Closed loop vs air

yumcookies

yumcookies

yumcookies

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Hiya folks just a quick post to pick a few of your brains :) atm i have a zalman cnps 9900-max cpu cooler fitted on my 2500k would a closed loop give me more efficient cooling? Also im guessing a closed loop would also be quieter as my zalman can be quiet a noisey piece of kit lol. Any recommendations would be great :)

Thanks in advance guys
 
Efficent in terms of what?

In terms of price (at retail) air cooling is better value for money as the top end coolers reach £70 and can cool within 1-3C of the CLC (close loop coolers). Where the CLC's top end is £100-£120, though they do offer the best cooling performance.

Though OCUK do have pre-order refurbs H80/H100's for £35 and £40 respectively.

Noise is a different issue, think about it laterally, the only moving components on an air cooler is the fans, the moving components on the CLC is the fans and the pump.. So if you had the same fans on the air cooler as on a CLC the Air cooler would be quieter (if not exactly the same).

It's a tough decision.. The best way to decide is focus on what fits your case and budget..
 
Also the closed loop kits allow for high profile ram, as the bulk of the cooler can be relocated (the rad,fans) but you don't have that luxury with a lot of air coolers.
 
Like others have said there's a lot of deciding factors. your coolers not to bad and one of the h100's would give you better performance but I'm not sure It would really be much quieter. The stock fans aren't that great so If you wanted it to be quiet you would have to replace those. The big air coolers have performance very close to the h100 but are much much much quieter. the draw back of the big air coolers obviously being the their size.

I was in the same situation not long ago but decided to go for a big air cooler. Once I started looking at the cost of adding 4 good fans for push pull on a h100 the price was around £90 total, a fair bit more than a big air cooler and with the water cooling loop I'd have to sacrifice case airflow and case temps While still having a risk of it leaking or the pump failing etc.

I only have 1 8gb low profile ram stick so I could fit any cooler I wanted so it made sense for me to go for air but It really depends on the situation.
 
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