Is WCing worth the money

[pegasus1]

In my situation that is.
SD 3700 running at 2.65 that hits 40 max (Bearing in mind the weather is cool atm) with a Gigabyte G-Power Pro. The G-Power is controled by Speed Fan and runs at a max of 75% (min of 25%)which isnt all that loud during Q4 but during RTW its starting to get to me, and the weather is going to get warmer.
Ive just won a Grand on the lottery (£1500 last year as well ) so i may treat myself to the WC system below
Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit.
A Is it worth it
B Is this a decent bit of kit for the money

Cheers

 

[Rob43]

It's well worth it,just for the noise difference alone imo

The Apex is a very good bit of kit,you could buy seperate parts & put together a better kit though.

If you can't be bothered with sourcing seperate parts,you would be hard pushed to find a better "out of the box" wc set up than the Apex

Rob

 

[mattup]

I have recently installed an apex kit with an additional GPU block in my rig.

CPU temps are not much different but GPU temps are much lower. Noise has reduced.

It looks cool and will give you an excuse to spend some money and time on your rig.

Matt

 

[pegasus1]

Cheers guys.
Might add a block for my 7800gtx though.

 

[gr1mey]

I thought about the Apex kit, but went for seperates, was fun to source them, and performance is better.

 

[Cody]

Everyone recommended this kit to me but I got the Asetek Extreme Triple Rad because you can connect an LCD to the pump and control it via USB.

Temps are about the same as before, pump isn't as quiet as I thought and the GPU block doesn't fit my graphics card. Wish I'd got the Apex kit.

I'm not that bothered about noise so I'm going to move to phase.

 

[ichabod crane]

watercooling is well worth it, awesome cooling and even more awesome look. Apex kit is good but if you have time a knowledge sourse a custom kit... you will be proud to put it all together yourself and will get a better performing kit

 

[utherpendragon]

Whats the cheapest you could put together a decent enough watercooling system for?

 

[locutus12]

ive just bought this from MM for £30 plus £8p+p
http://www.thermaltake.com/watercooling/cl-w0005-01BigWaterSE/cl-w0005-01.htm

its by far not the best water cooling system in the world, but its good enough for me as ive never had a WC system and i originally was going to go for an air cooler for around £26. even though its cheap it will still cool my cpu better than a good air cooler and as i only need my CPU cooled (graphics card fan is virtually silent) it should be fun gonna get mega low rpm 120mm fans for my system just to keep the board cool but thats it i will let you know how i get on...

 

[ichabod crane]

Whats the cheapest you could put together a decent enough watercooling system for?

Bout £150-160 for a pretty descent custom kit.

 

[utherpendragon]

where would the money go in that system? Just to see where I can make adjustments to lower the price.

 

[PureAppleJuice]

Well the pump and radiator will be most expensive

 

[Rick_Barnes]

Stick with Air unless your going large

Unless your gonna use more than 1x120mm Rad, theres no point going watercooling.

Purpose of watercooling is to move the heat away from the processor, (using the water and waterblock) to somewhere else where its more convenient to dissapate the heat. Big heatsinks such as the TT Big typoon have thin finned aluminum heatsinks connected to the base by heat pipes.

The heat pipes serve the same purpose as the pipes and pump in a watercooling system. The heat pipes elevate the cooling area above the socket area where theres much more space avaliable, allowing large heatsinks to be used.

If 120mm is adequate for your cooling needs, dont bother with watercooling unless you want to cool other components such as GPU / Northbridge, or just want your PC to look Mint!!

 

[Rick_Barnes]

Some more thoughts

Did some extra thinking.

WC Advantages:

Looks
Additional Blocks can be added to loop.
Can function as an intake for air into the case, or more usually as part of the cases exhast system
No heavy weight over CPU / Socket

WC Disadvantages:

Water in case, means particular care must be used in preparation and movement.
No air movement over motherboard components that large Heatsinks can offer
Probably means cutting a hole somewhere if you want 2x120mm fans.
COST!!!


Watercoolings great advantage is moving heat to a diff area for dissipation. Northbridges and Graphics cards in particular suffer cooling difficulties, and graphics cards in particular can greatly benefit from the additional cooling, but watercooling cannot lower temperatures below sub ambient without additional equipment.

 

[ichabod crane]

Did some extra thinking.

WC Advantages:

Looks
Additional Blocks can be added to loop.
Can function as an intake for air into the case, or more usually as part of the cases exhast system
No heavy weight over CPU / Socket

WC Disadvantages:


No air movement over motherboard components that large Heatsinks can offer
Probably means cutting a hole somewhere if you want 2x120mm fans.





i agree with most of that cept, these two, you can still have some 5v or 7v fans for air flow through ya case so keeping mobo parts cool, and cutting a mounting hole for your rad id say comes under looks cos with a nice grill on looks awesome

 

[Rick_Barnes]

the 5/7v fans can detract from the prettiness but its all a matter of taste.

I was just trying to get across that for performance and silence, Air cooling is just as good as water cooling unless you go for passivley cooled or large rads.

 

[pegasus1]

Unless your gonna use more than 1x120mm Rad, theres no point going watercooling.

Purpose of watercooling is to move the heat away from the processor, (using the water and waterblock) to somewhere else where its more convenient to dissapate the heat. Big heatsinks such as the TT Big typoon have thin finned aluminum heatsinks connected to the base by heat pipes.

The WC kit i mentioned in the opening thread has a double rad and thanks for letting me know what a HSF does .
I have great case cooling and my heavily modded case looks nice to boot.

 

[R B Customs]

id say go custom all the way. you will have a lot more fun building it and gettign it in sepperate boxxes ( whih also aids for selling parts later on )
but most of all ( as someone said before) you will gain the know how a lot quicker.

if you have a few weeks on your hands, why dont you pick out a few parts from different sites etc, and build what you think would be a good system, then just pretend you have bought it and installed it. because i guarantee the first thing anyone does when they buy soemthign is research it even more THEN think... oh maye i should have got THAT one instead

watercoolign is all abotu balancing your components, althoguh a lot of it is doen on paper and temps dont always play a role. its fun to sit and work out whether you need to go for a component with high head and large heat dumpk, or lower head with a much smaller heat dummp etc. it all just depends on the whole bunch of components really.

how handy are you with a jigsaw and dremel ?

 

[pegasus1]

how handy are you with a jigsaw and dremel ?

Before i saw the light i was an apprentice engineer, i'l post a pic of my current rig later, had to do a lot of cutting (added an ali front facia) so i think im fairly competant.

 

[R B Customs]

thats always good to know for sum1 going into watercooling
potentialy quite a lot of work to do