Watercooling - Any need these days..??

***F1ZZY***

***F1ZZY***

***F1ZZY***

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Before I get flamed totally, I water cool but am starting to be reluctant to carry it on as I upgrade.

See, I am still on XP-M and AGP x800PE and migration [to A64 and PCIe] would mean new blocks. I have RBX, MCP350 pump, WACC PA res and 120.2 rad. All my fans spin at <1000rpm so its pretty quite.

When I first started WC [6 years ago], heatsinks were not as good as today and used 60mm or 80mm fans. Cases too only had 80mm fan holes.

With the advent of heatpipes and big HSF, the lead of water cooling has diminished I feel. Cases too now support 120mm fans. Aircooling has the advantage of cooling surrounding components (SI-120 or Zalman 7700).

Basically, with the same number of similar fans, you can cool GPU and CPU within a few degrees of WC and have the surrounding components cooled too - which for overclocking is a must for RAM and Mobo components, passive NB etc.

The only real benefit I can see these (if it is a benefit) is pose factor, it does look slick when done correctly.....like mine is :D

I am tempted to go back to air and spend my cash on decent aircooling rather than new blocks for my loop.

Comments please...?

/Fizzy ducks ready fo the flames/
 
Air cooling will still be louder than water and not give as good performance, keep your existing kit and get some 2nd blocks if you want to save money.
 
I have just changed from top end air cooling to the swiftech ultra kit with an additional mcw60 gpu block.

My temps have dropped 3C at idle and 7C loaded. Looking at the new temps the change was not a necessity, however I am happy that I have changed to water for the following reasons.

1. Noise has reduced.
2. Temps are lower and more stable.
3. I got to improve my rig
4. It looks awsome
 
Still water cooling here after a similar changover. Used the Freezer 64 Pro for a while and it was very good.

But while water cooling may not help a great deal with CPU's currently, I have also got SLI graphics running and they are not getting any cooler so, yes still worth it for me.

M@rt
 
I think it's worth it for graphics but possibly not for cpus unless you're going for serious overclocks. The latest heatpipe huge cpu coolers offer much of the benefits of watercooling without the risk or cost and if I didn't already do it, I probably wouldn't.

Graphics cards on the other hand seem to be getting hotter and hotter and louder and louder. Since I don't game much, I'm still happy with my 5600XT but for twin 7900s it's probably a necessity to use water.
 
My personal thoughts are, for CPUs, the benefits of watercooling over a top end heat pipe cooler (and quiet fan) aren't that great. When it comes to GPUs water (at least for top end GPUs) seems to give decent performance/noise improvements.

Jokester
 
watercooling my cpu gained me nothing over a freezer 64 pro apart from it being much quieter and looking 'cooler' (no pun)
but watercooling my x1900xtx as well has proven to be a good choice, the droning ati cooler realy got to me, its now much quieter, cooler and i can overclock more.

i would advise watercooling if you know your cpu has more room left in it, if you have a pentium d (i would know), if you want it to be quieter or if your cooling grfx.

amd's dont need water realy, most can be got out of the cpu on air.
 
WCing the CPU only helps if youre limited by temps - a top-end custom wc loop will give you mid-to-low 30s load temps, depending on cpu and oc.

However, not many 90nm cpus are limited by those kind of temps, you might gain a few hundred MHz if you have an awesome stepping - or have a p4, indeed...

GPU cooling.. well my X1900XTX went from high 90s oced to high 30s, and its all being cooled by 2x Yate Loon D12SL-12s @ 7v...

Ofc part of the problem is the unreliability of onboard cpu sensors... some DFIs under-report by as much as 12c, and you can make your cpu temps drop by 3-5c simply by pointing a fan at the socket...
 
benjo said:
A bit off topic, but what clocks did you get with your X800?
Click to expand...

550/600, not pushed higher, I like even numbers.

For all the other peeps, looks like water for GPU is the way to go still. I will be getting x1900, not heard how loud they are.

I have a Oppy 146 (good stepping, got it in the "gold rush" before Xmas but not even powered it up yet - been out of country on business for months. Think its 0546 CABYE FPAW (or similar from memory) so /wc prob not help that as it will run low volts and cool upto 3Gig or so I hope.

I guess a new GPU block is the order of the day but I might mod a bracket for socket 939 for the RBX.

I am still a bit tempted to go air, using zalmans new GPU cooler and a spare XP-120 I have "lying around".

Was also thinking m-atx, but unsure of mobos that will do the 146 justice. Think I'll post in SFF forum for that.

I'm still confused, but cheers guys.
 
