Liquid Cooled Worth the Hassle?

[jim_mcm]

Just doing some scouting to see if I should update my desktop with liquid cooling.

I'm not too concerned with really hardcore over clocking, but my main problem is that my dog sheds like crazy and I want to have to worry less about dog hair circulating through my system. From some initial research I've noticed that my graphics card doesn't have many options for a water cooling block (ATI Raedon 5770), is it uncommon to use liquid cooling on that card (or graphic cards in general?). My case is a HAF 922, which is really roomy, so i don't think I'll be too cramped with regards to space.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[buzznut]

First off, the dog hair won't be better with water cooling, you should still open your case and clean it out once a month. You will still need intake/exhaust fans on your pc and that is where the dog hair will get in.
Having said that, I like my pc up off the ground as I get MUCH less pet hair. I have 3 cats and two dogs living in my house. PC's that sit on the ground or just a few inches above are lousy with furballs (Like my stepdaughter's). Plus my PC is very aesthetically pleasing so I like to display it. Blowing it out once a month takes 5 minutes. But even then, at that height (about 3 ft, on top of a small filing cabinet) I mostly have dust to deal with, very little hair.

I would think that almost all graphics cards would need water blocks, the few that are water-cooling ready are much more expensive. If you really want to try water cooling, I suggest you go small at first to see if it is worth the hassle to you. Plus a top end air cooler will perform better than an inexpensive water setup. To me, the once a month maintenance on the air cooling outweighs the potential hassle of water cooling with little benefit as far as efficient cooling goes.

 

[helsinki98]

I used to have a cheapish water cooling system, cooled the cpu and a part on the mobo, i took it off recently as i thought it wasnt working very well and replaced with a fan and have found temps to be a bit worse. If you want a relatively quiet computer i would recommend it as it is much quieter then air cooling but as the other poster said its still important to have an intake and an exhaust for your pc.

To reduce the pet hair issue i would keep the pc off the ground, maybe on your desktop if it is large enough but would still recommend you clean it out as im sure the hairs will get every where