Maximum PC

Edit: This thread is also going to serve as my ongoing worklog as I overclock. Results summary will be appended to the bottom of this post.

The system is built and happily chugging away at FAH and burning that chip in. It is time to start designing the water-cooling.

System

CPU: Core i5 750
RAM: G.Skill 7-8-7-24 DDR3-1600 Ripjaws
Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E
Video: XFX Radeon HD 5770
PSU: OCZ z-series 550w 80+ silver cert.

Purpose:

Overclocking: The system will run over 4GHz ... aiming for at least 4.5 (215 x 21)
Quiet: The system must be whisper quiet. I don't want to know when it is on.

Initially, I will be cooling only the CPU. The loop will be expanded to cool the GPU and chipset. This is the main reason that I'm building a complete system rather than simply using a ready-made solution such as Corsair's H50.

Preliminary Design

CPU Water Block: Swiftech Apogee XT Currently, best in class for Core iX liquid cooling.
Reservoir: EK 250ml G1/4 Multi-Outlet Reservoir
Pump: Swiftech MCP655 ( 12v adjustable1200 Lph flowrate)
Radiator:Swiftech MCR220 QP 2x120 (34mm deep .. best chance to fit in the top of my case)
Tubing: Primochill LRT Blue 1/2ID 3/4OD 10 ft. This tubing has antibacterial coating and is easily obtained locally for a decent price.
Coils: Primochill 3/4IN ANTI-KINK Tube Coils Black
Fittings: 4Bitspower -TRUE SILVER- G1/4 1/2IN Barb Fittings Silver helps with the bacteria, though the tubing should handle that, and these are also cheap to buy locally.

Set-Up

The pump and reservoir will go under the HDD in the space that the CM 690 provides for all those extra drives. I only plan to use two HDDs and I can always put one or both up in the external slots if necessary. The reservoir is a cylinder design that can be mounted on any of the pillars in the case, making it easy to add a second if necessary.

The first rad will go on the top of the case. Initially, the loop will be:

Pump -> temp gauge -> CPU waterblock -> Radiator -> Reservoir -> Pump

Notice that the temp gauge comes into the loop just before the CPU waterblock. Since the CPU is the part being cooled, I want to ensure that the water is cool before it hits the waterblock. Cooling the CPU with hot water is a definite no-no.

Adding the GPU block, chipset and MOSFET blocks and a second radiator will come later. I intend to put the second radiator at the front of the case (where there is already a fan) and run the loop as follows:

Pump -> temperature gauge -> CPU waterblock -> MOSFETS -> Rear Radiator -> GPU -> Chipset -> Front Radiator -> Resevoir -> Pump

You can see why I think I need a powerful pump for this loop.

Again, the temp gauge comes into the loop right after the pump. My reasoning is a bit different this time. The water should be (must be) coolest as it leaves the reservoir and begins the cooling cycle. Thus, I want to be able to see the water at its coolest to ensure that it is capable of absorbing and releasing the thermal load placed on the watercooling loop by the system.

An alternative that occurs to me is to split the loop into two. One loop would cool the CPU and MOSFETs and the other would cool the GPU and chipset. Each loop would share the pump but have its own radiator.

At this point, I'm looking for comments and criticism on all points. The parts chosen and the loop(s) proposed. The point that has me most concerned is actually the pairing of components in the second half of the project. Would I be better to pair the CPU and chipset and the GPU and MOSFETs, say?

Comments welcome.

Worklog

Overclocks will start with the 'stock' overclocking settings provided by ASUS' BIOS. Stages One, Two and Three are at 2.8GHz, 2.93 GHz and 3.2 GHz respectively. I'll post up the full details if anyone is interested, but for now I'll just list the BCLK and multiplier settings.

All chip features will be enabled unless otherwise mentioned. This means that Turbo and Speedstep will be left ON until I find it necessary to disable them for higher clocks.

Finally, I won't be benchmarking the system. The idea is to determine the thermal load that each cooling system is capable of handling. I will be benchmarking the system when I'm done in order to find the best overclocking settings for my application but that will appear in a different worklog. For this particular task, I will be pushing the CPU as far as I can with each cooling system. Once I've determined the thermal limits of my system, then I will go back and tune the CPU / BCLK / RAM relationships to push the most bits.

Note that initially, I will only be overclocking the CPU. In time, I will also be overclocking the GPU as well. I will measure the effectiveness of the stock GPU cooler before replacing it with a waterblock in the third portion of this project.

Stock cooler temps at full load (FAH pushing all cores to 100%)
No voltage increases attempted with stock cooling.

