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geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: AKIMbO on Sun, 06 January 2013, 17:59:01
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I had a catastrophic leak in my loop that took out two 6970s...may they rest in peace. QQ
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Wow. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, it is a little scary. What happened exactly?
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At least you didn't leak onto your processor.
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Wow. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, it is a little scary. What happened exactly?
The top most compression fitting in between my gpu's developed a pinhole leak. Screen went black, no mas 6970s. When I took them out there was a sheet of water in between the waterblock and PCB of the gpus...on both GPUs. I'm making due with a spare graphics card right now. I'm eyeing a GTX 680, but I haven't been following the graphic card market so I don't know if the 7xx series are just around the corner.
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I'm eyeing a GTX 680, but I haven't been following the graphic card market so I don't know if the 7xx series are just around the corner.
The 6xx series just came out not too long ago. It could be at least six months or so until another series comes out. I mean, I'm no professional or anything, but this is just coming from personal experience.
Though it couldn't hurt to do some research just to see if there's word on another set of cards coming out soon. I'm using a Galaxy 9600 GS, so I'm not too up to date either. I'd be happy with just a 4xx card! :p
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At least you didn't leak onto your processor.
Um... each gpu alone + waterblocks probably cost more than the processor. ;D
But I mean, 6970s meh.. no biggy.. they're only worth $150 in performance, so... it's not like the loss was huge.
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wow that's horrible, I hope that does not happen to me one day; i haven't inspected my loop for months.
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The 700's will probably drop this spring, Nvidia will likely announce something during CES which is happening right now. I would wait, patience is a virtue.
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Go 680 classified 4gb or go 670 FTW
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I'm actualy building an aircooled computer right now because my watercooled rig requred too much maintenence. I do miss the quiet power, but I need a reliable machine. I am sorry for your loss. I hope it never happens to me. What brand compression fittings were you using?
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I'm actualy building an aircooled computer right now because my watercooled rig requred too much maintenence. I do miss the quiet power, but I need a reliable machine. I am sorry for your loss. I hope it never happens to me. What brand compression fittings were you using?
Bitspower compression fittings...I have no idea who makes the sli compression fitting I was using. All is not lost though, one of the 6970s still works!
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Bitspower compression fittings...I have no idea who makes the sli compression fitting I was using. All is not lost though, one of the 6970s still works!
Good thing about the one 6970 :)
Bad thing my computer is built with all Bitspower compressions :(
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I'm actualy building an aircooled computer right now because my watercooled rig requred too much maintenence. I do miss the quiet power, but I need a reliable machine. I am sorry for your loss. I hope it never happens to me. What brand compression fittings were you using?
Air cooled is the way to go... turn it on, and don't think about it... I never even look in that direction..
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Watercooling can be simple, so long as you keep it simple. The self contained ones work quite well and are reliable, but it always comes down to, if you want to play, you have to pay. Air cooling has come a long way though, you can get nearly the same noise levels as watercooling these days and even with similar cooling, and depending on setup, a whole lot cheaper.
As for Bitspower, anything can have a small defect (or become slightly damaged during assembly) and all it takes is one. What always concerned me about many of these fancy fittings though, is that while they look great (and can cost a fortune) they often have multiple parts. Every part is a potential fail point. Having a common barb at each end, and one length of hose may not look as nice, but it's only 5 pieces per section (not to mention more efficient), as opposed to using several elbows, o-rings, and various tubes running from one part to the next.
It always stinks losing parts regardless of reason, at least you saved one of the cards.
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Yeah, the rotary fittings are scary. I have about 25 of them in my system and maybe 60 fittings total.
John
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Ouch that sucks. Not sure how your PSU is mounted, but recent cases have moved to bottom-mounted PSU so if this is the case with you, luckily no water got in there and shorted the PSU. If that happened, it could have taken out all your other components too. But on the bright side, this is an excuse to upgrade GPUs.
This reminds me, I still have a bucket of unused BP fittings from several years ago. Maybe between 50-70 fittings. They cost me a fortune back then.
