I hate watering cooling.

[Dice144]

Just kidding, it is night and day difference so far. Total of 48 hours running system. I can see how some AT members swear by it. I am so hooked I want to WC my old AMD x6 just for the fun of it!

Anyone else get/got the WC twitch?

 

[Zap]

I did before, but Sandy Bridge barely gets warm for me.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Modded my old Lian Li to custom fit a rad on top,,, Lian Li 1100B very small case to water cool with but I was a hobbyist with my computers during the 775 to 1366 transitional phase. It wasn't pretty but here is a pic of it:

click thumbnail

 

[biostud]

I did have water cooling on my X2-3800+, but with the modern air coolers and the better thermal management of modern CPU's it's not worth the hassle. But it can still be a fun project to build

 

[aigomorla]

AHAHAHAHA YOU GOT AIGO'D

Another one on my kill sheet... :X

GPU cooling tho is where watercooling is at..

the most benifit you'll see right now is the gpu end... and im talking about temp reductions by 1/2 across all boards including the VRM's.

 

[dakU7]

Yep. Just finished adding my WC kit. This thing is addictive! indeed a fun project.
I mounted a RS360 on the back of my 690 II, now I need to decide if i'm going to buy a 560ti water block, or wait for the new GCN cards.

 

[Gillbot]

Addictive, yes.... If you swap hardware often though, you'll get tired of the hassles of relooping all the time.

 

[kmmatney]

Addictive, yes.... If you swap hardware often though, you'll get tired of the hassles of relooping all the time.

This. I swap hardware way too much for the hassle. I even gave up spending much time on general cable management. I swap cpus, gpus and motherboards way too often.

 

[CRaMaX]

Though it may not be considered true watercooling, I just plopped a Antec H2O 640 closed loop cooler on my cpu. prime95 small ttfs on a stock 2500k and never going above 50c on my hottest core. hope to hit 4.5 ghz soon

 

[aigomorla]

This. I swap hardware way too much for the hassle. I even gave up spending much time on general cable management. I swap cpus, gpus and motherboards way too often.

pish..

Watercooling deity uses QDC's so they can swap parts and not have it take too much time..


<--- living proof.. (well QDC's make swap easy... i am a wannabe deity)

15 min tops for gpu swaps... 5 min tops for cpu swap...

20 minute swap time for board....

 

[nitromullet]

Yeah, it is cool (no pun intended), but I personally didn't find the effort and cost worth it compared to the performance gains. Generally, you would get a better performing gaming PC by adding a second video card than you would by water cooling your cpu, motherboard mosfets, and graphics cards. Of course, if you already run quad-SLI or Crossfire-X than water might be you best next step.

IMO, one should approach water cooling as a hobby unto itself and not really as a viable means to squeeze extra performance out of your rig. If you go into it what that mindset, you won't be disappointed and will probably enjoy it quite a bit. Oh yeah, be willing and prepared the spend some cash!

 

[Gillbot]

yeah, it is cool (no pun intended), but i personally didn't find the effort and cost worth it compared to the performance gains. Generally, you would get a better performing gaming pc by adding a second video card than you would by water cooling your cpu, motherboard mosfets, and graphics cards. Of course, if you already run quad-sli or crossfire-x than water might be you best next step.

imo, one should approach water cooling as a hobby unto itself and not really as a viable means to squeeze extra performance out of your rig. If you go into it what that mindset, you won't be disappointed and will probably enjoy it quite a bit. Oh yeah, be willing and prepared the spend some cash!

this ^ in spades!

 

[sandorski]

Someone really needs to develop an effective closed system for GPU's. That would tempt me into water cooling. Whenever I get around to building a new system, I'll be doing my CPU that way, but GPU would really make the most difference from a noise perspective.

 

[ViviTheMage]

My $900 water cooling build was a more pain in the ass then my uncomplicated $180 one, haha.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Yeah, it is cool (no pun intended), but I personally didn't find the effort and cost worth it compared to the performance gains. Generally, you would get a better performing gaming PC by adding a second video card than you would by water cooling your cpu, motherboard mosfets, and graphics cards. Of course, if you already run quad-SLI or Crossfire-X than water might be you best next step.

IMO, one should approach water cooling as a hobby unto itself and not really as a viable means to squeeze extra performance out of your rig. If you go into it what that mindset, you won't be disappointed and will probably enjoy it quite a bit. Oh yeah, be willing and prepared the spend some cash!

Very true. I see people overclocking on water cooling and they can only get a few hundred more mhz at best on their CPUs. Air coolers really are sufficient for all but the most extreme daily overclocks.

I have seen GPU water cooling provide some pretty decent overclocks compared to air cooling. GPUs seem to benefit more from the extra cooling.

 

[SparkyJJO]

My 4870 overheats with the stock cooler with my overclock unless I crank up the fan. Then it is too noisy Watercooling allows me to keep my sanity. And aside from the initial cost of putting it together, I haven't had to put much into it since I first assembled the loop in 2007. Just a few different ramsink setups for a couple video card changes, but nothing major.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Water cooling has been an adventure for me. Made some mistakes, spent some money on stuff I shouldn't have, but ultimately glad I went for it.

Like others have said, GPU cooling is where the benefits really are. Temps are pretty much halved across the board (pun intended) and you get the added benefit of a much quieter computer

 

[Elganja]

i can say now that I <3 my watercooling setup... but the road leading to this point was a bumpy one that knocked all types of change out of my pockets

 

[aigomorla]

well you really missed why we originally lc'd.

To be honest, we didnt assume things would get colder.
We assumed things would get HOTTER, because trend kept showing things were getting hotter.

From this assumption we then assumed that sinks were going to get MASSIVE.
And watching how trend went, they did... they exploded exponentially.

So it boiled down to, would you want a high profile 1kg sink sitting on your cpu, or would you want a low profile 400g waterblock which had better c/w ratios then a air heat sink could even dream about?

However this doesnt apply anymore... things got cooler except gpu's. Gpu's are following the thread cpu's went though...

So watercooling has shifted to gpu sector where u see the most gains now vs cpu sector.


And no one will come out with a self contained GPU setup, because it has too much risks, and also the cost in materials.

The gpu block unless core only, will be majorly lacking because of the needed VRM cooling. Also it would get really bulky.

 

[Xnebia]

And no one will come out with a self contained GPU setup, because it has too much risks, and also the cost in materials.

The gpu block unless core only, will be majorly lacking because of the needed VRM cooling. Also it would get really bulky.

They already have come out with a self contained closed loop for a gpu, and it got a pretty good review.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=1
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=17 (temps)

 

[sandorski]

They already have come out with a self contained closed loop for a gpu, and it got a pretty good review.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=1
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=17 (temps)

Interesting. Wish they had more noise data, especially comparing the GPU vs GPU/CPU setups. Corsair/Antec/CoolIt need to come out with some of these.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

They already have come out with a self contained closed loop for a gpu, and it got a pretty good review.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=1
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=17 (temps)

Almost all the fun in WCing is the assembly. Sure that is a great cooling system, but I loved building mine. I'd rather spend more to do more work

 

[Xnebia]

No doubt that building your own is more fun, better looking, and better performing. But if you want the benefits of water cooling without the work this is a good way to do it. I hope there are some more options like this in the future from other companies.

 

[aigomorla]

They already have come out with a self contained closed loop for a gpu, and it got a pretty good review.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=1
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1354&page=17 (temps)

i dont see how it could do well, when it looks like a moded H#O.

in that kind of config your cpu is going to pay the price.... a big price when your gpu loads up especially on a 120x1 radiator!