PC Cooling - Air or Liquid?


Recommended Posts

I just put a Corsair H60 in my setup. Lowered 4.2GHz i7 temps over 10C from my ASUS Lion Square. But LinX benchmark temps went from 79C max to 72C max. The big difference is noise and once load drops temps instantly drop.

I definitely recommend closed loop systems.

I recently got a Corsair Hydro H70. I didn't really need it, but it was only $40.

Before: Zalman CNPS-9500 running cpu stock at 100% for 10 minutes

ZizQ9jL.png

After: Corsair Hydro H70, overclocked 400Mhz, CPU running at 100% for 10 minutes

5RQNLeo.png

Sure it's unnecessary, but for $40 it makes a decent difference.

You should go water cooling but not used a closed system. Air is quick and cheap though.

I run my over clocked i7 / x79 / 32GB with over clocked GPU and when watching movies in the home theater I can not even tell its on. When its time to play games or do something CPU intensive I go to the fan controller and turn up the fans.

Overclocking form 3.6 to 4.5 and with a overclocked GPU my average temperature is only 55c. The case still has its room temperature to it when touched if not cooler.

I have attached a picture of my system and it was worth the extra effort by all means.

post-109068-0-48075200-1364594395.jpg

Nowadays, you don't really need liquid cooling. A good high-end air cooler will do, save power, and have a lot less headaches down the road. Also, you can probably buy quieter fans than a low noise pump. I'm hardcore into silent computing and I've pretty much only used air for my main desktop. I got a water cooled desktop in my basement and it's too "loud" for my likings, haha. In fact, I've replaced every HDD in my main desktop with SSDs just to cut the motor noise... now I have 3 SSDs in there (OCZ Vector 256GB, OCZ Octane 512GB, and a Patriot Pyro SE 240GB). Yes, in the same computer. All my fans are Noctua PWM fans running at low RPMs in normal conditions, and my PSU is a Seasonic Platinum 1000W.

My main PC is a Core i7-3770K overclocked to 4.6GHz. My 'spare' PC with water cooling is a Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz.

Nowadays, you don't really need liquid cooling. A good high-end air cooler will do, save power, and have a lot less headaches down the road. Also, you can probably buy quieter fans than a low noise pump. I'm hardcore into silent computing and I've pretty much only used air for my main desktop. I got a water cooled desktop in my basement and it's too "loud" for my likings, haha. In fact, I've replaced every HDD in my main desktop with SSDs just to cut the motor noise... now I have 3 SSDs in there (OCZ Vector 256GB, OCZ Octane 512GB, and a Patriot Pyro SE 240GB). Yes, in the same computer. All my fans are Noctua PWM fans running at low RPMs in normal conditions, and my PSU is a Seasonic Platinum 1000W.

My main PC is a Core i7-3770K overclocked to 4.6GHz. My 'spare' PC with water cooling is a Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz.

I can believe it. I think one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding water cooling is that it leads to quiet computing.

The heat still needs to be displaced and most water cooling setups have loud fans for this purpose.

The main domain of water cooling has been and should stay over clocking. The benefit of it is increased cooling efficiency at higher temps not in noise reduction.

I can believe it. I think one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding water cooling is that it leads to quiet computing.

The heat still needs to be displaced and most water cooling setups have loud fans for this purpose.

The main domain of water cooling has been and should stay over clocking. The benefit of it is increased cooling efficiency at higher temps not in noise reduction.

Heh, well it did lead to quieter computing for me - you have the option of a very large rad with big slow spinning fans - the heat is displaced by the large surface area. As I said I tried my 670's on air for a day and it drove me nuts. For me it's quieter, better overclocking headroom and has the nice kicker of dumping all my heat externally to the case too. I don't find pump noise as issue either - it's entirely silent when mounted with appropriate deadening material. Again, YMMV but this is my current setup and i'm very happy with the result as a noise-intolerant individual - but to reiterate i'd steer people clear of it because it's expensive and a lot work. It can lead to very quiet computing but then that's entirely implementation specific - there's a vast range of rads, pumps, fans (or passive), layouts and techniques to consider. In all the years of WCing I don't think i remember every having what i'd term as a loud fan and I think i've only had undervolted fans too.

I've been very impressed with the leaps and bounds air has taken over the years though.

I wouldn't say i'm a bleeding edge overclocker - but when I do need to ramp up the GPUs it's nice to have temps half that of air (at load) as starting point :)

I got an NH-D14 after a bad experience with a Corsair H80 (it leaked... ruined my board). I had the same issue, Dan, but my system supports the massive NH-D14 just fine without flexing the board, and the RAM slots on my board are well-spaced enough, though one stick does sit underneath the huge cooler. I'm using it inside a Fractal R3 mini case and despite the smaller, MATX case size it fits just fine with enough room for everything else.

i could never be bothered to worry about a water cooled system just as much as a water cooled toaster. Its just not needed.