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I did a lot of price/performance comparison and my EVGA GeForce GTX 660Ti+ cards were a great deal, I opted for the 3GB GDDR5 version since I use the cards to drive all my monitors.
Sorry to hear about your leak Akimbo :(
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Ouch that sucks. Not sure how your PSU is mounted, but recent cases have moved to bottom-mounted PSU so if this is the case with you, luckily no water got in there and shorted the PSU. If that happened, it could have taken out all your other components too. But on the bright side, this is an excuse to upgrade GPUs.
This reminds me, I still have a bucket of unused BP fittings from several years ago. Maybe between 50-70 fittings. They cost me a fortune back then.
Most bottom mounted psu cases have fan holes, so water will not pool, and the psu rarely sits directly on it. As for getting in, very little would, and mostly from the fan sucking it in. In any case, you would need a flood for it to happen and in watercooling, there really isn't really much water, much less any way for a leak to put out that much water. Normally watercooling leaks are just a drop every so often. This is why you have to leak test for so long.
While a single drop can destroy a system, my experience has been that it's extremely rare as it takes a small puddle before the water becomes contaminated enough from dust that it is conductive enough to completely short a system. Of course all bets are off if the water is old, contaminated or you used conductive water. Dripping onto a sensitive area can reduce the amount as well.
I have had 1/4 of a teaspoon leak into a dusty system and it burned a spot clear through on the motherboard. Ironically, the board and system still worked, the video card however was dead (I replaced most of it to be safe). On this one, the system had been up and running for over a year and had recently been transported, which I suspect is how the leak was caused (hose got jostled lose). I had another time where the glue I used for some piping was incorrect (thank you Home Depot) and had 8 joints burst at once as the system pressurized (due to temp increase) and drench the entire system... A few ounces ended up splashing out onto everything. I dried it, cleaned it all up, went back to air cooling and about two or three hours later it fired up as if nothing happened. In this case the system was almost completely dust free and I had just filled it the day before with distilled or de-ionized water and Water Wetter. I ran it for 6 months then passed it on to my mom who used it for another year, I lost track of it after that.
Watercooling is much safer than people like to imagine. He could have lost the one card just as easily from overclocking, fan failure, or any other number of things that can go wrong in a high end system. Anyone who watercools is usually the same type who change parts and experiment and are used to replacing parts more often than most, be it from failure, upgrades or just plain curiosity and boredom.
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[...] there really isn't really much water [...]
unless you have a 1.5 liters of fluid in your system....lol
http://almightyglod.com/public_stack/2012-06-07%2020.01.42.jpg
[...] much less any way for a leak to put out that much water. Normally watercooling leaks are just a drop every so often. This is why you have to leak test for so long. [...]
[...]Watercooling is much safer than people like to imagine. He could have lost the one card just as easily from overclocking, fan failure, or any other number of things that can go wrong in a high end system. Anyone who watercools is usually the same type who change parts and experiment and are used to replacing parts more often than most, be it from failure, upgrades or just plain curiosity and boredom.
true dat
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Water cooling these days is not nearly as relevant as it was years ago..
the chips these days don't clock that much higher on Water vs air..
Even if you go with the "longevity/durability" argument.. Obsolescence is in 3 years TOPS,, there is very little chance that your card or cpu would die in that time, even subjected to overclocked "high" temperatures with Air cooling.
Lastly, you have the "stability" argument.. sadly modern cpu and cards are also NOT more stable with less heat, because they were never heat bound to begin with.
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Water cooling these days is not nearly as relevant as it was years ago..
the chips these days don't clock that much higher on Water vs air..
Even if you go with the "longevity/durability" argument.. Obsolescence is in 3 years TOPS,, there is very little chance that your card or cpu would die in that time, even subjected to overclocked "high" temperatures with Air cooling.
Lastly, you have the "stability" argument.. sadly modern cpu and cards are also NOT more stable with less heat, because they were never heat bound to begin with.
