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Silent Water Cooling on the SLI
Doggie Fizzle writes "Overclockers with a serious SLI gaming system don't have to deal with the drone of double the fans to get the extreme performance. A review of a customized Zalman Reserator 1+ water cooling system shows a well overclocked SLI system offering solid temperatures on the CPU, but an impressive drop of 20 degrees C on both video cards during full load operation... And the unique cooling tower of the Reserator 1+ does it all without a single fan to cool these hot components."
It's enough two keep a dual CPU rig cool, and is indeed quite silent. Of course, the effect will be ruined if your motherboard has a chipset fan, which are inevitably noisy. Most PCIEx boards have their chipset right under the video card, making water block placement problematic. I found a waterblock that fit, but I had to fashion my own fastener to give the video card room to fit in the slot. If anyone is interested, here are some pics of my own setup, back when the choices were blue or blue.
I should also mention that the reserator is highly sensitive to room temperature changes. If the room increases temp by a few degrees celcius, so will your water.
I have seen refrigerated cases before,there was even a company that specialized in them, but I cant remember the name. The problem I see with using freon is freon refrigeration a. Uses a compressor to force the freon to a liquid state, which is more complicated and expensive then the simple water pump, and b. reaches a temperature low enough to make condensation a serious concern. Water cooling is more then adequate for CPU cooling, even with heavy overclocking. Using a freon system would only have benefits in the "because I could" category, and like I said, it's been done before.
I looked the first generation of this unit over pretty carefully when it first came out. I'm really glad they changed the color of the tower from that awful blue, the black would match my tower really well. The problem is, this thing doesn't cool that much better than a good fan-equipped CPU heat sink. Essentially, it's a fish tank pump, some tubing, and a big aluminum tank with sme percolation. The check-valves and flow indicators are nifty, and the thing is quiet, but it's not really overclockers gear, more like something for a total silence freak.
Hope this helps, you can go back to your regularly scheduled trolling now.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Kinda like the iPod Nano and its scratchable screen, the Zalman reserator is a great product with an annoying flaw. The reserator does give near silent cooling....for a while... After a few months, you might start to hear a quiet rattling.... then it gets louder. After 3 or 4 months, the reserator can making a full-on loud rattling that can get unbearable. The problem is with the pump that comes with it. It has a soft bearing that extended high heat and constant use can wear down and cause the pump's impeller to rattle. Zalman knows about this and offers free replacements for the pump (I'm on my third after 9 months). The real solution is to spend another $20 on getting a better pump though. Note that this is only a problem if you have a really hot system, such as a dual cpu + gpu + northbridge cooled system. Here is the forum thread on the subject. http://www.zalmanforums.com/showthread.php?t=48&pp =10
Ok. With full knowledge of this problem though, I have to say that I love the product. My computer used to sound like a jet engine with all the fans, and now is REALLY REALLY quiet (with a good pump). Sure, I found myself in an aquarium looking for a part to fix my computer, but I think that it is worth it (and it only cost me an extra 20 bucks).
The ethylene glycol coolant included with this is very toxic. It tastes sweet and is highly toxic to small children and pets. It is toxic in both liquid and vapor forms. I would either avoid this product or safely dispose the included coolant and replace it instead with propylene glycol which is only toxic in very large quantities. It also does not taste sweet, so your animals/children are far less likely to ingest it in the case of a leak.