maybe its a daft question, but why bother to water cool?

[footman]

What makes people decide to water cool a cpu?

If the chip has been taken to its stable maximum under good near as silent air cooling with reasonable load temps how do you know that watercooling it will reap any further performance enhancements.

Ive just bought the top Swiftech kit and even before unpacking it Im starting to have doubts about whether its all going to be worth it!

 

[daven1986]

mostly for silence, and good cooling all year round, and for the blingness of it!
tis why i did it,

daven

 

[ob1]

Water conveys heat better then air basically so you have much more potential.

Which cools you more stepping outside into a cold wind or jumping into the same temperature water

Simple as that really, Ive never done it because it costs more and is more hassle
and even though its better, air solutions are allready good and any gain with overclocking is a depreciating one. I can live without whatever the top 10% or so of clocks might be.

Some macs are supplied as standard with water cooling, Iam not sure if its because they absolutely need it or just to be bling

 

[Azagoth]

As much as I respect and admire the guy's who watercool I'd never do it myself. Call me a pansy if you will, but I just don't want to mix my PC with any sort of liquid!

I'll stick with my big exhaust fans and my Freezer 64 Pro giving me a 30C full load temp thanks.

 

[BloodWolf]

I've always wondered how it works XD

How the hell does the liquid not wreck the CPU?

 

[4Qman]

I've always wondered how it works XD

How the hell does the liquid not wreck the CPU?

Cos the liquid is in the pipes which conect to the blocks. the bottom of the blocks conect to the CPU etc, no liquid touches any components. The blockes do and the water is pushed round by the pump. cooled by the rads and fans.

Thats about it in a nutshell. Read up on it mate its fun and looks bling.

 

[R B Customs]

iv got to admit it, im a sucker for looks. and watercooling LOOKS damn damn nice IMO
so appart from overclocking potential, its loooks for me

i dont understand the fears about watercooling thouigh, its been said time and time again:
good set up loops dont leak.

 

[Kesnel]

good set up loops dont leak.

Agreed.

You'll see a major benefit if you watercool your graphics card particularly as it allows for much more voltage and thus higher clocks.

 

[Mikebert4]

Watercooling provides minimal performance boost, to really see a improvement you've got to look at Phase change or a REALLY powerful peltier...

I switched to Water because my PC was sounding like a tornado after it'd just sucked up a marching band and I wanted to be able to sleep with it on. Also My load temps were hitting the mid-50's and summer was approching..

It's looks that swayed me most, a clear res, Uv reactive water and a couple of UV cathodes means it looks sexy There was an Improvement in temps, load dropped to 42'C and the temperatures seem to jump around less, the change from idle-load used to be in the region of 7-11'C now it's just 4'C

The biggest fear I had was leaks, but a had a gun of silicone sealant at the ready and leak tested the loop for a good 24 hours before firing it all up, there were a couple of leaks but nothing major and now I've got awesome looking green tubing snaking it's way across my case

 

[Lewcifer]

Liquid Nitrogen cooling's where it's at...

 

[MikeTimbers]

These days with heatpipe heatsinks working so well, the need for water is lessened but for those of us who've been doing it for five years or more, you must remember that water used to provide a massive performance boost. Until heatpipes, the best heatsinks - Alphas and the like - had CW ratings at best of around 0.25, meaning that an overclocked Athlon at 100W was at best 25C over ambient - and that was with pwerful 80mm fans.

Now that you can get an SI-120 with huge surface area and a nice 120mm fan, you can get CW of closer to 0.13 and today's AMD CPU need a lot of voltage to get to 100W.

But anyone who thinks they're getting 30C full load with air-cooling either lives in the Arctic or is kidding themselves. You'd need an ambient temp of <20C or a Transmeta chip!

 

[Bundles]

But anyone who thinks they're getting 30C full load with air-cooling either lives in the Arctic or is kidding themselves. You'd need an ambient temp of <20C or a Transmeta chip!

Thank god there is more people than just me who realise this.

A chip that run that cool with a quit cooling solution could be passively cooled with only a mediocre heatsink.

I have no idea where the latest A64's and such like take there temp reading from, back of the mobbo maybe?

 

[kinggost]

i went watercooling because i was sick of my sli graphics cards going to 85oC when playing games so the fans went to max souded like a jet engine. My cpu also got to 50oC because of the temp in my case.

Now i have watercooling im so glad i got is as my gpu dont go over 40oC load and my cpu before the overclock i had 25oC now i got not over 30oC its running at 2.75 @ 1.5v.

I was botherd bout the leaking and water but it wont leak as long as you check every thing and leak test it i used non conductive fluid because i was botherd bout water in my comp. Its not so quiet but that because i got load fans with decent flow

 

[Indy500]

I might watercool my X2 when I have the money...been offered a cheap secondhand kit.

 

[ob1]

I dont mind air because its quiet most of the time and in a game I mostly use headphones anyway and the upclose sounds of a .50 calibre on full auto tends to distract me from the fans emulating a jet taking off.

How many water cooled pcs use no fans anyway..

A silent pc is good but silent to me is as quiet as a car going past outside or any other normal noise you have anyway, anything more is ott imo

 

[Rob43]

I like my peace & quiet,that's why i do it.Could'nt stand listening to my gfx card at full speed,it would have driven me mad,now it's totally silent

Plus i'll be able to keep my cpu & gfx at high overclcoks all summer without worrying about temps

Rob

 

[bangaho]

My gc's fan wore its bearing out and dropped down and stopped working so its much quieter now.

the best upgrade i did for my pc temps was a 12,000 BTU air conditioner for the room.. keep the ambient at 18 or so and the cpu sits at about 25 idle and 32 load with a oem cooler or at least thats what the motherboard tells me and the heatsink doesnt even feel warm... my old athlon XP system used to be scortching.

 

[Mikebert4]

Heh, I definately didn't switch to watercooling for a reduction in noise... i've added 3 more 120mm fans since i switched.

Can't hear my PC over music though, and it looks awesome

I think I switched just so I could say i've got a Watercooled PC, did some cutting and stuff as well.. so it's subtle, but pretty unique

I ldon't think i'd go back to Air, despite the reduced cost, and reduced risk. For me it was asthetic, and I managed a good 4'C drop in temps as well.. (7900GT sits at same at Processor )

 

[kinggost]

i got massive drops i got 40oC drop on load on my gpu and 20oC drop on my cpu