Moving away from watercooling!

ICEx21 · 4 Feb 2025 at 12:31

I remember going down the water cooling route a long time ago, I just didn't have the time for all adjustments when changing a single piece of gear or the effort into fixing a leak. I've been happy with my air and AIO solutions now and I don't think I could ever go back to water.

Kudos to those that still have the patience for it!

Joe Jones · 7 Feb 2025 at 11:10

In the 25 odd years of water-cooling I can't say I've ever had a leak other than a couple of teething errors setting things up with awkward fittings 'back-in-the-day' and the one time an acrylic reservoir cracked due to mishandling.
The biggest issue was with GPU blocks and the cadence of upgrades in the early days....I'd be upgrading GPU's yearly and the waterblocks were/are expensive and have no resell value after.

hamza_tm · 27 Mar 2025 at 18:17

Hah, also went from water to air about a week ago. My custom loop RTX 3080 and Ryzen 7 5800X served me well since COVID times, but the amount of trouble to just do basic things...

Swapped an RTX 5080 in which had a 360mm AIO attached and to fit the new rad in I had to take the entire loop apart. Then managed to snag a 4090 and wanted to test that but just to get it in the machine would have meant taking the entire loop apart again just to disentangle and remove the 5080. And I don't mean just draining, I mean literally taking out the reservoir/pump, undoing several tubes, taking out a 360mm rad, all that before I can take out the RTX 5080.

Switched to a peerless assassin and a monstrously large 5090 air cooled.

Biggest difference is idle noise levels are pure blissful silence. The 5090 turns its fans off, and the peerless assassin doesn't make a peep. With WC I had all the fans on the lowest RPM so that thing was quiet. It's like with WC you get low noise at all times (idle and load). With Air you get quieter idle but louder load. But yeah I'm really enjoying not having that constant WC hum whenever my PC is on.

martos123 · 30 Mar 2025 at 22:19

I had been running custom watercooling for 20 years or so and finally moved away from it a month or so ago. Usually having CPU and GPU in the loop. The expense and hassle wasnt worth it.

I've gone with an AIO for the CPU and Air for GPU and am really happy with the results. At idle speed my system is quieter and even when gaming it's not much louder.

WARburton · 30 Mar 2025 at 22:23

martos123 said:
I had been running custom watercooling for 20 years or so and finally moved away from it a month or so ago. Usually having CPU and GPU in the loop. The expense and hassle wasnt worth it.

I've gone with an AIO for the CPU and Air for GPU and am really happy with the results. At idle speed my system is quieter and even when gaming it's not much louder.

you have a low heat system there really is not much need now days only for show.

martos123 · 30 Mar 2025 at 22:28

And the price of watercooling gear is nuts too these days.

WARburton · 30 Mar 2025 at 22:33

martos123 said:
And the price of watercooling gear is nuts too these days.

i priced up to cool my system with my old 4080s when i hit £300 and still needed parts i just walked away

martos123 · 30 Mar 2025 at 22:38

My reservoir/pump was leaking and it was £150 to replace it. Got an AIO for £70.

GPU blocks are a pain too as the number of blocks available isn't great and only an option if you have a specific card too.

When I put the 9070xt in, it was time to call it a day.

jammir · 8 Apr 2025 at 06:42

I do think my current build will be last custom loop, too much time investment and money in it.

Toasty · 11 Apr 2025 at 09:14

Went with AIO for latest build LCD screen etc, would rather game than faffing about taking longer to build.

Mr Mcgoo · 11 Apr 2025 at 14:09

martos123 said:
My reservoir/pump was leaking and it was £150 to replace it. Got an AIO for £70.

GPU blocks are a pain too as the number of blocks available isn't great and only an option if you have a specific card too.

When I put the 9070xt in, it was time to call it a day.

