Watercooling vs Air

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 16:38

This will probably cause a lot of arguments but I'm looking to get an Athlon X2 3800+. I will most likely give it a bit of an overclock (whatever it will stand without any modding etc!). Ideally I want a system that is as quiet as possible:
1. Would watercooling be much quieter than the quietest HSFs available?
2. Would the performance of the watercooled system be much over the HSF version?

Cheers!

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 16:44

Just remembered... Also going to be getting an ATI 1800XT. Obviously if it was watercooled I wouldn't have to worry about the noise it is making. But otherwise I'm guessing replacing the air cooler would be in order. Are there also good performing (and quiet!) air coolers available for these cards?

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 17:14

Well, I'll want to overclock it as much as is possible without needing really big and noisy fans or extensive modding (sawing and drilling) etc... Roughly what sort of extra overclocking potential does watercooling actually give over decent fans?

I'm not too bothered about cost, it would be nice to save the cash but I'm just trying to work out whether spending an extra 100 quid or so on watercooling is really worth it!

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 19:08

So, if both performance and quietness are my goals then watercooling looks to be the way forward?

Any ideas what sort of performance difference there would be between a watercooling system and an air cooled system that emits about the same amount of noise?

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 19:55

Sweet, cheers

Is there any reason why the top few all have the same mobo?

Mortah · 20 Apr 2006 at 20:07

yeah... after posting that I realised that it would only take me two minutes to look at the mobos forum!

Thanks for the help guys!