Water Cooling: Is it for everyone?


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So, I've done a bit of digging around, and I've found some really nifty websites about Water Cooling. I've posted on several forums about it, and I haven't really gotten a ton of feedback about it.

I'm hoping to turn this specific topic into a pinned section. I know a lot of people I've spoken too about it, are scared to do it because they don't want to break their PC.

So, with that said.

Do we have anyone out there, running a WC system? If so, post your specs, where you bought the parts(What kit if any?) and how did you learn to do it?

 

 

I'm wanting to set my new rig up with WaterCooling after I finish building it, so that's partially why I'm posting this.

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I bought a shuttle PC but have an enclosed water cooling unit, which was fairly straight forward to fit - I followed a tiny guide on MotorMice.

It didn't massively cool the system compared with normal air cooling, but it shaved a good few degrees off, enough for me to buy.  However the part is only available in the USA so I had to have it shipped over here to the UK.

 

photo%204A.JPG

 

Not all liquid cooling products need to be large towers outside of the case.

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I bought a shuttle PC but have an enclosed water cooling unit, which was fairly straight forward to fit - I followed a tiny guide on MotorMice.

It didn't massively cool the system compared with normal air cooling, but it shaved a good few degrees off, enough for me to buy.  However the part is only available in the USA so I had to have it shipped over here to the UK.

 

photo%204A.JPG

 

Not all liquid cooling products need to be large towers outside of the case.

The part I'm focusing most on for water cooling is the CPU, GFX Cards, and the RAM.

I'll probably shop off XSPC. My biggest problem is the setup, I don't mind shelling out 1200$ for a Water Cooling System, but I don't want to ruin 3,000$ in hardware. Haha.

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The part I'm focusing most on for water cooling is the CPU, GFX Cards, and the RAM.

I'll probably shop off XSPC. My biggest problem is the setup, I don't mind shelling out 1200$ for a Water Cooling System, but I don't want to ruin 3,000$ in hardware. Haha.

 

If you're using distilled water + anti corrosion additives, it won't matter too much. I had an Akasa kit + ATi waterblock inside a Shuttle XPC SN95G5 that the pump inner seal split/perished after a year. The entire board was sunken in UV reactive coolant for many hours with the machine still being used before I realised what was going on (CPU thermal zone trip). After being thoroughly dried out I had the same machine back up and running (still being used actually).

 

Stuff has come along way now with many bespoke solutions available for PC's - either closed loop or DIY. If you're worried about it then you can always go closed loop (I have this time around though mostly for cost reasons).

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If you're using distilled water + anti corrosion additives, it won't matter too much. I had an Akasa kit + ATi waterblock inside a Shuttle XPC SN95G5 that the pump inner seal split/perished after a year. The entire board was sunken in UV reactive coolant for many hours with the machine still being used before I realised what was going on (CPU thermal zone trip). After being thoroughly dried out I had the same machine back up and running (still being used actually).

 

Stuff has come along way now with many bespoke solutions available for PC's - either closed loop or DIY. If you're worried about it then you can always go closed loop (I have this time around though mostly for cost reasons).

 

That it has. I was just recently reading an article on Raspberry Pi HPC Cluster working at some 10.xGigaflops, the fastest we could achieve in 1965(I think this was it), was 1.9Gigaflops. I'm not going to build the system all at once. I'm going to start with just the CPU, and see how well I like that. I'm not planning on OverClocking just yet, I want to be comfortable working with this stuff. Hell, I might even video tape it.

I had water cooling for one of my systems.  I don't recommend it if you're on a limited budget, as the kit you buy may or may not be worth keeping.

I'm not on a limited budget at all, but I'm a cautious person when it comes to spending thousands. I weight the benefits. Where I live, power is pretty cheap, compared to California. I mean, at California's cost per K/w, it'd cost me about 300$ a year to run my computer + monitors 24/7. While in Washington State, it's only .03$ per K/w, costs me about 120$.

Anyways, I'd like to get some good information for the first post. Good video finds on YouTube, maybe even some specific designs. The differences between closed loop and open loop. I'd like the first post be informational, as much as possible.

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Theoretically, yes.

 

But it'd have to be pure water (chemically, not naturally!) and it won't work forever. Water likes to absorb just about anything and everything so shortly it will have enough impurities to cause damage (even the CO2 in the air).

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Realistically, unless going for overclocking there's no real need for water cooling these days

 

The self contained units do look good but you can get the same results with air cooling 

 

I'm planning a new build once USB Type C is standard on motherboards/cases, and still leaning towards air cooling, whatever tower it is will not have a window, hate them and pointless, IMO 

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I have a closed loop water cooler in the htpc I built a little over a year ago.  It's a Cooler Master Seidon 120XL.  One of the reasons I went with the water cooler is I wanted the system to be silent (being an htpc, that's kind of important).  I also got a pretty good deal on it, so it wasn't going to be much more than one of the aftermarket air coolers I was looking at.  Here's my unboxing video for it:

 

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I have a closed loop water cooler in the htpc I built a little over a year ago.  It's a Cooler Master Seidon 120XL.  One of the reasons I went with the water cooler is I wanted the system to be silent (being an htpc, that's kind of important).  I also got a pretty good deal on it, so it wasn't going to be much more than one of the aftermarket air coolers I was looking at.  Here's my unboxing video for it:

 

Yes, silence is what I require as well. I also would like the ability to run 24/7 without having to worry about overheating. I just recently repasted my CPU, and I'm still having some issues with it. Under full stress, I'm hitting 70c+ idle I'm around 50c. I'm going to replace the heatsink with a new one, and replace all the case fans, just noticed they are starting to operate at slower RPMs.

