30 MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCCSEPTEMBER 2007
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Y
ou can buy a complete water-cooling kit from your favor-
ite online retailer, but we’ve found that the best way to
approach the oh-so-fi nicky combination of liquids and
electronics is to fashion a custom system using the best parts
from several manufacturers. Like a child before his birthday, we
assembled a dream list of cooling parts from two of our favorite
suppliers, Danger Den and Swiftech.
While we were tempted to cool every single hotspot on the
mobo, we decided that the disadvantages of running an elaborate
multi-radiator cooling rig outweighed the meager benefi ts. Instead,
we settled on a traditional CPU/GPU loop using a SwiftechApogee GTX water block ($75, http://www.swiftnets.com) for the former
and two of the company’s stealth VGA water blocks ($110 each)
for the latter. The blocks get the diffi cult cooling job done, but
more than that, installation is absurdly easy.
Laing’s D5 pump, Danger Den part number DD12V-D5, ($90,
http://www.dangerden.com) is our Dream Machine’s workhorse. It’s a
beastly fellow that spits fl uid at a maximum rate of approximately
315 gallons per hour, pushing our coolant around with nary a
sound. We rounded out the loop with generic 1/2-inch tubing,
a Danger Den reservoir fi lled with custom black coolant, and a
Swiftech radiator.Custom Water-Cooling Craziness!
The heck with kits. With Dream Machine, it’s BYOC—bring your own cooling
COOLING
W
e were faced with a tough decision when choos-
ing a board for this year’s Dream Machine. We
could have gone with the fl ashy features of the
Asus Striker Extreme or the all-out overclocking potential
of EVGA’s nForce 680i SLI board (reviewed January 2007,
$250, http://www.evga.com). In the end, we decided to go for
broke with EVGA’s offering. A good thing, too, as over-
clocking a quad core can be a bitch. Luckily, the nForce
680i SLI didn’t let us down. We successfully pushed our
quad past its 3GHz stock speed to 3.66GHz fairly easily.
We couldn’t get past 3.5GHz with the Striker without blow-
ing chunks. Why not Intel boards? Going nForce gives us
SLI support—something you certainly can’t get on Intel’s
new P35 boards.EVGA nForce 680i SLI
Overclockability means more to us than bling
MOTHERBOARD