Passiiiiiiiive!

Passive or active rad?

  • Passive Mo-Ra Pro

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Passive CORA

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Active PA120.3 with some really quiet fans

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

Mr. Smith

New member
Silence is golden...

I was thinking of getting the pa120.3 and getting some nice quiet fans on there... £60ish plus p&p and 3 decent fans (approx £10x3) = £100ish

Then I saw the Alphacool Mo-Ra 2 Pro for £105... I think its passive (although Scan state the Fan Screen is required, specialtech don't?) which also came in at £105 (plus the £25 for the fan shroud if it is required)

From what I can gather the mo-ra is a bit of a flow killer but does it perform well temp wise?

I was thinking about the Alphacool Cape CORA too but that is alu and my blocks are copper... So maybe that would be bad?

Everyone seems to bum the pa120.3 hard - is it really that good? I want my new rig to be barely audible so I can f@h 24/7 (and I just want it quiet) as my pc is in my room.

Unrelated: Don't like my li-li case. Waaaay too big for my taste. Going to clean it up back to 'as new' and decide what to do - sell or keep. T'was £82 delivered although it will house the pa120.3...

Anyway. Passive setups/uber quiet fans... Whatcha think to the above?
 
I don't know how the performance levels shape up but have you considered the Zalman reserator ?

Oh wait, I just looked up the price of that kit:eek: I would go for a fairly basic but large radiator and just get some really silent, medium flow fans
 
Well that rad is the same size (hxd) as a medium case, so i should think it would work well passivly.

And if in summer it isnt you can sit a desk fan on its lowest setting on it and i should imagin it'd be fine.

Although the with the pa120.3 its entierly the choice of fan when it comes to noise. I can heartly recomend alphacools 120mms. the 2 on my kit are bearly audible @ 12v and they come with 7v molex converters making them vertualy silent.
 
Active tbh

I tried running mine with no fans and temps went right up there.

Try some Noctua fans, they're expensive and ugly but damn quiet
 
Agreed on the active. There are some excellent low-noise fans out there that will do a great job.
 
Hi Ayd here (please take this as independent not as ST selling)

The Mo Ra is not realy designed as passive but I guess it could be used that way depending on your system.

I personally use the Cora (maxi) at home. My system is not overclocked but I am watercooling an AMD X2 5000, 7950GT, Chipset and 2 hard drives. The PC is in a fairly warm room and is on 24/7 and includes hours of warcraft and HL2 Deathmatch. It runs Idle at 32 and 38 under load average, slightly warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter and the silence is golden. I plan to move to conroe soon and overclock and uprate my GPU I want to keep my Cora if poss but may have to add additional fins but tbh I'd probably be looking down the active route at this point. If overclocking isn't your thing I'd possibly go for one but if you plan to overclock maybe consider active....

Can't comment on your 3rd choice as I've never used one.
 
@Ayd - cheers, my conroe and 7900gto are both oc'd so passive probably won't cut it.

@Everyone else - thanks for the input. Looks like I'll be getting the pa120.3... The thing is the pc-75 is too big for me. I want a small case. Externally mounting is an option.

Suggestions?
 
Lian Li V1100 for case? id get a PA thermochill 120.3 or 120.2 with a shroud might help temps very minimal but it lowers noise more too...
 
It occured to me I hadn't even asked this, I assumed that moving from a dual rad to a tripple would yeild better temps - is this so?

Nice tip on the shroud ai_01...
 
name='Mr. Smith' said:
It occured to me I hadn't even asked this, I assumed that moving from a dual rad to a tripple would yeild better temps - is this so?

Nice tip on the shroud ai_01...

Not necessarily, the lowest your water cooling can go is room temperature, if your 120.2 manages to get the water to ambient temperature now then you will not see any better idle temps. However, a 120.3 means that water comes into contact with more air, allowing it longer to return to the right temp(in the room) meaning that you SHOULD see better load temperatures.
 
name='llwyd' said:
Not necessarily, the lowest your water cooling can go is room temperature, if your 120.2 manages to get the water to ambient temperature now then you will not see any better idle temps. However, a 120.3 means that water comes into contact with more air, allowing it longer to return to the right temp(in the room) meaning that you SHOULD see better load temperatures.

Hmmmm. Thanks, now I have to re-think everything though... Quite a lot of cost involved changing the rad and case just for a bit of a drop in load temps...
 
name='Mr. Smith' said:
Hmmmm. Thanks, now I have to re-think everything though... Quite a lot of cost involved changing the rad and case just for a bit of a drop in load temps...

Sorry:( Don't go jumping to any conclusions yet though. Your 120.2 might be giving you idle temps well above room temp. All this is based on the assumption that you use the same model fans on the 120.3 as the 120.2. You may see an equal performance boost by just getting higher flow fans for your 120.2.
 
name='llwyd' said:
You may see an equal performance boost by just getting higher flow fans for your 120.2.

It's so crazy it just might work! I have the gt stealth 2 rad (can't remember!)

I have some high flow fans - cheap but high flow. I might just order some nice fans... quiet and see what happens.
 
name='Mr. Smith' said:
It's so crazy it just might work! I have the gt stealth 2 rad (can't remember!)

I have some high flow fans - cheap but high flow. I might just order some nice fans... quiet and see what happens.

Sharkoon 2000's 120mm - 79 cfm each
 
name='llwyd' said:
Sharkoon 2000's 120mm - 79 cfm each

At an ear bleeding 38db! My current ones are 58cfm at 25db (they were cheap though so the figures quoted are probably inaccurate - they cost £3 each!)

@ anyone - can anyone expand on Llwyd's info regarding the move from double rad to tripple rad? What kind of results can I expect on my temps?

I'll probably use 3 of these fans on the rad.

Thank you
 
A Dual RAD will cope with the heat of just a dual core CPU no problems, add a GPU (esp G80) and you're stretching it.

If you have a high-end hot GPU and a CPU then a triple RAD is the best way to go, but if you just put a CPU on it stick with a dual RAD

This is from my experience
 
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