I like to learn, even if it costs me $1,000 to learn something, it's worth it. I won't make that mistake twice. I'd like to build a nice, complex but awesome setup. 4x SLI'd cards, CPU, and RAM are what I'll be cooling.

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With the pre-made watercooling all-in-ones that the various companies are selling now, anyone can install it easily. However, not all those units are as quiet as you'd think since most use thinner radiators with higher speed fans. It's best to look at benchmarks for each one to determine which one would fit your needs for heat dissipation and noise levels.

 

A custom water cooling setup where you buy each component yourself and build it is much better, but also likely to be more costly and increasingly difficult depending on the computer case you're installing it in. You have to plan where you want all the components to go, which components are right for your setup, and then tie it all together. I have been watercooling for about 10 years now in my main gaming computer and it's worked out well. I only had one time where I had a leak from a reservoir suddenly cracking and it damaged my motherboard with water.

 

For the water itself, I've turned away from premixed or colored fluids. Instead, I use distilled water with PT Nuke additive and the colored tubing of my choice. It stays clean for almost a whole year before I change it out.. no build up, no corrosion, no biological material, etc. It's important to have all of the same type metals in your loop to prevent galvanic corrosion. I use all copper in mine.  

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With the pre-made watercooling all-in-ones that the various companies are selling now, anyone can install it easily. However, not all those units are as quiet as you'd think since most use thinner radiators with higher speed fans. It's best to look at benchmarks for each one to determine which one would fit your needs for heat dissipation and noise levels.

This is definitely true.  I went with the idea that 2 fans must surely be better than 1.  Well (I talk about this in one of my other videos), that extra fan took away space I was planning to use for another hard drive, and the fans that come with the kit are pretty loud.  The system overall is pretty quiet though, although I can hear the water pump in a dead silent room (it makes this weird humming noise).  When the fans spin up, they're annoying (and very audible).  I'm thinking about replacing the cooler master fans with some noctua fans.  Overall it keeps the system pretty cool though.

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Nope.

I can't see a reason. I want to as a nerd with a killer box. However games are gpu bound and not cpu bound since the year 2000.

A good quiet i7 can do 170,000,000,000 instructions per second!

Seriously.

Why bother

Nope.

I can't see a reason. I want to as a nerd with a killer box. However games are gpu bound and not cpu bound since the year 2000.

A good quiet i7 can do 170,000,000,000 instructions per second!

Seriously.

Why bother

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I think liquid cooling is largely a gimmick and not worth the money or trouble. Most people have this preconceived notion that air coolers are noisy, when liquid cooling actually uses fans too, sitting on a case vent, plus they use a pump which has to be active all the time and isn't silent either, which makes water coolers noisier than quality air coolers (see for instance this). The presence of a pump creates a failure point that is absent on simpler air coolers, and a cursory glance at reviews on major retailers like newegg show that they are not particularly reliable, even on the top-rated models.

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I think liquid cooling is largely a gimmick and not worth the money or trouble. Most people have this preconceived notion that air coolers are noisy, when liquid cooling actually uses fans too, sitting on a case vent, plus they use a pump which has to be active all the time and isn't silent either, which makes water coolers noisier than quality air coolers (see for instance this). The presence of a pump creates a failure point that is absent on simpler air coolers, and a cursory glance at reviews on major retailers like newegg show that they are not particularly reliable, even on the top-rated models.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a gimmick.. but you're correct to some extent. If you're not doing any extreme overclocking where you have to significantly increase the voltage to your CPU core, you'd be fine with an air cooler. Some people choose to overclock so they can get much more processing power out of a cheaper CPU for improving the speed of a specific task they want to accomplish, whether it be gaming, encoding, rendering, or cryptographic calculations just to name a few.

In most situations, you're also right about noise from pumps and additional fans to cool radiators. However, you can choose very quiet pumps that are no more audible than a low speed 120mm fan if it is mounted properly on anti-vibration mounts. Then just choose your radiator(s) designed for low air flow fans and you're still no louder than you'd be with a quiet air cooled setup. I've done many watercooled builds (both loud and silent), as well as plenty of air cooling and fanless builds.. each has their own specific application and you can accomplish the noise level you want based on wise selection of parts.

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Spend your money on something other than cooling for your PC, bro. 

Why? I have no girlfriend, my bills are taken care of every month, and I have a good amount of money saved. I have a brand "new" car, 2012. I'm content in life. My rig was originally built in 2006, the only thing I've replaced on it is the motherboard. ASUS Rampage Extreme failed after 6 months. Getting a little off topic though.

