Water Cooling for X1900 cards

[barney]

Built my new system a couple of months ago and its running fine but the noise is starting to annoy me (case is full of fans atm).

I want to get phase cooling for the CPU and im looking into that now but i will also want to water cool the two X1900 cards (crossfire setup) Need to cool the GPU and the Voltage regulator.

Have any of you got any good suggestions on where to get started. I know the basics but have zero practical experience with water cooling or phase cooling and im really worried about destroying my hardware

For watercooling what effects the performance? im guessing:

Larger Res=more water=cooler
Larger Rad=cooler
Larger bore pipes=more water flow=cooler
Larger/higher output pump=more water flow=cooler

anything im missing there?

I know there are a million thread on here already asking similar questions and im reading through them all at the moment. Like i said though im really worried about screwing it up and blowing up a lot of expensive kit

 

[HeadlessChicken]

Larger Res=more water=cooler Not really, you will actually get marginal better performance from a T-line
Larger Rad=cooler Yup, altho there is of course a point of no gains. Also with larger rad you can use slower (quieter) fans. (PA series)
Larger bore pipes=more water flow=cooler Sort of, but not because of the more water, because of better flow. 7/16" hose seems to be in favour (it's what i use) as it fits 1/2" barbs and bends easier.
Larger/higher output pump=more water flow=cooler I won't go into the technicalities (it's head u want more) but yeah. Altho a single DD D5 / Ax 50z would suffice for your needs.

Cooling the voltage regulators as well will be difficult, and those full cover blocks are usually not worth it. You might be better just cooling the cores with say MP1's, and get a quiet 120mm fan over the voltage regs (cooling the core will also dissiparte some of the heat from the vr's too)

Hope that helps

 

[barney]

thats brilliant thanks. I have read a lot of threads and information about water cooling but couldnt really find any info on what effect changing each component in a WC setup would make. Your answer helps a lot

 

[andyr]

Danger den Tyee Gpu coolers you can get them with composite cooler for x fire master card and add on voltage regulator coolers

 

[ted34]

Dangerden do full cover blocks but they are nearly £90 each and the cover bits are just heat sinks. Full cover blocks generally kill the flow rate. If your just cooling 2 gpu's then thats not too much of a prob but id go for 2 maze 4 with a set of ram sinks and then just have a silent 120mm fan blowing over whole card. That will also help create airflow in your case as theres still the chipset and mofsets.
Your right about everything in first post though. Stick to 1/2" tubing, go for a higher flow rate pump such as eheim 1250 rather than 1048, if you can fit a 120.3 rad in your system and can afford the extra £10 then go for it.

Havin a larger res will make very little diff as heat isnt going to be lost when the water is sat in a reservoir unless its one of the special ones with heatsinks on and even then compared to the rad it wont make much diff. Nearly all heat is discharged in the rad so the size of the rad makes the big diff