New water cooling upgrade

This is my water cooling upgrade to my current system

CPU = I7930 bloomfield
MOBO = Gigabyte GAX58A V2
RAM = 6gigs of corsair dominator 1600mhz 8 8 8 20
VID = GTX 590
PSU = Corsair 950
HD = Vertex 3 max iops 120gig and 300gig storage

I've been wanting to do an externally cooled watercooling setup for a while and here it is finally.

I welded up a stand for it from quarter inch mild steel angle iron then painted it black,the rad mounts to via 4 screws, I've then mounted 4 230mm fans controlled by my old faithful aerogate fan controller. I decide on 8mm ID tubing which is considered small but the loss in cooling is negligible when compared to larger tubing but I may move to larger tubing just because it would glow more.

The reservoir is an EK bay dual loop reservoir which is a piece of poop it doesn't work properly,the flow meter and waterfall effect cause bubbles in the coolant making the pump lose all pressure and flow but rather than return it I've modded it by drilling a hole into the second chamber moving the intake away from the bubbles and keeping the left chamber full to the brim allowing the pump to be turned to full power.

I've added 2 12inch UV cold cathodes just for kicks just because they were so cheap and the UV reactive hose is the same price.

Rest of cooling specs

CPU block= Alphacool HF yellowstone,I went for the block because its high flow so plenty water gets to the vid card and because its shiny,I may actually change it for a more restrictive one and let the vid card get hotter.
GPU block= Alphacool nexxxos nvxp 590,because its the cheapest block I could find for the GTX 590
PUMP = swiftech mcp 655
3 X 140mm fans to cool case,2 X 80mm fans on HD
On the Northbridge I've removed the heatsink and reaaplied AS5,removed the top plates on the heatsinks then mounted a 50mm fan to keep it cool which worked perfectly it doesn't go above 47C now as opposed to 70C without it.

I'm still fidning the limit of the CPU but I doubt I'll take it much higher,its currrently @4.2ghz rock solid in prime at 1.281 vcore "CPUZ is either wrong @1.264 or I'm experiencing some serious Vdroop,I will experiment disabling LLC in the near future"running at 67C,I recon it will top out around 4.4 ghz but that will take I reckon around 1.320V and will push it above 70C which just isn't worth it IMO but I might.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/th_DSCF2551.jpg

When running 3D mark to stress the system the GTX590 never goes above 40C which I thought was pretty amazing but unfortunately overclocking the gtx 590 is nigh on impossible with flashing it with a modded bios,if I raise the core by even 10mhz the performance drops off due to software performance restrictions imposed by Nvidia.

I knew this before I took the plunge but I didn't think they'd be so agressive,I will in the near future flash it with a modded bios but I've not played a single game on it yet so I wanna take it for a spin before I flash and brick it.:-D

Here's some pics

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2551.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2544.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2543.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2541.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2540.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2539.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2537.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2536.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2535.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2534.jpg

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b214/Rikky_/DSCF2533.jpg

As usual I welcome all comments positive or negative,any recommendations on improvements will be well received.

 

Nice! I don't have neither the money nor the patience for a setup like that and the periodic maintenance needed. Anyways, enjoy!:wine <grape juice

 

Well pushed it to 4.36 but its going up 73C at 1.33 Vcore,I'm settling for 4.3 me thinks.

You know Augie all through this build I was a little gutted because I knew no matter what I clocked it to Augie's Sandybridge would annihilate it:-D

Wish there was a 1366 Sandy bridge:cry It bugs me they skipped the 1366 socket and made Sandybridges for the 2011

Augie could ya do me a favour:confused Have you ever run Linx or any version of linpack on your CPU?

http://majorgeeks.com/IntelBurnTest_d5987.html

Wondered if you could run it and tell me what your peak gigflops score is on your overclocked CPU,mine @4.3ghz is 54 Gflops.

Cheers

 

Sorry Rikky but I'm running %100 Ubuntu on the 2600K. BTW, I'm sure I could have gotten too at least 4.7 stably but my RAM is not the best.

 

No biggie if its too much trouble I just wanted to get an idea of the power of an overclocked 2600k.

 

iv'e got my I7 2600K clocked at 4.8gig stable with the H70 water cooler but temps do rise to 60 odd degrees but the pc has been fine since January so i'm not worried

 

Any chance you could run intel burn test in my previous post and post your Gflop score?

All you have to do is run the program and hit start,after a few mins it will show your gflop score,if you decide to though keep an eye on your temperatures,if your computer is unstable at 4.8ghz this program will show you.

 

just ran intel burn test 2.52 and here was the results


Time (s) Speed (GFlops) Result
9.538 93.7230 3.061384e-002
9.652 92.6148 3.061384e-002
9.462 94.4693 3.061384e-002
9.697 92.1787 3.061384e-002
9.939 89.9339 3.061384e-002

tmps went up quite a bit over 70 degrees but like i said this pc has been on 24/7 since january and has been fine

 

just ran it again

Stress Level: Standard (1024 MB)
Testing started on 05/12/2011 09:15:19
Time (s) Speed (GFlops) Result
[09:15:34] 9.491 94.1799 3.061384e-002
[09:15:49] 9.649 92.6414 3.061384e-002
[09:16:05] 9.606 93.0544 3.061384e-002
[09:16:20] 9.665 92.4912 3.061384e-002
[09:16:35] 9.548 93.6244 3.061384e-002
Testing ended on 05/12/2011 09:16:35
Test Result: Success.

