Im new

Associate
Joined
2 Mar 2012
Posts
682
Location
Hartlepool (north east)
Im pretty new to the water cooling business and was wondering what are the benifits/cons in having a watercooling system. i havnt had 1 b4 and i like my PC a lot and ofteren game on it but i want more out of my pc. atm i am in the process in upgrading my Rig but watercooling has caught my eye. any usefull info would be great.

my build is in the process but atm they only thing i have is i5CPU and also 8g DDR3 ram.

Also any info about what to get as a start point wud be great :D:Pp
 
I originally went for watercooling when my only PC was in the living room underneath the TV. It was used for everything - TV, gaming, and the occasional bit of Word/Excel etc. It lived in a desktop-style HTPC case, and space within it was very cramped. Because of this, when load was put on it under gaming, or even for example playback of a full-HD video, the temperature would increase, and the coolers I had on the Q6600 and the 8800GT would get very noisy.

I therefore purchased a GPU block, a CPU block, a pump and a 360 radiator, and I was able to cool all of this to a very reasonable standard (maxing out at around 55 degrees after a period of prolonged use), mounting the radiator behind the TV, and using just a single 120mm fan, so the noise was instantly removed.

The same system is now running back on air (but under much less stress and noise!), but I've moved my watercooling to my gaming rig (i5-2500k @ 4.3GHz and an HD6850), and the lack of noise is brilliant - the loudest thing in my rig is my hard drive.

I wouldn't go back to air for my main PC, and if I had a bit of spare cash, I'd watercool my HTPC again so that it will be just as silent again!
 
im waiting for my water cooling kit too come been shipped so will be here friday,its gonna be my 1st play with water in a pc,i spent a few weeks reading etc and decided on getting a kit with it working out cheaper and been my 1st time,was gonna get the XSPC Rasa RX240 if i waited a few months but i managed too get some money together and went for....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-077-XS&groupid=962&catid=1532&subcat=

only gonna be cooling the CPU i5 2500k so should be ok for that will upgrade later when more money and more confidence
but getting a kit is a good starting point for us 1st timers
 
Noise and superior cooling performance, you can probably throw cosmetics into the 'pros' as well. Only real con is price, costs can creep up on you.

To put it into comparison vs. air with the same spec as my sig:

Air: Total of 7 fans + 2 x GPU fans, so 9 fans all at full speed - Noisy
CPU = 70-75c stress, 60+c gaming
GPU's = 75-80c stree, 70+c gaming

Water: Total of 8 fans, mostly low RPM, off most of the time. Quiet, HDD and PSU are the loudest things in my case.
CPU = 45-50c stress, 35-40c gaming
GPU's = ~42c stress, 32-38c stress.

Edit: I'll probably never go air again.
 
What I've learned myself is if you buy a gfx card shortly after its launch, get a water block for it the same time or soon after so you get the most use out of it, it's most likely not going to fit your next card :p My setup uses 2 zalman resorator passive cooling towers for silence, wish I'd done it a long time ago, it wasn't cheap but the noise reduction has made such a difference.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom