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About LinkBacksBeen watercooling since Barton days, started off with a second hand Waterchill kit to learn on before going full custom.
It's a hastle sometimes, but the advantages by far outweight the disadvantages.
Been watercooling since Barton days, started off with a second hand Waterchill kit to learn on before going full custom.
It's a hastle sometimes, but the advantages by far outweight the disadvantages.
Gotta be liquid. I'm running a system with a swiftech pump, a 2-bay resivoir a 240mm rad (2 amd hd6870 gpus) and a 360mm rad (intel i7 920 @ 3.9GHz cpu) using 100% undiluted car coolant from Halfords (other brands available).
I used distilled water and the cpu idled at 40c and load at 70c, but with the car coolant (2 litres in loop) the cpu idles at 32c and full load is 60c. Both sets of measurements taken with 20c ambiant where the only change was the liquid in the loop and temps taken after 1 hour for idle and after 2 hours of prime95 for load.
Air cooling, cheap, effective, quiet and so that all the other components on my motherboard get some airflow as well as the CPU.
Air.
Watercooling just strikes me as being more hassle and riskier than air cooling, not to mention much more expensive.
All three machines I built are liquid cooled, courtesy of Antec. I wouldn't go back to air cooling again. It's 30c in this room now and the CPU temp in this rig is only 34 degrees. Even the most expensive air cooling never worked as well. the hottest part of the motherboard is the USB-1 chip at 44c.
Whatever is cost effect and/or space effective.
most cpu coolers are as good as liquid cooling at least for a 920 i7 cpu. but for Gpu's you can get a huge advantage as the GPU is spread out better and can be cooled much cooler on a liquid cooling block but a cpu is tiny and cant eb cooled.
physics in other words
Air all the way! no water near my pc....except in a glass on my table...which is over my pc...which has holes all over, including the top....hmmm
lol liquid all the way cpu gpu nb .. and 2xtriple rads and a quad .. 8350 @5ghz 24/7 max temp 48deg c fan speeds 800-1000rpm
whats not to love quieter than air and looks dam good aswell
What does it matter now if men believe or no?
What is to come will come. And soon you too will stand aside,
To murmur in pity that my words were true
(Cassandra, in Agamemnon by Aeschylus)
To see the wizard one must look behind the curtain ....
Too right flearider, been custom water cooled since the duron days and never looked back. Yes its expensive and can be a pig to setup and sort leaks out but its much more efficient, quieter and cooler especially with gpu's. I have my fx 8350, nb and a 6990 and 6970 all water cooled now with 2 duel rads.
Nope, I see this in the top right corner:Originally Posted by Tarinder
Should have someone check the flags on your account. I was able to vote, and I'm newer and have less posts.
Generally speaking air for simplicities sake, but if more cases came out that would look nice, be quiet and support a nice watercooling set up I could be convinced.
AIO coolers are noisy and a bit pointless compared with GPU cooling, but you don't tend to find AIO GPU coolers. The PNY GTX 580 with a CPU block always struck me as a damn good idea (I was amazed at the temps it got off a single 120mm rad). They're releasing a modular update to it, but it looks like more faffing around. Will judge when it's out for review.
You do need to be willing to spend a few hundred to do custom watercooling properly, and I've never had the rig to justify spending that much on it.
@Spreadie, I'm in the same boat. Can't vote.
Personally I prefer water cooling but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's great, it can be very quiet and you can overclock to a higher degree without worrying about temps. But, omg it is awkward as hell.
If you have a small case it can be a nightmare just adding drives in. The thoughts of draining a loop, rebuilding a loop, leak testing over 24 hours etc just to another graphics card means that I will not add a second card to my loop unless I carry out a maintenance overhaul.
As for maintenance, how often do people here carry it out? Cleaning the blocks, replacing the fluid and such. My previous system ran happily for over three years. I only cleaned it up as I was upgrading the mobo and gfx card.
Also, water cooling is great at pulling the heat out of your system. What with the radiator, it's like having the heating on if the case is near you. Great in winter, not so pleasant these days.
I wanted water cooling for the quietness, then I decided to be cheap... put a hole in the wall behind the TV the PC is connected to and put the PC in the other room. Noise sorted, no money spent
Watercooling gets my vote.
Cut some corners and got myself a AIO unit though
Currently in the process of putting my GFX under water too.
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