Date: August 3, 2006 - Author: Greg King - Editor: Rob Williams
Are you looking to delve into the world of water cooling, but don't know where to start? Danger Den has sent us a slew of products to get our rig up and running, including the new AMD TDX block. Since this is also my first high-end water cooling rig, I relay my experiences to you.
A wise man once said Its getting hot in her herre. Could he have been talking about computer hardware? Perhaps, but I wouldnt bet you on it.
One of the worst enemies your computer is heat. There are a few options you can choose when combating the ever increasing heat of your computer [especially with this extreme summer heat!]. Up until recently, air was the method of choice. With more time however, enthusiasts began cooling their computer with homemade water cooling kits. As this approach became more and more accepted, water cooling became mainstream.
There are many companies that offer their own unique hardware to keep your computers temperature in check and today, we are taking a look at Danger Den.
Danger Den has been around for quite some time now and with each revision, their water blocks get more refined and while they are most famous for their water blocks, they also product pumps, radiators and reservoirs. Directly from their web site, you can browse through their items and pick out your personal water cooling setup. While this is easy, DD has taken this a step further and created complete water kits that you can purchase. Dependant of your hardware, DD offers different kits that will suit your exact system cooling needs.
Today in the Techgage lab, we are taking an AMD/NVIDIA based water cooling kit for a test drive. With DD sending us their famous TDX water block, I will conveniently be using this to cool my AMD X2 4600+ (thank you for the price drop AMD!) Also included in this kit as DDs brand new MAG pump, the DD MAG II, a Maze 4 GPU water block, one black ice pro radiator, one clear 5 1/4 bay reservoir and seven feet of Tygon 1/2 ID tubing.
Now that we know what this kit includes, lets get into the review
The first piece we have up is the CPU water block. This block, as mentioned earlier, is an AMD copper TDX. This block will support sockets 754, 939 and 940. The base is a solid piece of copper with the inside milled out. There are two barbs on the top of the cooler that screw into the clear top. There are 4 screws that hold the clear top and the cooper base together with a rubber o-ring in-between the two to prevent any leaks.
Here are the specs, provided by Danger Den themselves:
As you can see, you can get your TDX water block with either 1/2 or 3/8 OD fittings. You can also see that the base of the block has been polished past 1200 grit.
Moving on, lets take a look at the Maze 4 GPU water block.
The water block is assembled in the same fashion of the TDX water block but lacks a clear top. This is not a big deal as the Maze 4 will be on the underside of the video card.
More info provided by DD:
Complete Block Assembled with Top and O-ring Total weight approximately 6oz (171 grams)Anti-Corrosion Design (NEVER will corrode)! High Flow 1/2" or 3/8" OD Fittings Low flow restriction low pressure drop Stainless Steel Hold Down Machined Lapped and polished beyond 1200 grit Pressure tested before shipment to 85psi
It should be noted that the Maze4 is not compatible with every video card. Danger Den provides a list of compatible video cards from both ATI and NVIDIA. I will be using it on my eVGA 7800GT.
Compatibility ATI:
Compatibility ATI: Most Radeon Series blocks (9500, 9600, 9800, and X800 series) with the two hole mounted fans. Excludes the All-In-Wonders before the X1900 Series X1600/X1800/X1900 series uses the "X" series hold down like the NVIDIA 68/7800 series
Compatibility NVIDIA: *NEW* support for the 6800/7800 series (NOT 7800GS) and support for the "4" series on up to 59XXFX. Holes are available for the GeForce 2 and 3 series and should work also. The 6800 series uses the 4 bolt hold down style versus the standard two bolt pattern of previous cards.
While this is the block I am working with, I should mention that DD also offers a low profile version of this water block for those of you running SLI. The performance is the same but the top of the block sits closer to the GPU than the regular Maze4.
Next up we have the radiator. The radiator in the kit is the Black Ice Pro and can accommodate one 120mm fan either pulling air across the fins of the radiator or pushing air across.
Before we get to the pictures and my thoughts, lets take a look at the specs provided by Danger Den
As you can see, the radiator was built with a 120mm fan in mind and because of this; you can see the mounting holes for such a fan. Another view shows how thick this radiator is. Those of you with smaller cases might want to take note.
One thing I noticed with the Black Ice Pro is how close the fins are together. This allows more surface area for air to blow over and chill the water as it passes through the radiator. You also notice that all of the barbs are 1/2 ID (inside diameter) and are what DD calls their perfect seal fitting. They have this name as there is a definite ring around the end of the barb, and once a clamp is used to secure your tube to the barb, there is virtually no chance for water to escape from the fitting itself.
Moving onto the reservoir, we are working with a Danger Den made, single 5 1/4 bay reservoir. The reservoir is made out of clear acrylic and does not have any sharp edges. At the front of the reservoir, there is a fill port where you obviously fill up your loop with distilled water or whatever else you want to run through your loop.
Again, from the pictures and the specs, you can see that this reservoir is also using the high flow fittings.
There you have it. There really isnt a whole lot to it, but this is a piece that doesnt really need to be complicated. All it needs to do is look good and it does this wellat least empty.
