Water, AIO or Air for new build? Currently have custom loop. Please help

[DJ_Switch]

Hello all,

Hopefully this is the best place to post this as I know that posting it in watercooling will attract more responses in favour of it....perhaps.

I'm in the process of speccing a new rig and I'm absolutely stumped on what to do with the cooling to extent that I'd better ask here.

To give you a bit of background that will help here...I currently have a custom loop consisting of an XSPC RX360 + 120, DDC Laing 10w (reaching end of life expectancy), Heatkiller block (soon to be useless due to socket change) and EK res.

Whilst I've only had one problem with watercooling in the past 5 years it was a significant one. I previously had 2 loops, one for the gpu and one for the cpu. One day the pump for my gpu loop died and wasn't detected until the gpu essentially boiled the static coolant in the loop until the pressure forced off a tube and it hosed my graphics card. I still continued with watercooling after this however it has always been a concern about something similar happening again.

As a result of this and the combo of having a small kid, clumsy not so small dog and another child on the way I need trouble free cooling that will be as fire and forget as possible. I plan on using it to cool a 5920k with a fairly conservative overclock of around 4ghz.

With all of this in mind could you please recommend the best course of action and possibly answer the following?

Has air cooling improved sufficiently to make it a viable option to cool a 5920k at 4ghz with a bit of headroom?

Would an AIO cooler be better?

Are AIO's like the Corsair h105/h110 reliable enough to not worry about?

I've heard people complain about the noise of AIO's...are they noiser than the pump (DDC-1t) that I'm coming from?

Considering I'll only be able to use my radiators and res in a new build would I be stupid not to just buy a new pump and block and have another custom loop?

The price differences of doing any of the 3 options aren't enough to put me off doing any. The choice is purely down to what would provide the best reliability - noise - performance ratio. Reliability is more important than outright performance this time around though.

Any suggestions or help would be most welcome. I seem to be swaying more towards a good air cooler like the Noctua nh-d15 or Cryorig R1 but worries of ram clearance on the x99 boards put me off slightly. An AIO would also be good however I don't know much about the recent ones and how reliable/noisy they are.

Thanks

 

[sneakysnail]

I was in a similar position to you a couple years back, had been using a custom loop for 5 odd years and only had one incident early on that cost me a graphics card. was changing my case and would have to change the lay out of my loop and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of maintaining it and buying new parts so just went with a big air cooler.

Can't say I've regretted it, it's super quiet (I'd say quieter than my old pump) and does a decent job on the temps. for me the decision would be between big air or custom loop. is you go big air or AIO you're still going to have the gpu fans going so it's not going to be that quiet but those AIO are pretty noisy with the standard fans usually and don't really offer much performance over big air. might be a couple degrees lower but the noise and price is usually much higher and then you have the worry of a the pump/fan controller failing or it springing a leak.

If reliability really is more important to you it's hard to go wrong with big air. even if the fans break it can do a fairly decent job of passive cooling and most of the big ones have multiple fans. they really are a lot better performance wise than they were 5-10 years ago even if some of them are butt ugly don't think it would have any trouble getting the clocks at 4ghz with some head room either as long as your case has reasonable air flow. heard stories of that chip getting close to 4ghz on stock voltage before so could probably expect to get it to around 4.4-5 with a decent big air cooler and mobo

 

[los]

I would say its definitely out of the custom water or air cooler.
It does sound like you have made up your mind tbh, if reliability is such a big factor then it has to be air really.
I keep getting the bug to change to custom water, but then worry about springing a leak, which is why I went with a big heatsink originally

 

[DJ_Switch]

I was in a similar position to you a couple years back, had been using a custom loop for 5 odd years and only had one incident early on that cost me a graphics card. was changing my case and would have to change the lay out of my loop and couldn't be bothered with the hassle of maintaining it and buying new parts so just went with a big air cooler.

Thanks for the reply. I was starting to think I was one of the few on ocuk who felt custom loops were a hassle and not the way forward for all. About half way through speccing the new build I started to be a bit more honest with myself about the fact that this pc will live on the floor with the window side against the wall and that reliability and longevity were going to need to be the key factors over performance and looks. The thought of giving up the custom loop does feel a bit like a step backwards but it would be good to not have that worry of pump failure or trying to put off that time when you know you really should drain and clean the loop.

