Only Air required for SB?

Gangster · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:15

Hey all

Quick question, seen quite a few of oc'ed SB systems and majority of the overclocks are on high-end air.

Does this mean that watercooling is no longer necessary and a high end cpu cooler will sufficiently keep it cool?

What I mean to say is, few gens ago getting watercooling would give you say a 500mhz boost compared to high end air, now it doesn't seem to give any difference (apart from maybe noise).

This right, or am I missing something?

nlel1975 · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:20

Gangster said:
Hey all

Quick question, seen quite a few of oc'ed SB systems and majority of the overclocks are on high-end air.

Does this mean that watercooling is no longer necessary and a high end cpu cooler will sufficiently keep it cool?

What I mean to say is, few gens ago getting watercooling would give you say a 500mhz boost compared to high end air, now it doesn't seem to give any difference (apart from maybe noise).

This right, or am I missing something?

There will always be one difference, temps. With my chip I am reaching the max temp advisable on decent air 72C, the chip is totally stable but its warm. If you run watercooling you could have this same speed at say 54C.

My chip will run at 4.7 and 4.8 stable but it requires 1.392v and 1.42v respectively, on air cooling it would still be possible to run these speeds but it would exceed 72C which is not really advisable whereas on watercooling you could run these higher voltage settings without worrying about the temps.

Gangster · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:24

Well, I understand the temps would be cooler but I thought the main concern is voltage.

A lot of these seem to be able to go to the 'higher' end fo the voltage scale, yet temps dont seem to be the main 'scare' like before - it appears to be voltage is.

Which means that really the cooling isn't as important as it used to be (people would stop clocking if cores hit 70c load, regardless of vcore, now people look at vcore max and don't go higher)

Which brings me to the question of whether WC's only advantage now is noise?

Cupra · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:27

Gangster said:
Well, I understand the temps would be cooler but I thought the main concern is voltage.

A lot of these seem to be able to go to the 'higher' end fo the voltage scale, yet temps dont seem to be the main 'scare' like before - it appears to be voltage is.

Which means that really the cooling isn't as important as it used to be (people would stop clocking if cores hit 70c load, regardless of vcore, now people look at vcore max and don't go higher)

Which brings me to the question of whether WC's only advantage now is noise?

you are not looking at the bigger picture, graphics cards on water are sooo much cooler

also running water you are not leaving hot air around other components as the heat is transfered via pipes so everything runs cooler not just the cpu

Gangster · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:29

Oh I agree Cupra, but on a cpu-only basis its fair to say that really a decent high end cooler is all that is required to achieve even the highest of clocks (say 5GHz).

NathWraith · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:31

Gangster said:
Oh I agree Cupra, but on a cpu-only basis its fair to say that really a decent high end cooler is all that is required to achieve even the highest of clocks (say 5GHz).

This is correct however watercooling will be one notch higher in terms of cooling.

Also the lack of noise and looks attract a lot of people.

robj20 · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:37

Im one of those people that dont like running my CPU anywhere near its limits, mines at 64c tops now, i would prefer lower i certainly dont want it getting hotter. I will definitly be watercooling mine in a couple of months.

nlel1975 · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:43

robj20 said:
Im one of those people that dont like running my CPU anywhere near its limits, mines at 64c tops now, i would prefer lower i certainly dont want it getting hotter. I will definitly be watercooling mine in a couple of months.

Temp is only a number

Mines been up to 79C on stock cooling didnt hurt it

kristmace · 18 Jan 2011 at 11:58

Looks like WC could be less advantageous than before since Sandybridge overclocks so well. Ultimately I guess watercooling will have to drop in price because people will be less willing to shell the money out for less gains than pervious generations.

dfour · 18 Jan 2011 at 12:09

I agree to a point if your looking at cpu cooling only but high end air will never beat water on a GPU.

I also depends if your talking about all-in-one kits eg corsair h series or a fully custom built loop

Tigjaw · 18 Jan 2011 at 14:19

nlel1975 said:
There will always be one difference, temps. With my chip I am reaching the max temp advisable on decent air 72C, the chip is totally stable but its warm. If you run watercooling you could have this same speed at say 54C.

My chip will run at 4.7 and 4.8 stable but it requires 1.392v and 1.42v respectively, on air cooling it would still be possible to run these speeds but it would exceed 72C which is not really advisable whereas on watercooling you could run these higher voltage settings without worrying about the temps.

You're reaching 72c @ 4.6GHz, but is that resting or on load?

Either way it's higher than I expected from Sandybridge. I was under the impression SB was steps ahead in terms of overclocking and temperature. My CPU (in sig) rarely reaches 50c on full load. 72c just seems very high.