Do I need Water Cooling?

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Hello,

I am fairly new to the PC Community and have started with my first gaming PC.

Some of the components include:

i7-3770k CPU

GTX Evga 670 2/4gb

8Gb Kingston Hyper X Ram

850W Corsair CMPSU-850AX

ASUS Z77 Sabertooth Mobo

2 TB HDD

w/ the Antec DF-85 Full Tower Case

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I plan to do overclocking, but as I have never overclocked, I do not know to the extent of how far I will overclock. Probably 30% Will be the highest I'll go with OC'ing the CPU.

I am looking at the Corsair H60 Liquid Cooling for the CPU. Although what confuses me, is that the Corsair H60 does not look like anything I've seen (custom tubes/loops with a radiator, etc.)

Do I need the Corsair H60, or more expensive methods such as custom tubes?

Or is the 7 stock 120/140mm fans on the Antec DF-85 Enough?

Also, im presuming the GPU can be overclocked as well, do I need liquid cooling for the GPU?

Thanks for any replies!

 

drums101

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for around a 30% overclock watercooling would not be necessary.....you could easily get away with a higher end air cooler for the speed that you are looking for. Especially if you are new to overclocking you are probably not going to push it THAT far.....the reason why the watercooler that you found looks different is because that is an all in one system.....requires no maintenance once you install it you are good to go....they generally perform right on par with high end air coolers so they are not worth the price premium unless you are going for a really quiet/silent pc....for your setup I would recommend that you keep the stock cooling for your graphics card and oc that a little bit....the stock cooler will handle it fine and for your cpu I recommend that you get a good air cooler and save yourself alot of cash. here is a good air cooler for cheap that will perform very well

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
 

Hazle

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considering you're still clearly a beginner at this; No.

for a beginner, i really recommend not OCing by more than 4.5ghz, especially with Ivy Bridge. 4.2/4.3 is a pretty good start with a pretty good boost in performance in some applications.

once you do get the hang of things and decide to OC more and go with watercooling, i wouldn't go with any of the corsair All-in-one water cooling. some has expressed sub-par cooling performance equal to a good air cooled heat sink, while others feared the water in the Corsair H** series going stagnant impacting cooling efficiency in the long run. realize as well that going full liquid cooling requires a lot of maintenance particularly replacing the liquid every now and then.

yes, the GPU can be overclocked, but considering how both your CPU and GPU are pretty recent and top of the line, i personally don't see you needing to OC a lot now that would require you to go with liquid cooling, unless you're into competitive OCing. a modest OC now with a $30 third party heatsink for your CPU and you're actually pretty good to go, gaming-wise, unless you have a triple 2560x1440 monitor setup.
 
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Does the H60 require replacing the liquid? Or by Full-Liquid cooling do yo mean with several tubes, radiator, etc..
 
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No I haven't built it yet, just speculating
 

Hazle

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the H60 doesn't allow you to change the the water in it, unless there's some recent revision of it that i'm not aware of.

by full liquid cooling, or good old fashion liquid cooling, i mean just as you said. you'll be looking to replace the liquid now and then and check for leakage everytime you do. time consuming but very rewarding for high OCs (4.8ghz and above for the CPU).

as Garretk4 mentioned, the Hyper 212 Evo would be a good heatsink if you do decide to OC moderately. seriously though, your whole setup can play most games at 60fps or so at the highest setting at stock speed @1080p. you could OC later on down the line and hopefully extend your PCs life expectancy compared to OCing now.
 

drums101

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yea man you dont need to go full on water cooling or even the all in one water coolers....for your rig and your experience level you are better off with air cooling it will get you the performance you need....as the other guys have been saying you should either get the CM Hyper 212+ or CM Hyper 212 Evo
 
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But comparing the CM Hyper 212 Evo and Corsair H60 which has better performance, regardless of skill level and how much I am going to OC?
 

