Custom water loop or AIO?

sastusbulbas · 27 Jan 2015 at 21:15

Hi all,

I have been thinking of a new case within a few months, the Phantek Mini XL, as I have a Micro ATX but the current case seems lacking in a few areas.

My main interest in that case had been for water cooling, two 240 rads for the GPU's and CPU.

But now I am wondering if it is worth the hassle, I currently have two 7950 I want to crossfire, but may well want to replace these later on this year. The cost of water blocks for GPU's is rather expensive and limited to a specific model, and newer cards seem less thermally challenged.

I had thought of Swiftech Komodo 7950 blocks, but that is half the budget of an Nvidia 980 gpu. And even if I was going for two 290's or two 970's, the cost of water cooling these would move me into the price band of a higher GPU. I do not think I will be water cooling the 7950's now.

With that in mind, is a custom water loop worth the hassle and expense increase over two GPU's air cooled and a 280mm AIO on the CPU?

.:SAmSuNG:. · 27 Jan 2015 at 21:35

Don't think it's worth it no but lots of things arnt really worth it. Spending £400+ on watercooling won't mean much more performance but lots still do it. You just need to justify it depending what you hope to gain. I just want to have a custom water-cooled rig again so I've accepted it costs what it costs.

BluD · 27 Jan 2015 at 22:56

Yeah i wouldnt be buying new blocks for 7950s now, i only did it cause i already had one card, then the second card and block i got second hand for not much over 100 quid. If it was gonna cost a lot more i would have just got a 970.

Dirk Diggler · 28 Jan 2015 at 05:01

If you're replacing the cards this year, then don't do it. Buy a case that leaves scope to WC, but seriously if you're changing the cards you shouldn't be buying blocks for them.

sastusbulbas · 28 Jan 2015 at 23:43

Well that is why I said I will not be buying GPU blocks for the current cards.

I guess I will be air cooling the GPU's for some time, as I want to move to 4k when two cards will comfortably support high frame rates at that resolution.

I guess an AIO will be cheaper and effective enough, tempted with an NZXT 340 with a Kraken X61 280mm up front, but guess that would have some detrimental effect on the cooling of two GPU's with air.

Phanteks Mini XL can have a 280mm AIO cooler fitted just about anywhere, but would probably look lost and out of place.

But still undecided on whether custom water cooling is effective enough to justify the cost considering how quickly graphics cards seem to be superceded.

BluD · 29 Jan 2015 at 01:26

I would buy your case after youve upgraded your graphics card so you can decide if it needs water cooling and buy the appropriate case. The new nvidia cards are suppose to be quite quiet, you might just decide to get a 980 and a small case and forget about watercooling altogether. Besides going to a 980 now from 2 7950 wont be much of an upgrade, so im guessing you would be going sli with new cards anyway and would proberbly want a larger case to suite them.

sastusbulbas · 29 Jan 2015 at 20:05

Hi Blud.

I am already in a situation where a larger case would be prefered, as the TJ08 is cramped and I am not happy with the current cooling. I think the HDD cage restricts airflow to the GPU's. Maybe the MSI being a non reference design is not as suited? It also limits AIO or watercooling choices.

I currently have an SSD and single 4tb drive in there, but have four Sammy F3 and a WD Green and I hope to end up replacing all six drives with just four identical 4tb drives, I just never put them all in here due to the space. It gets cramped in the TJ08 and the drives cables are a bit close to the CPU cooler when it is full.

Sadly, I just cannot get an image of 280 Monsta Rads in push pull out my head, with red or purple coolant and LED lighting.

The 7950's are staying at least until the new AMD's are released, as then I will start looking at the better options for 4k and the costs of two GPU and a monitor.

Evil-I · 30 Jan 2015 at 15:51

BluD said:
The new nvidia cards are suppose to be quite quiet, .

They are in comparison to Kepler or a lot of the AMD cards, but I ran my pair of Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 on air whilst waiting for the waterblocks to arrive and still struggled with the noise levels.

Probably doesn't help that my rig site on little drawer set thing right next to my desk so is probably only about 50cm from my right ear....