I
Holy hell i actually agree with tp for once.
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Water cooling these days is not nearly as relevant as it was years ago..
the chips these days don't clock that much higher on Water vs air..
Even if you go with the "longevity/durability" argument.. Obsolescence is in 3 years TOPS,, there is very little chance that your card or cpu would die in that time, even subjected to overclocked "high" temperatures with Air cooling.
Lastly, you have the "stability" argument.. sadly modern cpu and cards are also NOT more stable with less heat, because they were never heat bound to begin with.
actually to be honest, I do agree with you even though i have a giant/massive water-cooled setup lol :cool:. The Air and closed-loop liquid cpu coolers (which are great and affordable) are sufficient for the most part, i say sufficient because VGA coolers unless they are massive are LOUD LOUD LOUD, the stock coolers on my dual 6950s were louder than the pump on my water cooled system.
ill be honest, i built my water cooled setup in around February, i dropped a ridiculous amount of money on my setup, i could have just got a better system. The reason? for years and years i have wanted a water cooled setup, it was something digging at me. when i was in college i thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then i finally got ahead in my job and I jumped onto building this system spontaneously, my wife was literally like "wtf is this ugly **** you got?" The system is not actually complete, i didn't put in the fittings and reservoir i wanted to.
Months later after the pride of building my system faded, i would never do it again, ill reuse it the best i can, might as well, be stupid to let the money go to waste.
TL:DR - Take it from someone with an expensive water-cooled setup, Its not necessary. Build yourself a nice micro-atx sli system with a closed loop cpu cooler and enjoy the extra money, extra space, and less worry.
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Water cooling these days is not nearly as relevant as it was years ago..
the chips these days don't clock that much higher on Water vs air..
Even if you go with the "longevity/durability" argument.. Obsolescence is in 3 years TOPS,, there is very little chance that your card or cpu would die in that time, even subjected to overclocked "high" temperatures with Air cooling.
Lastly, you have the "stability" argument.. sadly modern cpu and cards are also NOT more stable with less heat, because they were never heat bound to begin with.
actually to be honest, I do agree with you even though i have a giant/massive water-cooled setup lol :cool:. The Air and closed-loop liquid cpu coolers (which are great and affordable) are sufficient for the most part, i say sufficient because VGA coolers unless they are massive are LOUD LOUD LOUD, the stock coolers on my dual 6950s were louder than the pump on my water cooled system.
ill be honest, i built my water cooled setup in around February, i dropped a ridiculous amount of money on my setup, i could have just got a better system. The reason? for years and years i have wanted a water cooled setup, it was something digging at me. when i was in college i thought it was the coolest thing ever. Then i finally got ahead in my job and I jumped onto building this system spontaneously, my wife was literally like "wtf is this ugly **** you got?" The system is not actually complete, i didn't put in the fittings and reservoir i wanted to.
Months later after the pride of building my system faded, i would never do it again, ill reuse it the best i can, might as well, be stupid to let the money go to waste.
TL:DR - Take it from someone with an expensive water-cooled setup, Its not necessary. Build yourself a nice micro-atx sli system with a closed loop cpu cooler and enjoy the extra money, extra space, and less worry.
I see alot of people jumping on the Water cooling in a box kits... They're aight... but one should really consider additional hose clamps, because the plastic interconnects tend to "crack" and leak..
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Holy hell....both cards work! I didn't fry a single 6970!
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Holy hell....both cards work! I didn't fry a single 6970!
and on the third day, they rose again.
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Holy hell....both cards work! I didn't fry a single 6970!
AWESOME!
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Well that's good to hear. Check all your fittings now!
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Allright! Back to watercooled Xfire!
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Here's the problem with video games... When we were kids, and it was still "fresh and cool", none of us had the money for good hardware..
Now that we're older and have money for good hardware,, the games are played out, and we've been around the block too many times with the same call of duty rehashes...
I want to buy the latest stuff, if only they'd release more games worth playing... for older gamers...
