Moving away from watercooling!

[Tattysnuc]

This is a thread for those moving away from water cooling mostly, so it's never a necro thread at that point.

Is your system the same as in your sig?

I upgraded the CPU/motherboard to a 590X, but I'm still rocking the 2080ti. it does me for what I need. PC gaming got too expensive to keep up with, and with having a series of SAP projects at work, my time to spend on my PC maintaining it and keeping it up to snuff with the rest of world is very much a premium. It was my 50th last year, so I got an Xbox series X to scratch my gaming itch and now I've basically got a watercooled internet browser.

I will get back into it, but for now I'm playing on the Xbox and not spending >£1000 on new gpus (and waterblocks- I cant believe how much they've gone up in the past 5 years!!!!)

 

[novalis]

That's fair enough, you should spend time on the things you enjoy. Though maybe we'll see you back here some day

 

[***F1ZZY***]

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

This 1000%

With the advent of heatpipes and decent air cooling in combination with limited overlocking potential, water cooling became more about aesthetics and just an enthusiast driven hobby.

It still looks cool but mostly not required these days. You can build a quiet, top tier rig on air these days and not have a heart attack trying to reseat a graphics card or any other maintenance.

I used to love it back in the day - early 00’s - but not really bothered much with it recently.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

I upgraded the CPU/motherboard to a 590X, but I'm still rocking the 2080ti. it does me for what I need. PC gaming got too expensive to keep up with, and with having a series of SAP projects at work, my time to spend on my PC maintaining it and keeping it up to snuff with the rest of world is very much a premium. It was my 50th last year, so I got an Xbox series X to scratch my gaming itch and now I've basically got a watercooled internet browser.

I will get back into it, but for now I'm playing on the Xbox and not spending >£1000 on new gpus (and waterblocks- I cant believe how much they've gone up in the past 5 years!!!!)

if i had a 2080ti i would likely still be running that now at 1440p 60fps maybe medium/high instead of 1440p 90fps all high/ultra as i do currently. The price of the watercooling parts are so much right now. That's part of the reason i went back to gpu air and cpu aio. my gpu fans get to a max of 1500rpm and aio gets to 1200rpm and is fairly quiet for me. about the same as custom loop

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

This 1000%

With the advent of heatpipes and decent air cooling in combination with limited overlocking potential, water cooling became more about aesthetics and just an enthusiast driven hobby.

It still looks cool but mostly not required these days. You can build a quiet, top tier rig on air these days and not have a heart attack trying to reseat a graphics card or any other maintenance.

I used to love it back in the day - early 00’s - but not really bothered much with it recently.

i agree it's mostly aesthetics and enthusiasts that are running them now. back in 2015 when i went custom loop temps were amazing and prices while still expensive was still some what affordable. Now a setup the same to what i built in 2015 would go from £400 to nearly £600.

 

[Alan1969]

I dont like AIO as over time the fluid evaporates out of the system (after about 4 years I had one that was virtually empty). Therefore I either go with a custom loop where you can refill (after tilting the PC to release the air) or an air cooler which wont need any maintenance and will last forever.

 

[Parsley]

I dont like AIO as over time the fluid evaporates out of the system (after about 4 years I had one that was virtually empty). Therefore I either go with a custom loop where you can refill (after tilting the PC to release the air) or an air cooler which wont need any maintenance and will last forever.

You can refill AIOs as well. It's less messing around than custom loop maintenance!

 

[Capitano]

AIO’s are better than the air coolers and the newest one also look a lot better as you cam get ones with LCD screens.

Not to mention they can be attached to the vents of the case so the heat leaves the case and doesn’t circulate inside!

 

[Farore]

I have an AIO and I will go back to air cooling for my next cooler. The Noctua is a good shout.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

You can refill AIOs as well. It's less messing around than custom loop maintenance!

There are quite a few refillable aio's on the market now. Gives custom loop vibes without that much maintenance.

AIO’s are better than the air coolers and the newest one also look a lot better as you cam get ones with LCD screens.

Not to mention they can be attached to the vents of the case so the heat leaves the case and doesn’t circulate inside!

I do like the aio's with LCD screens. Thermalright have some good ones albeit very basic display info compared to others. The option to exhaust the heat using aios in better than air coolers that push it around the case more so.

I have an AIO and I will go back to air cooling for my next cooler. The Noctua is a good shout.

While air coolers are almost zero maintenance, aio's are best for heat dissipation and air flow control. However air coolers can help aid airflow over the vrms a little, so are good if you plan on using a motherboard with small and to a point inadequate vrm coolers.