Had an issue with my alphacool gpu block thermal pads being the incorrect size and alphacool didn't fix the issue that they were aware of so i ditched it to go back to air. Went for an AIO in my sig and original air cooler on my 4080 super. cpu is only 5c warmer at the same clock (75c max core) and gpu is the same temp (65c max) due to bad thermal paste size giving high temps for a custom loop.

jammir said:
I do think my current build will be last custom loop, too much time investment and money in it.

My entire loop cost me £550 and replaced it all for a £70 aio on the cpu and stock air cooler on gpu. Would have saved in total £480 and temps only a few degrees higher. That money could have been used on a better cpu and motherboard

Toasty said:
Went with AIO for latest build LCD screen etc, would rather game than faffing about taking longer to build.

Got the thermalright frozen warframe and love it. Great price to performance coming from at custom loop.

nightwish · 11 Apr 2025 at 14:19

I always fancied having a go at water-cooling - it looks so much cooler than a plain HSF! But I could never convince myself that it was worth the cost, effort and reliability compromises over a good air-cooling setup. It's one of those things that I kinda wished I'd done when I was young, but there's no way I'd bother with it these days! Air "just works"!

Sc00p007 · 11 Apr 2025 at 21:05

For high spec setups, after the initial cost its not so expensive. I've had my setup for over 10yrs and feel like ive had my moneys worth. Changed complete cpu block twice, other cpu upgrades i could buy a new bracket to reuse the block. Gpu wise, ive been able to buy one of the cheaper sku's each gen eg palit 5090 and for the price of a new block i get better temp and noise levels than the more expensive models. I've been so happy with wc that im doing a full refresh and starting again with a mo-ra iv build. End game and hope to still have it cooling my blocks for the next 10-20 yrs.

Mr Mcgoo · Saturday at 02:17

Sc00p007 said:
For high spec setups, after the initial cost its not so expensive. I've had my setup for over 10yrs and feel like ive had my moneys worth. Changed complete cpu block twice, other cpu upgrades i could buy a new bracket to reuse the block. Gpu wise, ive been able to buy one of the cheaper sku's each gen eg palit 5090 and for the price of a new block i get better temp and noise levels than the more expensive models. I've been so happy with wc that im doing a full refresh and starting again with a mo-ra iv build. End game and hope to still have it cooling my blocks for the next 10-20 yrs.

i nearly went for the mo-ra iv but after my issues with the alphacool block i gave up on WC entirely and don't miss it anywhere near as much as i thought. at this point if i was to go back to WC, it would be for the aesthetics. the only additional cost would be a new gpu block due to the issues mentioned with current block as i still have all my WC setup in a box on the shelf next to me

Toasty · Saturday at 13:14

It's kind of nuts as I've built PC with phase change vapochill/mach 2, caselabs wtih 4x 480mm rads, 2 x 1260 MORA with optional QDC to a to a laser chiller but now just using AIO.

Randall8686 · Sunday at 09:22

I done the same, went from full water setups that spent hours making hard tubes up for and spending a fortune on fittings. Got some decent air cooling gear and never looked back. Unless you are really pushing voltages air is perfectly fine. Ultimately i just wanna game

Farore · Monday at 03:27

hamza_tm said:
Hah, also went from water to air about a week ago. My custom loop RTX 3080 and Ryzen 7 5800X served me well since COVID times, but the amount of trouble to just do basic things...

Swapped an RTX 5080 in which had a 360mm AIO attached and to fit the new rad in I had to take the entire loop apart. Then managed to snag a 4090 and wanted to test that but just to get it in the machine would have meant taking the entire loop apart again just to disentangle and remove the 5080. And I don't mean just draining, I mean literally taking out the reservoir/pump, undoing several tubes, taking out a 360mm rad, all that before I can take out the RTX 5080.

Switched to a peerless assassin and a monstrously large 5090 air cooled.

Biggest difference is idle noise levels are pure blissful silence. The 5090 turns its fans off, and the peerless assassin doesn't make a peep. With WC I had all the fans on the lowest RPM so that thing was quiet. It's like with WC you get low noise at all times (idle and load). With Air you get quieter idle but louder load. But yeah I'm really enjoying not having that constant WC hum whenever my PC is on.

