Air Cooling V Watercooling

[piggin23]

Would have loved to have payed £100 for my setup. I has to purchase a new case to fit everything in. So the total cost was close to £350, with a lot of items from e-bay.

[1stfret]

Looking at the temps various air coolers get these days i think i would be better off sticking with that. I don't like the thought of water and electric mixing either!! Plus, knowing me, i would have a leak in no time!

[piggin23]

Thinks can go really wrong. M8 of mine lost a 280GTX & power supply to a very small leak recently.
Very expensive drip.

[1stfret]

Plus air coolers are a lot cheaper! Some good ones around.
Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer has some good reviews. Been looking at that one recently. Not a bad price too!

[scaryjim]

Which setup did you look at for £100

I wasn't looking at a setup - I just browsed a couple of well-known etailers who sell water cooling supplies and added up the bits I thought I'd need

So is there a huge performance difference between, say, a £20 CPU block and a £50 CPU block? And what's the most important thing to spend your money on (if you were on a tightish budget)?

[moogle]

I wasn't looking at a setup - I just browsed a couple of well-known etailers who sell water cooling supplies and added up the bits I thought I'd need

So is there a huge performance difference between, say, a £20 CPU block and a £50 CPU block? And what's the most important thing to spend your money on (if you were on a tightish budget)?

Yes there's a huge difference, although now the £ vs $ has decreased the gap (raised the cheaper blocks prices up) between them. Some blocks are restrictive (impingement blocks) which increases the heat transfer between them and the CPU and result in cooler temps, cheaper blocks usually don't have such designs and are less restrictive but don't perform as well.

Most important thing I'd spend my money on is....

Well it depends, if I was striving for best temps then it'd be CPU block but I'd have to compromise on the noise by getting a cheaper radiator + higher speed fans to dump the heat. If it was for least noise then better radiator.

Although if you get a decent radiator that would last you quite long as you wouldn't need to change it for ages.

Also the good blocks usually get newer socket mounting plates made for them so you don't have to change blocks when you change socket

That said if you take your time you could pickup a bargain custom made (buying bit by bit) £100 kit on eBay

[1stfret]

Thing is, £100 vers £30 for an aircooler that reports low temps? I think i would go the air route.

[moogle]

What aircooler is that? Water doesn't lower your idle temps, it mainly affects the load temps as it's more effective transferring higher heat loads. If your CPU doesn't kick out much heat then a decent aircooler will do fine. If it does kick out much heat the CPU cooler will still do fine, just with a little bit more noise

[scaryjim]

I think for my first shot I'd probably be more interested in reducing noise than worrying about temps - I've got a few reasons for getting into watercooling at the minute and I'd quite like to have a go at water cooling some of my older kit at lowish cost to give me the confidence to splash out if / when I decide to cool a more powerful, overclocked rig. Does that make sense?

[moogle]

I think for my first shot I'd probably be more interested in reducing noise than worrying about temps - I've got a few reasons for getting into watercooling at the minute and I'd quite like to have a go at water cooling some of my older kit at lowish cost to give me the confidence to splash out if / when I decide to cool a more powerful, overclocked rig. Does that make sense?

It does, older parts go for less money
The watercooling parts don't depreciate much anyway. Prices now are still the same (well higher due to recession ) as last year.

[1stfret]

Seen good reviews on the Sunbeam cooler for one.

[scaryjim]

It does, older parts go for less money

Also, older hardware doesn't need replacing when my first system leaks everywhere If / when I raise the money for it I'll provide a full report, of course

[moogle]

Also, older hardware doesn't need replacing when my first system leaks everywhere If / when I raise the money for it I'll provide a full report, of course

I'll be sure to read it if you do

[Bugbait]

Arguably the single most important component in any PC water cooling loop is the pump. If you look at Martin's Liquid Lab the difference in CPU temperatures between all the decent blocks is several degrees at best. Look at the pump performance and it's apples and oranges. The best CPU block and radiators won't perform optimally or even well if the pump is inadequate. This isn't to say the CPU block and radiators aren't important, just not as important as the pump in my opinion.

[peterb]

I looked at water cooling and decided it wasn't worth it for me at the moment.

Some fundamentals...

The purpose of a cooling system is to disspate the heat generated by semiconductor components at a rate that stabilises the temperature of that device. If the rate of transfer away is the same as the rate it is being generated, the temperature will stay the same. the rate of transfer away depends n the difference between the hot 'thing' and the cooler thing - so if the cpu is loaded, it starts generating more heat. The case of the CPU gets hotter until the temperature difference is high enough to increase the rate of transfer away. End of theory part 1.

With air cooling the working fluid (or medum) is metal and air (fluid in this case can be a gas or a liquid). The CPU transfers heat by conduction to the heat sink (which is why you need a low thermal resistance between the CPU and the heatsink) and then by conduction to the air. Air has a low specific heat capacity - it doesn't take much energy to heat it up - and then the hot air moves away by convection, natural or forced (with a fan) into the rst of the case. Exhaust fans then take that hot air out of the case, while inlet fans (if fitted) suck cooler air in to repeat the process. Pretty much a staement of the blindingly obvious. But all those fans creat noise.

With water cooling, you still have the initail transfer to the water block but water has a higher specific heat capacity than air - it absorbs more energy without heating up, so the heat flow is higher. The warm water is then transfers that heat directly outside the computer case to a radiator where the heat is given up to the air via a radiator, which again may be ar colled. The radiator is bigger (has a greater surface area) than an air cooled heat sink on the CPU, so a quieter (larger, slower speed) fan can be used to cool the water. The ideal medium or (working fluid) is one that incorporates phase change - that is the absorbed energy vapourises the working fluid by absorbing latent heat of evaporation - the energy doesn't raise the temperature, just changes the stae of the working fluid. (Steam at 100C will give you a worse scald than water at 100C - it contains more energy. Phase change is more efficient (domestic fridges use it) but the liquids used aren't really anything you want to mess with.

So the advantages of water cooling is that yiu are transfereing heat directly away from the processor (or other heat source) in one stage, wheress air cooling is a two stage process (unless you wereable to design a case whetre the processor heatsink was outside the case).

So carefully designed air cooling may be just as good, but less compact than water cooling internally because most of the big cooling components can be mounted outside the case (although the pump usually isn't)

Sorry for the physics/thermodynamics lesson - hope that helps.

[arthurleung]

Major concern with water cooling is when you don't cool the power regulators and ram. With semi-passive cooling (airflow near cpu cooler) ram will overheat. You have to put fan to cool these stuff (or void warranty by replacing the memory cooler)

IMO, buying water cooling for quiet is a good choice, but buying water cooling for overclocking is a big no-no. Many parts don't produce a lot of heats but have low cooling rate will eventually overheat without at least some airflow from air cooling.