Mistake To water cool i5-6400 and gtx 970?

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jasonhickman17

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After my last thread i was about ready to start my custom water cooling loop for the components that i have, I was going to get a new case this week and start collection of the loop parts in the weeks to come having finished the loop in a month or two from now, but (and its a big but), i saw this video come up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iogqnEJBKRQ . Now this concerns me as what he brought up makes sense and it is not to water cool if it means degrading the 980ti to a 970 or an i7 to an i5, does this mean that i should stick with my noisy air cooling system for now, upgrade my cpu and gpu, then look at water cooling? I am completely happy with the performance of the computer as i am maxing out all the games i play with my 1080p 60hz monitor so i dont really see a need to upgrade to an i7 and a 980ti before i water cool. currently my build is;

Intel i5-6400
Gskill Ripjaws 16GB DDR4 2400MHZ
GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0
EVGA 750W Supernova
Gigabyte Z170 DH3P
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM HDD
ADATA Premier 240GB 6GB/s SSD
5 Deepcool TF120 Red's
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO
Corsair Spec 01 Case
Some Random CD drive for program installation and Ripping old CD's to WAV

So i guess my question is would i be making a big mistake water cooling my pc in a new case before i upgrade the parts, or should i upgrade the parts first then water cool the new parts?

The cpu water block will fit the new cpu so that is not an issue if the thought is to water cool now and upgrade when the computer is not longer able to run the games that i want at the speeds that i want.

Thanks for the help everyone!



Jason H
 
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Jay makes some good points in the video and his $1200.00 he has invested in his Skunk-Works water cooling is accurate for what he has in the setup he is referencing behind him.

I personally have a few comments to share.

First of all he is addressing a total scratch build including water cooling, that is a compromise off the total build budget, and taking away from the higher end components that could have been initially purchased that the water cooling hardware took away from the build budget, on that I agree!

However water cooling components are transferable to another setup, so IMO a water cooling investment should be an independent endeavor and never ever combined with a scratch build.

Secondly, overclocking means different...
If you already have the watercooling parts, yes, at least get a 6600k/6700k with a high end Z170 board before making the loop otherwise you'd have to painstakingly disassemble it when you upgrade it. And if you do upgrade, make sure you get a high end motherboard with the unlocked CPU otherwise you won't be able to overclock it far enough to benefit from watercooling anyway. If you don't plan to do such an upgrade, then watercooling is pointless.

If you don't have the watercooling parts, you can always just stick to aircooling. High end aircoolers are on par with low-mid end watercooling.
 

jasonhickman17

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Currently i have the I5 OC'd to 4.6Ghz at 1.375V with the coolermaster hyper 212 evo and it is running stable, after a lot of stress testing, and staying under 60C but i would like it to be a bit cooler, and a lot quieter, same with the GPU the 970 is pretty loud when gaming staying under 60C as well so the same goes for it, cooler and quieter. I will be upgrading no doubt about that but preferably at the latest date possible ;) Thanks for the input :)

Jason H
 

jasonhickman17

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Would the Gigabyte Z170 HD3P be considered a high enough end motherboard for overclocking? When i do water cool i will be using middle of the pack components and a lot of rad space so i dont think that air cooling would have a chance, but i cannot use a cooler larger than the hyper 212 evo right now as it is touching the ram ever so slightly. I do plan to upgrade to the highest I7 LGA 1511 at the time that i purchase so that is a plus on the side of water cooling. At the time i was not able to get an unlocked CPU that would beat the i5-6400 BCLK overclocked so that is what i went with performance per dollar kind of deal.

Thanks for your input, it is greatly appreciated!

So your consensus is that if i plan on upgrading the i5-6400 to i7-66/700K water cooling would be worth it, and if that is the case i could finish my loop before i upgrade the chip as i am not going to be using rigid tubing i can remove the chip easily?

Jason H
 
Do water cooling if you feel like doing water cooling, if you want water cooling, not if you want performance. What tasks are you performing that require a CPU so fast? Unless you really need it, wasting money on it is pointless, and no one really needs it pretty much, so water cooling would be more of a hobby, an itch to do something. It will give you some performance, maybe 100-200mhz more, but will it be quieter? High end water coolings' pumps sound like a vacuum running at 1500W so I am not certain.
 
Jay makes some good points in the video and his $1200.00 he has invested in his Skunk-Works water cooling is accurate for what he has in the setup he is referencing behind him.

I personally have a few comments to share.

First of all he is addressing a total scratch build including water cooling, that is a compromise off the total build budget, and taking away from the higher end components that could have been initially purchased that the water cooling hardware took away from the build budget, on that I agree!

However water cooling components are transferable to another setup, so IMO a water cooling investment should be an independent endeavor and never ever combined with a scratch build.

Secondly, overclocking means different things to different people as there are different levels of overclocking, so lets address CPU overclocking as there is a point with CPU overclocking that performance is lost because the CPUs internal protection kicks in to lower the load temperature!

Which means, no matter if you are air cooling or water cooling you can only go so far with your overclock before the CPUs protection goes active and the CPU internally throttles down, at that point your CPUs performance degrades.

