Considering Watercooling

Rhyswh

Rhyswh

Rhyswh

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Joined
10 Jan 2012
Posts
806
First off I'll explain a little about my situation! I recently decided that I am going to turn my PC into a gaming PC! I originally built my system for music recording and had no interest in the way it looks.

My plan now is to stick a 7950 or 270x depending on budget and start playing some games. I will also be getting a new mobo to enable me to overclock my i7 (not too much though).

I have recently been thinking about rearranging my desk so that I can have my case next to me. It has a window in it but at the moment it's nothing special. So I was thinking of sticking some LED's in there and a few fans to make it look good.

I haven't got a clue about watercooling. It's something I've never been interested in before. Been looking at the watercooling cases thread and I can't help but wanting one for myself!!

I have to be realistic though, I don't have a massive budget, £100, and I'm not sure if this covers it. The only reason I want it is for aesthetics.

So I'm looking for some advice.

Is it possible to do it on a small budget?
Is there a reason why it might be a bad idea?
Is there a lot of maintenance?
Any recommendations?

Edit: should have made it clearer sorry. Only looking to cool the cpu.

Thanks
 
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£100 will not be enough to do it propery, you'd be better off just buying an AIO unit for your CPU, but then you are entirely limited.

A CPU waterblock will set you back £50+ alone, GPU blocks even more so, ignoring fittings, fluid, tubing, radiators, resevoirs and a pump..


You could buy one of the watercooling kits that just do CPU, and then extend it once you have the funds to do so.
 
Rhyswh said:
Is it possible to do it on a small budget?
Is there a reason why it might be a bad idea?
Is there a lot of maintenance?
Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

1 - Not unless you're pretty good at finding bargains on our favourite auction site. Still doable but difficult and you'll need patience. EDIT - will only cover cooling 1 component though!
2 - No
3 - If done properly and components picked carefully - no. Some coolants have a life of 3 years in systems but you need to watch out for tubing leeching plasiticiser
4 - 2nd best thing I started doing on my machines. First one was getting SSDs!
 
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Is magicool a good brand? I found a whole kit for £65 which brings me to my next question. I would like to use OCUK, can they order things in or is it just what's on the site they sell?
 
I would rather have a decent AIO loop than a budget custom loop for a few reasons:

Not much point in going watercooling using a single 120mm unbranded radiator and a cheap block, since temperatures wont be all that good and with pump and a fan to keep temps down on a unbranded rad, you wont get any reduction in noise either.

A bit of a google search has found that the block is not made using milled copper but rather cast copper, so its performance wont come close to other blocks available.

The pump is rated at 280 lph, which is too little if you plan to expand the loop.

A refurbished AIO loop will actually perform better than this kit and cost about the same.
 
All in One cooler. It just basically looks like a radiator with cpu Waterlooville as the pump is built into it. They are all pretty much sealed units so you can't expand on them with the exception of 3 that I know of but they are all a bit over £100
 
should have guessed that lol

Ok, so I was hoping to have clear tubes with nice blue liquid pumping through. Is it not possible to change things on the AIO's?
 
Note as they are sealed. Although as I said there are 3 that can. I can't remember what they are called now. One is the ocuk phathom I think it's called. You can find them quite easy on Google
 
Say I wasn't interested in expanding the loop, as I'm pretty sure I won't. I find it quite a scary thought that water will be going anywhere near my i7! Would that magicooler kit be ok then?

This is what you get.
1x 120mm radiator including 120 mm fan
1x Turret MagiCool pump 12V
1x Magicool Bitterfly CPU Block Revision II
1x Magicool UV active Green Coolant (500 ml)
1x 2meters 10/8mm hose
6x 10/8mm Compression fittings
1x Decoupling mat for the pump
1x Thermal Paste
1x Filling aid (syringe)
1x Installation Instructions

Can anyone answer the other question about OCUK?
 
Theres a review of that kit here:

Short version, you'll get decent temps, don't use the included coolant, don't expect great things from it but at stock speeds or reasonable overclock, it'll do the job. And, unlike an AIO cooler, you could replace the pump and add a GPU block and more rad at a later date.
 
Thanks for that. I watched it yesterday. I'm looking to overclock to around 4.4gz so I'm guessing this would be more than adequate for that?

Yeah I like the idea of being able to upgrade the parts at a later date if I want to. So no one's said "stay away from it" or anything along those lines so I'm guessing it's ok to go for it? Would the issue with the block being milled copper be a big problem at 4.4ghz?
 
I don't really understand why just cooling the GPU ... and with a 120mm rad, if you want to cool both CPU + GPU, that'll need to be replaced or another radiator needs to be bought to go with.

£65 + another, at least, £60 for a GPU waterblock and you've still blown 25% over budget.
 
daveip said:
I don't really understand why just cooling the GPU ... and with a 120mm rad, if you want to cool both CPU + GPU, that'll need to be replaced or another radiator needs to be bought to go with.

£65 + another, at least, £60 for a GPU waterblock and you've still blown 25% over budget.
Click to expand...

I don't want to cool the GPU at all! Only the CPU for the time being. Expanding the loop I might do a year down the line.
 
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