Also included in the kit was 7 feet of Tygon tubing as well as a small bottle of Zerex super coolant. I have worked with the Zerex stuff before and have not noticed a difference in temperatures in the past. It also is not UV reactive and clouds up the water a slight bit so this will not be used. The tubing however is sold directly from DD and can be purchased in one foot intervals. At $2.80 (US) a foot, this is not something that you want to get too much of but I have found that 7 feet is ample when setting up a loop in your computer. There was even some extra when I was done to add my second 7800 GT to the loop but I did not have a water block at that time.
Once again, not much to this but its certainly vital to have quality components when you are building a water loop in your PC.
Last but not least, we get to the water pump.
The pump is incredibly important to all water loops. You have to have good flow over your blocks or the setup is not going to cool as well as it should. The pump we are using today is from Danger Dens famous DD5, but is made by DD themselves.
The Danger Den MAG II LE is a tiny little guy and runs off of a 3 pin header on your mother board. It too has the perfect seal fittings on it. Lets get into some of its specs and find out what its all about.
And one more to show you the size of the pump in relation to my hand. It really is that small of a pump.
To most, the first water cooling setup install can make one a bit nervous. While I have built many water cooled computers in the past, this is the first high quality setup that I have ever put into my own case. I am picky about how my setup looks as well so I took my time when installing all this.
The installation of everything was pretty easy. For the Maze4, you simply remove your current heatsink
You then want to install the all thread into the 4 mounting holes on the edge of the block.
From here, you apply your TIM. In my case, I am using Arctic Silver 5 as I just ran out of the ceramique but it will work just as well. With arctic silver, you have to be careful not to put too much on your chips because if you do, it will push out onto your PCB. Since AS5 is conductive, it could short out your hardware if it comes into contact with it. That is the only reason I use ceramique. After your TIM is applies, slip your all thread through the mounting holes. From here, you need to put on the foam pad, then the acrylic backplate, a plastic washer, the tension spring, another plastic washer and finally, the brass screws. This all needs to be done in this order for a correct install.
From here, you will want to install RAM sinks. For this, I chose some OCZ copper RAM sinks. While you do not have to install RAM sinks, I do as I think they look better than just having bare chips.
Installation of the CPU water block was just as easy. You use the existing back plate, screw in the all thread, put a nut on the all thread to hold them in place, slide the water block on, the throw on the plastic washer, spring, plastic washer and finally the nut. Its that simple.
I mounted the radiator in the back, for obvious reasons and the reservoir in the front under my optical drives.
The loop setup goes like this:
Pump > CPU > Radiator > GPU > Reservoir > Pump
I know that I could have put the radiator before the CPU but as it is now, the CPU stays plenty cool and the GPU is incredibly cool compared to it stock temperature on air of approximately 45°C.
The results were impressive to say the least. The temperatures were taken while the CPU was at idle speeds and again when it was maxed out. To max out the dual cores, I ran CPU burn-in and a 32M Pi calculation. This was more than enough to keep the CPU at 100% load.
On air, my 4600+ idled around 33° and 43°under load. While overclocked, the air cooling idled around 35° and when loaded, was at 44°. Now these are not bad numbers for a stock heatsink but on water, the temps dropped even more.
Here is a screen shot of the temps at idle and then again at load when running at stock speeds:
And again at load
As you can see, the drop in temperature is impressive. I am really stoked about the temp of the GPU. It has always been a hot core, but with water, it does a lot better.
Now for some results with the CPU overclocked to 2.75 GHz
And again, overclocked
Once again, pretty impressive.
How about we see those results in a graph! Certainly!
The results speak for themselves. There was a full 4 degrees separating the air and water stock temps and when you get into load temps, the difference is even larger.
As the review showed, my PC, when cooled with the Danger Den kit had a sharp decrease in temperatures. My initial thoughts were that this was going to cool kick air cooling right in the junk and in most cases this is correct. Perhaps I was wrong to think that it would cool any lower but I was aiming for mid twenties. I know this is obtainable and I will continue to work on it.
I was most impressed with the drop in my GPU temperatures. The temps fell almost 10 degrees going from stock cooling to the Maze4. This has allowed me to overclock my GPU from 445 MHz all the way up to 525 MHz and run that stable. Thats a nice 80 MHz increase and my benchmarks show the difference.
As you can see, the only real complaint I have with this setup is the price. While I would gladly pay the $200 - $300 price that a comparable kit like this would cost, most people do not have that kind of money laying around me included. The results speak for themselves. Danger Den has been supporting the PC enthusiast for a long time and their latest hardware is no different. The installation was a breeze and the results were worth the effort.
One thing I would like to see addressed is a solution for us DFI Ultra-D owners. The PCI-E slots are just too close to get a proper bend for SLI cooling. With a pair of GTs, the Tygon would not bend enough to get to the other card without kinking. I tried an internal spring as well as zip ties to combat the kinks. While these worked, the tube, with either of the solutions installed, would end up pulling my cards apart and the last thing I want to do is to damage my cards. Perhaps a pre-bent polypropylene 180 degree joint would work. I am not sure if these are sold anywhere but if they are, DD might want to pick them up. This would certainly help out a lot of people.
Regardless of the price issue, the DD kit is worth every penny. With that in mind, I am giving the Danger Den water cooling kit a perfect 10 out of 10. This met all of my expectations and even surpassed a few.
Please check back later as I will be experimenting with adding a second radiator to the loop, as well as making a custom loop in order to cool my second card and get some SLI loving again.
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