Anyone else regret going full water ?

[Bolton7935]

hey guys just wondering if anyone else regrets going full water ?
i did it 2 years ago as i always wanted to do it and at the time i was happy
but now new house and a baby

i don't have as much spare cash and if i want to upgrade its all extra cost with blocks and a pain to drain then there maintenance sorta wish i didn't do it wish i could just plug in a new gpu on air ha

cost me over 500 as well

 

[deFiniLoGy]

Nope.

I can't stand the noise of air cooling.

 

[nox_uk]

I did and swore i'd never go water again. what i meant was never go custom water again. i actually have an AIO which i think is the best compromise, if you can find one with a silent pump...

 

[ttaskmaster]

Loved my AIO, love my current custom loop, will likely stay custom.
My (current) case is about as noisy as it ever was, which isn't very noisy thanks to Noctua.
Change fluids and flush system maybe twice a year, I guess... It's a bit easier if you design the loop around the maintenance, though. I have a drain point off an external 120 rad, so it's not a big issue.

I do miss the ability to more easily faff around without having to drain, refill and bleed, as well as the expense of new block(s) and things every time. Costs have been kept down by buying second-hand and buying smart (980Ti with block already included, for example).
However, I can swap RAM and things without having to work around a massive towering heatsink, which is rather nice.

 

[Glanza]

I don't regret it but it does limit what cases you can use without having to take a dremel and start chopping bits away.

 

[paradigm]

hey guys just wondering if anyone else regrets going full water ?
i did it 2 years ago as i always wanted to do it and at the time i was happy
but now new house and a baby

i don't have as much spare cash and if i want to upgrade its all extra cost with blocks and a pain to drain then there maintenance sorta wish i didn't do it wish i could just plug in a new gpu on air ha

cost me over 500 as well

Similar situation, built an X79 rig a number of years back, went water. Fast forward to July 2016 and we'd bought the house, and now we're expecting our first born.

Does that bother me? No, I either rack up the overtime, or I wait that bit longer for an upgrade (not that upgrading seems to be as frequently as it used to be for me in the past, hardware seems to "cope" for longer these days, especially compared to the 2000's).

Just about to build an X99 based rig under water also, it just had to wait until I'd bought all the baby paraphernalia. Going hardline this time too, so even less scope for an upgrade-flexible loop.

 

[Razor Time]

Watercooling can be a pain, time consuming and expensive but its also gives me low noise and low temps so is worth the hassle. Plus it can be kinda fun when there aren't any issues. I have been doing it for 11+ years and do not regret it at all.

 

[pastymuncher]

Went custom watercooling about 10 years ago and will never go back to air. Most waterblocks are multi socket compatible these days so a change in sockets doesn't need to be a change of block. Manufacturers are pretty good at releasing updated brackets when new sockets are launched too. Once you have a watercooling system there is not really anything that needs to be upgraded. Tubing such as Mayhems is extremely cheap. Deionised water can be got from a supermarket for £1.50 for a couple of litres and then all you need is a anti-fungal/anti-corrosive additive so the liquid is cheap too. I wouldn't touch a AIO after all the problems from the likes of EK and Raijintek. At least if I get a leak in my loop it's going to be my fault for not putting it together right unless I am unlucky and have a seal fail like I did with my EK blocks last year. Not interested in air cooling at all.

 

[.:SAmSuNG:.]

Ridged tubing is a pain when swapping parts or maintenance.

 

[paradigm]

Whilst what you are saying for flexible tubing is mostly true @pastymuncher, it's not so true for GPU blocks or motherboard blocks, if you've gone that route.

Sure, you could upgrade GPU and keep that on air for a while if you want to stage your upgrade though.

 

[Aberfala]

Nope, every time I do a rebuild I end up using an old air cooled PC I have for a few days and the noise it makes reminds me why I went watercooled in the frst place.

 

[D1craig]

i kinda dread anything happening and me having to go inside and drain it and stuff but apart from that no, i love it and will continue to do it until they make better sounding air cooled things.

 

[Minstadave]

Used to watercool but lost the love for it. It's makes no cost sense as it's so expensive that unless you have a top end system the cash it better spent on hardware. The maintenance is annoying, it makes upgrading a ball ache and I've never found it that quiet. The fad for rigid tubing looks daft, you have to drain your loop each time you upgrade don't you?

I'm currently using two AIOs (CPU and GPU) and noise is ok and it's much less hassle. Cooling seems great (5820k at 4.5ghz, 980Ti at 1.5ghz).

 

[eyetrip]

Went water first time couple years ago.

It's actually kept me from upgrading as I had so little spare time I didn't feel like mucking about.

When I upgraded to Ryzen recently, I was going to go back to air, but then thought about all the money I would have lost on stuff I bought.

Just simplified it a little, and kept it. It cools reasonably, but I have it set for quietness.

Main thing I regret is the money wasted on koolance quick disconnects. Rubbish bloody things.

Only problem I have now is I didn't take the ram slots in consideration when setting loop up, so getting to them a pain.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Built a modular system, didn't look the best but swapping everything around would be a breeze thanks to quick disconnects.
Used alphacools GPX system, buy a new card and just buy the heatsink and mount the water block to it and the new card. Even swapped a card once without draining the loop. would have been easier to take it out but was a fun challenge .
Currently use a silent loop in my right with a GPU block and the pump is the quietest I've ever heard

 

[pastymuncher]

Whilst what you are saying for flexible tubing is mostly true @pastymuncher, it's not so true for GPU blocks or motherboard blocks, if you've gone that route.

Sure, you could upgrade GPU and keep that on air for a while if you want to stage your upgrade though.

Up until this 1070 I had always used core only blocks so for me I didn't have to upgrade the gpu block when changing gpu's. Most of the time I didn't even have to drain the loop when upgrading cards. Just take the air cooler off and bolt the block on and job done. I only went full cover this time to get away from EK.

 

[ubersonic]

I gave up on watercooling last year after using it to cool every build since around 2003. It used to be that the higher overclocks, lower noise (or both) offset the added maintenance, annoyance when changing parts and increased failure chance, but not really these days.

I think the tipping point for me was when they started releasing the high end GPUs that were cooled so well they could turn their fans of under light usage.

 

[jaybee]

It's become less worth it. I did it a decade ago...yes I'm old! It depends what you want, and if you have the time and money. I don't, so I settle for air.

 

[VKleita]

My biggest regret is I didn't research more before buying my first set of kit.
A lot of money to just put to one side and replace.

I soon upgraded to an external radiator solution and have been pretty happy ever since

 

[Radox-0]

Don't regret it, but it does prevent me from making changes all the time in one of my systems which is all rigid tubing.