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Live Testing

Radiical Liquid Cooled Danger Den Torture Rack Part Two

Date Log ; December 14, 2006

In this part of the Danger Den Torture Rack we will get Igor to stretch to its "breaking point" the very popular Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. At the same time he will be putting the "thumbscrews" on a Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard. We intend to "nail" the "Team" RAM to the highest threshold it can tolerate while we put the Maze 4 and 5 blocks on the "griller". We will, however, be merciful with the hard drive when we cool its fevered brow.

In all seriousness the main aim here is not to set overclocking records but to demonstrate the ease with which the Torture Rack can be utilized to provide access and stability whilst bench testing. In this instance though we also hope to enjoy quite a bit of water cooling mayhem.

First up lets look at the placing options provide with the DD Torture Rack using some water cooling equipment.

With the Racks numerous pre-prepared radiator mounting points the radiators can be varied in both position and number. Theoretically, a total of 3 dual fan radiators and two single fan radiators could be mounted simultaneously. As an alternative the mounting points also provide for several triple radiators to be mounted on the Racks frame at the same time. It is very clear that the potential expandability of this product is very large.

In the picture below kindly supplied by Danger Den a single dual radiator has been placed in a horizontal position be way of demonstration.

For this "Torture" session we have elected to put our Radiical Three Port© Radiator way out the side away from any heated air source. We have done this to ensure a clear ambient air supply during testing. The Radiical Three Port© Radiator incorporates the reservoir into the radiator end tanks thereby removing the need for a separate reservoir. Internal case space is conserved using this radiator design. We have also used our "Bugs Legs" stand offs with the extender pieces fitted so that the radiator intake will be further from the case side.

Radiical Three Port© Single Pass Dual Fan Radiator

The space under the motherboard mounting plate is large enough to store a hard drive, CD-Rom, floppy drive and say a pump if you are water cooling. There is a section on the back wall to securely mount the PSU which avoids any risk of damage to the power supply during movement.

Rear Torture Rack view of PSU Fitting

In the picture above the view through the back of the case indicates that hard drive, pump and the other equipment can easily be stored underneath the motherboard mounting plate out of harms way. The floppy and hard drive can also be secured to the side wall of the case using the pre drilled mounting holes if required. In our project here we are going to be water cooling the hard drive during testing so securely locating the hard drive is not suitable to our needs.

Radiical Hard Drive Cooler.

In recent years the operating temperatures for these faster hard drives has taken the same upward spiral common with many other computer components.The question of water cooling the hard drives as say opposed to fitting a fan is a personal choice. We recently had a Sata hard drive fail due to the heat and as a result we lost important data which cannot be recovered. In this instance the added usage for the Torture Rack will be gaming evaluation. Faced with a decision we have elected to protect and preserve the hard drive data with the added protection of better cooling.

The water cooling block for the hard drive is shown below.

Radiical Hard Drive Cooler

This hard drive water block is unique in that it cools the bottom and sides of the hard drive. In our testing we ran the hard drive "naked" first and then fitted the water cooling block to the hard drive. The results speak for themselves.

The pre water-cooled hard drive temperature at an ambient of 28 degrees Celsius was 50 degrees C. After water cooling was applied this became 34 degrees C.

Radiical Turbo Head and Pumps

Next the pump and here we will be using a Laing DDC 18W pump fitted with our Radiical Turbo Head. We have also modified the top with the addition of through the top fixing screws and thumb nuts. This is to prepare the top to suit a future project using a dual loop system and a quad CPU on the same motherboard.

Radiical Turbo Head Top on Laing DDC Pump Body

Dual Loop Radiical Turbo Head Unit

We are using some of Eddy's (EK water blocks) barbs for the pump to evaluate our new 7/16" high flow barbs against the EK product. I might just mention here that the EK barbs are very well made and a credit to Eddy and his team.

Radiical Water Blocks

Water blocks are always in the testing process here with minor adjustments to flow rate, base plate thickness and so on. We do this so that so that we can tailor our water blocks to ranges of pumps and also to cater for new developments in CPU evolution as rapidly as possible.

In this project we will be looking at testing several of our current water blocks on the "Rack" starting with our Radiical SRX model.

We have selected the SRX for its small footprint and cross flow design. The SRX differs from the larger CWX and WHX which are center impingement designs. Originally this block was designed to cater for Socket A motherboards at about 80 Watts. It was very clear even then that this block was capable of handling far greater heat loads. Now with the evolution of hotter dual core and quad core CPU's the SRX block is starting to make a real impression particularly with the higher rated pumps.

