Watercooling an AMD Athlon 5000+ BE

[BALISTX]

I have a friend that has an AMD Athlon 5000+ BE and he has it at 3.2GHz with an AC 64 Pro. He was thinking about water cooling, do you think a water cooling setup is worth it? How much more of an OC do you think he can gain?

 

[Mibs]

Well after my recent experience I would say it's worth it just for the fun of it. You don't necessarily have to spend an arm and a leg to put together a decent kit. Depending on how much more the chip is willing to give, and what temperatures he is willing to keep, he should see a noticeable improvement. I haven't done much significant benchmarking since I put my cpu under water, but I was able to make pretty large voltage increases with still reasonable temps. I saw more of an improvement with my gpu than my cpu though.

 

[BALISTX]

Interesting, would you recommend a kit like the Swiftech H20-120? He's just OCing the CPU.

 

[Mibs]

I know it's a decent kit, and installation could not be easier. However I don't know if the performance gains you will see over a pretty decent air cooler would be worth it for that. Hopefully somebody with more experience in the field will chime in here and give you a second opinion.

 

[BALISTX]

I think a custom kit although more expensive would probably see more gains

 

[JD]

H20-220 kit would probably do fine. Plus he could add in a GPU if he wanted.

Though I think the fans that Swiftech includes are rather noisy so you might want to replace them with push/pull P12s, S-FLEX or Yates.

 

[3.0charlie]

The H2O-120 is a fine kit, but I agree that it won't give any advantage over a good air setup. Watch the FS threads for used parts - the Apogee GT block is still very potent contender; grab a dual swiftech rad with a MCP-355 pump and you're good to go.

Or if $20 is not a problem, the new H2O-220 is definitely better for $159: Swiftech H20-220 Compact 3/8IN Dual 120MM CPU Liquid Cooling Kit - DirectCanada. Though I'm still undecided regarding the Apogee Drive pump...

 

[WolfBane]

So whats the diff between the swiftech MCP-355 pump i see everyone uses and the pump i am getting from Paul?

 

[sswilson]

Go for at least the 220 kit. I found the 120 kit really didn't offer much improvement over high end air.

As far as how much of an improvement your friend would see...

I wouldn't expect to see much as the AM2 chips haven't been reported doing much over 3G no matter how much cooling you provide. That said, the great thing about water cooling is that it will port over to any new build a person does, and once it gets under your skin it soon becomes a required component of any build you do.

 

[3.0charlie]

So whats the diff between the swiftech MCP-355 pump i see everyone uses and the pump i am getting from Paul?

You're getting my old DD DB-1 pump - still a very good choice, also allows for barb selection unlike the MCP-355, with which you are stuck with 3/8".

DB-1 Compact Low Noise 12 Volt Pump Products Model: DB-1 [DD-CPX1] : Performance-PCs.com, ... sleeve it and they will come