Moving away from watercooling!

pastymuncher said:
It wasn't maintenance that caused me to switch back to air after over 17 years on water, it was the fact that it's become pretty much pointless unless you have a stupidly hot running cpu such as the 14900k which can be tamed by a much cheaper AIO anyway. Overclocking is as good as dead which was one of the main reasons to go with water. Yes, you will see lower temps but air coolers are not that far off these days for a tiny fraction of the price. Then there's the cost, over £100 for a gpu block everytime you change cards. Want the latest cpu block, that's £80+ for the best blocks, rads aren't too bad these days but pump and top or pump and res is well over £100 now. Unless you go second hand then you won't get much change from £500 for a decent set up all for a few extra degrees less. What's the point when a £30-40 air cooler gives very good temps?
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Heh. This is where my head is at... I am slowly looking at getting back into PC gaming and am re-exploring every bit of PC building (my last built machine was a Q6600), but stuff seems so outrageously powerful now it I don't know if I'd see much point teaching my kids how to overclock.

Let alone watercooling! I still have my old case and a leftover single radiator upstairs... I can't see that ever being used again, however.
 
mrthingyx said:
Heh. This is where my head is at... I am slowly looking at getting back into PC gaming and am re-exploring every bit of PC building (my last built machine was a Q6600), but stuff seems so outrageously powerful now it I don't know if I'd see much point teaching my kids how to overclock.

Let alone watercooling! I still have my old case and a leftover single radiator upstairs... I can't see that ever being used again, however.
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Overclocking now is really nothing like the days of the Q6600. That was a beast in terms of the extra performance you got, one of my favourite chips, followed by my 2500k. Nowadays, the chips are already cranked near top in terms of performance. What you can do, is undervolt and see about keeping the same levels (or maybe even a bit better) of performance whilst reducing power usage and temps.

It's not as fun as old overclocking though.
 
I moved away from water years ago, after running custom water from the early 2000s when it was much less mainstream. I think the last system I watercooled was a Q6600.

For me, the benefits just weren't there anymore.

I think for me it boils down to benefits A and B no longer being significant and against this backdrop C being more of an issue.

A - Noise. To get decent cooking via air you needed mega noisy fans. Now you can get very good, quiet air cooling.

B - Overclocking. Aside from top end high TDP chips, the benefits of better cooling don't seem to be there. Gone are the days of taking a cheap CPU and exceeding the performance of the top end model. This was part of the appeal to me. Also I don't have the time to fiddle any more, so just let the boost do it's thing.

C - Cost. I know inflation has to be accounted for etc, but proportionately, everything is so much more expensive. GPU blocks can be insanely expensive.

It seemed so much more interesting and exciting back when you had various different approaches to water-cooling and diferrent block designs. A lot of it had to be DIYd or modified. A bit like an underground band becoming mainstream... Now it's just off the shelf parts bolted together and every loop looks the same... it seems to have lost something. Or maybe it's just because I'm 20odd years older :cry:
 
I always thought custom loops were a hobby that people did for fun? Surely the huge benefit is that you enjoy building it and enjoying cleaning it.

Yet everyone is moaning that the practical benefits are no longer worth it. I didn't realise they were ever practical.
 
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