 

[Farore]

There are quite a few refillable aio's on the market now. Gives custom loop vibes without that much maintenance.

I do like the aio's with LCD screens. Thermalright have some good ones albeit very basic display info compared to others. The option to exhaust the heat using aios in better than air coolers that push it around the case more so.

While air coolers are almost zero maintenance, aio's are best for heat dissipation and air flow control. However air coolers can help aid airflow over the vrms a little, so are good if you plan on using a motherboard with small and to a point inadequate vrm coolers.

There's something to be said about the multiple points of failure in AIO's. That said, my AIO is pretty decent.

 

[Awahwah]

If I can get my hands on a 5090Fe my current loop will have to be drained to remove the 3090. At that stage, I’m thinking of stripping the whole loop out and going to air.

As I’ve got older, the thought of loop maintenance isn’t as appealing as it once was.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

If I can get my hands on a 5090Fe my current loop will have to be drained to remove the 3090. At that stage, I’m thinking of stripping the whole loop out and going to air.

As I’ve got older, the thought of loop maintenance isn’t as appealing as it once was.

A 5090. Jealous Part of the same reason i went back to air/aio setup. I loved taken apart my system and rebuilding it from time to time. However, the effort and time needed with 2 kids made it a little hard. The simplicity of air/aio makes it so easy to upgrade and replace parts as and when needed. Taking a custom loop apart can take up to an entire day.

 

[jigger]

Now Nvidia cards are knocking on 600 watts stock, it’s probably not the best time to move away from water cooling.

 

[kute]

I went back to air a few years ago. So much less hassle. For a normal gaming setup I think it's only really worth doing now for the GPU for the silence.

I feel like it's the other way around, gpu's are so overbuilt now that they run completely silent. Hell, the fans don't even turn on most of the time. GPU's are approaching the size of motherboards while being exponentially thicker

But CPUS? You actually lose performance in addition to all the noise with a mediocre cooler. A generic CPU AIO is so foolproof now that I think it's essentially mandatory if you have any kind of decent CPU

 

[Awahwah]

A 5090. Jealous Part of the same reason i went back to air/aio setup. I loved taken apart my system and rebuilding it from time to time. However, the effort and time needed with 2 kids made it a little hard. The simplicity of air/aio makes it so easy to upgrade and replace parts as and when needed. Taking a custom loop apart can take up to an entire day.

It assuming I can get my hands on one. I’ve a feeling there’s more chance of winning the Lotto.

 

[GeorgeStorm]

Haven't done anything to my PC for years until the past couple of months had the sugged urge/itch to give it an update, slippery slope ended up going from a simple gpu upgrade to a total rebuild, but I did consider an AIO vs air cooler as it seems modern AIOs are quite different from the ones I've used in the past (Corsair H60 era I think!), and I did then briefly remember a water cooled build I did years ago in big (at the time at least) corsair case and an i7 920 and thought about it, but the issue of not only the upfront cost/faff, but then it becomes a much bigger issue when wanting to upgrade in the future ultimately put me off.

Definitely agree the change in overclocking to be less of a thing plus improvements in air coolers means water cooling has fewer benefits than before, can still look awesome though.

Edit:
Just went back and checked, an 800D!, and the board vrm etc was cooled as well as the cpu, not the GPU though.

 

[fizzy]

I had a full custom loop on my AMD 3700x and Radeon VII setup. Then upgraded to a 5950x and was far more work to change than if I was just on air cooling. Then I bought a 7900XTX with a massive air cooler already on it and redid the loop for the cpu only and 1 dual rad. The pump and res now seem a bit overkill though. So tempted to go back to air cooling or a good AIO to remove the pump and res from my case and get some space back.

 

[Mr Mcgoo]

I had a full custom loop on my AMD 3700x and Radeon VII setup. Then upgraded to a 5950x and was far more work to change than if I was just on air cooling. Then I bought a 7900XTX with a massive air cooler already on it and redid the loop for the cpu only and 1 dual rad. The pump and res now seem a bit overkill though. So tempted to go back to air cooling or a good AIO to remove the pump and res from my case and get some space back.

You can get a fair bit of space back switching from a custom loop to an aio. My Montech King 95 looks a little empty compared to the custom loop but also weighs a lot less. 17kg instead of 21kg with custom loop. You don't realise just how much the rads, fittings, blocks, pump/res and fluid will add to weight

 

[ArchAnGeL]

Went back to air with my last build and never looked back. I’ve actually not upgraded for ages which I couldn’t never imagine when I used to be chasing the last few mhz with phase cooling.