Stock settings: 2.67GHz

CPU: 61C
MB: 23C
BCLK: 133
Multiplier: 20

Stage One Overclock: 2.8 GHz

CPU: 58C
MB: 23C
BCLK: 140
Multiplier: 20

Stage Two Overclock: 2.93 GHz

CPU: 61C
MB: 24C
BCLK: 147
Multiplier: 20

Stage Three Overclock: 3.2GHz

CPU: over 75C ... PC manually shut down after 2 minutes of FAH
MB: 24C
BCLK: 160
Multiplier: 20
Note: The third stage is just too much for the stock cooler. Temps rose above my maximum allowed of 75C within minutes of starting Folding@Home

Maximum Overclock with Stock Cooler: (so far) 3.15GHz

CPU: 70C
MB: 25C
BCLK: 157
Multiplier: 20

Corsair H50 at full load with folding@home pushing all four cores to 100%

The H50 has two fans mounted on the radiator. The fan that was included with the kit and a Scythe S-Flex SFF21F are both pulling air from outside the case, over the rad and into the case.

I also have a 120mm fan mounted on the side panel pushing air out and another 120mm fan mounted in the front pulling air in over the single HDD.

The first set of test will duplicate the same settings used with the stock cooler to compare temps.

All settings stock:
Stock settings: 2.67GHz

CPU: 41C
MB: 30C
BCLK: 133
Multiplier: 20

Interesting to note that the CPU temp dropped 20C but the MB rose by 5C. Perhaps because the fans are pulling air over the radiator and into the case?
Stage One Overclock: 2.8 GHz

CPU: 41C
MB: 30C
BCLK: 140
Multiplier: 20

Absolutely no increase from stock.
Stage Two Overclock: 2.93 GHz

CPU: 42C
MB: 30C
BCLK: 147
Multiplier: 20

An increase of 1C over stock
Stage Three Overclock: 3.2GHz

CPU: 47C
MB: 28C
BCLK: 160
Multiplier: 20
At this speed, the stock fan was inadequate to cool the CPU. With the H50, the CPU is cooler than the stock fan at stock speeds.

Stage Four Overclock: 3.6GHz

CPU: 49C
MB: 30C
BCLK: 180
Multiplier: 20
CPU Voltage: 1.2V
Voltage increased by .05v to 1.2V

Stage Five Overclock (part one): 4.0GHz

CPU: 64C
MB: 31C
BCLK:200
Multiplier:20
QPI: 6407
CPU Diff Amp: 900 mV
CPU Voltage: 1.4V
Integrated Memory Controller Voltage: 1.38125V
PLL: 1.9V
PCH: 1.15V

With these settings, the PC was rock stable but ran very hot .. at the limit of my threshold for safety. Asus claims that the board will not run stably at or above 200BCLK with less than 1.4V on the CPU and my tests confirm this with my board. I decided to tweak the settings to see what I could do to get 4.0GHz with less heat.
Stage Five Overclock (part two): 4.0GHz

CPU: 60C
MB: 30C
BCLK:190
Multiplier:21
QPI: 6580
CPU Diff Amp: 1000 mV
CPU Voltage: 1.325V
Integrated Memory Controller Voltage: 1.325V
PLL: 1.875V
PCH: 1.125V

Temps dropped 10C with the new settings. This is the best I could do at 4GHz. Obviously, I'm approaching the limit of what this cooler can accomplish on this CPU .. but a 50% OC is an excellent result for a boxed cooling solution.

As with the stock cooler, the next step will be to see how far I can go while keeping the temps below 75C and the PC completely stable.
Maximum Overclock with H50: 4.2GHz

CPU: 65C
MB: 32C
BCLK:200
Multiplier:21
QPI: 6580
CPU Diff Amp: 1000 mV
CPU Voltage: 1.375V
Integrated Memory Controller Voltage: 1.325V
PLL: 1.9V
PCH: 1.375V

I'm also going to be researching this in the near future. Whether or not I'll actually be able to afford it is another question all together. But I will be watching what you do very closely and tomorrow when I'm free of the wife, I'll take an indepth look at this.

It has been quite some time since I've used real water cooling. So I've quite the education coming as you have. And it's amazing the products they have out now too! Hell, my first W/C setup, I used a Chevette's heater core and reducer fittings with clear hose I bought from somewhere and some regular old screw-drive clamps. I bought a waterblock made by a dude down the street! I've used newer stuff, circa 2004, but not since then to amount to anything.

If I was going for a high oc like that I would start with a double rad on the top of your case, especially since you also want silent. Then with the gpu I would add another single rad.

I may need to go to 2x120mm rads .. if so, I will fit them inside the case. As I mentioned in my extensive description of the project, I don't want external rads and hoses cluttering up the outside of the case and making it look like shit.

PM on it's way. I warned you before that this day would come!

