How much should new pump decrease temperatures? - Page 2

What about this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/ZALMAN-RF1-Reserator-Fan-Kit/dp/B000FYZS6W

That'll work, but not nearly as well, nor does it look nearly as good, and it will certainly be louder. Probably costs more than building the entire assembly we mentioned too.

Ummm ... the lover end radiators seem a bit overpriced in there. For ~100 euros if your intention is to have very quiet system then take a look at http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p2050_Phobya-Xtreme-NOVA-1080-Radiator.html - it comes with fan grill for 120 mm fans so if you prefer 120mm ones put some low rpm ones in there and it should be adequate. Otherwise you can buy a separate grill for 180mm ones that should be really quiet even at 700rpm and they can be further downvolted.

Also, when your intention is to get a quiet system then take care when picking a pump, some of these can be quite audible. Your current one seems to be quite capable and should offer reasonable balance between noise and performance although I'm sure you can decide over that yourself better as you already have it.

I'm myself using the same radiator with 1200 rpm fans http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p1123_Coolink-SWiF-1201-17-dBA-1200rpm--120x120x25mm-.html which were discounted. They claim 17 dB which is almost inaudible altho I think in reality they are a bit more, but if you drop the rpm to ~800 (these fans start at very low voltage) then the performance with that rad is still decent (its very low density so takes low rpm fans decently) and the fans are almost inaudible, at least in my case the single 140mm one I'm using for blowing air to my GFX card VRM's is more audible than 9 of these fans.


And there is my unboxing of the radiator: http://www.overclock.net/t/1252656/nova-1080-radiator-overview-big-picture-warning
Edited by Carniflex - 8/8/12 at 6:39am

In my opinion the supernova 1260 is seriously overpriced considering you can have nova 1080 for half the price. As both are blatant overkill for PC water-cooling then both offer decent performance even at very low rpm fans. Then again if you have the funds then 1260 is bigger e-peen than 1080 as more people seem to have the 1080 than have the 1260.

As a rough rule of thumb usual suggestion is to have 120mm of 45mm ("normal thickness") thick radiator space per component cooled. Of course its somewhat oversimplified as radiators are different and one variable is also the rpm of the fans used. Then you have different radiators performing differently and water - air temperature delta you are aiming for etc.

By that logic optimal for my, for example, would be a 360mm radiator (1x CPU + 2x GPU's), however, my aim was to make quiet system so I for a start doubled the radiator space I was aiming for as I wanted to use fans at ~800 rpm while maintaining reasonable water - air temperature delta (with everything overclocked as high as they go in the system). Looking at the price I saw that I can get the Nova 1080 for the price of two 360mm rads and as I was going to mount externally anyway its relatively large size was not a big issue for me. At that time it was the best price / surface area radiator in Aquatuning I was able to find so I went for it.

As you pointed out the price difference is not that huge. Now, the 1260 is just "the biggest" radiator on the market with twice the price of a 1080. According to reviews it performs a bit better than 1080 for sure bit its just for the e-peen in my opinion as the 1080 itself is already far into overkill territory (if you take not of the "rule of thumb" about 120mm of rad space per components). Now if you want quiet then overkill is good as you can get a lot lower temperatures with low rpm fans, however, even there there are diminished returns as roughly every doubling of radiator space halves the temperature delta between ambient air and water inside a radiator. So - if Nova 1080 offers you lets say 5 C difference between air and water then 1260 will offer you roughly 4 C difference and if you so desire, then exactly for the same price you can get two 1080's yielding you temperature delta of 2.5 C in that scenario.

I'm atm running 1055T running at 3.92 GHz (its not that good chip so takes 1.525V for that and as such runs rather hot) and 6770 at 950 MHz (about as high as slider goes in CCC) with water - ambient air temperature delta of roughly 3 .. 4 C (last I looked , I managed to damage my water sensor wire recently so don't know the delta atm until the new sensor arrives from Germany) with the fans I linked at 1200 rpm (as I cant hear them anyway over the relatively loud 140mm I have atm on my sidepanel). I have two Alphacool DT-LT pumps on their 5.25'' bay res/pumpcover combo (I dont like the res btw, its not that great quality but I quite like the pumps, they are like very small D5's which take only about 4W at full speed while still giving pretty good pressure and being pretty quiet)

Edit: If you want something reasonably cheap and as I understood you want to keep also the existing rad, then I would suggest http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p12344_Alphacool-NexXxoS-ST30-Full-Copper-360mm.html - it has been reviewed by Martin and it seems to be very good with low rpm fans (review: http://martinsliquidlab.org/2012/05/01/alphacool-nexxxos-st30-360-radiator/) or even its 240mm version perhaps - http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p12343_Alphacool-NexXxoS-ST30-Full-Copper-240mm.html both have also 140mm versions but these have higher price per surface area.
Edited by Carniflex - 8/8/12 at 11:21am

I must point out that these 140mm fans in that combo are not particularly silent. Now I'm not familiar with them personally so cant really comment how they are in reality, but in my experience so far all fans I have bought sound louder than the official specifications promise them to be. Second point is, that at 100 euros you would be better off going with nova 1080 already. It has ~220% of the surface area of the 3x140 radiator so the jump is very large while the price difference is small.

The difference in thickness means that thicker radiator is better with stronger fans while usually with weak fans thinner radiator performs better.

At that budget I would suggest going for (total ~125)
1080: http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p2050_Phobya-Xtreme-NOVA-1080-Radiator.html
9x120mm : http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p1123_Coolink-SWiF-1201-17-dBA-1200rpm--120x120x25mm-.html (as they are on sale it's only 22.32 for 9 of them)

I dont see atm good deals for quiet 140mm fans on aquatuning. A little while ago there was one for 700rpm Nanoxia fans but it seems they are arm out of them.

Now if you want get off the hook cheaper then (total ~60)
ST30: http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p12344_Alphacool-NexXxoS-ST30-Full-Copper-360mm.html
3x120mm: http://www.aquatuning.fi/product_info.php/info/p1123_Coolink-SWiF-1201-17-dBA-1200rpm--120x120x25mm-.html