Anyone else regret going full water ?

[Dirk Diggler]

My loop is entirely EK, blocks, fittings, res the whole shebang. I've only had issues with 2 90 degree fittings, post leak test. There's 7 of them in my build that I've been running for 2 years now so take from that what you will.

Post leak test tells me that they degrade over time.

Not good.

 

[RyanF]

Yes but you tend not to hear the other side of the spectrum as people with good reviews are busy using the product, not complaining about it

 

[Aberfala]

I'm going to be using some 90 degree EK fittings in my next build. Seeing as there's a few tales of failure here, could I ask are these fittings failing after passing leak tests? Or, are they failing during leak test?

My concern is that I'm putting something together that will be failing after a period of time, which gives me no chance of predicting.

I'm still able to return my 1080ti block and back plate but would rather keep.

My problem with leaking angled fittings was immediate during leak test.

 

[deFiniLoGy]

For rotary degree fitting I honestly would use bitspower / barrow over EK.

EK's rotary fittings have a lot of give at the joints and just doesn't seem secure.

I've had 2 rotaries failed on me, both of which are from EK and none from bitspower.

Can't say much for Barrow coz I hate their imperfect coating but their rotary joints are still more secure than EK.

 

[jellybeard999]

Used to watercool but lost the love for it. It's makes no cost sense as it's so expensive that unless you have a top end system the cash it better spent on hardware. The maintenance is annoying, it makes upgrading a ball ache and I've never found it that quiet.

This applies to me too. I started out watercooling before it became mainstream and had a lot of fun doing it, but air is much better than it used to be and watercooling is much more expensive now, plus the extra faff it doesn't seem worthwhile.

Watercooling isn't quieter imo, as long as you think carefully about your fan setup (particularly the you) you probably have near enough the same number of fans.

 

[Bolton7935]

Didn't think it blow up this big this ha i am still struggling with weather to carry on with water or just go to air on my next upgrade

 

[Aberfala]

Watercooling isn't quieter imo, as long as you think carefully about your fan setup (particularly the you) you probably have near enough the same number of fans.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I've never come across a high end GPU that was barely audible at full load while a decent watercooling build can be.

If you can let me know which GPU is as quiet then I'll seriously consider it next time I upgrade as although I enjoy watercooling if I can save a £100 next time by avoiding having to buy a GPU block that'd be great,

 

[pastymuncher]

The cooler on my GTX 1070 is actually very quiet and doesn't even run when the card is under 50 degrees C. I bought a block at the same time though so whipped the cooler off once I had confirmed everything was working ok. Even so, I would and could never go back to air cooling. I went water cooling originally for one purpose, to get the hot air out of my pc room. My pc room is just a pair of built in cupboard knocked into one so is only 5x6 feet. While that seems small it is plenty of room for a nice pc setup. The problem was that when I was air cooling everything it got unbearably hot in here. I made the decision then to water cool everything and to mount the radiators in a box on a windowsill outside the room on the landing. This got rid of my heat problem but also gives me ridiculously low temperatures (especially in winter) due to the rads having filtered outside air running through them. It also means I can run the fan's silently.

 

[craarc]

any fitting that rotates or moves is ofc going to be a weak spot. ive had a few over the years that were looser than expected (except some really expensive QDC`s i had ages ago) solid angled fitting are always going to be best if you have to have angles at all..
yo can replace the o rings with better quality ones and have them pressed. loops are basically really low pressure so they are not built to take a lot, and any movement will degrade them eventually. and o rings from a good hydraulic supplier will be best. they come in various grades. as i found out when using cheaper QDC`s i cant remember the exact grading they use but i spent hours in a local hydraulic specialists place, a really old school emporium and the guy tested loads of stuff with me and explained a lot about the materials they use in the seals. but like someone said you only really ever hear of failures and not the 99% of successes i guess.

 

[The Halk]

For what it's worth I did watercooling about 10 years ago, maybe a little longer. I did AquaComputer and over time my loops went from messy to extremely neat, I ended up sourcing 90 degree pushfit bends from a pneumatics company etc...

