What's acceptable for water temperature?

Soldato
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I've finally got my first custom loop up and running and I dont actually know what an acceptable temperature is for the water.

Cooling my system (see sig) is an EK D5 PWM pump, Black Ice 360 GTS, Black Ice 360 GTR (I think, its the 60mm thick multi port one) with Corsair ML120's on both rads.

I've left Heaven running for about 15 minutes now and the temps are as follows;

Water: Fluctuating between 36-39c
GPU: Around 40C
CPU: Around 44-50c (which i dont understand since its only at about 10% load).

The above temps are achieved with all 6 fans at 1000rpm and the pump at 3600rpm.

I'm a bit concerned that when i start gaming and the CPU comes under the load the above temps are going up pretty sharply.

Thanks
 
Soldato
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Can depend a lot on ambient but in this weather that seems about normal for water temp. Very similar to what mine runs at.

Cpu if its in the same loop will idle hotter due to the increase in water temp. After a good gaming session mine idles at around 40-45c with a max of around 70c usually running in the 60's.

One of the downsides to having a gpu in the same loop as cpu.

Gpu wise mine gets to around 45c.
 
Soldato
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i get around 31/32C water temps while browsing and watching videos my 2600x and gtx 1080, gaming jumps to around 38C.

But it depends on ambient temps also, make sure there's no air trapped in the loop.
 
Soldato
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You want to look at your DeltaT between ambient and water rather than absolute water temperature.

Ideally up to +5 over ambient is great, up to +10 is okay but anything much over +10 is starting to indicate you are generating more heat than your loop can dissipate. You might want to consider upping fan speeds if you're water is getting significantly hotter than ambient.

I personally use a fan curve controller which works from DeltaT water/air. +0 to +1 is minimum fan speed and slowly increases as that temperature delta does.

What type of tubing are you using? PETG you'd want to keep an eye on absolute water temp as it can start getting loose at higher temps.
 
Soldato
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As said it's all about the DeltaT. If the water entering the cpu block is well above ambient, it's hardly surprising that the cpu may show a surprisingly high temperature. But all the temps given are really good and nothing to worry about. What do the temperatures go to when gaming?
 
Soldato
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To put things into perspective, if you own a small aquarium, during summer months ambient room temp is enough to keep the water 26c tropical without the need of a heater.

By the time you add 600w for PC components, 40c is pretty good going.

Mayhems will have a spec sheet but I wouldn’t worry about it.
 
Soldato
OP
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To put things into perspective, if you own a small aquarium, during summer months ambient room temp is enough to keep the water 26c tropical without the need of a heater.

By the time you add 600w for PC components, 40c is pretty good going.

Mayhems will have a spec sheet but I wouldn’t worry about it.

Ok, thanks for putting my mind at ease :)
 
Soldato
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Not tempted to put a teabag or two in the res? Constant hot tea supply on the go.

:D :p

mate it’s ridiculous since i put the 5700XT in, i’ve gone full romo and placed an order for a external 420 Mo Ra Pro to take some of the strain off my floor standing rad. If all the new 7nm chips are this hard to cool it’s going to cause some rethinks of rigs if internal rad mounted.
 
Man of Honour
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my liquid in temps go to 65c before my fans spool up. never had a problem.

You are playing a dangerous and potentially very expensive game there. As mentioned above, most water cooling components are only rated to 60 degrees C and above that tubing can get so soft that it will leak. A water temp as high as yours is not good.


I have a DeltaT of around 3.5 degrees C over ambient when the pc is loaded due to my rads sitting in a box on a windowsill and sucking in filtered outside air. Currently it is 15.8 degrees C outside and my water temp is 19.4 degrees C. Even in the hot period we recently had my water temp didn't exceed 32 degrees C but we didn't get as hot as it did down south.

How come you choose the Black Ice 360 GTR? That radiator is for high speed fans of 1500rpm and over and is pretty useless with low speed fans. A GTX would have been a better choice.
 
Soldato
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You are playing a dangerous and potentially very expensive game there. As mentioned above, most water cooling components are only rated to 60 degrees C and above that tubing can get so soft that it will leak. A water temp as high as yours is not good.

ymmv but some of us here are old mate and i can only give my personal experience.

i have been running passive liquid cooling (when not benching) for 11 years now and never had a problem at 65c. my big rig is older than my daughter.

i was tempted to post in the gpu forum that my silverstone psu was 12 years old but was too embarrassed to own up to it.
 
Man of Honour
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I am not exactly a spring chicken at 52 years old. Fair enough and maybe you haven't had any problems but you are still exceeding the manufacturers specs and with watercooling that can get very expensive when it goes wrong. If that was me something terrible would have happened by now. Even some silent slow fans should get that water temp down to more reasonable levels.
 
Soldato
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I am not exactly a spring chicken at 52 years old. Fair enough and maybe you haven't had any problems but you are still exceeding the manufacturers specs and with watercooling that can get very expensive when it goes wrong. If that was me something terrible would have happened by now. Even some silent slow fans should get that water temp down to more reasonable levels.

ahh another mature adult on the forum, i know I am not alone :)

manufacturers specification adherence on this forum went out of the window as soon as Humbug and Kaapstad started the benching threads, i blame them for my blatant disregard for any OC rules :)

or in other words, don't copy me, I don't know what I am doing.
 
Soldato
OP
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How come you choose the Black Ice 360 GTR? That radiator is for high speed fans of 1500rpm and over and is pretty useless with low speed fans. A GTX would have been a better choice.

I couldn't remember exactly which models my rads are. One is an SR2 Xtreme+ 360 and the other is a 360 GTS.


How high do they go compared to idle, though?
My system idles at about 36ºC in warm weather, pump and fans are always at max... but when running graphics-heavy stuff and benchmarks it only goes up by 8ºC. Not amazing, but I have naff-all airflow into the room anyway and usually keep the window shut against thripps.

Since starting this thread things have changed a little. I didn't actually have my case panels on and after attaching them the water temp during gaming was getting as high as 48c with the fans running at 1300rpm.

Now that ambient temps have dropped my water temp at idle is around 30c and gaming is 40-42c. I'm not too worried about those temps although i take it that 10-12c above ambient isn't exactly great? I'm wondering if my Corsair ML120's aren't the best radiator fans.
 
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