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Here's the problem with video games... When we were kids, and it was still "fresh and cool", none of us had the money for good hardware..
Now that we're older and have money for good hardware,, the games are played out, and we've been around the block too many times with the same call of duty rehashes...
I want to buy the latest stuff, if only they'd release more games worth playing... for older gamers...
quit looking at AAA titles, there are so many indie games that are tailored to damn near everyone. People who com pain about games being bad aren't playing the right games :)
Some of my Favs from 2012: Hotline Miami, DayZ, Borderlands 2, and that new Need For Speed game.
Generalizing all games as crappy based of rehashes year after year is just ignorant.
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I see alot of people jumping on the Water cooling in a box kits... They're aight... but one should really consider additional hose clamps, because the plastic interconnects tend to "crack" and leak..
I threw a fancy air cooler on my 6870 recently, and got a lot of "Why not bracket one of those cheapo Antec water-coolers on top" flack when I described my experience. This is the sort of nasty surprise that explains why.
Someone should offer a moisture-sensitive sensor you could place next to the water block, which if activated, immediately cuts mains power.
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I see alot of people jumping on the Water cooling in a box kits... They're aight... but one should really consider additional hose clamps, because the plastic interconnects tend to "crack" and leak..
I threw a fancy air cooler on my 6870 recently, and got a lot of "Why not bracket one of those cheapo Antec water-coolers on top" flack when I described my experience. This is the sort of nasty surprise that explains why.
Someone should offer a moisture-sensitive sensor you could place next to the water block, which if activated, immediately cuts mains power.
We have to wait for Larger chips to come back before water-cooling will be worth it again.
It's certainly possible that they will.. But..... for the average consumer, I can't see what they'd need it for.
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Are we average consumers though? I think some of watercooling is the "Yeah, I did that" factor, and other is just because it's different, offers less noise, integrates well with color-coordinated rigs, and the water cooling also allows some bit of extra oompf.
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Here's the problem with video games... When we were kids, and it was still "fresh and cool", none of us had the money for good hardware..
Now that we're older and have money for good hardware,, the games are played out, and we've been around the block too many times with the same call of duty rehashes...
Back when we were kids, you had to keep upgrading just to keep the computer working at a decent pace. It's only recently that the hardware truly outran the software. 15 years ago a 2 year old processor was absolutely worthless for gaming, today, you can game on a 6 or 7 year old processor without much trouble.
Overclocking and high end cooling was a way to leapfrog the upgrade cycles. Back then a small boost represented a big gain, a 133mhz increase on a p3 1000mhz was equal to a 13% increase and it was simple and easy to do as there were no locks on multipliers and such. Today, you need nearly 4 times that just to get 10%, in an era where overclocking simply isn't as easy to do (in general) with various locks, more and more built in features and processors pushing up against more and more barriers. Today overclocking can give you a small bump, but it's not going to do nearly what overclocking could do for you back then.
There is also something in the fact that processors are no longer the most important part now that they have gotten so fast. Any low end AMD will handle pretty much any game, and even mid line AMD processors with built in graphics can play most common games.
The hardware has simply outpaced the software (finally).
quit looking at AAA titles, there are so many indie games that are tailored to damn near everyone. People who com pain about games being bad aren't playing the right games :)
Some of my Favs from 2012: Hotline Miami, DayZ, Borderlands 2, and that new Need For Speed game.
Generalizing all games as crappy based of rehashes year after year is just ignorant.
Half of those you mentioned are rehashes. ;D
I agree with both of you to some extent though.
Borderlands 2, and Left4Dead 2, are fantastic games that I play a lot of. I also played a lot of COD4 back when it was new, and BF2 as well.
However, we have lost quite a bit of variety to some extent at the same time. Too many smaller game companies were swallowed up and are scared to take risks that they used to. The big game companies are following Hollywood's pattern of spending big bucks on blockbusters which rely solely on a formula that they think/know will sell.
