water cooling solution

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viper0982

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#1 viper0982
Member since 2007 • 555 Posts

Looking for a good water cooling solution for my new i7 processor,Iwould go high end heatsink but i think my dominator memory heatsinks would block a lotmy options. I've heardthe gigabyte galaxy 2 system is decent but it looks morethan a little tacky andcheap and wouldn't really take advantage of my cases built in water cooling mounts. Also I was looking at the completly self contained corsair hydro series cooler, stillnot soldon that idea either. This will be my first watercooling system and I don't want something that requires a lot of skill or time to set up and maintain. Also I plan on doing a medium overclock on my i7 to 3.6-3.8ghz. anyinput appreciated

budget $200

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gameguy6700

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#2 gameguy6700
Member since 2004 • 12197 Posts

If your only reason for wanting to go water cooling is due to clearance issues with RAM, I'd recommend looking into the Corsair H50 instead. It's a closed loop water cooler and is thus much smaller than the behemoth heatsinks that dominate the high-end air cooling market. From what I've heard their performance is on par with the megahalems which means you get pretty much the same performance as a high end air cooling solution/low end water cooling solution without having to install optimus prime on your mobo or worry about a leak destroying hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of electronics.

edit: Here's a pic that shows the cooler installed so you can get a good idea of how it will fit. The reason the drawn on arrows show the fans pulling the hot air in are because, for some reason, corsair recommends you do that for this cooler. I've heard it doesn't really make a difference though.

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freesafety13

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#3 freesafety13
Member since 2008 • 823 Posts
Pulling air in makes a huge difference if you dont have a top exhaust fan. If you dont you will need to turn either your side fan or front fan around so it can exhaust the hot air. Here is one of the many reviews of the H-50. It does not perform on par with the new Noctua or the Megaleham but for its size it does perform well. As a side note, the reason the TRUE is even with it is because nobody laps it before testing it, since they want to test it "as is". My lapped TRUE dropped my temps 10c under load when combined with ICdiamond7. As a comparison I've included my temps for my overclock so you can see how well the H-50 performs against a higher OC 920 and a TRUE  All that being said I think the H-50 is a good alternative to watercooling or giant heatsinks when you dont have the clearance for your ram and dont want to risk losing 1k if you spring a leak.
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viper0982

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#4 viper0982
Member since 2007 • 555 Posts
well I went with the corsair h50 and i also bought some ocz freeze and a couple noctua hf p12 fans to stick on it
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#5 Dealge
Member since 2009 • 212 Posts
Agreed with the Corsair H50, if I wanted water cooling it's definitely more affordable than a full setup from Danger Den.
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freesafety13

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#6 freesafety13
Member since 2008 • 823 Posts
well I went with the corsair h50 and i also bought some ocz freeze and a couple noctua hf p12 fans to stick on itviper0982
Keep us up to date on your overclock and what your temps look like if you dont mind.
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viper0982

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#7 viper0982
Member since 2007 • 555 Posts
well im at 3.65ghz (first try 182fsb with 1.325v) idles at 42c tops out at 72c with intel burn test. Only ran that last test for about 15min, once it leveled off i quit it because i dont really care to see how fast my processor heats up my room. All in all im very impressed with this cooler since i haven't even added my second noctua in a push pull configuration. the only thing im worried about now is my voltage regulators or whatever that heatsink is besides the cpu without a fan, its now getting pretty hot, how should i cool it?
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damstr

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#8 damstr
Member since 2003 • 8217 Posts

well im at 3.65ghz (first try 182fsb with 1.325v) idles at 42c tops out at 72c with intel burn test. Only ran that last test for about 15min, once it leveled off i quit it because i dont really care to see how fast my processor heats up my room. All in all im very impressed with this cooler since i haven't even added my second noctua in a push pull configuration. the only thing im worried about now is my voltage regulators or whatever that heatsink is besides the cpu without a fan, its now getting pretty hot, how should i cool it?viper0982

Now you should start lowering the voltage in small increments to have an even cooler running CPU. Every time you lower it boot back into windows and start stress testing. Temps seem to be really good and will only get better with lower voltage. :)

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viper0982

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#9 viper0982
Member since 2007 • 555 Posts
bios voltage set at 1.2825 or something plus 125mv on vcore vtt. prime95 testing now on all 8 threads cpu sitting at 70c, I'll let it run over night and see what happens