Real differences from high end air > water?

Perfect_Chaos

Perfect_Chaos

Perfect_Chaos

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ok so i've been looking for results of say a TRUE with a fan that doesn't sound like a tornado vs good water cooling and cant find any.

What advantage are we talking of temp wise on an i7?

what about vs an aftermarket gpu cooler?.
 
Well it depends on your water setup as well. I suspect using a single rad and the same fan the difference will be very slight, but if you use double or triple rads and push pull fans etc the difference will be much greater.

Ive seen a page before but that was comparing top air coolers to the Coolit Domino and such, not custom water setups
 
the differance is cost (£)

the 3 possable gains are;
a higher overclock
or a quieter system (as same clockspeed)
or more bling

Price for performance gain in first two is not worth it - unless it's very important to you.

Aftermarket GPU cooler as worth every penny - especially the fanless ones
 
i have recently switched back from liquid to high end air and to be honest there isnt a whole lot of difference on the cpu, the gpus however, well thats a different story..
 
I can probably give you some idea from the following example;

For initial build testing I use a Thermalright HR-01 with an Arctic Cooling 120mm PWM fan plugged in to the motherboard CPU header.

On my first 4GHz i7 920 I was running 93C under 100% load testing (8 threads of Prime 95).

When I built that system up I put it in my Mountain Mods case attached to a PA120.2 with 4 x AC 120mm PWM fans all daisy chained off the CPU fan header (10W DDC and EK Supreme) it was running 72C (21C better).

Now it's in an Akasa Eclipse case running off my ring-main water cooler (no fans) and it's down to 64C under full load.
 
Thermaltake prebuilt

I have a tai chi VB5001, a Sword M VD500LBNA and an Armor VA8003BWS, these are 3 cases pre-watercooled. Thermaltake AquaBay M1 2U Level, Thermaltake Aqua RX Series-R1 memory coolers and Koolance VID-485 (Radeon HD 4850)
I go to car boots looking for Peltier cooled coolbox's 12v type, smash them to bits and have mounted them on the radiators behind the fans, my current room temp today is 36.8c, my case temp is 44.6c, CPU is 21.7c water temp taken at exit to the rad is 12.8c, this is the sword case with Intel Core i7 975 3.33Ghz (Nehalem) Extreme Edition
2x Asus ATI X4850
2x Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600mhz 12Gb total
Asus P6T Deluxe v2 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Coolermaster Real Power 850w Modular Power Supply
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM
Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive.
Vista 64bit ultimate.
The others run slightly warmer about 3c but they are overclocked to the extreme.
 
to get the same results as a good W/C loop you would have a lot of fan noise, my PC is now quiet and temps are better than high end air. my 920 DO runs at 4.2 and never goes over 65C under stress testing and my 4890 never goes over 38C under stress.
if you dont mind the noise air cooling is cheaper and almost as good, i have my PC in the main TV room so it has to be silent, when i was using a TRUE my missus used to complain when she was upstairs that the fans used to keep her awake :)

edit..my watercooling has probably cost me £500ish, i also do it just as a bit of a hobby!
 
you could do as i have done, pond pump, car rad(maybe use a heater matrix), ek supreme LT
the whole lot cost me about 80quid, (most expensive thing was the supremeLT)

my [email protected] is idling at 28c now with 26c ambient, and loads at 45c but the load temp only goes up maybe 1c over a full 24hr period of priming.

the TRUE i had bfore would idle at the same but load at 50c and after 24hrs be around 60c
 
is cooling just the cpu with water and a dual rad worth it? later in the year i may buy used off the mm because new is a lot more expensive.. plus thinking of cooling a possible 2 new expensive cards makes waterblocks add to the cost greatly.

the thing is i like the bonus of lower noise and temps but not the hassle.

how do aftermarket gpu coolers do against water temp/noise wise?
 
if i was only able to W/C one component it would be the GPU i get a 3C rise in temps under load.
 
space is another issue for me, i'd only be able to fit a radiator on the back of the case.. so i'd be forced to cooling just the CPU.

the graphics cards are what make the most noise too.. hmm

what do people think? aftermarket air cooling or water?

the only way for water looks like i'd need everything in it's own box
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
is there a box to house everything?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's called a Mountain Mods UFO U2:D

Seriously - I have a PA120.3, a PA120.2 and a PA160, 6 HDD, 1 optical drive, 3 graphics cards, 2 pumps, 3 loops and shedload of tubing, all in one handily sized case.
 
WJA96 said:
Yes, it's called a Mountain Mods UFO U2:D

Seriously - I have a PA120.3, a PA120.2 and a PA160, 6 HDD, 1 optical drive, 3 graphics cards, 2 pumps, 3 loops and shedload of tubing, all in one handily sized case.
Click to expand...

That case is huge and expensive though..

you didn't mention hassle free ;)
 
Happy said:
A slightly more cost effective solution than WJA96's :D is something like a Lian-Li PCA-70/71 which can take a 120.3 in the top and a 120.2 in the front with a little modding.
Click to expand...

That's the thing, i'd rather not have to mod anything.

in the end though i'm wondering if the cost of it all is actually worth it, it would have to see through 2 systems at least in my opinion, that's if going for something like a mm UFO case.
 
Perfect_Chaos said:
In the end though i'm wondering if the cost of it all is actually worth it, it would have to see through 2 systems at least in my opinion, that's if going for something like a mm UFO case.
Click to expand...

Well, as far as I can see, this thing will last me forever.

But then I'm the man who, when he specced his new house, built it with just not a CAT6 loop, but also a water cooling system for the PCs that heats the garage:rolleyes:@self
 
MikeTimbers said:
But that's because you don't actually have a life :p
Click to expand...

You know, LOADS of people say that to me. Maybe it is true. Oh well. It's not too late to go on a diet, grow a ponytail and go on a round the world slumming it tour to find myself. Or maybe not.:D
 
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