Take Borderlands 2, can you imagine trying to sell that to EA or Sony without the success of BL1 to back it up. The game is pretty wild and crazy, and I could see them taking tons of material to make it less controversial (Tiny Tina for example) and be just another good seller. It's the wild and surprising characters like her that spice up the game and make it special, and yet, I could see EA's executives absolutely cringing when they saw her parts. Same with other things like "Shoot me in the face", can you picture Sony going for that?
Unfortunately these mega companies have taken over and really stripped out a lot of innovation. How many Madden games do we really need? Another good example is Red Alert. The original was really innovative, and a bit crazy, part 2 had great gameplay and a good story, part 3, is just meh. It lost that spark because they wouldn't take chances and missed that x factor element. Yes, you can say we had too high of expectations, but at the same time you could point and say it was exactly what we expected. COD4, was totally expected, and yet, it was fantastic and outshined the games before it. Look where that franchise is now, it's become the Madden of military FPS, "buy the latest clone of our last 3 games, now with improved faces!"
Don't get me wrong, innovation is problematic and risky, but many of the big game franchises have turned to a model where they are kicking out new versions just to kick out a new version and make a bundle of money, not because they actually have something new.
Are we average consumers though?
No, in fact far from it.
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Are we average consumers though? I think some of watercooling is the "Yeah, I did that" factor, and other is just because it's different, offers less noise, integrates well with color-coordinated rigs, and the water cooling also allows some bit of extra oompf.
The only difference would be we might buy the K version instead of the regular.. but they're pretty much only 10% difference in real world performance even at 50% overclock.
I'd like to think everyone who overclock is folding // or encoding pr0n to fit their iphone.. but that is still a very niche crowd..
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Still, watercooling has a bit of a "Yeah I did that" factor, and the less noise. :)
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I'd like to think everyone who overclock is folding // or encoding pr0n to fit their iphone.. but that is still a very niche crowd..
No, but I do loan out my (high end) core2quad compiling server to Android developers.
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I know this is random and that no one will probably care
but wtf, how the hell did i not notice Danger Den went out of business; my pump is dying, thing sounds horrible, so i went to contact Danger Den and i realize they are gone. They had a fire sale in october and went into the wind.
I guess indeed the days of enthusiast water cooling is starting to end. I think i am going to plan one last build before it all goes away.
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I know this is random and that no one will probably care
but wtf, how the hell did i not notice Danger Den went out of business; my pump is dying, thing sounds horrible, so i went to contact Danger Den and i realize they are gone. They had a fire sale in october and went into the wind.
I guess indeed the days of enthusiast water cooling is starting to end. I think i am going to plan one last build before it all goes away.
It won't go away completely, in fact the all-in-one kits are growing in popularity, it;s just a market shift occurring.
The Corsair/Antec systems bolt into most any case, work just about as well as a custom, and the whole system cost less than a Danger Den pump. Back when pre-builts were clunky, worked terribly, and cost $150, you could justify building one from parts. These days, the only reason to hand build one is for looks and most of the older companies were more performance oriented. A perfect example, what is the hot product in watercooling right now? Bitspower. Do you need their fancy, expensive fittings? No at all, and that is exactly the point. Watercooling isn't about performance anymore.
It won't all go away, but a few will fall before the shakeup ends. Those who can adapt will survive, those who can't won't. It doesn't surprise me that they were one of the first to fall.
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i've built a couple systems with the closed loop liquid cooling for cpu. they are nice and i highly suggest them but i wouldn't call them enthusiast; I would just call that a good purchase.
the whole system cost less than a Danger Den pump
lol so true, H60 alone is cheaper than the pumps i am looking at to replace this dying Danger Den and although there is some fairly priced bitspower stuff :rolleyes:; $17 for a single 45 degree angle barb is crazy. its madness.
so i agree about the watercooling isn't just about performance now because yeah people are shelling out money for $20/each fittings and stuff. but i don't think liquid cooling is totally for show and I'm going to do just one more build coming up soon; and conveniently i can reuse a lot of my parts on my Q6600 system.
