Air Cooling V Watercooling

[dangel]

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.

I don't cool my RAM - and I haven't in er.. 5 years of watercooling. There's enough airflow from case fans to deal with that and more of concern is the temperature of things like mosfets. Most modern MBs have good heatpipes on these anyway (or you can pop waterblocks on them instead). Asus provide a small fan to fit on the mosfet cooler for watercooling users.

[moogle]

Ram as in DDR2 or Mosfets? Really you never need to cool your ram unless you're overclocking it alot. Most of them never get hot anyway, but my Ballistix ones did but all that needed was an aftermarket memory cooler and that was it sorted.

[Bugbait]

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.

I agree with your last statement but completely disagree with the part I've highlighted in bold. A true enthusiast water cooling loop would include replacement blocks for all the main components including the PWM's, North/South Bridges, and even the RAM. Most water solutions include some form of active fan cooling, the difference is the fans can usually be set to lower speeds since there's less heat build up around the CPU area (redirected to radiators). Blasting hot air from the CPU onto passive heatsinks isn't my idea of effective cooling.

I run 9 x 120mm fans in my case. Four are mounted on the dual radiators, another 4 are used for intake from the front (with one blowing across the HDD's) and one for direct exhaust out the back above the I/O plate. All fans are connected to fan controllers which set their RPM to near inaudible levels.

[scaryjim]

With semi-passive cooling (airflow near cpu cooler) ram will overheat.

Blasting hot air from the CPU onto passive heatsinks isn't my idea of effective cooling.

A most apt and concise reply

I think my HTPC must be the worst-case scenario for heat circulation, since both the CPU and GPU coolers blow internally, and it has no case fans: only the 120mm fan on the PSU for generating airflow. And I've never had my RAM overheat in that. I fail to see how a case with 1 120mm fan and most of the CPU & GPU heat being pumped straight into a rad could possibly be worse...

[arthurleung]

Sorry, I was actually trying to say if people trying to do massive overclock while keeping the system silent, then water cooling is pointless.


Water cooling + Active cooling on components are perfectly fine, but won't be quieter than a normal air-cooled system. In particular those ram/chipset cooler with 4cm/6cm fans.

Blasting hot air from the CPU onto passive heatsinks isn't my idea of effective cooling.

Sucking cool air through ram into CPU heatsink

[1stfret]

If buying a Good air cooler that is both efficient and can use a quiet fan. which one would you go for?

[moogle]

If buying a Good air cooler that is both efficient and can use a quiet fan. which one would you go for?

TRUE, or that one that the ex-Thermalright employers just made or the Noctua 12P one. The best fans are ones with alot of static pressure meaning they can force air through the heatsink better. For example fans with higher static pressure will have more air coming out the other side of the heatsink than ones with less static pressure at the same CFM rating etc. I'd get a 38mm fan (chunky but good CFM and quieter than 25mm fans) to put on the heatsink.

Good fan makes are Noctua, Scythe, Zalman, Sharkoon, Nexus, Yate Loon, Sanyo Denki (Expensive!), Panaflo, ADDA, Sunon, NMB

The last few starting from Sanyo are rarer ones and you don't really find them in average systems because they're industry standard fans designed to last long hence the price. The Noctuas and the Scythes are a bit expensive too (maybe £10-15 a fan) but they're still good, it's because they push a decent amount of air for the noise they make.

All depends on how much your budget is for the heatsink+fan

[5aboy]

well,


people say that watercooling is more expensive than air - but i disagree.

The reason I disagree is because every motherboard nowadays has mounting holes, you can move your watercooling setup from system to system.

back in the day i brought an xp90c for £40, and the thermalright cooler for the 8800gtx too - gave me good temps, but i had to rely on reasonably well powered fans.


i moved to c2duo, and had to buy another air cooler.

water is fun......if you are sensible, you wont have a single problem with it, it runs cooler, and quieter than any fan setup.

you can use universal blocks for gfx and cpu nowadays, and get brilliant temps with reasonable radiator-age.

price wise, check on the 'bay.

i brought my cpu block, and pump from tom at chilledpc, but the rad i got off forums. at the time i brought masterkleer tubing from tom too, but now i have 15m odd of tygon sitting waiting for me to find the time to use it.

its better for your ears, your components run cooler, and you get much better overheads with your overclocks.

win-win!

recently off forums, i got a ddc1+ 18w pump for £25, rad for £25, and just brought an xspc delta v3 for £30 - add to this the tubing i already have (and the extra two radiators ive got sitting around), i can watercool a second pc (or run a second loop in my system should i wish!)

