When is water cooling neccesary?

johnstac · May 11, 2013

I am getting ready to build bi-annual rig and was trying to decide whether to go water cooling. I don't overclock but I do usually go with two of the fastest GTX available. I also focus on building the rig as quiet as possible. In the past I have used a Fractal Design case with a good air cooling solution.

So how do you decide whether you are going to go with water cooling? Is it ever essential?

ksham · May 11, 2013

One is for high overclock. Second is because you can or you want to.

manofchalk · May 11, 2013

Arguably water-cooling is never needed, at least not for what the average enthusiast wants to do. You'l find that most people who water-cool here (including myself) do it as a hobby or because they just plain want it.
Not to say that water-cooling is practically useless, it has the benefits of very cool components (my 7970 doesn't go above 40°C under load) and if you do it right, your rig can be very quiet.

envy14tpe · May 11, 2013

Good question. All the great water cooled systems are loud under load. I think the big reason to get it is to improve case airflow. You won't have a bulky block in your case. The ater cooled fans sit on top of case or are used as an exhaust on top of inside.

ksham · May 11, 2013

How does water cooling improve case airflow?

envy14tpe · May 11, 2013

ksham :

With water cooling is there a massive heatsink and 2 fans on top of your CPU? no, instead you have small tubes running up to top of case. This allows air that comes in from the front bottom to the rear top less impeded.

manofchalk · May 11, 2013

To expand on Ksham's point, with water-cooling you dont even necessarily need case airflow (assuming mobo, CPU and GPU's are under water).

Also I contend your statement that water-cooling is loud, their is no difference in noise output from my rig between idle and load, and its not loud at all. If you get more radiator space than you need, decouple the pump so it cant vibrate against what its mounted too and get a fan controller, you will have a quiet water-loop.

JackNaylorPE · May 11, 2013

johnstac :

I think it is best summed up here:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=674&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=5

It's almost ironic that [air] coolers like this are becoming available just as processors transition to designs that may ultimately render them unnecessary; even overclocked to 5GHz, an Intel Sandy Bridge 2600K doesn't need anywhere near this level of [air] cooling.

In other words, I just don't see the need unless you get a kick outta building them

ingtar33 · May 11, 2013

manofchalk :

+1

this guy gets it.

There are only very limited situations water cooling is ideal or nessessary. Mostly, if you want to take watercooling seriously and want an actual ideal advantage to it, when done proppelry can exchange a great deal of heat to some location far away from your case.

for example... into your lawn... in a geothermal heat exchange loop.

If you keep the rad inside your case you're not really managing to acomplish anything big air can't do. by moving the rad away from your system you start to really pump up the effectiveness of watercooling

(remember, water loops are ambient temp sensitive. the warmer the ambient temps the less effective your loop will be. which is why a rad inside the case in question limites the effectiveness)

Those details aside, liquid cooling is done for 5 reasons.
1) looks
2) diy projects are fun
3) extreme heat exchange for extreme overclocking (of course this isn't ever a normal water loop, generally speaking its doubtful you're keeping your rad inside the case in one of these builds)
4) noise. you can make a water loop 100% passive with enough rad. and in extreme cooling loops (such as the aforementioned geothermic loop) you can keep the pump outside the room too, so you don't even get pump noises.
5) size. A water loop actually takes up very little space compared to big air, IF you're keeping the rad outside the case.

In the end, water isn't worth the cash unless you're building your own waterblocks and parts from the plumbing section of home depot, and going overboard with the rad

johnstac · May 11, 2013

Very helpful replies. Thank you. I do enjoy building a computer now and then but I wouldn't call myself a computer hobbyist. I generally build the fastest and quietest computer I can afford after which, I do not want to adjust it again if possible. I build websites and do some gaming and that's about it.

I build one water cooled rig some years ago and absolutely hated it. Water cooling was still kind of new back then and I was always worried that something would leak. I destroyed a $400 video card because I failed to leak test the system and thought it was water tight. If I can get away with air and still have a quiet computer, I think I will go that route.

ksham · May 11, 2013

envy14tpe :

And have a giant radiator that requires fans to push air through it.

envy14tpe · May 11, 2013

Tomshardware compared the Noctua NH-D14 (one of the best air coolers) to a Corsair H100i (one of two best water cooled kits).

