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Thread: Water cooling - yay or nay?

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    Water cooling - yay or nay?

    So it's time for building a new PC again. This time I'm quite tempted to use water cooling after seeing the excellent reviews Corsair's H100i has received, as well as the ease with which it can be installed. I've no experience with water cooling though and there's one remaining question before I make up my mind:

    Will a Corsair H100i kit (for instance) be as dependable as an air cooler?

    My machine is on 24/7/365 (ok, /364 is probably more accurate) and I've never had an air cooler go belly up in the 18 years or so I've been building machines. My current cooler has been running for nearly 4 years now, almost without pause, and the one before it ran for over 3 years without a hitch or needing any kind of maintenance.

    Can I count on that kind of dependable performance if I go aquatic?

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Well it would depend really on what you plan to do with your computer. If you're the type of person to get every extra ounce of performance from your CPU then water cooling is the way to go. If you plan on just having the PC to play games casually then spending so much on WCing isn't really worth it. It also depends on the CPU you plan to get, some CPUs just dont OC well with or without WCing so you'd be wasting money.

    When I was using my old system Q66 I OCd it to 3Ghz - 3.2Ghz on air and 3.5 when I purchased my CoolIT Eco WC. I can't really say I noticed a big difference in performance, benchmarks mean nothing to me. The only reason I bought the WC kit was because I had it cheap (courtesy to the idiotic employees of PC World who priced it wrong)

    You could use a £25 air cooler to get the results you're looking for use the £60 +/- to upgrade something else, perhaps towards a SSD or monitor.

    I never had any problems with my WCer and the only reason I am not using it now is because the 1156 backing plate wouldn't fit on my Z77-D3H.

    So yeah, I tend to advise people who aren't going to OC the nuts of their CPU to just get a air cooler. Something like the CM 212+.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    If you aren't going to go crazy into overclocking just stay on air cooling, it does its job just fine, even on modest overclocks.
    Air cooling is cheap and you can put extra money towards something more worth it.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Personally I have always avoided the idea of water cooling because its so expensive and the biggest thing... leaking. I know its about how you install it, but at least with an air cooler if it breaks it'll fall off and snap your video card in half (maybe land on your PSU ) or the fan will bust.

    Getting water on your board may kill everything. Don't let me put you off, but I am weary about conductive materials (unless it's deionized )

    Or you could go the ultimate fish tank way with oil http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php


    Joking aside, it really does depend how extreme you are going to go. If you are going to push the limits and maybe throw in more voltage than the safety measures then water cooling. If you want a decent overclock air cooling really does do the job. The Noctua NH-D14 still stands as one of the best cooling and it can match some low end water cooling solutions.

    Air cooling isn't better, but it does the job nicely if you are looking for a moderate overclock

    My opinion!

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Personally, unless I was going for extreme clocking (and I'm not), air every time. Water just doesn't appeal to me. I see absolutely no point in it.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Wow interesting views
    I am about to get watercooling next week. XSPC Rasa kit. Well, based on all of the stuff I heard.. it is more efficient, quiet but yes... dangerous but I am up for it All-in-one watercooling kits are safe based on my experience since I did use a H50 for more than a year. I don't think a manufacturer such as Corsair would put your computer in danger
    WordPress Site Builder - Content Writer - Newbie Graphics Designer - PC Hardware Enthusiast - Gamer - Foodie

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    I'm not sure on the H100, but don't kits like the H50, H55 and H60 have non conductive liquid, and not water inside?

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Quote Originally Posted by davesom555 View Post
    I'm not sure on the H100, but don't kits like the H50, H55 and H60 have non conductive liquid, and not water inside?
    Don't know. In terms of my comments above, it makes no difference to me. It's simply too much faffing about for absolutely no gain, seeing as I'm not extreme clocking.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    If you want complete maintenance free, stick with air cooling.

    Based simply on moving parts: Air cooling - fan(s) : Water Cooling - fan(s), pump, liquid

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Water cooling always works out more expensive.

    Air really does do the job nicely if you get a good cooler. And then you can use it for years whereas if anything goes wrong with water cooling, it really does go wrong.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Air cooling should do the job fine for most, and of course you can expect water cooling to work also. Evidently it comes with a premium but looking at your current rig it seems money isn't really restricted at all, but tell us what you're using it for and we may be able to help a little more

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Thanks for the replies, much appreciated!

    First of all, the rig in "my system" is the rig I will be building, not the one I've got. My current system is getting on towards 4 years old and although it still does the job, I need more hard drive space and thought I might as well upgrade the lot rather than move old stuff into a new case (the hard drives and the video card will be moved over, but that's about it).

    What I'm using it for? Well, everything. Gaming, browsing, writing, media server, video encoding and lots of stuff I can't think of right now. The new CPU will be a 3930K and as far as overclocking goes I'm aiming for a moderate and permanent 4GHz. Not because I need the extra performance, but purely because extra, free and easily obtained performance is a no-brainer. I've no interest in pushing it any further than that though.

    The reason I'm considering water is mainly to reduce noise as much as possible. On its quiet setting the H100i appears to produce only around 22dB, which is pretty damn good, while at the same time remaining very efficient indeed.

    However, dependability and longevity far outweighs silent operation, so that's what I really need to know about in order to make a choice. Ideally I want to build a machine which, when finished, will not have to be opened again until I build its successor another 3-4-5 years down the road (apart from swapping out the video card around mid-way). I lost all interest in constant upgrading and staying on the bleeding edge years ago - these days I just want a machine that keeps on working, working, working until it's time to build a new one.

    Given that premise: is an all-in-one water cooling kit like the the H100i a viable proposition?

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    I'd recommend a Thermalright Silver Arrow or Noctuna NH-D14 over any AIO water cooler.

    Dubious as to how a system with 2 x 37.7dBA PWM fans and a hard mounted pump can return 22dBA with any decent cooling performance.

    If your goal is noise reduction go for full custom water cooling, maintenance free go for high end air cooling.

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Thanks for the input. The air coolers you mention are the exact two contenders I have in mind if water cooling loses out. As far as 22dB and decent cooling goes, that just what the reviews say - personally I obviously have no idea.

    Custom water cooling is in no way, shape or form an option.

    If I may be so bold, I'd like to reiterate that the question I have is how dependable water cooling is, not what the alternatives are. I already know those well. I.e. can I realistically expect a quality all-in-one kit like the Corsair H100i to last 3-4-5 years of running 24/7 without breaking down or giving me any other kind of trouble?

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Noisy pumps were fairly common in the old models, new version still have issues : http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=112796

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    Re: Water cooling - yay or nay?

    Thanks for the link Macadee. While slightly worrying, I'm not too concerned about reported problem like this. In every batch of every product a few will be faulty, that's just life. However, the more I think of it, the more the software control bothers me, since added complexity generally equals added risk of a premature break-down....

    I also guess that hardly anyone (hardly anyone of those who hang on a computer forum anyway) has the same aim as me when building a computer, making it near impossible to find someone who've used the same water cooler for multiple years and able to share their experience.

    Oh well, I guess I'll read some more and see if I can come to a conclusion on my own. Thanks for the input though guys.

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