Now in his video he is proud of how he has his setup configured with his overclock that even under load his fans do not ramp up, well that is because he has settled for an overclock level low enough that his noise free cooling fan setup can support it.

Even though he could overclock further with all the radiators he is running, if he was willing to have a little noise to deal with, you do not get something for nothing!

Now to me, if I was only going to be satisfied with his compromised level of overclocking, I would not be water cooling at all because CPU wise a high end air cooler can do the same job as his compromised water cooling setup that he spent $1200.00 on.

Thirdly, I water cool to push my CPU overclock as far as I possibly can remaining 100% stable 24/7, even though I do not run my machine 24/7 I only run it when I use it, with zero performance loss of the CPU, because it never reaches temperatures to activate it's built in protection.

I am glad Jay revealed the cost of his water cooling investment, because my water cooling investment is about $200.00 cheaper than his, and runs CPU overclocking circles around what his can do.

Now not everyone water cools for the same reasons, not everyone water cools for overclocking performance, some water cool because they love the idea and concept of water cooling, and it is just in their blood to do it, (so to speak), but they could care less about overclocking, they love the concept of water cooling, and the challenge of doing it.

Water cooling will increase the longevity of your computer hardware, whether you overclock or not, keeping it cooler is better no matter how you look at it, but make no false assumptions here water cooling is still air cooling as the radiators without cooling fans can only support so much thermal load, and the same thing goes for heat pipe air coolers without cooling fans as well.

My 2 Cents! Ryan

 
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Not really sure where you getting your information or assumptions, but I run 2 high end D5 water cooling pumps and they are the quietest part of all my setup.

Your 100-200mhz performance gain for his locked CPU may be relevant to him but my CPU is overclocked 1500mhz over stock, so it is not relevant to all CPUs and all overclockers.

My advice is, if you're not certain when making a statement, get certain first, OK.

 


I was talking about normal water cooling. Your case does not really fit in that description, now does it?
 

rubix_1011

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Obviously nothing sounds like a "vacuum running at 1500w", thought it was needless to mention that this is a joke, however most mainstream liquid coolers like the x61 and h100i are louder than some of the most powerful air coolers like the nh-d14/15

We're not talking about closed loop coolers. Most of us that watercool really only consider those faux liquid cooling - something that anyone can install and tell their friends that they 'liquid cool' their PC. Their performance is on par and sometimes worse than good air cooling.

All of my components are stock and I currently have a locked CPU, but I still watercool.

Why? Because I choose to.

Have I overclocked in the past? Yep, sure have, with previous components using watercooling gear that was passed along from system build to system build.

So, why do I do it? First, because I like doing it. There is a level of satisfaction when setting up a loop right and seeing how it performs...when you see your CPU and GPU loads spiked, but there is no noticeable noise level change in the room, nor is there that little indicator that your CPU cores are running at 70C and your GPU at 85C. Try 45-50C and 40-45C.

Second, I learn a little bit more each time I do a build. I've been watercooling for almost 14 years and each time I still end up doing something 'just' a little different or as an improvement over the previous time.

Third - everyone can install an air cooler. Everyone can install a closed loop cooler and say they are watercooling, but you're doing yourself a disservice with the performance you are getting. There's something about the art, simplicity and yet, complexity of a well-setup watercooling loop. Everything has a purpose and there's a purpose for everything.

I have a perfectly functional Corsair H110i GTX sitting in a box in my office. It has only been used for testing and likely won't ever see usage on an actual PC.
 


FYI: There are some high speed server style cooling fans that are actually louder than that, as a matter of fact they sound closer to a jet sitting on a runway waiting for take off orders!

I have 2 of them that were sent to me when I did the Cooling Fan Roundup back in 2012.

They are not in the roundup because they are so loud they are just not feasible for any cooling setup that you expect to stay in the same room while they are running.

I did however test 2 of them mounted on a Noctua NH-D14, their cooling performance was very impressive, the only problem was I could not stay in the room with them while the test was going on.

I still have them by the way, I gave away a lot of the fans after the roundup was completed but not those bad boys.

That kinda explains why most business servers are either setup in a closet, or their own closed rooms. :)

This is the power level of cooling fan I am referring to.

 

jasonhickman17

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WOW! I bet those things would give a bit of a performance boost to the noctua! I think that those may be the fans that are in my inuke amplifiers at the moment thus the need for the replacement of the fans that everyone does :p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0acD2uFFkg

The best part is they are nearly 90$ in Canada http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001

That was an awesome post you made, it is going to help me in the near future :)
 

toolmaker_03

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well if quite and cool are what your after, than water cooling is the way to go.


 

Preston_8

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I have that rig i5 6400 on a low end 80 dollar pro mate with a cheap aio CPU cooler base call at 198hz which is oc to 4.7ghz with a 970 16 gig ddr4oc to 3400 total cost 760 dollars runs retail games perfect at 1440 and some titles like elder scrolls online and series at 4k ultra settings fps is between 1080/1440 this is with vsync on at 4k 45fps power consumption is under 400 what's cost 11 dollars month to run 24 /7 maybe I just got lucky... down side you have to make a custom bios to oc and loose sensor read in is but my CPU cooler tells a very accurate temp read on the led display.
 
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