What is worth watercooling?

Greboth · 5 Apr 2011 at 17:23

In the planning stages of next rig, thinking of watercooling everything I can just because it keeps everything cool and very quiet. More than likely will overclock it a little but nothing extreme. So if no high overclocks I am thinking motherboard,mosfets,ram will all be fine with air cooling.

Tryin to balance up tye cost vs effectveness vs looking cool, any input welcome.

Greboth.

ps sorry for any spelling mistakes, typed this on my phone.

blitzyuk · 6 Apr 2011 at 02:07

It all depends on what the pc will be used for and what components will be generating most heat. Obviously you will need to do cpu and maybe Northbridge also the gpu/gpu's depending if you have more than one. You can get a fan cooler for the ram if you want to air cool. You also need to take into account what radiator,pump,tubing,liquid etc to use. Im sure the guys on here can give you more input as im only using a H50 at the mo everything else is air cooled.

Sayso · 6 Apr 2011 at 07:50

If quietness is what your aiming for and not max clocks you can get away with just cooling your GPU and CPU.
Try to keep the usual airflow through your case as well if possible to keep other components cool, the main problem i have found using MATX boards is the temps of the Chipset.

dfour · 6 Apr 2011 at 14:26

Definatly worth watercooling the gpu to keep it cool and quiet for the long gaming sessions. Air cooling still cant touch the temps you get with water on a Gpu.

High end air can get close to catching high end water cooling but WC will still be quieter.

Overall (if you have the money and time) yes

JeffyB · 6 Apr 2011 at 14:48

It's only really worth watercooling the CPU and GPU, mobo blocks don't really allow most users to overclock more and just end up dumping a lot of heat into your loop.

twist3d0n3 · 6 Apr 2011 at 14:52

agree with what jeffyb says above, the only real things that need to be water cooled for reduced noise/higher clocks is gpu and cpu.

if you want it to look the mutts nuts though, do everything

Sayso · 6 Apr 2011 at 16:14

the only thing about mobo blocks is that airflow is not needed across the NB, at the moment i have to have it directly cooled and the fan is the noisiest thing in my system.

zulu9812 · 6 Apr 2011 at 16:20

I've recently been advised that water clocking the motherboard in the same loop as your CPU will reduce cooling performance on the CPU block, because motherboard blocks are very flow restrictive. There's a theory that a motherboard block should be on its own loop, or not water cooled at all. And water cooling RAM is pointless, just pointless.

dfour · 6 Apr 2011 at 16:35

The only reason for watercooling your ram is e-peen

Antilo · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:07

Hard Drives

Antilo · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:08

Or.. or... your PSU! Im sure I've seen it done somewhere..

twist3d0n3 · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:09

dfour said:
The only reason for watercooling your ram is e-peen

or to not have those noisy ram fans on (which is why i did)

zulu9812 · 6 Apr 2011 at 17:19

twist3d0n3 said:
or to not have those noisy ram fans on (which is why i did)

You could always swap out the fans, or have decent air flow through the case.

Greboth · 6 Apr 2011 at 22:11

Wow this thread took off since I last glanced at it. I have my CPU and GPU watercooled at the moment which keeps things quiet and I like it. My thinking was for quietness (and a little epeen boost) was to have everything watercooled so the only fans would be some really slow spinning rad fans. The problem with it is that the extra blocks and extra rads all add cost which I have got to wonder whether it is worth it.

I think what I might do from the comments above then is watercool the new rigs cpu and gpu in a loop and if too much noise to keep the rest cool I will add a second loop - Simples.