Hazle

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the H60 performs a lot better, but i'd still won't recommend it to you unless you have tall heatsinks for your RAM that gets in the way of the conventional cpu heatsink. the Hyper 212 while it performs below the H60 has a better price/performance ratio, and is a huge favourite for moderate overclocking for years. note as well that the H60's performance will most likely degrade over time.

as for overclocking the cpu, it differs from chip to chip despite the same model. in the case of Ivy Bridge, they run hotter than sandy bridge once you need to raise the core voltage, usually in the 4.2-4.3ghz range (a considerably good and recommended OC for you), 4.5ghz if you're REALLY lucky. i dunno how the h60 fares in such case, but i doubt temps will be lower than 70-75 degrees.
 
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One of the main reasons I am asking is I am looking to buy my gaming pc through iBuyPower.... I know I can build it myself but I unfortunately do not have the time to learn how to, and to eventually build it.

iBuyPower comes with three 'Processor Cooling' options; A 'certified' CPU fan and heatsink, a (unknown brand) Liquid CPU Cooling System (w/ a add-on of one or two ARC High Performance Fan Upgrades) or the Corsair H60 (w/ add-on of one or two ARC High Performance Fan Upgrades).

Therefore, while I certainly do listen to all of the advice I have recieved, it would pain me on arrival to open up the Case, and install it myself.

That is why I am so keen on getting the H60, it is pre-built by the techs at iBuyPower and I won't have to be doing any changing once it arrives at my doorstep.
 

Hazle

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my mistake then. i remember seeing a review of the H60 where it was paired off with the NH-D14, which back then was like the king of heatsinks at the time, and perform close to it. it's good to hear the EVO has improved performance.



if you can find a shop at your place with a capable technician who'll be able to switch it out for you for an extra few bucks, then you can run the PC at stock clocks for a few months with stock coolers before moving to a third party heatsink and OCing.

otherwise, you're stuck with the H60, which hopefully won't cost you more than $65, by newegg's price. if the add on costs around an extra $30-35, that'd at least be better.

 

rubix_1011

Contributing Writer
Moderator
No worries, I just want to dispel that these closed loop coolers don't work better than their advertising lends them to do...even the H100 is lackluster in performance when you consider price and cooling performance, which requires push/pull fans on HIGH, to oust the best air coolers. It still is handily beaten by the RS240 kit using the mediocre-performing X20 750 pump.
 

fallen17754

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Jul 17, 2012
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i have an h60, i bought it from newegg for 65 dollars, they have a rebate for 15 dollars back but im too lazy for that, it cools really well, easy to install, if you do install it though, don't remove the plastic film on the backplate for the motherboard, you need that, it also comes with preapplied thermal paste that does the job although you can put as5 on it to see small changes probably 1-3 celcius. i like it, it also looks cool and you dont need to take care of it like feed it water or whatever, you can also use 2 120mm fans for a push pull configuration so one fan pulls the air and the other fan pushes the air which helps reduce temps, the only maintenance i suppose to to clean the fans of dust every month and apply thermal paste every 6-12 months. the hyper 212 evo is also a great air choice for half the price of the h60.


tl;dr hyper 212 evo if u dont have much money or h60 if u have money to blow
 

fallen17754

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Jul 17, 2012
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and no you dont need liquid cooling for the gpu, use the stock fans and msi afterburner to customize the fan speeds at certain temperatures, dont push the gpu past 25% imo and the cpu past 35% so put the cpu at 4.5 because thats really all you need.
 

maucerit

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Sep 28, 2012
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I would NOT buy from I was going to until I saw reviews. The reviews are terrible. I have a labtop from maingear theya re a very small company but do extremly good work. I am buying a desktop from them next week because places like digital storm and northwestern build great PC like maingear but Maingear hands down best customer service to match. I met the CEO since there in nothern NJ just great guy and PC are out of this world in quality. They are a bit more pricey but you are getting a amazing product and the computer is so nicely wired. I know everyone has their PC company but these guys are good. And there new epic line of water coolers that is standerd on some models (can be added to any) is one of the best out. Look them up. maingear.com seriously good PC's Few of my buddys got PCs from them too and are very satisified customers. Like i said little more $$ but worth every single dollar. Im not pushing there product I was just was lookign for a new desktop with everythin I wanted andjust cant find another company with service as good as theres and warning you not to go to I BUY POWER. Reviews people getting cracked CPU's, parts not plugged in, wiring mess ect. Sure you can fix it yourself but why are you paying them?