Glad I never did a custom loop! Sounds like a headache.

hamza_tm · Monday at 13:24

Farore said:
Glad I never did a custom loop! Sounds like a headache.

Hah, I just went in and finally extracted that 5080 last night. Several hours, torn fingers, two small disasters and a completely disassembled build later, and I have it.

Rebuilt the PC with the original RTX 3080 for my brother, reservoir leaked and gushed coolant all over the floor, cleaned it up, reassembled, thought okay we're good.

Filled up the reservoir, then the outlet tube leaked at the other end! Had to scramble to undo the compression fitting and hold it up higher than the res to stop the flow. Then struggled to redo the compression fitting properly, every wrong squeeze and I'd have more coolant gush out over the PSU wires I'd shoved down the back...

Finally got it together, carried the monstrous thing upstairs to the bathroom and stuck it next to an industrial-grade dehumidifier sucking up moisture and blasting warm, dry air over it all night.

Dried nicely by this morning, but the pump wouldn't spin up properly. Water just lazily, weakly trundled along the tubes barely making any progress. Luckily I use transparent tubing rather than that EPDM stuff so I could clearly see something was wrong. Somehow managed to lift, rotate, move and otherwise manhandle the entire 15kg+ monster of a machine every which way to get air out and move water along until I at least had some water covering the CPU, then managed to boot into BIOS. Turns out setting the pump speed to 100% manually resolved the issue and the trusty D5 jumped into life blasting liquid with vigour through the two 360 rads, endless tubing, a CPU and GPU block and the res.

Bit of an experience.

Loading up the PC and the like-sized box of WC gear into the car and off it goes!

Sc00p007 · Monday at 15:42

hamza_tm said:
Hah, I just went in and finally extracted that 5080 last night. Several hours, torn fingers, two small disasters and a completely disassembled build later, and I have it.

Rebuilt the PC with the original RTX 3080 for my brother, reservoir leaked and gushed coolant all over the floor, cleaned it up, reassembled, thought okay we're good.

Filled up the reservoir, then the outlet tube leaked at the other end! Had to scramble to undo the compression fitting and hold it up higher than the res to stop the flow. Then struggled to redo the compression fitting properly, every wrong squeeze and I'd have more coolant gush out over the PSU wires I'd shoved down the back...

Finally got it together, carried the monstrous thing upstairs to the bathroom and stuck it next to an industrial-grade dehumidifier sucking up moisture and blasting warm, dry air over it all night.

Dried nicely by this morning, but the pump wouldn't spin up properly. Water just lazily, weakly trundled along the tubes barely making any progress. Luckily I use transparent tubing rather than that EPDM stuff so I could clearly see something was wrong. Somehow managed to lift, rotate, move and otherwise manhandle the entire 15kg+ monster of a machine every which way to get air out and move water along until I at least had some water covering the CPU, then managed to boot into BIOS. Turns out setting the pump speed to 100% manually resolved the issue and the trusty D5 jumped into life blasting liquid with vigour through the two 360 rads, endless tubing, a CPU and GPU block and the res.

Bit of an experience.

Loading up the PC and the like-sized box of WC gear into the car and off it goes!

Sounds like a nightmare. Maybe using a couple of quick disconnects in the loop could've made tinkering with components easier.

hamza_tm · Monday at 15:46

Sc00p007 said:
Sounds like a nightmare. Maybe using a couple of quick disconnects in the loop could've made tinkering with components easier.

Yes thanks! Things I'd do differently:
- invest in quick disconnects
- invest in a pressure tester
- invest in better fittings

Basically I was too cheap to make water cooling work as pleasantly as it could, which probably says something about water cooling

I'd probably look into pneumatic push fittings, I've had about enough of low quality finger-tearing compression fittings that are stiff and loose in all the wrong places.