Thanks Chum .. I was waiting for your input.

I didn't mean external I meant on the top of your cm690 where there is room for 2 120mm fans.

I think what you should do right now is to use the single 120 rad on the back of the case, and then when you add the GPU block in, get a double 120 rad, and run the loop from the CPU to the rear 120 rad, then to the GPU, chipset, etc, and then to the double 120 at the top of the case.

I can vouch for the tubing, great stuff, very flexible. I have the tubes for my setup all over the place doing huge turns and tight fits. Couldn't be better. Right now i have Coolermaster R4 fans on my triple and single, and I'm just waiting for those to fry (sleeve bearing and they are horizontal) so I can get some Gentle Typhoons.

Can't say anything about the waterblock, but for a GPU waterblock, I totally recommend a MCW60, unless you are going full coverage for a 5770...
Right now, I have mine going like this:
Pump>GPU>Rad>CPU>Rad>Res>Pump. Keeps it all at room temp on stock clocks.

I recommend this rad. It's really cheap, so I had my share of misgivings, but it is a really solid rad with great build quality. Of course, the swifty is the best of the best.

Good luck with the setup! I want pics too!!!

Thanks for the input, cfmwarren! I appreciate it.

What I would love to see, if anyone has seen something like this, is a site describing the thermal output of various components as well as the thermal capabilities of the various radiators and fans. CPUs and GPUs are easy .. but what about chipsets and MOSFETs? What about the rads?

It would be much easier to plan a cooling setup if you knew how many calories your system produced and how many calories a given rad can dissipate in one pass. Then, all you have to do is design a system such that Calories Produced < Calories Dissipated.

This is more complicated than it sounds, of course, since the calories produced will rise considerably with any decent overclock .. but if I could get a baseline, I'd know roughly how many rads and fans I need.

As far as double-rads fitting inside the case, the only places that I've seen them fit are in the front and on top. Both require modding the case, which I am ok with provided I can keep it looking clean. I'd rather find a solution that doesn't require cutting the case, though.

I plan to do a complete write-up with pics. Ideally, someone will pay me to publish it but if not I'll put it up here.

I wonder what a car rad would do on a pc... a little typo should read: Calories Produced < Calories Dissipated and I thought there was more room up top guess not.

Fixed the typo .. thanks!

As for a car rad .. those were very common before watercooling kits became so plentiful.

'Back in the day', PC building, modding and overclocking actually required skill and knowledge. Imagine!

If I can ever get my hands on a cnc machine I will have a ridiculous case and water cooling setup.

Like I mentioned earlier, I had a heater core from a Chevy Chevette in my first setup. It is so good, yet small enough for cases, that Dtek even uses one for their performance budget radiators! I found that by accident when looking for a picture of the Chevette radiator core.



And here is Dtek's version.

After seeing that one at Dtek, I got interested and sure enough, if you do a Google search, you can see many forum posts from across the Internet of people taking about the heater core providing better cooling than that of the BlackIce, which is still one of the best radiators you can find.

I very well may go this route again too. $35 for a heater core from Dtek with the fittings already on there, that's hard to beat. Especially if I use one system for my GPU's and another, separate, yet small loop, for my CPU/Mobo. Make a nice bracket to hang that sucker off the back of my case.

the problem with using a heatercore is that they require a high speed fan in order to get the most out of them. if you are going for quiet, go with a swiftech MCR or Thermochill PA series and use some slow speed yate loons

I'm seriously considering using that heater core for just the video cards. I'll make it right with a nice, high CFM 200mm fan attached to it so it will be very quiet. But I'm not definitely doing it that way. I'll need to do a space management work up in Paint.net to see how I can get everything inside this HAF.

But for the CPU and mobo, I'll be using, more than likely, what Jip has posted above. I've been researching water cooling stuff all damned day and so far, I've found a water block for the CPU with Classified on it and EVGA sells a good mobo all in one block. But so far, from what I've worked up, this is going to run over $400 to do the video cards, mobo and CPU. So I'll more than likely only do the CPU/Mobo first.

But as always, this greatly depends on other financial factors in the near future. I certainly can't afford to do anything right now. But it is fun to spec it all out!!

Hey jip you should try this Indigo Xtreme stuff http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... p?t=232141

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9685/ ... d=QawMIK7r

There isn't an official kit for 1156 yet but I've read that the difference between 1156 and 775 ihs was less than 1mm so it shouldn't matter. And if you are going to compare different thermal paste use this one last it is a one time use thing.

I'll stick with my ICD7 ... I've still got some left from the forum tests last year and, frankly, I'm not convinced that TIM makes as much a difference as, say, how it is applied.

Well what I suggested isn't exactly your typical TIM...