Already did: http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=24305

OK, we will publish it at the weekend. i'll contact you by email if we need anything.

As to a link at HardOCP .. i never post at any other tech forum except ABT. You guys should be posting links to ABT articles - not me

i got Thermaltake's Water2.0 Pro set up on my ECS MB
--i just realized that i need to compare it to the NH-DH14 and apples to apples is on the same MB. What i am doing now is comparing temps at the same frequencies from stock to 4.8GHz to see if midrange Watercooling can beat high end air cooling (it's basically an Asetek cooler like the one i use to get FX 8150 to 4.6GHz). i think it will be very close
-- at stock, the Noctua cools to 59C under OCCT while the Water2.0 seems to be at 57C

The real test is at 4.8GHz. After that, i'll set up my EVGA motherboard and try for 5.0 with the 2 Thermaltake watercoolers versus the Ncotua NH-DH14

In the meantime, i'm writing the ECS MB review/IPC evaluation. i have to say one thing .. the ECS mb is quite attractive in gold and black when it is not covered up by a big air-cooler. Score one "plus" for watercooling!


After the MB/IPC eval, comes the Tt Overseer RX-I evaluation. The the Watercoolers vs. Air will come about the same time as the EVGA MB eval. Then i have my 'final' Z77 platform set up and i will return to benching regular driver performance analysis and the "usual". Bear with me another couple of weeks. We have been working on our news (and even a future newsletter!)

apoppin you're not going to hit 5ghz with an Ivy CPU. You are already doing much better than I had ever expected, but more than that is too much IMO.

That isn't the point. The adventure is the journey, not the arrival.

Along the way, we can compare two watercoolers against Noctua's flagship cooler.
(the water "looks" better).

I find that a badass heatsink looks way cooler than water cooling.

I'm impressed that you got up to 4.8ghz. I doubt it would be stable at that speed for the long term though.

I'm currently focussed on overclocking my smartphone but there are no tools out to do it yet.

The custom ROMs are awesome, though. I really like CM9/ICS and I think it matches the Apple iOS.

I'll put up pics tonight or tomorrow morning and then you tell me what you think. The ECS MB is black with gold accents and it looks great with watercooling imo.

i think there is a shot at 5GHz with the EVGA MB. My 3770K is still under 80C under full load at 4.8GHz and the voltage is not extreme (yet)

i like the uncluttered look of watercooling. What do you think?

the water cooling is a lot less cluttered. It looks great btw

5.0GHz Success!


But not with the NH-DH14. It tops out at 4.9GHz and it's pretty hot. The Thermaltake Water2.0 can handle 4.9GHz ... stable and hot but possible for benching

HOWEVER, i am not going to bench at 5.0GHz. The i7-3770K ES requires 1.435V to stabilize it and the temps move into the mid-90sC. This is where *i* chicken out. If i had an absolutely top watercooling setup, 5.0GHz is doable but i hate to put so much overvoltage into it (1.435V) when 1.325 will work with 4.8GHz and 1.350V with 4.9GHz

Next, i will try to fine tune this later on (to coincide with my Water2.0 evaluation). Also, i may not have the cooler perfectly seated and if i can drop temps a few degrees, it might become stable with less than 1.4V.