[1stfret]

well,


people say that watercooling is more expensive than air - but i disagree.

The reason I disagree is because every motherboard nowadays has mounting holes, you can move your watercooling setup from system to system.

back in the day i brought an xp90c for £40, and the thermalright cooler for the 8800gtx too - gave me good temps, but i had to rely on reasonably well powered fans.


i moved to c2duo, and had to buy another air cooler.

water is fun......if you are sensible, you wont have a single problem with it, it runs cooler, and quieter than any fan setup.

you can use universal blocks for gfx and cpu nowadays, and get brilliant temps with reasonable radiator-age.

price wise, check on the 'bay.

i brought my cpu block, and pump from tom at chilledpc, but the rad i got off forums. at the time i brought masterkleer tubing from tom too, but now i have 15m odd of tygon sitting waiting for me to find the time to use it.

its better for your ears, your components run cooler, and you get much better overheads with your overclocks.

win-win!

recently off forums, i got a ddc1+ 18w pump for £25, rad for £25, and just brought an xspc delta v3 for £30 - add to this the tubing i already have (and the extra two radiators ive got sitting around), i can watercool a second pc (or run a second loop in my system should i wish!)

So, what temps are you getting then? Ta

[5aboy]

I now run a q6600 at 3.6ghz, 1.35vid.

i get temps of idle 20-25C, and load 33-35C - thats with my setup in my sig, with the fans running at the lowest voltage they can.

[F1ZZY]

well,


people say that watercooling is more expensive than air - but i disagree.

The reason I disagree is because every motherboard nowadays has mounting holes, you can move your watercooling setup from system to system.

back in the day i brought an xp90c for £40, and the thermalright cooler for the 8800gtx too - gave me good temps, but i had to rely on reasonably well powered fans.


i moved to c2duo, and had to buy another air cooler.

water is fun......if you are sensible, you wont have a single problem with it, it runs cooler, and quieter than any fan setup.

you can use universal blocks for gfx and cpu nowadays, and get brilliant temps with reasonable radiator-age.

price wise, check on the 'bay.

i brought my cpu block, and pump from tom at chilledpc, but the rad i got off forums. at the time i brought masterkleer tubing from tom too, but now i have 15m odd of tygon sitting waiting for me to find the time to use it.

its better for your ears, your components run cooler, and you get much better overheads with your overclocks.

win-win!

recently off forums, i got a ddc1+ 18w pump for £25, rad for £25, and just brought an xspc delta v3 for £30 - add to this the tubing i already have (and the extra two radiators ive got sitting around), i can watercool a second pc (or run a second loop in my system should i wish!)

If the socket changes you will need new mounting hardware if you are on air or water. (backwards compatible don't count)

Watercooling is much more expensive than air.

Watercooling is more fun though

[Golden Dragoon]

put simply on water I have been able to overclock by an aditional 50% and use higher voltages and still maintain temps that are a couple of degrees cooler than I was getting on air.
However it is expensive to set up, and if it ever springs a leak than it can ruin your entire pc, if an air cooler fails you pc will shut down rather than blow up lol.

[Bugbait]

Sorry, I was actually trying to say if people trying to do massive overclock while keeping the system silent, then water cooling is pointless.

Water cooling + Active cooling on components are perfectly fine, but won't be quieter than a normal air-cooled system. In particular those ram/chipset cooler with 4cm/6cm fans.

Sucking cool air through ram into CPU heatsink

I still disagree. Water (or phased cooling) is the only way to go if you want aggressive overclocking and silence. There's only so much surface area you can get with a pure HSF combination over the CPU. You could use powerful, silent pumps to drive an external, multiple radiator solution in passive form if whisper quiet was your aim. Water is far from pointless in this case. In fact, I would say pure air cooling would be pointless.

For air to achieve the same as a water solution, the fans generally have to run faster to achieve the same level of cooling (surface area and all that). So yes, a water solution WILL be quieter, even when using a lot of fans since they can be run at (far) lower speeds to achieve the same temperatures.

Sucking cool air through the RAM? The CPU fan is usually several inches from the RAM. For the CPU airflow to make any significant difference would require the fan to be either huge or spinning at very audible speeds.

I don't want to come off as pro-water but the fact is, if money is not an option, air can't compete. It's the same as water versus phased cooling, the later will win every time when cost isn't an issue.