Water / Air Cooling of the CPU

[davebodger]

For me the main driving force for water cooling was getting the heat out of the case and the noise down.
I have two PCs with custom loops (CPU & GPU) and one PC with an AIO and that one is the noisiest because it's in a small (midi tower) case with 2 fans on the radiator, 2 case fans and the GPU fan running fast (because I run the GPU flat out doing BOINC stuff).
My main PC has a 200x200 Phobya radiator fitted externally with a 180 SilverStone Airpenetrator fan throwing the hot air directly upwards.
The fan runs around 800 rpm and I can't hear it normally.
The D5 pump/reservoir is mounted in the 5 1/4" drive bays and I can hardly hear that either.
To be fair it took about a month to get the microbubbles out of it before it became that quiet.
To compensate for the lack of cooling over the motherboard I fitted a 60mm fan onto the side of the northbridge heatsink where a little bleeds over to the VRM area too.

[jseven15]

I think it does depending on the usage - if not overclocking with a locked CPU then air cooling should be alright. If heavily overclocking then water cooling is a must.

[retsil]

I love the look of the water cooled block on the CPU, especially when you get RGB colours.
Practically speaking with water you should get better circulation in the case as there's not a huge lump sat on top of the CPU.

[gupsterg]

I found my WC rig suffers from lack of airflow. I have a rad at front and top, fans as exhaust at top, front as intake. Loop setup is pump/res > GPU block > CPU block > top rad > front rad.

[peterb]

I found my WC rig suffers from lack of airflow.

Try putting an extractor fan in your bathroom...

[Biscuit]

Speaking of watercooling and VRM cooling, Cryorig do an AIO with an additional fan to blast air directly around the socket.

Personally I think this is pretty sensible and I'm curious why there isnt many/any products available to achieve this in custom loops or with other AIOs...

http://www.cryorig.com/a-series_us.php



(repeated rant warning)I suppose if manufacturers went back to using standard pressed sheet fin coolers on VRMs instead of awkward slabs of Aluminium, this wouldn't be an issue anyway.

[aidanjt]

(repeated rant warning)I suppose if manufacturers went back to using standard pressed sheet fin coolers on VRMs instead of awkward slabs of Aluminium, this wouldn't be an issue anyway.

This, so much this. Motherboard VRM cooling have been garbage for years. It looks like EVGA is getting on the ball here, but pretty much everyone else are like 'but look, it's sooo purdy!'. They need a good slap.