Water cooling? Good idea?

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Limbothefirst

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Oct 22, 2013
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Im planing a new build for a gaming pc,
and I was going to wait for the non reference r9 290x's to come out, but I'm thinking about water cooling instead which would mean I would not have to wait and would get better tempters.. I think.

What do you think, what are the pros and cons of water cooling?

What parts will I need for the following build?

Do I have to cool the ram and memory?

CPU- i7 4770k

GPU- R9 290X
(Will add another for crossfire later down the line)

MOBO- asus z87 a or sabre tooth

Storage- samsung evo 250gb (Already have two 500 hdd, i will use too)

RAM- x2 4gb (8gb) ddr3 (dont know exactly what type yet

Case- Can you recommend one for water cooling, (I like bitfenix's stuff)

PSU- Dont know yet

Sound card- Asus Xonar Essence STX

DVD- already have a slim form blue ray player.

 
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H


your choice. one costs a bit but runs cooler and the other's free (kinda) but not as good as coolants.

lemme be clear first; i know much about liquid cooling from what i read, which turned me off this path. so my knowledge is limited/outdated.

the only time you'll fry the PC is if there's a leak while the pc is on. that's why you are required to test the loop while the pc is off to make sure there's no leak. if your components gets wet, it's a game of waiting for hours for it to dry off. there's using a whole lot of washing alcohol to test the loop, which dries out much faster if there's a leak...
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Hazle

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pros - great temps, looks cool (heh) when done right, better OC potential.
cons - more added work to make sure things are done right, can look lame when done wrong, lots of time performing maintenance, i.e; replacing the liquid every month or two.
 
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Hazle

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your choice. one costs a bit but runs cooler and the other's free (kinda) but not as good as coolants.

lemme be clear first; i know much about liquid cooling from what i read, which turned me off this path. so my knowledge is limited/outdated.

the only time you'll fry the PC is if there's a leak while the pc is on. that's why you are required to test the loop while the pc is off to make sure there's no leak. if your components gets wet, it's a game of waiting for hours for it to dry off. there's using a whole lot of washing alcohol to test the loop, which dries out much faster if there's a leak, but those ain't cheap either.

changing the liquid is only one of the maintenance you're expected of doing. there's algae prevention, cleaning out algae if you didn't take preventive measures, checking the loop & water block for rusts every now and then, avoiding air bubbles, checking for leaks, re-applying thermal pastes if you take off the water block, and probably more that i forget.

it'll take some dedication and will cost you in the long term. in return, you get some sick performance out of your hardware.
 
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Live Wyre

Live Wyre

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Sep 13, 2013
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I hope you've read the watercooling sticky by rubix,if you haven't, do so.http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/277130-29-read-first-watercooling-sticky

Coolant is not advisable. They will advertise that it is non-conductive, blah blah blah, but truth is, any coolant you use will become conductive over a short period of time. Coolant will 90% of the time, stain your tubing and any other clear/coloured components. It is also expensive compared to the cheaper and best option that most water cooling veterans use, distilled water with biocide and anti-corrosion. it takes you less than $5 to flush and refill your loop every time.

If you plan on watercooling the GPUs (You should), should get more radiators but I assume you have read the watercooling sticky. Ram, motherboard, PSU and hard drives will never need to be watercooled, even if you do serious O'Cing. If you do, it's just for decoration.

The watercooling sticky should answer any questions you have about watercooling, good luck
 
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Hazle

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