Of course, why would you want to cool something that has been specifically designed to be hot. :rofl:

Xoxide sucks FYI, sent me the freaking wrong CPU cooler when its clearly distinguishable.... Now with their crappy support and no answers, I dont even know when I will see my CPU cooler...

Anyways my GPU cooler should be in a few hours :)

Okay got the Arctic Accelero Hybrid installed and running perfectly!

Installation was what I call intermediate, but it went good. I had to come up with my own way on the "adhesive tape and washers".

The thermal glue was dried out about 1/4 through the bottle, but I went and bought some.

My setup is:

i5-3570K on stock cooler for now, awaiting my DH-14

EVGA GTX 680 4GB

Dont mind my crappy quality photos, I plan on tidying the inside once I get my CPU cooler, to plan the space more.

IMG_20130411_150153.jpg?async

The parts and GTX 680 before it gets taken apart

IMG_20130411_151306.jpg?async

Plates are off

IMG_20130411_153308.jpg?async

PCB

IMG_20130411_212523.jpg?async

Some heatsinks installed

IMG_20130412_160936.jpg?async

Rest of them installed

IMG_20130412_170655.jpg?async

Unit installed pic from back view

IMG_20130412_170739.jpg?async

Front view

IMG_20130412_170745.jpg?async

Front view 2

IMG_20130412_183003.jpg?async

In the tower.. sorry for quality and sideways

Idle temps are now 28-35 degrees Celsius, before was always around 35.

On games like Crysis 3 pretty much maxed out it goes to 40-45 degrees Celcius, before 65-80

Same things with most high demand games I have now

Tried this program called Heaven Benchmark 4 and got it pushed up to close to 60 degress Celsius

Oh it is quieter all throughout especially on heavy processing than the stock.