Jokester said:
My personal thoughts are, for CPUs, the benefits of watercooling over a top end heat pipe cooler (and quiet fan) aren't that great. When it comes to GPUs water (at least for top end GPUs) seems to give decent performance/noise improvements.

Jokester
Click to expand...

I had a HUGE improvement with wc over my ninja, both on cpu and gpu. I don't know what the temps dropped, as I changed mobo at the same time, but the temp on my x1800xt is now half of what it used to be. No more air for me in a while :D
 
i've just gone back to air as my pump died,

i got an asaka evo33 cooler as it was only something to tide me over till i get a new pump and i was suprised to see that i'm still getting very similar temps.

as the others have said tho, the GPU temps have rocketed. max temp on water was 40c and now its more like 75 with the stock cooler.

i'm getting fed up with water tbh, its just such a hassle to get in the case and do stuff. with air its simple and quick.
 
Jokester said:
Out of interest, what did you change from and to?

Jokester
Click to expand...

From asrock 939 dual sata2 to dfi lanparty ut sli-dr expert :) . The temps are way too low on my new expert... :mad:

Btw, I used about 10 hours or so to set up my watercooling, and after that there is very little work with it(but my pump just died, so ordering a mcp655 now). Even though i don't HAVE to do anything, I always find myself tinkering with something :D
 
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Get a decent case and AirCool it.

My A64 hits 3Ghz on air ( Currently running 2.5 ) and my main PC is 100% silent.

MSI Neo2 Platinum
Winchester 3200 @ 2.5 / Artic Freezer 64
Corsair XMS4400 Platinum
R2xSATA + 3xIDE HDs & 4xDVDRW
Case is a ThermalTake armour ( Removed top 92mm but still using the other at rear and both 120mm fans )

Never gone over 40c CPU

My No.2 PC is very close to silent, but the side is off, so I can hear it blowing

DFI LanPrty 250GB UT
ClawHammer 3700 @ 2.7 / FX55 Stock Cooler
Corsair XMS 4400 TwinX
1xIDE + 2xSATA + 2xDVDRW + 1xCDRW
Case is a Lian Li Aluminum job

In my eyes, spending money on Water cooling these days, is a waste of time for me as I feel that if I gained any cooling, it would be at best 3c-5c on the CPU... Hell, on the ClawHammer, at stock, the Fan does not even come on until I have played UT2K4 for about half an hour, and even then, it goes off before the games has quit, and the desktop is back up... Its clocked now however, so its never off I will grant you.

My No.3 PC is a P4 @ 3.6 ( Stock ) and I bought the PC as-is and its silent so absolutely no need to worry about anythign there other than wondering if the fans are actually working???

Water is no longer going to be an option for me, but, however, my Main Socket A PCs ( XPM2500 & NF7S + XP17 & MSI Delta ) are in need of a little WC cos the only WC Kit I have, is a TT Aquarius and thats crap at best.
 
Jack Bauer said:
I just changed to watercooling and did not gain much on my cpu. However my GPU has gone from 80C to 45C which I think makes it worth it.
Click to expand...

got my hight end watercooling and i went fro 80oC to 35oC on my sli gpus but my cpu only droped from 50oC to 45oC dont kno if the dep probe on my mobo out tho
 
Modern CPU's do not respond that well to increased volts as they used to.
During colder weather the difference between top end aircooling and watercooling is small but in the summer the difference will be bigger.

I got my watercooling for two main reasons, 1) it is quieter than aircooling as I hate fan noise and 2) it is fun
 
Jokester said:
My personal thoughts are, for CPUs, the benefits of watercooling over a top end heat pipe cooler (and quiet fan) aren't that great. When it comes to GPUs water (at least for top end GPUs) seems to give decent performance/noise improvements.

Jokester
Click to expand...
Exactly, I have an xp-120 and a maze4 gpu block on an x800gto@16pipies 550/550. Previously I had to underclock the memory to 486Mhz(3Mhz down from stock) to get acore overclock of 1Mhz using ATItool artifact tester but only ran anything other than stock for benching.

I have the mountings for x1x00 series but for America's Army and BF2 my current card performs well at the overclocked settings and I moved up from 1024*768 to 1280*1024 with a vx922.

I used to run 3 water blocks but swapping out the mobo for any reason was a real PITA.

Another factor, noise: I ran my gpu fan at 100% to get 550core, and the entire case now has 120mm fans on 5v so its a lot quieter.

The most significant boost will be from graphics due to watercooling, dropping the temps from 70'c odd to 40'c at load will work wonders even without a voltmod.
 
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