Xaser04
01-19-2008, 11:59 PM
Hi all,
Sorry for the rather obscure thread title but I thought it summed up exaclty as I felt as I opened the box to my new cooling / case setup today.
To put it more simply I am now water cooled. :D
After suffering a few mishaps on the re-seating of my Freezer 7 and with my old case starting to become a little restrictive in terms of interior space I decided to go the whole hog and replace my cooling setup and case at the same time.
Now as this is my first time using water, so to say I was aprehensive would be a giant under-statement.
Anyway rather than get completely confused with a custom setup I decided on the Thermaltake Armour Case (in black) which comes bundled with their own water cooling setup. Namely this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-044-TT&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=715
At the moment I don't have any pictures of my own but I am planning to upload them tommorow.
Overall first imrpessions of the setup are well excellent, it is quiet (much quieter than my old setup despite having more fans) and the actual water coling setup itself is excellent as well. Now I know its not as good as a fully custom setup but as a first timer to this sort of thing I am pleasantly suprised by how much it has dropped my temps compared to the old freezer 7 pro (whilst also being considerably quieter in the process).
Idle temps are now down to around 26/28 (core 0/1) in a relatively warm room with the heating on. (ambient I would say is roughly 23 degrees). Load temperatures have peaked at 49/50 degrees (core 0/1) whilst the average (according to the coretemp log ) is around 45/46 degrees.
This is down from a previous idle of 29/30 and a load (average) of 55/57.
These temperatures were done on an apples to apples comparison whilst looping 3DMark06 and with my E4300 clocked at 3ghz on 1.4v & using coretemp for temperature logging.
For a first timer installation was actually quite easy until I came to the point of mounting the pump and radiator into the bottom of the case. First off none of the holes lined up and secondly my GTX being so long half blocks the resevoir fill-up cap. Other than those two minor gripes installation went without a problem. I did make sure to leak test the system for a good two hours before installing (interestingly the guide in the manual says nothing about leak testing what-so-ever :wtf:)
So anyway I am waffling a little but I am really pleased not only with the kit itself but also at myself for staying calm when I came across any problems.
A couple teaser shots (the best I can do at the moment as I am tired (its 12:24AM here) and I can't move the case very well on the floor, please also excuse the cable mess. I am in the process of sorting it out.
Front:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b306/oweneades/DSCF0779.jpg
Side (excuse the lack of quality in this picture)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b306/oweneades/DSCF0780.jpg
Seperately and this is for anyone interested in this setup I should mention the following:
1) If you have a Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard you will either have to change the NB heatsink or do as I did and dremel a small metal look off of the waterblock bracket in order to fit the waterblock.
2) A GTX will not fit properly using the retention system that thermaltake use on the pci brackets. My solution to this was to cut out the parts that were blocking the card from fitting properly however you can if you wish un-screw the retention system and just use old and trusty screws (however in my case I couldn't do this as the back of the case was ever so slightly bent outwards meaning when I installed my GTX with screws it pulled the card out of the PCI-e slot.)
3) Again if you are running a P5N-E SLI make sure you have some form of active cooling on the NB heatsink otherwise it gets VERY toasty ( I learned the hard way and my finger really hurts :cry:)
Sorry for the rather obscure thread title but I thought it summed up exaclty as I felt as I opened the box to my new cooling / case setup today.
To put it more simply I am now water cooled. :D
After suffering a few mishaps on the re-seating of my Freezer 7 and with my old case starting to become a little restrictive in terms of interior space I decided to go the whole hog and replace my cooling setup and case at the same time.
Now as this is my first time using water, so to say I was aprehensive would be a giant under-statement.
Anyway rather than get completely confused with a custom setup I decided on the Thermaltake Armour Case (in black) which comes bundled with their own water cooling setup. Namely this one: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-044-TT&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=715
At the moment I don't have any pictures of my own but I am planning to upload them tommorow.
Overall first imrpessions of the setup are well excellent, it is quiet (much quieter than my old setup despite having more fans) and the actual water coling setup itself is excellent as well. Now I know its not as good as a fully custom setup but as a first timer to this sort of thing I am pleasantly suprised by how much it has dropped my temps compared to the old freezer 7 pro (whilst also being considerably quieter in the process).
Idle temps are now down to around 26/28 (core 0/1) in a relatively warm room with the heating on. (ambient I would say is roughly 23 degrees). Load temperatures have peaked at 49/50 degrees (core 0/1) whilst the average (according to the coretemp log ) is around 45/46 degrees.
This is down from a previous idle of 29/30 and a load (average) of 55/57.
These temperatures were done on an apples to apples comparison whilst looping 3DMark06 and with my E4300 clocked at 3ghz on 1.4v & using coretemp for temperature logging.
For a first timer installation was actually quite easy until I came to the point of mounting the pump and radiator into the bottom of the case. First off none of the holes lined up and secondly my GTX being so long half blocks the resevoir fill-up cap. Other than those two minor gripes installation went without a problem. I did make sure to leak test the system for a good two hours before installing (interestingly the guide in the manual says nothing about leak testing what-so-ever :wtf:)
So anyway I am waffling a little but I am really pleased not only with the kit itself but also at myself for staying calm when I came across any problems.
A couple teaser shots (the best I can do at the moment as I am tired (its 12:24AM here) and I can't move the case very well on the floor, please also excuse the cable mess. I am in the process of sorting it out.
Front:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b306/oweneades/DSCF0779.jpg
Side (excuse the lack of quality in this picture)
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b306/oweneades/DSCF0780.jpg
Seperately and this is for anyone interested in this setup I should mention the following:
1) If you have a Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard you will either have to change the NB heatsink or do as I did and dremel a small metal look off of the waterblock bracket in order to fit the waterblock.
2) A GTX will not fit properly using the retention system that thermaltake use on the pci brackets. My solution to this was to cut out the parts that were blocking the card from fitting properly however you can if you wish un-screw the retention system and just use old and trusty screws (however in my case I couldn't do this as the back of the case was ever so slightly bent outwards meaning when I installed my GTX with screws it pulled the card out of the PCI-e slot.)
3) Again if you are running a P5N-E SLI make sure you have some form of active cooling on the NB heatsink otherwise it gets VERY toasty ( I learned the hard way and my finger really hurts :cry:)