Do I need fans with my cpu water cooler?

1. Is this USD, or possibly NZ?
2. Multiple bad choices in there.
3. Do not spend a single dollar until several people have looked this over. Moving it to the Systems Forum. Some people will probably be along to check this over.

for 2100$ you can get a 6800k and a 1070....

Why the focus on water cooling?
Bad stuff? The SSD is too small, and of mediocre quality. 250GB Crucial or Samsung.
HDD is too slow at 5400RPM. Look for a 7200 RPM drive. WD Black, for instance.

1. That is a fools errand. It is NEVER on;y the OS. Even if you try to do that, you are throwing away 1/2 the usefulness of having an SSD.
Browsers, AV, game utilities, Windows updates, etc, etc...all of those want to go on the SSD.
A 120GB drive will find you back here in 6 months, asking how to transfer it to a larger drive.
And the current price difference heavily favors a 250GB over a 120GB.

3. "Because I heard" is not a good reason. While your chosen one is "OK", the better air coolers will match it for 1/2 the price.

That NZXT will almost certainly be louder than good quality air, and cool worse.
Cryorig H5 or H7, for instance. 1/2 the price.

1. Yes
2. From all reports and recommendations, yes
3. H7
4. Yes


A water cooler is the same thing, its just that the heat transfer happens in a different place.

The CPU get hot
That heat is transferred to a copper block.
After that, they differ

Air cooler transfers that heat from the block up into the fins. A fan blows across, transferring that heat to the room
A liquid cooler transfers that heat into the liquid, which is moved by a pump to the fins (the radiator). Fans blow across that rad, transferring the heat to the room.

A liquid cooler has many more parts. Pump, fan(s), liquid.
An air cooler will never, ever leak and pee all over your system. It has one moving part, the fan.

Currently, I have a liquid cooler. The Cryorig A80.
It cools better than my previous CM Hyper 212 PLUS, but is louder.
This is probably the last liquid cooler I will use on a main system.

a single fast 128gb ssd is not bad for just the os as long as you have a 2ND ssd thats 128gb minimum but more like 258gb or more

hard drive is a ver y good drive and the ssd is ok but good for the value

Just to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly, you're saying that a Cryorig H7 will outperform an NZXT Kraken X61? I am so doubtful of that I'm actually laughing. By that logic I was a fool for buying an H110i GTX Liquid Cooler over something like a single tower Noctua cooler.

I can agree with the statement that the larger air coolers will be much quieter than the liquid cooler, especially if you have the fans set to PWM control. That said, they take up a lot of space in the case, can cause clearance issues with your RAM if the module height is too tall, and in some cases (looking at you specifically Noctua) look absolutely terrible, meaning in my mind they're a poor choice for a windowed case. If you want to overclock, any of the larger AIO's will serve you relatively well, as would one of the bigger air coolers. You might have to choose a different case if you do decide to go air since the S340 can't support that large of a cooler

I would suggest some changes though. This has a larger SSD, better HDD, better priced motherboard, faster RAM, and a more appropriately sized power supply

PCPartPicker part list: http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/list/gLpYNN
Price breakdown by merchant: http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/list/gLpYNN/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($358.99 @ PB Technologies)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($229.00 @ DTC Systems)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 Ultra ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($293.93 @ PB Technologies)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($165.33 @ PB Technologies)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($107.53 @ Aquila Technology)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($74.74 @ PB Technologies)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 480 8GB NITRO+ OC Video Card ($444.00 @ PB Technologies)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black/Blue) ATX Mid Tower Case ($181.93 @ Ascent Technology)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($197.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Total: $2052.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-16 03:46 NZST+1200

No, I'm just recommending that the OP not be quite so quick to jump into a very expensive AIO. Liquid is not automatically 'better'.

Fair. Wording was a little confusing is all. That's my mistake and I apologize if I came off as insulting.

I do think in a case like the S340 though that a good AIO is a better option for an overclocking cooler than Air, since it does not have the mounting depth to support the larger air coolers. If OP is ok switching the case to a larger option, I would suggest going with something like a Cryorig R1 Ultimate or Dark Rock Pro 3 if he's concerned with appearance, the NH-D15 if he is not.

I agree. My wording was a bit off...