Gonna buy a water cooling.......

[Tyler22]

I am gonna buy a water cooling system for my computer. Price range is about $110......I am probobly gonna buy one off of ebay. Any recommendations on which brand is good? thanks alot!

 

[Fresh Daemon]

Kits generally underperform, unless they are kits like the high-end Swiftech, which is going to be about three times your budget. You will get better results with aircooling. With an XP90 or XP120, decent fan and decent case airflow you will get temps and noise equal to or better than any $110 watercooling kit, and you should have cash left over.

I would worry about the longevity also. You're going to have, for instance, a crappy pump that can't put out much pressure and may fail prematurely, taking your CPU and any other devices you've watercooled with it. For reference, my pump costs more than your entire budget. I'm not bragging, but I have very expensive components which will die if that pump fails, so it does not make sense to cheap out on it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

My only question is....

what will $110.00 get you that a highend Heatsink fan such as the SI120 or XP120 get you?

$110.00 is nothing if you want to good performing water cooler.

But hey its your $110.00

 

[NotquiteanooB]

Check out the Corsair COOL . A bit more than your $110.; but a clone of the Swifttech, but cheaper. It does the job, and was an easy install. I've done 2 kits and have 2 more coming this week.

 

[xenocyd3]

might as well just get a zalman 9500 if you have a budget of $110....




up your budget to at least 150 and you got yourself a nice setup

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Or two SI-120's. But you can only use one at a time.

 

[Mellman]

you will not be happy with a $110 watercooling kit - just grab an xp120 - you will be happy with that, and treat yourself to a $50 dinner witht he leftover funds

 

[JBDan]

Originally posted by: Mellman
you will not be happy with a $110 watercooling kit - just grab an xp120 - you will be happy with that, and treat yourself to a $50 dinner witht he leftover funds

I second that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Here's a year-old review at Tom's Hardware Guides.

I specifically chose to link with the page reporting Thermal Resistance benchmarks:

Thermal Resistance Results -- Water-Cooling Kits

Now -- here's the kicker -- based on what I've seen reported here at AnandTech, and what Sidewinder.com shows as the spec'd TR values for three Swiftech kits.

The spread between room temperature and the median between idle and load temperatures seems to close with water-cooling. But the idle-load spread as shown from the thermal resistances in these benchmarks is not all that great.