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On sealed watercoolers, The problem is that they don't offer elegant upgrade paths.
I can slap one on my CPU; I can get an aftermarket bracket and slap a second one on a single GPU. But then you're scavenging for locations to mount that second radiator. Not even considering chipset or RAM cooling, which while less popular than it once was, might be of interest.
With a custom setup, I can say "Get me a block to fit my GPU and one to fit my CPU" and wind it all into a single system.
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On sealed watercoolers, The problem is that they don't offer elegant upgrade paths.
I can slap one on my CPU; I can get an aftermarket bracket and slap a second one on a single GPU. But then you're scavenging for locations to mount that second radiator. Not even considering chipset or RAM cooling, which while less popular than it once was, might be of interest.
With a custom setup, I can say "Get me a block to fit my GPU and one to fit my CPU" and wind it all into a single system.
Most people don't need that kind of system.
Much of that came about because stock cooling systems were so pathetic, that isn't the case anymore. Heatpipes and multiple fans have made video cards run way cooler, better case airflow has helped with memory cooling.
The biggest thing though is that overclocking just isn't what it used to be.
Also, while you say you can just swap a block... Many of these complete systems cost only a bit more than your waterblock and a fitting or two.
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On sealed watercoolers, The problem is that they don't offer elegant upgrade paths.
I can slap one on my CPU; I can get an aftermarket bracket and slap a second one on a single GPU. But then you're scavenging for locations to mount that second radiator. Not even considering chipset or RAM cooling, which while less popular than it once was, might be of interest.
With a custom setup, I can say "Get me a block to fit my GPU and one to fit my CPU" and wind it all into a single system.
Most people don't need that kind of system.
Much of that came about because stock cooling systems were so pathetic, that isn't the case anymore. Heatpipes and multiple fans have made video cards run way cooler, better case airflow has helped with memory cooling.
The biggest thing though is that overclocking just isn't what it used to be.
Also, while you say you can just swap a block... Many of these complete systems cost only a bit more than your waterblock and a fitting or two.
I have a feeling overclocking will make a comeback when they release the new IB Xeons, they're really big chips with lots of cores, which means good size contact surface for water coolers.
Ah the days of water cooled Ram.. I ran my DDR at 4v on a DFI nforce 4 sli. Got DDR660 I did, 4x512mb.. UNTIL it crapped out in 3 weeks. ;D, I wasn't upset though.. just happy for the experience.. They really did get pretty hot...
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The exact reason I don't go with air cooling. Not that water cooling is unreliable, but if it fails, it fails bigtime. If a fan fails, big whoop, worst case scenario components run hot and maybe the PC runs it's failsafe shutdown. You pull the cover to see what's up and it's a big difference between your cards taking a bath or needing a new fan.
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The exact reason I don't go with air cooling. Not that water cooling is unreliable, but if it fails, it fails bigtime. If a fan fails, big whoop, worst case scenario components run hot and maybe the PC runs it's failsafe shutdown. You pull the cover to see what's up and it's a big difference between your cards taking a bath or needing a new fan.
the main issue is lack of gain now, what you mentioned "used" to be the reason to go AIR, but today it's cuz Water cost $400 and gives you maybe $50 more performance.
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The exact reason I don't go with air cooling. Not that water cooling is unreliable, but if it fails, it fails bigtime. If a fan fails, big whoop, worst case scenario components run hot and maybe the PC runs it's failsafe shutdown. You pull the cover to see what's up and it's a big difference between your cards taking a bath or needing a new fan.
This depends greatly on the system.
I had a water cooler that could run 20 minutes with no fan or pumps, and 45 minutes with only one or the other working. Try that on air. Before we had motherboards and processors that did it, we also used to use monitoring programs that would shut down the system in the event of a failure.
Watercooling is simply not monetarily justifiable with the air cooling (heatpipes) we have now.