Eventually I did regret it. I smoked back then and the space between rad and fans was filthy. It also made upgrades difficult, eventually I got to the point where I did an upgrade that wiped everything out.

I thought I'd never go back to it. I'm going back to it now because I have more money and I have a fairly powerful system that somewhat justifies it. I'll be going straight in at the deepend, hardline, 2 or more rads, higher end case, ridiculously expensive motherboard with a block already on it, 2 full cover GPU blocks etc. My PC is already a 7700K, 32GB memory, 500GB M.2, 1TB SSD, 980 Strix SLI so I don't really see myself upgrading for a very long time. I'm also content with the idea of paying through the nose for upgrades.

I work long hours and I've put a lot of effort into getting where I am now, and as vain or pathetic as it might seem I want to have a high end watercooled PC that looks great, even if I can only barely justify why I want it.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I've just did my new loop and as a result of following this thread, I've decided to design it so if I get a leak it shouldn't result in any damage to components. I also decided not to add the CPU as previously discussed I think air cooling is adequate for gaming.

Bottom entry on the GPU:



Radiator connections on the right hand side:



Pump and reservoir also as far away from the mobo as possible:

 

[Aberfala]

Nice build and very well thought out.

 

[Sabnock]

I had problems with a certain brand of 90° fitting too. Basically the brand of fittings I had never used before in any build liked to loosen at the thread (not too much), so every maintenance cycle I'd tighten the fittings up. I'd made decisions to get out of watercooling for health reasons, it's a lot harder for me to do than normals. 10 year hobby.

I re-tightened every fitting except the 90° fitting on the back of my SLI bridge. I turned on the PC on and it booted up for about 15 seconds and it turned off. Drip drip drip. Kitchen roll and everything. Thankfully I only fried the motherboard but it was a lot of work saving wet hardware. Block removals, drying etc That was it for me.

What I've built now has higher performance, is just as quiet and the components put out much less heat into the room. I don't think I need watercooling now, I feel pretty jaded towards the industry actually. The problem is I have an almost meter tall case left over, and giant used radiators, spare Aquacomputer pumps and everything.

So I built up a stash of stuff for rainy days or when things died, so now I have brand new Gentle Typhoons to get rid of and stuff. Keeping the used ones. I put the stuff like the Gentle Typhoons on a popular auction site but I can't get people to look at them or know they're there. I thought people would be completely on them. It's looking like I'll make a complete loss lol.

 

[David230]

The main reason I moved away from air cooling was that It seems near impossible to run a high end gpu flat out (especially sli)without the fans running like jet engines at full tilt. I can now game for as long as I feel like and my system remains at an equal 50-60degC whilst remaining at a lowly 28db. Although that is a slight lie now that I have a evga p2 psu as the fan Is a little loud when it kicks in.

All that being said the problem was worse when I switched to sli. If I went for a more thermal efficient single card (maybe next gen) I probably wouldn't need wc.

 

[fireman999]

Water cooling for silence, you can't beat it.
Case temp at idle 25c, coolant 25.3c, cpu 26c, gpu 25.3
Case temp at load 27c coolant 32c, cpu 61c, gpu 37c
i7 4790k @ 4.7mhz, Zotac 1080 @ 2156mhz.
2x 420mm 1x240mm rads
13 Cougar Vortex HDB fans.
All I hear is the click of the switch when I turn the PC on and off. Bliss

 

[Jasonst888]

Water cooling doesn't make to much practical sense when compared to the performance of modern air cooled kit. That being said for those of us that enjoy the process of building a pc watercooling is added complexity/ fun that allows you to personalise your system a bit and if you are willing to have a large case...then you can have silly quiet and powerful pc with huge rads!

 

[Dirk Diggler]

It's 28C in Glasgow right now, so I can finally give a definitive answer to the OP.

"No".

 

[BriT]

^agree lol If i had air cooled my PC would have melted by now, currently 30c in my flat.

 

[craarc]

Aircon FTW

 

[MikeTimbers]

I've started using Kraken G10 AIO Adapters for my GPU as they're movable to the next card without buying a whole new block. They're also cheap and seem to work pretty well.