Dual Evga Gtx 285 - Sli

[newls1]

IIRC Dell used rebadged PCP&C PSUs in the AlienWare and XPS cases. None of their OEM stuff was really up to the task

Ideally you want one of the massive single rail ones but as mentioned above a quality 1000w PSU with plenty of amps on the +12 rail/s should run almost anything you can throw at it right now.

IMO you want separate loops for the CPU and GPUs, with the way things are with GPUs these days you could probably get away with a single quality 120mm rad on the CPU on one loop and a dual 120mm rad loop for the GPUs.

Otherwise you have to use very very free-flowing blocks in your system (3 complex blocks in a row = no flow = hot) and thermally it's a lot better - with only a single rad and the blocks in series the last chip in the loop is going to be getting very warm water through it anyway.

You could use a large common reservoir at the end of the loop but again this could be inefficient i.e if the GPU loop runs a lot warmer than the CPU one.

Watercooling is like doing a big system in a car - if you just dive in and do it you might get good results but it could always be better. If you carefully plan your loop/s and think about the little things you'll end up with a better system in the end.

That rig above is hotness but personally I was never a big fan of putting the rad at the top of the system (unless you had a T-line at the same height as the top of the rad) because they're a total bastard to bleed all the bubbles out of. Air in your rad = poor thermal efficiency.

My rule of thumb has always been rad at the lowest point, res at the highest point. That way it virtually bleeds itself, you just leave the plug out of your T-line or res for a few days

If your going to be watercooling a CORE i7, a single 120mm rad wont do it. With HT on, and all 4 cores enabled, a single 120mm rad will show diminishing returns. HT on, on these i7's really bring up the heat load. I have seen OCs of 4.3+Ghz stable on i7's (i920) with HT off, but when that HT gets enabled, you must jack up the Vcore beyond the 45nm barrier of 1.375v and heat becomes tuff to handle. The new "D0" stepping i7 is out now, but I have not had a chance to play with 1 yet, but my fellow people over on XS have had excellent results. Of course you can run vcore of 1.4+ through these pigs, but you must keep the un-core, in check with the Vdimm (1.65) as the mem controller is built into these new chips, or you will have some bad issues. SKT1366 is fun though after you achieve a stable OC, and very speedy.

People all have there own personal favorite way to mount rads, res'es, etc.....The PA120.3 rad has a bleed screw in the rad itself, so bleeding it in that position is cake, just make sure your res cap is on and TIGHT before you unplug that bleed screw on the rad....holy shit, I forgot one time, and water came pouring out the res, was funny as shit to be honest.

Edited May 14, 2009 by newls1

[newls1]

Wow, steve you amazed me. I saw the word "gtx" and "285" and i was...speechless. But its a good thing =)

I am also a fellow computer nerd. I just finished a christmas build, here is my new setup.

Core i7 920 OC to 3.2 on water

4gigs of DDR3

(3) 1tb 7200rpm HDD's

Asus Rampage MB

(1) EVGA GTX 295 (looking to get a 2nd, but my car will be taking my money from me here in a little bit)

And a Lian Case.

You do know the new re-done version of the GTX295 is coming out very soon, so you might want to find a GTX295 sooner then later. The new GTX295 will have both GPUs on one board (just like the ATi 4870x2) At this point im not sure if the SLi connector will line up (they should) with the older design 295, but you would think nvidia would have thought of people mixing the 2 version together. Here is a link to the re-designed GTX295 ( http://www.techpowerup.com/94054/First_Sin...or_Spotted.html )

[newls1]

Anyway, this thread is going way off topic, MEADE, you need to clock up those 285's to 730+Core / 1585+ shader / 2700+ Mem speeds. Use the precision overclocking evga program, and show us what you can get. Use furmark benchmark to test for stability and heat, and remember this, your GPU's will never reach temps that furmark makes, so you know that if you can pass furmark, you can PLAY ANY GAME without worries.

[David]

fuckin nerds

[audiofanaticz]

email me if u wanna sell it, ill buy it right now - id rather buy yours then sell mine since i have a bran new never used Therma-take super tower collecting dust.....me and my son wanna build it but i know myself, if i dont go SLI im not interested ill drop a pair of 8800 in it and be plenty happy for a side- computer.

wanna sell it?

yea, it was bought when my 9800gtx failed.

But I guess I fail too tho. Its a 9600gt, I dont recall buying a 9 series card, swore it was a 8 series.