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Why? I have no girlfriend, my bills are taken care of every month, and I have a good amount of money saved. I have a brand "new" car, 2012. I'm content in life. My rig was originally built in 2006, the only thing I've replaced on it is the motherboard. ASUS Rampage Extreme failed after 6 months. Getting a little off topic though.

 

 

Because an SSD, and a good video card and even maybe a better screen will be better uses of your money than water cooling, if you're going to splurge, do it on parts with the best bang for your buck, IF after all that you still want ot water cool, then by all means do it, but should be the last thiun you should be concerned with 

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Because an SSD, and a good video card and even maybe a better screen will be better uses of your money than water cooling, if you're going to splurge, do it on parts with the best bang for your buck, IF after all that you still want ot water cool, then by all means do it, but should be the last thiun you should be concerned with 

Thanks for you opinion. You should run for a US Senate position.   :rofl:

 

I think my new watercooled gaming rig will be solely run off my 1997 Hummer H1's power inverter so I can maximize my carbon footprint. Nobody else should run their computers off their home power outlets because that's just dumb.

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I did a watercooling rig about 5 years ago.  I overbuilt it at the time, but it's still a good machine.

 

As others have said, watercooling is great if you want to overclock (I never got around to it...).  It's also a LOT quieter.  While I do run the fans, I ran tests with almost every fan in the system off (except for the pump, a single intake, and the PSU fan), and it still didn't come close to overheating, so that's cool.

 

It's also a fun project.

 

If you're going to do it, I don't recommend the "all in one" kits.  Buy the pieces individually.  And as someone else mentioned, make sure the materials match - I use all copper.

 

Would I do it again? I don't know.  It added several hundred bucks to the cost, so I'm not sure I would.  But I definitely recommend it at least once because it's something different.

 

Here's a link to more information on what I used, along with some pretty nifty pictures:  https://fezmid.wordpress.com/category/watercooling/

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Because an SSD, and a good video card and even maybe a better screen will be better uses of your money than water cooling, if you're going to splurge, do it on parts with the best bang for your buck, IF after all that you still want ot water cool, then by all means do it, but should be the last thiun you should be concerned with 

I have 2 nice Monitors already, and I'll be rockin' an M.2 SSD. As for the video card, anything above the 500s series is a GOOD video card. In all honesty, the newest cards don't mean crap anymore. There's no games, that I've found, that can take advantage of the card 100%. I'll be upgrading my card, just because this machine will be going to my brother. Starting 100% fresh with a new machine.

 

I did a watercooling rig about 5 years ago.  I overbuilt it at the time, but it's still a good machine.

 

As others have said, watercooling is great if you want to overclock (I never got around to it...).  It's also a LOT quieter.  While I do run the fans, I ran tests with almost every fan in the system off (except for the pump, a single intake, and the PSU fan), and it still didn't come close to overheating, so that's cool.

 

It's also a fun project.

 

If you're going to do it, I don't recommend the "all in one" kits.  Buy the pieces individually.  And as someone else mentioned, make sure the materials match - I use all copper.

 

Would I do it again? I don't know.  It added several hundred bucks to the cost, so I'm not sure I would.  But I definitely recommend it at least once because it's something different.

 

Here's a link to more information on what I used, along with some pretty nifty pictures:  https://fezmid.wordpress.com/category/watercooling/

Thanks for the post, Fezmid! All information is useful.

One of the reasons I've inquired about water cooling is, the computer I'm currently on, will be given to my younger brother. He owned his pre-built HP for 2 years, it was shut down maybe 5x in that entire period. Water Cooling will help with a few of the issues we've encountered. Plus, he can one up his "gamer" friends :p I'll do a small build for him, CPU + GFX, he'll have a SSD, and a 2TB data drive.

 

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I think liquid cooling is largely a gimmick and not worth the money or trouble. Most people have this preconceived notion that air coolers are noisy, when liquid cooling actually uses fans too, sitting on a case vent, plus they use a pump which has to be active all the time and isn't silent either, which makes water coolers noisier than quality air coolers (see for instance this). The presence of a pump creates a failure point that is absent on simpler air coolers, and a cursory glance at reviews on major retailers like newegg show that they are not particularly reliable, even on the top-rated models.

 

Yep got a new air cooler.

 

It is booth good and sad when I came to the conclusion that cpu sppeds no longer matter.

 

I came to the day I just can not justify anything more than an i7 4770k. I do even 7 or 8 virtual machines in VMWare Workstation! Still cpu not all used and it just won't slow down! Lol. Good raid 0 SSDs and ram for that extreme case with a moderate nvidia GTX 770 is more than enough for even Crysis. 

 

Some cpu fans ... looking at you AMD ... are terrible. A $40 one is very quiet. No need to OC it as an i7 4770 has 170,000,000,000 instructions per second! No you did not misread that. 

 

In the good old days of the 1990s it was the CPU as the bottleneck. OC your 486 and BOOM DOOM FPS would DOUBLE!! Today? NO difference at all.

 

A nice case to show off is better if you are into this as a hobby. I can not justify the cost but it depends on your budget. If you have student loans to pay and a kid to feed you are an idiot if you  do this make under $80k a year. Sorry

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