To watercool or not?

James J

James J

James J

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
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Location
North Lincolnshire
Hi all,

I'm currently in the process of deciding on a PC build with my budget. Water cooling a CPU and 2 high end gpu's is pricey so I was wanting to know what peoples opinions are. I value acoustic performance as much as raw power and have dabbled with water cooling in the past, but it's and expensive and risky venture.

I'd be looking at buying a 4770k based system with 2 gpu's such as 290x or 780 ti's. Was thinking of going 1440p but I might go down the 144hz route as gaming is all I want a new PC for anyway.

My concern is that 2x r290's seem to be hot and loud, especially compared to their nvidia counterparts. Due to that, is spending hundreds more pounds on water cooling the gpu's ultimately worth it?

I've used a 2x Titan system in the past and I didn't think that was loud at all tbh as the coolers are very good. That's what's giving me the dilemma now on my new purchase.

Advice greatly appreciated.
 
The non-reference 290's are being released very soon, these are a lot cooler and quieter.

Is watercooling worth it? - Yes IMO if you have the budget. I put 2 680's and a 3820 under water and it was my 2nd ever build, my first being a simple AMD system. They now perform extremely well and I am yet to overclock anything properly.

However with the right case, 2 GPU's and a CPU will be fine with just air.
 
If you're going high end (which 4770k and SLI 780Ti's definitely is) then you should go WC imo. You'll not be able to get the most out of it on air.
 
As Moo said, If you want tot get the best out of your hardware (overclocking wise) watercooling is the best way to do it..

If i had you're rig i'd watercool it... I would also think about de-lidding the CPU and getting a mount for that too. :)
 
I'm currently having the same dilemma, albeit not quite that top end, I'm going with 780,s/290's and not the ti/x top of the line version.

For me it's not even just the overclocking potential under water but the aesthetic options it adds to the build and the acoustic improvements ....

What is this de-lidding you speak of Doomed?
 
Gboyd said:
I'm currently having the same dilemma, albeit not quite that top end, I'm going with 780,s/290's and not the ti/x top of the line versions.

What is this de-lidding you speak of Doomed?
Click to expand...

Taking the CPU apart and putting better quality paste inside it. Intel use stuff that couldn't be distinguished between polyfiller.

Not for the faint of heart, since if you mess it up you've spent £250 and nowt to show for it.

Doing that has been getting people anything between 10 and 20c cooler temperatures when overclocking. It's almost like intel use bad paste just to deliberatly hinder their own product (sandbagging of sorts)
 
There are 3 reasons to w/c;

Acoustics
Performance
Aesthetics

As my PC resides in my living room, this is the order I value my w/c setup in, others will differ. One of the main benefits I find, is not so much how much more quiet they are but that the noise they produce is of a constant pitch - there are no GPU fans ramping up to exhaust heat when you game which is one of the most annoying acoustic aspects I find of friend's PC's. Having just invested in 2 290's I can safely say that I couldn't use them on air at all, but then I haven't had to use a performance GPU on air since 2005 so maybe I am being over sensitive to the noise they produce. Custom coolers help here I would imagine.

I find the actual construction/filling/draining of a loop a chore now. I take some pride in what the innards look like, but to nowhere near the degree others do. I'm just interested in what performance I can get out of it vs how quiet I can make it.
 
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