None the less, it will do no good for you. My bad.

[rrims]

You do know the new re-done version of the GTX295 is coming out very soon, so you might want to find a GTX295 sooner then later. The new GTX295 will have both GPUs on one board (just like the ATi 4870x2) At this point im not sure if the SLi connector will line up (they should) with the older design 295, but you would think nvidia would have thought of people mixing the 2 version together. Here is a link to the re-designed GTX295 ( http://www.techpowerup.com/94054/First_Sin...or_Spotted.html )

Yea im more then aware of this, and for this main reason i will probably put this build on my far back burner and dump all my money into the car's system and put the rest towards college (why is it so damn expensive). So once that is all settled, i will probably build a new one when they have the new GTX795's out. lol =)

[Boon]

If your going to be watercooling a CORE i7, a single 120mm rad wont do it. With HT on, and all 4 cores enabled, a single 120mm rad will show diminishing returns. HT on, on these i7's really bring up the heat load. I have seen OCs of 4.3+Ghz stable on i7's (i920) with HT off, but when that HT gets enabled, you must jack up the Vcore beyond the 45nm barrier of 1.375v and heat becomes tuff to handle. The new "D0" stepping i7 is out now, but I have not had a chance to play with 1 yet, but my fellow people over on XS have had excellent results. Of course you can run vcore of 1.4+ through these pigs, but you must keep the un-core, in check with the Vdimm (1.65) as the mem controller is built into these new chips, or you will have some bad issues. SKT1366 is fun though after you achieve a stable OC, and very speedy.

People all have there own personal favorite way to mount rads, res'es, etc.....The PA120.3 rad has a bleed screw in the rad itself, so bleeding it in that position is cake, just make sure your res cap is on and TIGHT before you unplug that bleed screw on the rad....holy shit, I forgot one time, and water came pouring out the res, was funny as shit to be honest.

I've had some seriously hot CPUs under a shitty 2x120mm rad loop with awful rads (aluminium single pass) and an awful block and they were relatively fine.

Case in point was my old 805D, running at 4ghz with 1.6vcore that thing had a thermal output of like 235w, never got over 55 degrees. I'm sure the same could be achieved with a good quality 120mm rad in a well set up loop, aren't the i7's meant to be far more thermally efficient?

With the bleed screw, do you just take that out then hold your fillport higher than the top of the rad then fill it until the rad overflows?

And man, I feel you on the stupid watercooling mistakes... ever fired up a loop without remembering to connect a fitting deep down inside your case somewhere? Thank god for de-ionized water and the fact that I always test run my loops with no power to the computer before I turn it all on... all my soundcard needed was a BBQ and an umbrella and it could have had a pool party down there...

[newls1]

I've had some seriously hot CPUs under a shitty 2x120mm rad loop with awful rads (aluminium single pass) and an awful block and they were relatively fine.

Case in point was my old 805D, running at 4ghz with 1.6vcore that thing had a thermal output of like 235w, never got over 55 degrees. I'm sure the same could be achieved with a good quality 120mm rad in a well set up loop, aren't the i7's meant to be far more thermally efficient?

With the bleed screw, do you just take that out then hold your fillport higher than the top of the rad then fill it until the rad overflows?

And man, I feel you on the stupid watercooling mistakes... ever fired up a loop without remembering to connect a fitting deep down inside your case somewhere? Thank god for de-ionized water and the fact that I always test run my loops with no power to the computer before I turn it all on... all my soundcard needed was a BBQ and an umbrella and it could have had a pool party down there...

THe issue with i7's is the built in mem controller creats so much heat, that is why they can be a bastard to cool. Dont get me wrong, tons of people have an i7 on a dual rad that is a POS, they might think 70-75c load temps is fine (I believe the thermal cap is 105c before it will throttle down) Personally, I wouldn't accept a load temp above 62-65c for an i7. Like I said earlier, using an i7 with HT on (Enables all logical cores for a total of 4 physical, 4 logical) add in the heat from the mem controller, you will have a hot running CPU. The new 32nm i7's will be out sometime soon, this should really help the heat issue, but ini turn, the new "d0" stepping also helped heat.

[Boon]

I'm just gonna sit on my good old E6600 until Larrabee comes along

[newls1]

I'm just gonna sit on my good old E6600 until Larrabee comes along

Larrabee is going to be a GPU, not a CPU... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU)