do you regret going back to air cooled gpu?

[wookiee87]

i'll never run a gpu aircooled again, though my fe 3090 was good on air remaning quite cool with reasonable clocks, but having got it under watercooling its a completly diffrent story the card flys, super cool even under max load and boost clocks are touching 2ghz with no overclocking applied, given my psu is a 750w unit i have been able to push +120 core and +1100 memory still, card is still cool 55 degrees under full load and system is reasonably quiet, run a 280mm loop just for my card and have the cpu (5950x) under air cooling stock with normal pbo behavoir, long short of it if you can watercool your gpu 100% look into such a venture, you'll unlock a fair amount of performance if you do, and the card will last longer as it runs cooler

 

[Drumroll]

i'll never run a gpu aircooled again, though my fe 3090 was good on air remaning quite cool with reasonable clocks, but having got it under watercooling its a completly diffrent story the card flys, super cool even under max load and boost clocks are touching 2ghz with no overclocking applied, given my psu is a 750w unit i have been able to push +120 core and +1100 memory still, card is still cool 55 degrees under full load and system is reasonably quiet, run a 280mm loop just for my card and have the cpu (5950x) under air cooling stock with normal pbo behavoir, long short of it if you can watercool your gpu 100% look into such a venture, you'll unlock a fair amount of performance if you do, and the card will last longer as it runs cooler

Same here.
For CPU, unless someone pushes their CPU 100% all the time, plenty of efficient and quiet solutions. Not worth a custom loop only for CPU. Any Arctic Freezer, Dark Rock or Noctua can do, at very low noise.
But GPU, is night and day. As you said, first the performance. Mine, don't even push overclock, only provide the card with the conditions to do it's thing. Noise, again, most of the Reference cards can cool, but at reasonable noise, not too many.
Won't bother who plays wearing headphones, but I get annoyed, and the whole system being bathed by it's heat, no thanks.

 

[Rebecca Whitlow]

This is an interesting post to read through actually. I am looking in to getting a whole new rig since my computer is dying and have been looking at air cooled vs water cooling. As a new gamer it's interesting to read about all this.

 

[Rebecca Whitlow]

I haven’t watercooled a GPU, but my advice would be:

Don’t buy something just because you can’t get the thing you actually want at the moment

I definitely can relate to that! *cough cough GPUs cough cough*

 

[Ross Thomson]

I water cooled my GPU because my CPU was water cooled. Mainly for less noise. Don't bother with overclocking as it hardly gives any extra and you use loads more power.

 

[Hewligan]

For overclocking, you may get a 7% increase in frames if you are lucky, for extra power usage, but with water cooling the heat and noise that are normally associated with it sort of disappear from the equation.

But if you are watercooling so that you can overclock: I agree it is a waste of time. Total false economy with £££ spent on watercooling kit to gain 5-7% performance. Economically you are better off buying the next model of GPU up in the tier.

You watercool for silence. You watercool for the challenge. You watercool for the aesthetics. You don’t actually watercool most of the time for the temps because modern generation GPU coolers (other than FE) are really good. They are just noisy.

I have a full custom loop setup and I love it. Got a 9x120mm external radiator. Looks brutal!!!!

 

[Jay85]

i'll never run a gpu aircooled again, though my fe 3090 was good on air remaning quite cool with reasonable clocks, but having got it under watercooling its a completly diffrent story the card flys, super cool even under max load and boost clocks are touching 2ghz with no overclocking applied, given my psu is a 750w unit i have been able to push +120 core and +1100 memory still, card is still cool 55 degrees under full load and system is reasonably quiet, run a 280mm loop just for my card and have the cpu (5950x) under air cooling stock with normal pbo behavoir, long short of it if you can watercool your gpu 100% look into such a venture, you'll unlock a fair amount of performance if you do, and the card will last longer as it runs cooler

Theres been a few times where i wish it was aircooled when trying to diagnose issues! . Having to drain and dismantle hardline without it getting everywhere is a utter pain in the backside!

 

[wookiee87]

Theres been a few times where i wish it was aircooled when trying to diagnose issues! . Having to drain and dismantle hardline without it getting everywhere is a utter pain in the backside!

lol one more reason i wont run hardline, sure it looks amazing but if anything goes wrong its a right royal pain to take apart, dont get me wrong my soft tubing was a pain too when i moved to the o-11 mini, trying to drain my mobo mosfet block which was connected to the cpu and then to the distro plate wasn't fun, lots of lifting and turning a 011 xl case which was fully loaded with tech, nearly killed me tbh

 

[newbieclocker]

I would definitely miss my Kraken G12 water cooling setup I have on my GPU, was so easy to setup and is whisper quiet.

 

[Grim5]

Watercooling improves performance but it's not earth shattering these days - you don't even notice it outside of trying to beat benchmarks.

the two biggest reasons two watercooling: sexy looks and low noise


For me I'm still not used to how quiete it is, with air cooling my system would turn into a rocket during gaming especially the 3090 gpu - but with watercooling sometimes I think the PC is turned off because it's too quiet to even hear

 

[Rebecca Whitlow]

Watercooling improves performance but it's not earth shattering these days - you don't even notice it outside of trying to beat benchmarks.

the two biggest reasons two watercooling: sexy looks and low noise


For me I'm still not used to how quiete it is, with air cooling my system would turn into a rocket during gaming especially the 3090 gpu - but with watercooling sometimes I think the PC is turned off because it's too quiet to even hear

I mean, looks sexy and low noise is a reason enough to go with a water cooled system

 

[LukasBB]

I went from a watercooled vega64 to aircooled 3070 and the noise really annoys me but watercooling a 3070 or any midrange card seems a bit pointless to me. I'll probably just wait until I get a 3080ti or something better and then get a gpu block as well.

 

[Rebecca Whitlow]

I went from a watercooled vega64 to aircooled 3070 and the noise really annoys me but watercooling a 3070 or any midrange card seems a bit pointless to me. I'll probably just wait until I get a 3080ti or something better and then get a gpu block as well.

Omg this is interesting. I want a 3070 (asap really) and have been thinking about watercooling. How come you think it's pointless?

 

[LukasBB]

I know it sounds a bit snobbish but I just feel like if it's not high end then why even bother. I know I'll sell my 3070 as soon as I get a 3080ti so that's why it is pointless to me.

 

[D1craig]

Omg this is interesting. I want a 3070 (asap really) and have been thinking about watercooling. How come you think it's pointless?

people usually say it because you can get the next tier gpu for thye price it would cost to watercool the lower one, but ive not found that to be the case really.

thinking about it, you probably could get the next tier gpu (maybe not now) before this gen for the cost of watercooling. i got into it when gtx 970 was new and the block cost less than 100 quid, nearer 80 quid tbh from ekwb. now a block is 130+ quid.

 

[Rebecca Whitlow]

I know it sounds a bit snobbish but I just feel like if it's not high end then why even bother. I know I'll sell my 3070 as soon as I get a 3080ti so that's why it is pointless to me.

Fair enough I guess. a 3070 is pretty much the highest I can afford right now since my whole pc needs to be upgraded.

 

[Kostyantyn Maslov]

Any opinion guys? Feel like I should slap a waterblock on my 3080 aorus xtreme, getting fed up of fan noise, baring in mind card don't actually run that hot

 

[montymint]

Any opinion guys? Feel like I should slap a waterblock on my 3080 aorus xtreme, getting fed up of fan noise, baring in mind card don't actually run that hot

That's up to you really, only you know if the cost and time are worth it.

 

[Hewligan]

It is impossible for us to say whether this is a good use of your cash. I love my water cooled PC (with RTX 3080 in a Alphacool Aurora water block), but I had some spare cash and that is what I wanted to spent it on.

 

[Jay85]

lol one more reason i wont run hardline, sure it looks amazing but if anything goes wrong its a right royal pain to take apart, dont get me wrong my soft tubing was a pain too when i moved to the o-11 mini, trying to drain my mobo mosfet block which was connected to the cpu and then to the distro plate wasn't fun, lots of lifting and turning a 011 xl case which was fully loaded with tech, nearly killed me tbh

Yeah hurt my back a few times trying to lift and tilt the behemoth just to get coolant out of the card . With how efficient air coolers are these days on gpu's i think my next purchase will be a better aircooled card, maybe a gigabyte master or equivalent when the 5000 series land.