Overall happy so far

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Exactly, this is just the beginning. I hope that by that time, our inept politicians devise something like a Universal Basic Income, because unemployment and poverty rates will skyrocket otherwise. And believe me, robots that perform physical work aren't a matter of IF, but WHEN. No career is truly safe from AI/androids, it's just a matter of time.
    • Subtitle Edit 5.0.0 by Razvan Serea Subtitle Edit is a powerful, free, and user-friendly subtitle editing tool designed for creating, editing, and converting subtitles for videos. It supports a wide range of subtitle formats, including SRT, ****, and SUB, allowing users to easily modify and adjust subtitles for accurate timing and formatting. With its intuitive interface, Subtitle Edit provides a variety of features such as waveform audio display, spell-check, subtitle synchronization, and real-time video preview, making it an ideal choice for both beginners and professionals. The software also includes powerful tools for batch processing, translating subtitles, and converting between different subtitle formats. Subtitle Edit features: Create/adjust/sync/translate subtitle lines Convert between SubRib, MicroDVD, Advanced Sub Station Alpha, Sub Station Alpha, D-Cinema, SAMI, youtube sbv, and many more (300+ different formats!) Cool audio visualizer control - can display wave form and/or spectrogram Video player uses mpv, DirectShow, or VLC media player Visually sync/adjust a subtitle (start/end position and speed) Audio to text (speech recognition) via Whisper or Vosk/Kaldi Auto Translation via Google translate Rip subtitles from a (decrypted) dvd Import and OCR VobSub sub/idx binary subtitles Import and OCR Blu-ray .sup files - bd sup reading is based on Java code from BDSup2Sub Can open subtitles embedded inside Matroska files Can open subtitles (text, closed captions, VobSub) embedded inside mp4/mv4 files Can open/OCR XSub subtitles embedded inside divx/avi files Can open/OCR DVB and teletext subtitles embedded inside .ts/.m2ts (Transport Stream) files Can open/OCR Blu-ray subtitles embedded inside .m2ts (Transport Stream) files Merge/split subtitles Adjust display time Fix common errors wizard....and more. Subtitle Edit 5.0.0 changelog: Subtitle Edit 5 is a major new release and a big step for the project. For the first time, Subtitle Edit runs natively on Windows, macOS, and Linux from a single, modern, cross-platform codebase. The builds are self-contained, so no separate .NET installation is required, and on macOS and Linux the needed media components (mpv/ffmpeg) are bundled in. Please read before upgrading: Subtitle Edit 5 is a new application, not just an update of Subtitle Edit 4. It has been rebuilt from the ground up to be cross-platform, so: It is not 100% the same app. The look, layout, and some workflows have changed. Some things are in different places, and a few behave differently than in SE4. Not every SE4 feature exists in SE5 yet. SE5 covers all the core editing, conversion, sync, video playback, OCR, and online services, but some of the more specialized SE4 tools are not available yet. Features will continue to be added. If you rely on a specific SE4 feature that is missing, please keep SE4 installed alongside SE5. The easiest way to run both side by side is to use the Portable versions of SE4 and SE5, which keep their settings separate and do not interfere with each other. Which version should I use? Subtitle Edit 5: recommended for most users on Windows 10 (22H2) or newer, macOS 12+, and Linux. Subtitle Edit 4: please continue to use SE4 if you are on an older Windows version (Windows 7/8), or on older / slower computers where SE5 may not run well. SE4 remains available and is the right choice in those cases. To run SE4 and SE5 at the same time, use the Portable versions - you can try SE5 while keeping SE4 as a fallback. Download: Subtitle Edit 5.0.0 | ARM64 | ~60.0 MB (Open Source) Download: Subtitle Edit Portable | 103.0 MB View: Subtitle Edit Homepage | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Google Pixel 11 series: Here's what to expect by Hamid Ganji Google Pixel 10 series In recent years, Google has successfully turned its Pixel devices into worthy contenders in the smartphone market. The search giant is now preparing to launch the Pixel 11 series in just a few months, and many Pixel fans are likely wondering what Google has in store for them this year. The next lineup of Google smartphones includes four devices: the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. This year, we don’t expect Google to bring revolutionary upgrades to its handsets, and the Pixel 11 series is likely to receive modest hardware improvements alongside a slew of AI-powered features. Here are the rumored specifications of the Google Pixel 11 series ahead of its official debut: When will the new Pixel phones be unveiled? The last two generations of Google Pixel phones (Pixel 9 series and Pixel 10 series) were launched in August, unlike the previous three generations that debuted in October. With that in mind, we expect Google to unveil the Pixel 11 series sometime in August 2026. The exact launch date has yet to be confirmed. Google Pixel 11 CAD renders - Image via AndroidHeadlines How much will the Pixel 11 series cost? Predicting the final price of upcoming smartphones has become increasingly difficult. As you may know, RAM and memory prices are rising sharply, leading to significant increases in the cost of consumer electronics. Recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that price increases for some future Apple products are unavoidable, suggesting that the iPhone 18 series could become more expensive. Google has remained tight-lipped about any potential price increases for the Pixel 11 series. If the company manages to maintain last year’s pricing structure, here’s what the lineup could cost: Pixel 11: $799 Pixel 11 Pro: $999 Pixel 11 Pro XL: $1,199 Pixel 11 Pro Fold: $1,799 Given current market conditions, it may be difficult for Google to avoid raising prices unless it adopts cost-saving measures, such as equipping the base model with 8GB of RAM. Google Pixel 11 series anticipated specs: We expect the Google Pixel 11 series to debut with a new Tensor G6 processor as well as an upgraded camera system. The overall design, however, is expected to remain largely unchanged across the lineup. Specifications Pixel 11 Pixel 11 Pro Pixel 11 Pro XL Pixel 11 Pro Fold Display 6.3-inch LTPO AMOLED / 120Hz refresh rate / up to 3100 nits of brightness 6.3-inch Super Actua LTPO OLED, 120Hz refresh rate, up to 3600 nits of brightness 6.8-inch Super Actua LTPO OLED, 120Hz refresh rate, up to 3600 nits of brightness 8-inch inner screen and 6.4-inch outer display, 120Hz refresh rate, up to 3600 nits of brightness RAM & Processor Tensor G6 / 8-12GB of RAM Tensor G6 / 12-16GB of RAM Tensor G6 / 12-16GB of RAM Tensor G6 / 16GB of RAM Storage options 128GB or 256GB 256GB, 512GB, 1TB 256GB, 512GB, 1TB 256GB, 512GB, 1TB Camera 50MP main sensor, 13MP ultra-wide, 10.8MP 5x telephoto, 10.5MP front camera 50MP main camera, 48MP ultra-wide, 48MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom, 42MP selfie camera 50MP main camera, 48MP ultra-wide, 48MP telephoto with 5x optical zoom, 42MP selfie camera 50MP main camera, 10.5MP ultra-wide camera, 10.8MP telephoto camera, 10MP front camera, 10MP inner camera Battery 4,840 mAh 4,707 mAh 5,000 mAh 4,658 mAh Software Android 17 Android 17 Android 17 Android 17 The Pixel 11 series won’t be a major departure from its predecessor, with Google instead focusing on subtle improvements and AI additions such as Gemini Intelligence. However, a patent filed by Google suggests the company is working on a removable battery for its smartphones, and we could see this feature make its way to the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. Given that nearly all smartphones today lack removable batteries, such a feature would be a welcome addition to future Pixel devices. That said, it may not arrive with this year’s lineup after all, and the final decision is yet to be made by Google. The Pixel 11 series could also face an uphill battle in the market. In the Android segment, Samsung is performing well with the Galaxy S26 series, while the Galaxy Z Fold 8 lineup is also expected to launch next month. On the other hand, Apple is preparing to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in September alongside its first foldable iPhone.
    • At least AMD is still taking Windows 10 seriously (after the oops) before it consumer extended support ends. @WaltC - Memories, 2x Voodoo in SLI with a Riva TNT with an Aureal A3D soundcard.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      timbobit earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      nates earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Almohandis earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      dorf went up a rank
      Rookie
    • First Post
      mike_rumble earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      475
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      105
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      88
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!