 

this is about as high as it goes without becoming unstable


Stress Level: Standard (1024 MB)
Testing started on 05/12/2011 20:47:35
Time (s) Speed (GFlops) Result
[20:47:50] 8.739 102.2879 3.607168e-002
[20:48:04] 8.750 102.1558 3.607168e-002
[20:48:18] 8.712 102.6007 3.607168e-002
[20:48:32] 8.741 102.2603 3.607168e-002
[20:48:46] 8.790 101.6938 3.607168e-002
Testing ended on 05/12/2011 20:48:46
Test Result: Success.
----------------------------

 

Wow! 102 Gflops,practically double what my I7 Bloomfield can do.

Not an incredibly important number where day to day performance is concerned but interesting none the less.

Thankyou Cosmica.

 

Yeah I just went for the biggest rad I could get hold of,it seems expensive at first but it offers the best bang for buck cooling wise and takes a bit more work setting up.

http://www.watercoolinguk.co.uk/p/Watercool-MO-RA3-420-Core-LC_5900.html

It's actually listed as a passive radiator but with fans even at about 10% it drops temps about 5C under full load,the difference in temps at higher fans speeds is negligable so there's plenty cooling capacity left.

My first water cooling build too,its took me long enough being as I like overclocking an all but I hope to use this setup in a couple of my future builds so hopefully it's a good investment,the only thing i won't be able to transfer is the GPU waterblock and if I'm honest I kinda wish I hadn't bought it due to the shear number of overclocking hurdles Nvidia has placed in the drivers.

Thanks

 

Damn man, you actually sprung for a GPU waterblock?!:eek I was researching water cooling 3 years back when I got my i7 930 but the price for just the waterblock for my GTX470 was hideous @$170 ea. plus all the rest of the crap and work! No way I could afford the money and didn't want to spend the time for maintenance either. The only water I've got going is the Corsair H50 CPU cooler.(Still chugging along with the CPU @ %100 24/7/70C)

Buying the tri PCI-E mobo was a big mistake thinking of stuffing three GPU's in there but in hindsight it all worked out for the best. I've got two GPU's in there now in slots 1 and three and the temps are good.

 

If I could do it over I would have got two 580GTX's and not watercooled them,that would have given me an extra 25% performance increase over the stock 590GTX's.

If no one has researched GTX590 overclocking I would definitely do plenty of research before making the plunge.

It's early tech though I'm banking on some bright spark out there cracking the drivers wide open for abuse,ATM the performance is awesome and the whole build is pretty darn quiet.

 

Just saw this thread. Nice setup Ricky! Just for chuckles, I ran that burn program you linked to. I got a whopping 26.something GFlops. :strong I want to upgrade, but I really don't need to, the Q6600 has been a beast of a computer. This is the longest I have had the same CPU in my main computer.

Got a plan for part of my Christmas bonus, but it will not involve computers. Well, MAYBE a digital scale. :-D

Have you considered attaching your rad to the other side of you computer? Looks like it would be mighty hard to move the computer and rad. Water cooling is fun, sure is weird putting water inside your computer case. On purpose!

 

Ya Fred, the Q6600 was/is a good chip! I finally had to get rid of it when I bought my 2600K. I had it OC'd to 3 GHz and running at %100 load for 5 years IIRC. I would have kept it but I only want two machines running here and basically gave it away. Kind of sad at times that I did that but we have to move on, right?

The 2600K blows it out of the water as the socket 2011 hexacore 3960X blows the 2600K out of the water. Hmm, I need mucho money at $1150 a copy but better than AMD's Interlagos octocore server chips which would set me back about $3K for everything. I wish that AMD would come back being competitive but their Bulldozers failed miserably.

 

$300 for the 2600K, and a little over $1K for the 3960x? :eek

No wonder I have not upgraded lately! Would love to have one of those 3960's, water cool it, and see what it will do...

 

I pondered it shortly before deciding the distance the radiator would have to allow airflow through the rad would have been too great without seriously restricting airflow and it also weighs a ton.

Disconnecting before moving is really easy just two thumbscrews on the rad and it won't be moved for a long time unless it breaks.

Thanks Fred

Yeah the new Intel socket I hope they give keep making new 1366 chips long enough for me to upgrade at least once,dunno what it is about new better stuff coming out a year after you've bought your computer that just sucks:-D You know its gonna happen and progress and more speed is always a good things but still still at the back of your mind you wish the semi conductor world would break down after you've made your purchase or they realised they couldn't really top the socket you've just invested in and it will be the flagship for at least a decade...