As mentioned earlier, water is not nearly as dangerous as perceived. I have had flooded systems that survived, and there are commercially available desktops, servers and even laptops that include or used to include watercooling. Even Apple sold systems with watercooling for a while. If done properly, the danger level is marginal compared to air cooling, and in some cases completely false, as evidenced by my system that would run without fans.
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Does anybody have any info about those "fanless" systems by NoFen (sp?)
Basically the whole case is one big heatsink for the processor, and you can get a large fanless heatsink that is compatible with any (1155) processor with a 95W or lower TDP.
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Does anybody have any info about those "fanless" systems by NoFen (sp?)
Basically the whole case is one big heatsink for the processor, and you can get a large fanless heatsink that is compatible with any (1155) processor with a 95W or lower TDP.
they suck and they kinda'' still need a fan.
and they sell some Bullsheet stuff.. like
http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/ST-2221SATA.php
noiseless SSD bay??? 2 ssd can be mounted for noise free operation.... You don't say.. :)) :))
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Does anybody have any info about those "fanless" systems by NoFen (sp?)
Basically the whole case is one big heatsink for the processor, and you can get a large fanless heatsink that is compatible with any (1155) processor with a 95W or lower TDP.
The only truly fanless systems, by Zalman, don't handle modern processors (other than Atom) and they cost a small fortune.
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Does anybody have any info about those "fanless" systems by NoFen (sp?)
Basically the whole case is one big heatsink for the processor, and you can get a large fanless heatsink that is compatible with any (1155) processor with a 95W or lower TDP.
The only truly fanless systems, by Zalman, don't handle modern processors (other than Atom) and they cost a small fortune.
how small is the smallest condenser system capable of condensing liquid nitrogen
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Does anybody have any info about those "fanless" systems by NoFen (sp?)
Basically the whole case is one big heatsink for the processor, and you can get a large fanless heatsink that is compatible with any (1155) processor with a 95W or lower TDP.
The only truly fanless systems, by Zalman, don't handle modern processors (other than Atom) and they cost a small fortune.
how small is the smallest condenser system capable of condensing liquid nitrogen
Probably not small considering the pressures and temperatures involved, not to mention overkill and difficult to work with.
Besides that, Nitrogen brings it's own issues. Some parts don't deal well with extreme temps or such wild temp fluctuations (off and on). Too cold and some things simply don't work, connections fail to connect, etc... Several times now I have worked on systems that where left out in cars in freezing temps and had to re-seat the drive cables and memory. Computers weren't designed for such wild variations in temp.
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but they still advertise the CR-95 as being compatible with procs as far back as C2D
http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-95C02.php
I've never seen these units IRL or used them. I'm just going off the site.
They claim to work by convection, ie the air rising out a top slot in the case.
I dunno LOL
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but they still advertise the CR-95 as being compatible with procs as far back as C2D
http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-95C02.php
I've never seen these units IRL or used them. I'm just going off the site.
Based on reviews they're totally "NOT" worth it, because they can't handle "full load" and you're almost always near 80C + even at medium load
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They still need moving air on all but lower watt processors, and that means a fan. The only difference is where the fan is located.
They do work, but they are not designed with any sort of real performance in mind. Get some real quiet fans, and maybe slightly underclock and you could get a nice system in there that would work. There are some fans you cannot hear more than a foot or two from the case, but if you are doing that, why not just put the quiet fans on a normal heat sink?
If I were building a system for audio recording, it would be a consideration, however a cheaper alternative is mounting it in another room with longer cables.
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Sort of off topic, but i've come to love Fractal Design cases for the dampening qualities. absolutely fantastic series of cases and fans. My stock cooler and 4870 single fan would kick up in games and sound like a small jet, so I replaced them with a 7950 dualX and an aftermarket zalman cooler (the cheapest of those horizonal O shaped units) and adjusted the fans. At stock frequencies you wouldn't even know the thing is on, never mind running Sleeping Dogs at max settings. Beautiful.
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I never hear my computer.. but then, it;s in the basement. :))
The right fans, case and such make a big different, I spend a lot on making sure my computers are quite, basement or not.