water seems the way to go...

hardc0re_tid

hardc0re_tid

hardc0re_tid

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but please stop me.

ive always been an air cooled fan boy but ive been looking at some of the watercooled setups on here and thinking of my overclock 3.15 (e6300) that i reached but resulted in high temps.

i dont like the heavy price tag that comes with it but i would say it has its advantages as you only need to change the cpu block if you change the socket type. tbh id only want to watercool the cpu and maybe the nb as my current grpahics card (msi 7900gto) stays low anyway even when overclclocked to gtx.

how much would a mid range watercooled setup cost?

would i be best off buying a new cooler if i dont want the hassle and the extra whole in my wallet? currently have a ACF7
 
I got a whole dangerden setup (rad, hoses, blocks for cpu and gpu, ramsinks, pump, additives etc) for £180 delivered here to the UK :D Delivery wasnt too slow either!
 
Watercooling just increased my paranoia through the roof... :eek:

I've done it now, the pump went a bit funny, so I'll replace it and flog it on eBay. Back to nice safe air cooling for me.

Didn't get any decent temperature differences anyway, that I noticed... :(
 
if done properly wc is very very safe but for good temps versus air also pretty costly too.

it offers better overclocks than on air, not huge increases like with phase, and lower noise levels ......usually quite a lot lower.

but if you do a half assed job of it you will be dissapointed.
 
You can get just as silent on air.
You can oveclock almost as far on noisy air.
But for overclocking AND near silence, water is the way to go.
 
water is nice if you have the time and money to do it, has lots of beneifts :)

the price of watercooling has come down a lot since i first did it 4 years ago, a decent rad set me back £120 back then and £40 each for the blocks...

MW
 
hardc0re_tid said:
but please stop me.

ive always been an air cooled fan boy but ive been looking at some of the watercooled setups on here and thinking of my overclock 3.15 (e6300) that i reached but resulted in high temps.

i dont like the heavy price tag that comes with it but i would say it has its advantages as you only need to change the cpu block if you change the socket type. tbh id only want to watercool the cpu and maybe the nb as my current grpahics card (msi 7900gto) stays low anyway even when overclclocked to gtx.

how much would a mid range watercooled setup cost?

would i be best off buying a new cooler if i dont want the hassle and the extra whole in my wallet? currently have a ACF7
Click to expand...

Depending on your case the Alphacool Coolanswer III may fit or not. It's definitely not the ultimate in water cooling but it is a proper water cooler and it's very easy to install (if your case has the requisite amount of room). Swiftech kits get a very good name, as do the aforementioned Danger Den.

My own experience with water started very easily (but badly) with the Coolermaster Aquagate R120 which was easy to fit and quiet, but not very good. I then had the Alphacool CoolAnswer III which is sort of the Coolermaster concept done properly. I then had a Zalman reserator (absolute silence, but not a great cooler with everything in series) and I now have a 10-bar Cape Cora Passive loop with a Laing pump and EK blocks. It is silent in the way that only something with no fans at all can be and it keeps my 3.6GHz E6600 under 70C with a hot Northbridge, Southbridge and 2 7900GTO's in series. I'm looking to reduce the CPU temperature by adding 2 new loops with a 6 and a 4 bar Cape Cora Passive for the graphics and Northbridge respectively.

It's really not that scary as long as you get the right size fittings and test everything thoroughly before fitting ;)
 
My own experience started with a thermaltake Bigwater kit. A very basic kit and old design by todays standards but it did its job. It cooled aswell as top end air and gave me an introduction into WC. In hindsight though it would have been a lot better to save up for a decent kit such as the aforementioned alphacool/swiftech ones which will save you time and money in the long run.
 
I'm also interested, would people recommend the alphacool, swiftech or dangerden, maybe a particular all in one kit? Something around the £200 mark that cooled the CPU and Northbridge would be good.

thanks in advance.
 
I like EK blocks, Laing DDC pump, XSPC Passive reservoir, Cape Cora Passive Radiator. 0.5" Tubing with Feser coolant for completeness.
 
If you have a budget of £200, the Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultra Kit is meant to be very good. That cools, NB, Cpu and Vga!

Im also thinking about that kit myself!
 
I've not used the other kits mentioned but I can defo vouch for the swiftech kit , very easy to install and I've had it about 18months now with no probs whatsoever , its also very quiet even more so since I swapped out the std fans for akasa ambers which are near silent.
You also get all the block adapters with the kits for diff cpus so all you have to do is swap a few bits around when you upgrade your hardware. :)
 
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