H100 all in one water cooler or hi end air?

DrMekon

DrMekon

DrMekon

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15 Dec 2005
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597
Thinking of building a mitx setup with the Prodigy case, so nice and compact.. and am looking for good cooling solution that may lend itself to a little system tweaking...

Never dabbled with water cooling, and dont really know how these budget all in one solutions actually compare to some of the hi end mahussive heatsink and fan combos...

Most of the top end air coolers are about half the price of the H100, so is their actually much in it?
 
I wen't from a H100 to a Noctua D14 and the D14 is a much better cooler if you can fit it in. I had three H100's all fail the last leaking water into my case.
The D14 matches the H100 for temps and is considerably quieter and comes with better fans.
 
Seems fairly conclusive.. Ive never been convinced with water coolers.. something about mixing electricity and water in a confined space!

Ive had a noctua in the past, and it served me well.

Am going for either Asrock or prob Asus Z77 mitx board, with 2x4gb ddr3 (not sure which!) and prob i5 3570k.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-530-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2071

I had one of the i7 920 OC bundles from OCers back in May 2009, but to be honest, even with huge cooler, I was never happy with +90c temps under load.

If OCing really is going to raise temps so high, maybe I wont bother kitting out for OCing, and go with a H77 board, can prob save around £100 dropping to this and a half decent air cooler.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-523-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2265
 
get a custom water cooling setup, overclock to 4.4ghz get temps around 69-73 degrees. and also, you wont need to turn your heating so high as the pc will warm the room for you ;)

changing to a new cpu is the easy way out. ;)
 
My D14 keeps my 2500K @ 4.8ghz at under 70'c on prime. Max I have seen was 72'c running IBT.

Cannot recommend the cooler enough tbh.
 
james_2k said:
different cpu.

and water is more fun! (and quieter- if you want it to be)

i saw a review of the h100

and it looked favourable.
Click to expand...

Although checking out the graphs and comparisons with other coolers.. the Thermalright Silver Arrow seems a much better option.. or indeed the D-14.

Pity I found the Silver Arrow £25 cheaper for the same sink and fans elsewhere.. Found CPU £20 cheaper and MB about £15 cheaper elsewhere too... shame on you OCers.. really must think about price matching! Ok, so I have to deal with 3 different shops, but thats a whopping £60 on the overall cost!
 
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Been pretty impressed with my alpenfohn k2 so far on a 3570k, cpu is oc'd to 4.2ghz. Albeit just through asus turbo v windows program, (pretty high vcore of 1.244). Under stress testing, the cpu hits 62c max. 15c lower than my old properly bios clocked i7 920 @4ghz. Both in a shinobi xl case which is poor for airflow.
 
I can remember when the H50 first came out, i was using a TRUE black at the time on a 3.8ghz q6600, 68c max on it. I tried my mates H50 as he reckoned it was the best thing since sliced bread. 2 mins into a p95 small fft test, 78c with the same fans id used on the TRUE. I dont rate theese all in one liquid cooling solutions at all. You could actually get better results by buying second hand custom wc parts, high end air is so much cheaper though, particularly with the big dual tower coolers that come supplied with decent fans. Ive even ran my k2 passively on my old i7 920 with a mild 3.6ghz oc on stock volts.
 
With you settler. my 920 @ 3.55GHz passive 72c max. And takes 45minutes to get that hot, but goes no higher. That running 97-100% load.. never lower than 97%.

K2
D14
TC14 (Phanteks)
SA
SA SB-E
SA SB-E Extreme (want one and they are cheap)
and many other great coolers

All within a few degrees of the best... SA SB-E or Phanteks usually get best score but others are so close most of us would never know the difference.
 
When i cable tidied my new 3570k rig last week, (4.2ghz oc). Like a dimwit i forgot to plug the dual k2 fans into the PWM splitter i have, logged onto bf3 and played fine for 10 mins. Only by looking at my g15 lcd display and noticing coretemps were a bit high, (70c) realised i was running the k2 passively. Yes, im a bit forgetful (aka thick lol). My only issue though with the k2 is, my xonar DX sits very close to it in the slot above my gpu, i had more room on my old x58 p6t deluxe v2 board.
 
Helios1234 said:
I swear he gets paid by Corsair...
Click to expand...

I was gonna mention the 'powered by Corsair graphic at the start of every video, but this one doesn't seem to have it.

That said, I run Corsair SP/AF fans and he was spot on with his review of those imo.
 
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Corsair, cant fault their psu's, but jeez the flat modular cables are a joke. Bought the pre braided ones for my HX850, very nicely made.
 
Have a TX650 and 750. Good PSUs... just don't believe Corsair's lies about "Ultra Quiet" fan cus it's not. Can hear it over 2 meters away in quiet lounge. 7 other fans in system and only one that can be heard in normal use is "Ultra Quiet" Corsair PSU fan. :(
 
Tbf, the fan in my hx850 is pretty quiet. The loudest fan in my rig is a 1400 rpm yate loon that i use as a rear exhaust.
 
I think the HX is quieter than TX ver.2. Had a TX650 ver.1 and it was quieter. Have read it's a a deflector inside the housing that causes the noise. But I'm not opening it up and voiding the warranty on the chance I might be able to quiet it down. Will be doing some mods in next few weeks; won a white braiding kit from BuToNz that arrived today and expect a i7 980 any time now. Want to remove some grills and possibly change front fans to 140mm, add a couple of holes to improve cable management, and will turn PSU over so fan is inside case and see if that helps with the noise.

Had a Flower PSU for years. Very quiet.
 
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