bowing a GTX can result in a few degrees extra cooling with a quad core.
 
greyz said:
ok sorry maybe i went a bit overboard, i do know what watercooling is, and the basics... i just asked if somone would give me thier 2nd opinion in a nutshell. i have researched it on the net but its quite hard to find all information needed some reason.

and no i do i have a reason for using it, at the moment i am building my dream PC ;). i have been slowly creating it with the small amounts of money i have been getting.. im a very busy person and need my money for other various reasons.

my PC is almost complete, but i want watercooling because i do know if set up correctly with high quality equipment, watercooling can keep the entire main system parts exremely cool, very little noise, and even.. in the future when i need more power, i can overclock.

i mean.. the bragging posts ive seen on various internet forums about their dual/quad overclocking watervsfan.. people have managed to get a max of 3ghz in quad, then almost everyone with water get 4ghz+ per core, and well over 1333FSB and barely push voltage levels.. while maintaining a DAM COLD CPU. not to mention graphics cards.. ram.. the works. i know some of these speeds are pointless.. but the ones that count can be done impressively

of course my PC will continue to use Fans for a good period of time.. this dream pc doesnt need overclocking.. but eventually i will go to watercooling for the safety and future speed.

and sorry to say twite.. a qual core cannot support my needs, ok maybe the best qual core on the market may help with current time gaming.. but i multitask INSANLY :) after using my friends quad core pc.. i need it
Click to expand...

Good cooling - Long Hardware life!
 
I joined this site just to reply to the terrible advice that I saw in this thread....

I built a Q6600 which runs at 3.465gHz at 100% cpu load for at least 20 hours a day. In the field in which it is required to perform it was extremely competitive for a while, but is slowly slipping now as more and more people get quads.

There is no way you could do this without water, so I got the swiftech kit.

The whole build took me about 7 hours, fitting water cooling added about 2 hours to the whole job.

Water cooling is easy to fit, incredibly quiet and by far the best way to go. This was only my second computer build, and was no more difficult than the first.

I can't believe this thread is under the overclocking banner on a site called techspot, and people are saying you don't need a Quad.

It reminds me of a friend trying to save on a computer in 1992 by looking for one without a CD Rom drive fitted, because he was convinced he didn't need one....
 
lol. Phil, what a lot of people dont read about is the maintainence involved with buying watercooling. Watercooling is definately not a must even for a quad, but you better have a good cpu fan in the least. k

Here at TS we dont even push overclocking(since you mentioned it) although I do it myself. Even CMH put a little "non-disclosure" note type of deal in his threads when he gives advise about overclocking. I've overclocked my q6700 to 3.5Ghz with a zalmans, yeah the temp was 40 at idle, and 55 at full load. But my point is that it can be done.

Watercooling is usually effidient up to about 150watts just to maintain a 40degree temp at idle. Also, your friend and the cd drive thing. I still have to use a floppy drive my friend, for raid format drivers.

Now its not that we dont care about your advise, or our own for that matter. But being as though you've pointed out that you're even less experienced with building machines than half the people on this site, some of us have seen horror stories of people getting shocked, boards getting friend. Not to say that watercooling isnt a good/great idea. We just want him to be well prepared for the possible coming.
 
My Quad is running at 190 watts for 20 hours a day, the temperature is usually in the high 50's low 60's. This is not going to shorten the life of my cpu to less than the point at which I would replace it anyway.

Water cooling is by far the most efficient way to cool a cpu at those sort of loads. A little research will show that TEC cooling does not scale well at those loads. Over 150 watts a TEC produces too much heat from the power it consumes itself to be efficient. If you want to run at sub zero temps, then phase change cooling is required.

Each to their own of course, but I did a great deal of research before getting into water cooling, and the results have been amazing. If you are not interested in getting serious performance from your computer, and can stand the noise, I guess air will do.

I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
 
well I'm currently using freezone tec by coolit. It works well. Although swiftech has a tec unit with a seperate power supply which works well. Gets sub 0 temps, not -50, but just under -5C. The setup does cost 600 dollars though so...
 
well I'm currently using freezone tec by coolit.
Click to expand...

Yeah but with the freezone kit the Peltier on that is used to cool the radiator, so the heat is disipated differently then it would on a waterblock near a HOT quad core cpu. What Phil is saying, is with TEC, although one side does cool the cpu, the other side has to disipate the heat from the warm side of the peltier, and the heat from the CPU, which makes it rather inefficient.
 
What exactly is dangerous in watercooling?

Distilled water doesn't conduct electricity (enough to damage components anyhow), and if you have a relay to turn the power off in case of a pump failure / leak, I don't see any danger.
 
OK I DONT UNDERSTAND !! HALF OF THE PROGRAMS/ games out right now even utalize all 4 cores! IT already has 4 cores whats the point of overclocking something that already has so much power........
 
If you want to see what sort of computer you will have in about 3 years time, go look at something with a 50% overclock.

Lots of applications use 4 cores. I am using 4 cores running at 100% load, overclocked almost 50% for 20 hours a day.

Look at any media processing programs, which scale well with good overclocks, you can save hours of waiting a day if you are doing that sort of work professionally.

Not everyone needs it, and if you are happy with what came out of the box, thats fine. After all, thats good enough for my Dad.
 
While pure water will not conduct electricity, contaminated water will. Any loop we circulate pure water through will contaminate what we put in it with dissolved metals. Even if you do somehow manage to keep the water in a loop pure it will mix with dust when it spills into a computer and it will still conduct electricity. I've had a cooling loop spill into my computer without ill effects, but I've also had a motherboard break because of a leak. Water cooling is usually safe when the installer is aware of the dangers and the loop is well maintained.
 
ok enough jibber jabber and going offtopic. ive learned everything i need to know about watercooling so i dont need any more info on it :)

unfortunatly.. i have also found out that having a fully water cooled system is expensive (lol)

so yes.. since i wont need water cooling for atleast a year maybe with what i do, im going to buy a Fan instead and overclock to a safe... 3.2ghz say?

but my question is, does anyone have ideas on what fan/heatsink to buy for the quad? my friend recommended a sycthe infinity which was nice for his cpu, can i get more suggestions please on what else i could take a look at?
 
umm.. for that kind of heatsinkfan, id like to have some evidence who actually uses that in a "tower" PC.

the weight on it will be hanging quite bad off the mobo in a tower, so technically putting alot of stress on the clips/motherboard.

last year i bought a HSF roughly like that and the screws/clip went loss because it was so heavy, the pc started rapidly crashing because of overheating because it was sooo lose. ALSO a friend of mine had the same one im talking about and it actually BROKE his motherboard!!!

so.. basically im just asking before i look into that thing id like evidence if it is safe in a Tower pc and will hold very well?
 
if u buy a full tower you need to pay good money for it, that solves the issue of it falling apart. I wound up paying 300usd for mine, but it was WELL worth it, no question.
 
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