Phenom 9850 BE and 2x 3870x2 Watercooling

[LaKraven]

Hi all.... I've read a few posts dealing with water cooling multiple GPU's here in these forums.... and I have seen how good the replies are. As such, I've decided to register and see if anyone here can help me with my problem.

Here's the system:
CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition (AM2+) stock @ 2.5GHz
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6
GFX: 2x AMD ATI Radeon HD 3870x2 cards on Crossfire
RAM: 8GB Corsair Dominator 1066MHz (can up to 16GB on dual channel mode)
CASE: Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 v2 (lovely full tower system)
PSU: 1000w AKASA thing (not the best, I know, but works perfectly all the same)

The rest of the internals are irrelevant I guess, so I won't list them.

Now then... I have tried pretty much everything anyone can try with some of the highest end air cooling systems, and I cannot keep the system both acceptably cool, as well as quiet. The CPU is not really the issue, though if I can get it below 40c idle temp, then I can set the overclock again to 3.7GHz as I once did for a short time (until the heat issue got annoying).

Anyway, I would like to set up a water cooling system (having never done one before). I noticed for a guy asking for advice to water cool his dual 8800GTS setup, one of the members in here went to the wonderful extreme of giving him a list of parts and links he needed to put a kit together. If someone can do that for me, that would be absolutely awesome.

Couple of things to take into consideration: Money is no object, but I wouldn't like to spend lots to do something that can be done either just as well or even better for less. The GPUs are the main thing I would like to water cool.... I notice that EK has some nice waterblocks for the 3870x2s, but honestly I hardly know where to start with watercooling. I live in the UK and want to mail order parts ASAP, so UK links and suppliers would be greatly preffered.

The EK waterblocks I've seen are: EK HD 3870 X2 Full Cover VGA Water Block

Even though I'm new to water cooling, I've been building PCs since the days of black and white amstrad systems, so I'm pretty savvy :)

Thanks in advance, and I like the community feel in here (from the many posts I've already read on these forums).

[stinger608]

Well, as with my Asus M2N32 Deluxe SLI motherboard, I have to go into the Bios and set the CPU voltage to 1.2v! Check that in your bios! Some motherboards will auto set the voltage to somewhere around 1.37, which is way to high for stock settings for the 9850BE!

[LaKraven]

Originally Posted by stinger608

Well, as with my Asus M2N32 Deluxe SLI motherboard, I have to go into the Bios and set the CPU voltage to 1.2v! Check that in your bios! Some motherboards will auto set the voltage to somewhere around 1.37, which is way to high for stock settings for the 9850BE!

Appreciate the advice however, I have already set it to 1.2v, and to be honest I'm not that worried about CPU temp right now so much as the 3870x2's!

That said, if you can give me some suggestion for a good VCORE voltage to use for a 3.7GHz overclock of the 9850BE, that'd be nice ;)

[stinger608]

From what I have found, even overclocking the chip, it should be around the 1.25-1.30 area. Some have had to up the voltage even more though.
I think it just depends on the particular chip. Some have reported that they had to up the voltage to around the 1.35-1.37 mark to get them stable.
You may just have to mess with it a little and find that "sweet spot" for the voltage

[LightningEagle7]

Heres a link for a spiffy 3870x2 water block from koolance...

VID-387X2 (Radeon HD 3870 X2 GDDR3) [no nozzles] - Water cooling systems, pc liquid cooling kit, cpu, video card, hard drive

And here is one from Danger Den...

Danger*Den*::*Water*Blocks...

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

Greetings to the Forum! Glad your here.
You have already been appreciated by your other links ... hope we can help.
Yellowhello and a few in here are pretty savvy as far as water cooling goes.

[LaKraven]

Originally Posted by Tech Geek Deluxe

Greetings to the Forum! Glad your here.
You have already been appreciated by your other links ... hope we can help.
Yellowhello and a few in here are pretty savvy as far as water cooling goes.

Thanks for the welcome.... I'm almost sordidly looking forward from taking the plunge into liquid cooling (no pun intended).

I did make an external cooling system (a non-condensing mini air conditioner) which used TEC plates (heat pipes and liquid with a medium speed pump to cool the hot-side of the TECs) to pump COLD air into the case using its existing intake fans... rather than air at room temperature.

Believe it or not it did make a significant difference, but nowhere near what I'd hoped for!
Bottom line is I don't just want to buy some pre built solution and hope it works for me. I'd rather put in the effort and make something myself (granted using existing parts but in my own ways). I'm told that it's much more effective, and I know it'd be more gratifying!

I like these forums.... y'all seem to be very knowledgable and cool people.