Self-contained liquid CPU coolers

Man Manne · 10 Feb 2015 at 05:14

Been registered for so long on here, but only just thinking of looking to upgrade in the summer (just brought a house and car) as my machine does more than I want, but a refresh may well be on the cards...

I have a Tuniq Tower on my CPU and 3x Sanyo Denki fat 38mm 120mm fans... they aren't all on at the same time, have a controller, but when in the summer they are it's like a gang of cheap vacuums in currys are on full pelt.

Looking at the Antec Kúhler, NZXT's Kraken and Corsair's Hyrdo's series of units and looking at quietening the machine in the future... are these things weren't really around or publicised when I built my machine back in the day, so are they any good?

Legend · 10 Feb 2015 at 11:22

Yes, some of the AIOs are very good indeed, and if you're not looking to go the full WC route, they offer a happy middleground. I have the Nepton 240M myself, which is very good... easy installation and quiet running. The new Fractal Kelvin is also worth checking out, some great reviews of that. I find the NXZT coolers rather expensive for what you get. They perform well, but the price is somewhat unjustified in my opinion. I'm not too familiar with the Antec coolers, and the Corsair seem to be popular but I believe you can do better... can't say I'm a fan of Corsair products tbh, as I've had some reliability issues with them in the past, but that's just me and bad luck most likely. I'd suggest the Coolermaster or Fractal if I were you, but read some reviews and see what you lean towards.

Man Manne · 12 Feb 2015 at 23:32

Well, it won't be until later on anyway. Had a new GFX card off my mate and well, looking at new builds at some point, storage for the first time would be big for me too, but I'll not be so worried about that as it's not a big task.

Thanks for the reply.

It's just good to see that they are worth it then. Things have moved on a little since the last build of mine. Although this has evolved, even to the point of me getting a USB 3.0 PCI card to just bring somethings up to speed a bit, the Q9550 will soon be outdated too much!

Man Manne · 5 Apr 2015 at 01:46

I will definitely be looking into this. I have seen the Corsair Hydro H110i GT cooler with dual SP140L fans, so may look at going that way as it's in a nice bundle with the i5 4690.

So thank you