Cases for PCs with Liquid Cooling built in?

sunilramansunilraman
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
hi there, as we can see, the powermac g5 with liquid cooling is really a great design that i am shocked to discover PC case makers have not yet copied -- i don't mean the aesthetics, i mean also the functionality.



1. discrete thermal zones

2. fans guiding the air strongly in one direction only

3. liquid cooling "built-in"

4. good combination of fans and liquid cooling. that is, the case fans are integrated well with the liquid cooling radiator









so i have fine tweaked my overclocked rig:

amd venice 3000+ stock: 1.8ghz stable OC: 2.4ghz

FSB: 1ghz stock, OC: 1.2ghz

memory OC: 3-3-3-7 @ 2.75v @ 396mhz

nvidia 6600gt 128vram stock: 500mhz core OC: 570mhz, mem OC: 1.20ghz



this is with zalman cpu 7700 cooler (all copper) and vantec iceberq5 vga cooler (all copper)



i ripped out the dodgy asus southbridge "little whiner" fan and placed a 80mm fan blowing over the southbridge heatsink (aluminium). this acoustic modelling makes things overall more pleasant.



now my assault on the cpu casing: it needs to be light, rugged and portable (as in it may be carried once every few months). needs one or two 120mm fans in, one or two 120mm fans at the back. does not need power suppy, i have that separately. integrated liquid cooling would be nice.



i still have not come across anything decent, from $1 to $1000 from PC case manufacturers, nothing that comes close to the engineering piece of perfection that is the g5 case.



i DO NOT need frivolous lights, uv cable sleeving, or transparent windows, or stupid fake gauges and dumbass front panels and stuff (eg dell xps)



anyone know anything nice? the only thing that comes close is the asus vento case, but the shape is a bit too much for me. something sleeker? or just not as curved and crazy?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Seems like Lian Li is still one of the best in terms of build quality and design. Their new water cooled cases in conjunciton with koolance are quite nice.



    Check out the nice images of this case:

    http://www.koolance.com/shop/product...roducts_id=180
  • Reply 2 of 11
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    thanks for the linky... us$525 !@@@@@@!!! more than the price of a mac mini itself
  • Reply 3 of 11
    skatmanskatman Posts: 609member
    1. discrete thermal zones



    What exactly is the purpose of that? The only thing that this creates is the need for many tiny fans which are loud.



    2. fans guiding the air strongly in one direction only



    In any well designed computer, the air moves in one direction. Not just in an Apple. The difference is that this can be accomplished with 2-3 large fans that are well-placed and always turn slow such that they're quiet. Don't need 9 small ones that make noise.



    3. liquid cooling "built-in"



    Why do I need liquid cooling when my Dualcore Athlon dissapates ~80 watts tops. I can cool it with a heatsink and a 120mm fan turning at 1600 RPM. Think simple!

    Or even better, put in a Pentium M. Fast and has maximum heat dissipation at less than 30 watts. Easily cooled with a passive heatsink.



    4. good combination of fans and liquid cooling. that is, the case fans are integrated well with the liquid cooling radiator



    Having 9 small fans is a BAD combination.



    I have a Lian Li case, 3 fans (80 mm power supply fan running at 533 RPM, 120 mm CPU fan running at 1600 RPM, rear 80 mm Panaflow case Fan running at 1200 RPM) it's quiet and light. The loudest thing, by far is the Seagate drive.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    nowayout11nowayout11 Posts: 326member
    Unlike Apple who controls their own standards, the PC industry doesn't really have the luxury of changing undustry-wide standards on the fly.



    New standards are generally disruptive and must be worth it and necessary for them to really catch on. Intel did release a new BTX standard, but has flopped thus far since the benefits are negligible. The G5 "looks" clean inside, but I'm not particularly interested in sticking my hand in there any more than I am with my PC cases.
  • Reply 5 of 11
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    yeah i take it skatman you do not own a powermac g5 it's really funny, a lot of you kids (anders this means you) are such l33t mac users you don't even need to use a mac anymore to follow apple closely WTF?



    but yeah i might be overthinking this a bit.

    here's a rundown of my current fans:



    cpu - 1900rpm 120mm fan (zalman 7700cu)

    gpu - 1900rpm ?mm fan (ultraquiet - vantec iceberq 5, its awesome)

    southbridge - 2900rpm 80mm fan (generic uv us$7.00 fan)



    power supply - the usual fan



    i want

    1 fan to draw cool air in from the front over the hard disk (120mm 1200rpm case fan or something) and

    1 fan to exhaust hot air out the back (120mm 1200rpm case fan or something)



    am i more on track now? essentially i'm looking for a decent aluminium case with one front fan and one back fan. and space to put in some air filters -- very essential, air where i am living is very dusty.......
  • Reply 6 of 11
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by sunilraman

    (anders this means you)



    What? Want to have your ass whipped?
  • Reply 7 of 11
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    heh. yeah i'm asking for trouble arent i
  • Reply 8 of 11
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    "Why do I need liquid cooling when my Dualcore Athlon dissapates ~80 watts tops. I can cool it with a heatsink and a 120mm fan turning at 1600 RPM. Think simple!....."



    dude, a dualcore athlon is really offering the best performance per watt at this stage. i agree. and great value too, i don't think a pentium M for a desktop is worth it.



    and yeah, an athlon x2 3800+ 2ghz stock can be pushed to 2.4ghz easy, i reckon.
  • Reply 9 of 11
    gongon Posts: 2,437member
    Forget liquid cooling, get an Antec P180.



    http://www.silentpcreview.com/article255-page1.html
  • Reply 10 of 11
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    well, nothing still comes close to the orgasmic cooling beauty and power that is the powermac g5











    not just your standard waterblocks, but it uses microchannels and electrokinetic tech and stuff

    http://www.hardmac.com/news/2005-11-29/#4794
  • Reply 11 of 11
    skatmanskatman Posts: 609member
    Quote:

    not just your standard waterblocks, but it uses microchannels and electrokinetic tech and stuff



    Just a bunch of pseudo-tech marketing stuff to explain pretty simple effects. If these guys were trully smart, they could cycle the fluid completely passively based on the thermal expansion of fluid and boyancy. That way you don't need a pump at all.



    Quote:

    yeah i take it skatman you do not own a powermac g5 it's really funny, a lot of you kids (anders this means you) are such l33t mac users you don't even need to use a mac anymore to follow apple closely WTF?



    I support at least 5 Macs at work. I get enough of Apple there, such that I don't need to own one. =)
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