The noise results: Mind you they are comparing a $90 Noctua to a $105 H100i.
NH: 28dB
H100i: 35-45dB

What about cooling performance? Negligible difference.

manofchalk · May 11, 2013

You know were not talking CLC water-cooling here right?

ksham · May 11, 2013

Wow, the bare cooler for the H100i is 22dbA? :O

envy14tpe · May 11, 2013

manofchalk :

OP alluded to it in his second post.

How much did your CLC water cooling system cost?

ingtar33 · May 11, 2013

envy14tpe :

yeah, nice of you to pimp big air like no one in this thread is doing just that.

nice apples to oranges comparison too. no one in this thread is talking CLC. they're talking DIY/custom.

Thank you for the pretty graph... though... the topic was already solved.

manofchalk · May 11, 2013

CLC = Closed Loop Cooler
AKA, your H100i, Coolermaster Seidon, NZXT Kraken type coolers.

I have a custom loop, which far outperforms CLC's for a number of reasons.
All up, I think I'v spent about $450 if you include fans and fittings. Though I did shoehorn myself into a low end loop at the start, so I had to spend a fair bit to get a new pump, so if you planned it out better than I did from the start you could have my loop for about $400.
I could also argue my 2nd 360mm radiator is redundant and could be removed (as well as its fans and fittings), which would mean that you could have a loop similar to mine for $325 (you can see it in my build log in my sig if interested).
That's cooling for a 3570k (<55°C under load) and a 7970 (<40°C under load) at a decently quiet noise output. That's with a roughly 20-25°C ambient temperature. Both are overclocked as well.

I can see where your going with this cost argument, and I completely agree. If your after price/performance, air is king and I wont deny it.

envy14tpe · May 11, 2013

ingtar33 :

People need to be informed about options that are not $$$$. Air cooling is great for 99% of users and CLC is for the other 1% or less.
As I mentioned before, OP had not stated CLC systems in his original post. You need to look at it. In the mean time I collected some tomshardware testing results which are useful for a water cooling discussion cuz he never stated he wanted CLC.

johnstac · May 11, 2013

Not sure what CLC is but I'm going to look it up now because I'm curious. My original idea was to have one massive loop including the CPU and two video cards. I realize that it's a lot to put onto one system and I would have likely mounted the radiators outside. I did spend about 3 hours researching whether this was viable and here is where I gave up. The CPU is fairly straight forward to water cool but from what I read, video cards are all together different. I would need to know exactly where to cool the video card and if I am correct, it would require modification of the card. I don't want to have to go down that road with EVGA if there is ever an issue with the card. For me personally, the risk was not worth the reward and as a few of you pointed out, the results are negligible at best.

From a hobbyist stand point I could totally understand it. If I had the time I might actually invest in learning about water cooling principles and equipment and installation, etc. I guess I have learned to respect water and electricity and I don't personally believe that a novice should try this until they have a COMPLETE understanding of water cooling and how it would work for THEIR system.

manofchalk · May 11, 2013

I guess a bit of clarification will help here, there seems to be some confusion between the types of water-cooling.

CLC = Closed Loop Cooler. This is something like your Corsair Hydro units, they are pre-sealed and are good to go out of the box. You stick it to the CPU, mount it and turn it on and thats it. They perform similarly to equivalent air coolers, with the H100i being roughly on par with the NH-D14 for performance.
Custom Water-Cooling is completely different. You buy each component (Radiator, Pump, CPU/GPU block, Reservoir, tubing and fittings) separately, assemble and fill the thing yourself. It will far outperform Air and CLC Water-Cooling, and I'm talking a very real difference. My GPU under Furmark load wont go above 40°C, when on the stock cooler got to 65°C and sounded like a jet engine, a bit more than a negligible difference.

You dont have to modify GPU's to water-cool them (beyond removing the original heatsink). If you have a reference design PCB card then its as simple as swapping one cooler for the other, Universals are a bit more tricky but wouldn't say difficult.

If you want more info on water-cooling, check the water-cooling sticky. It contains a lot of info and might clear up a lot of the misconceptions I think you have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky
Also here is my build log that shows how my water-loop has developed, bit less clinical than the sticky and shows how its actually done.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/279384-29-water-cooling-build-project-chalk/page-2

When is water cooling neccesary?

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