Overclocking my CPU and watercooling.

[leecho7]

I managed to overclock my AMD 3700 to 2.4 gigs. I had it up to 2.6 but it kept freezing after 30 minutes or so of gameplay. The temps reached up to only 45c at that speed. The voltage was at 1.44. I'm guessing it's my memory, since it's just a pair of crucial micron pc 2700's 2x512.

Well, I should be having some money lying around soon and was looking to experiment with water cooling. Only thing is, I have no idea where to start. Any suggestions?

 

[jc634]

Depends on what you want to do. Quiet? More OC (water probably won't take you higher, if memory is the culprit).

Just the CPU? Video Card? Anything else?

Do you want a kit or DIY?

And finally, what is your budget?

Jim

 

[leecho7]

I'm guessin that DIY means 'Do it yourself' right? If that's the case, then yeah. I'm looking to do it myself.
I'm not really into going overclocking to the extreme. I'm pretty confident my overclocking issue is due to my crappy ram. I just want to experiment with liquid cooling.
I replace radiators and such on cars, and am kinda approaching water cooling for the cpu kinda like cooling for a vehicle.
I'm willing to spend about 200-300 bucks on a system. I'm looking to cool both cpu and vga.

 

[jc634]

Sorry, I meant buy your components piece by piece, for DIY. For a kit, I would highly recommend the Swiftech Apex kit. Techgage has it reviewed here:http://forums.techgage.com/showthread.php?t=706.

I have a slightly older version. It has everything you would need for your application.

If you go the DIY route, you will probably be able to get by a little cheaper, without sacrificing quality. The caveat is that you need to be very knowledgable about the various components. I don't pretend to be , and I don't have unlimited resources to test every component to determine which is best, hence the Swiftech kit.

BTW, I did not like the fans that came with this kit. I changed them to some Schythe fans, which pushed the same amount of air, but were much quieter.

Jim

 

[Rob Williams]

Matt can also vouch for -anything- Swiftech makes. The guy at the company takes a lot of pride in his work, so he makes sure he doesn't release crap.

Glad you want to get into WC'ing man. That chip really should do at -least- 2.7GHz. I could do 2.7GHz stable on my 3200+ Venice, on air. 2.85GHz~ with water.

 

[madmat]

The Apex Ultra is an awesome kit but many consider it a bit pricey. With the GPU blocks it tipped the scales at $380 (plus shipping) but the D.D. DIY kit was $326 sans shipping.

Now, the D.D. kit did not have Coolsleeves nor a Radbox and the fans for it were an additional $40. So buying an identical D.D. setup would run you $366 plus shipping and if you need a Radbox (and for anything but internally mounting the rad, you might) that's an additional $15 so it's still just as expensive.

Anyways, congrats on deciding to get your feet wet and if you need help email me or PM me or catch me online in the IM client of your choice.

 

[sbrehm72255]

I'm still around a bit also and highly recomend Swiftech parts, I've got botha a APEX kit from them as well as a DIY system. For the time being, there's not really any other kit that I would recomend..............

 

[leecho7]

Ok, I was able to to OC my cpu with my crap ram to 2.6 stable with voltage of 1.38. Ran Prime95 for 2 hours without any problems. I tried to OC it to 2.8 but windows wouldn't boot. I'm guessing I need to boost the voltage a bit or need better ram, which I will be getting shortly.

I decided to stick with air cooling for now and use that money to invest in a better graphics card or get a sli compatible mobo.