Real Estate and space constraints

The often quoted maxim about real estate is position, position, position. Nothing could be more true about the modern motherboard. The competition for faster and faster motherboards all contained within the same case space constraints has made component placement options scarce.

It is true that despite exclusion zones around the CPU socket there are more and more component encroachments into the sensitive areas for water block placement. The SRX base plate footprint addresses this problem in that it does not exceed the boundaries of the LGA775 socket and remains unaffected by any component encroachments on the motherboard socket area. There is therefore a high degree of future proofing in this form of design in that it performs well at high heat loads and is not affected by components errantly placed around the socket area.

The final comment we should make here regarding the space constraints is that the increasing use of heat pipe type coolers for mosfets and chipset's is really not helping a lot. To be honest most of these solutions are simply not coping well at all. Not only do they not work very well they tend to be obstructive. In our case when we tried to fit the Maze 4 GPU block the chipset main cooler simply blocked one of the Maze 4 fitting screws. It was necessary to remove the Maze 4 and cut down the offending fixing screw so that the GPU water block could be fitted.

To chipset cool or not to chipset cool that is the question

Lets just look at another observed issue on the Asus P5B Deluxe board we are using here. During our baseline measurements we measured the chipset operating temperature at 25 degrees above ambient. In our case it consistently ran at 50> degrees C even with the heat pipe cooling and the dinky little fan installed. Given that the chipset is central to our attempts at overclocking we felt that this should also go the way of all other impediments and we replaced it with our Radiical chipset cooler.

During the removal of the heat pipe cooling on the chipset and mosfets the reason for some of the poor cooling performance was made apparent.

Partial TIMM Chipset coverage

Offset chipset cooler contact

Offset Mosfet cooler and poor TIM contact

The predominant issue with chipset water cooling is the problem of how to create the radius turn from GPU block to chipset block without either disrupting the GPU block, compressing the tubing or forcing the chipset block off the face of the chip. We have solved this problem by taking the position that returning the tubing from the hard drive cooler to the chipset block will provide the least restrictive alternative so that is what we have done.

The net result of fitting a chipset block is shown below.

Chipset using heat pipes 56.2 degrees C when water cooled 34 degrees C.

With the major water cooling elements in place we elected to use two of the the three 120mm fan side mounts provided on the Torture Rack for sessional ram and Mosfets cooling. We used the fans on the hotter days of testing to evaluate the value of fans on mosfets and ram cooling. The fans were also used to check system temperatures changes which are known to be affected by air flow around that area of the motherboard. Setting the fans to the lowest speed value during this testing allowed for almost silent running.

Finally we measured returning water temperature with a PT100 probe using the third port on top of the radiator rather than using the traditional inline measurement.

The System

Time now for a quick recap of what we have done so far.

We have water cooled the CPU, GPU, Hard Drive and the Northbridge chipset. The whole system is powered by our Radiical Turbo Head top fitted to a Laing DDC 18W pump body. A Radiical Extreme Single Pass Radiator with two Xinrulllian fans has been fitted to the Torture Rack on bugs legs using our extender kit. Two 120 mm fans have been placed one on each side of the Torture Rack to affect cooling of the Mosfets and to provide turbulent air, simulating a normal case interior, to any passive heat sinks on the GPU side of the motherboard.

So with the victim ready its over to Igor and on with the Torture.

First up its wanton pleasure time where we range up the CPU to test its legs. Basic overclocking here is without any refinement so all BIOS settings are left on auto.

Auto Settings in Bios results

Second attempt after refining the CPU voltage the same over clocking value is available at a much lower CPU voltage.

Remember that we are not after overclocking immortality here. We are looking for a high over clock with stability and good temperature management.

Third Overclock.

Fourth Overclock.

Now its on to final overclocking and stability testing. The above values are all game stable.

Conclusion;

Overall we are happy with the current progress in our overclocking adventures particularly since we are water cooling most of the hottest components on the motherboard..

Well like everyone else are very impressed with Core 2 Duo as a CPU development. Even in its hotter B0 stepping version the results are quite amazing. I might point out that we limited the overclocking shown above to what in reality is under voltage overclocking. Still 1Ghz overclock at below normal voltage is quite an accomplishment we thought. Given full access to voltage increases who knows what this particular CPU is capable of. Certainly Igor is going to find out.

So in the dead of night when you hear in the distance the sound of screaming ring the police cause it isn't Igor..... I think.

Next.......... The Testing Results.

Copyright Radiical Pty Ltd 2007