Can't say I've regretted it, it's super quiet (I'd say quieter than my old pump) and does a decent job on the temps. for me the decision would be between big air or custom loop. is you go big air or AIO you're still going to have the gpu fans going so it's not going to be that quiet but those AIO are pretty noisy with the standard fans usually and don't really offer much performance over big air. might be a couple degrees lower but the noise and price is usually much higher and then you have the worry of a the pump/fan controller failing or it springing a leak.

This somewhat confirms my concerns. An AIO would have been an ideal solution for me purely for the fact I wouldn't have to worry about ram clearance, slot clearance and having that weight hanging from the mb. Some of the new big air coolers look fairly substantial compared to the last time I had one. I think you're right though in that there would still be that niggling worry about a pump failure or leak with an AIO...not to mention the extra noise.

If reliability really is more important to you it's hard to go wrong with big air. even if the fans break it can do a fairly decent job of passive cooling and most of the big ones have multiple fans. they really are a lot better performance wise than they were 5-10 years ago even if some of them are butt ugly don't think it would have any trouble getting the clocks at 4ghz with some head room either as long as your case has reasonable air flow. heard stories of that chip getting close to 4ghz on stock voltage before so could probably expect to get it to around 4.4-5 with a decent big air cooler and mobo

Good to know that they'll be more than capable of keeping that chip cool enough for a fairly moderate overclock. As for being butt ugly I'm just going to have to live with it and know from experience that after the first month of builders pride it'll just spend the rest of the time with it simply being the pc and not a showpiece. The less attractive the insides are to kids and dogs the better as well.lol Don't me wrong though I'd love to build another wc rig but I'm just not sure it's as necessary for this build with reliability and minimal maintenance in mind.

Cheers for the reply.

 

[DJ_Switch]

I would say its definitely out of the custom water or air cooler.
It does sound like you have made up your mind tbh, if reliability is such a big factor then it has to be air really.
I keep getting the bug to change to custom water, but then worry about springing a leak, which is why I went with a big heatsink originally

Yeah. I was beginning to lean more towards air for the build however was very open for persuasion on AIO's being very reliable and a good option. I'm sure they've come a long way since they first appeared on the scene. Them being maintenance free is definitely appealing, as is them making for a more trouble free build due to clearances. The fact that neither of your responses have been in favour of them over air is pushing me further towards air though.

As for the bug...you're on the wrong site to successfully resist that bug forever.lol I did try. I do consider myself pretty unlucky to have a pump fail and cause the leak however it did happen. I've broken down and rebuilt my loops on many occasions and never had a leak outside of the pump failure so I wouldn't worry too much about that if you make sure everything is well matched and fitted correctly. I don't want to put anyone off water cooling as my pump failing was seriously unlucky...it's just that it is now something I'd like to not have to worry about....especially now that I don't plan on squeezing every last MHz out of my system. Squeezing an extra 200-300mhz out of a system for what the cooling will cost and also the hassle and potential danger of things going wrong simply isn't worth the minimal gain in real world performance. Don't get me wrong though...overclocking got the sake of it is good fun...just the priorities of this build have changed.

Time to look at the best current air cooling options then. Thanks for the response.

 

[doyll]

I am also "born again" air cooling. It's so much easier to build and maintain, never give any problems as long as intake filters are kept clean, is way cheaper than a custom loop, and as close to silent as can be. HDDs make most noise unless GPU is working extremely hard.

Good air cooling requires tuning the case airflow to match components .. it must remove the heated CPU & GPU exhaust air without it mixing with the cool intake air they are using. I've had very good results using PWM case fans and controlling them with PWM signal from CPU fan and GPU fan headers. This way the case fans supplying the air to them cycle in unison with them .. although not at the same speed. 2500rpm CPU & GPU fans and 1300rpm case fans run at 2500 & 1300rpm full speed respectively, but when they idle down to 650-950rpm the case fans are at 700-800rpm. Speeds vary depending on how clear filters are and other restrictions involved.

There are also options available for PWM control of variable voltage fans

Tealc here builds PWM to analog converters. They work great and are reasonable in price. He's a good guy.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18421145&highlight=Pwm+analog+username_Tealc

Phanteks now sells their PWM controlled 3-pin fan hubs.​