Water cooling: is it worth it?

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:12 pm

Well, for a medium gamer, is watercooling worth it?

My rig:
8800gt 320mb (yes i am cheap)
2.6gHz Dual core
2gb (soon to be 4gb) DDR2
Some random power supply
80gb ata
500gb sata
250gb sata

Is it worth it? The current case is like a jumpjet, and the thing is a tad on the hot side.

-Fel

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:15 pm

will you overclock anything?

if not i would pass on it.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:40 pm

I probably will, how much quiter is it to watercool?

ATOMICMAN · Post by **ATOMICMAN** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:42 am

Felino wrote:I probably will, how much quiter is it to watercool?

well i think they are actually louder because of the water pump and the fans used on the radiator.

if you plan on overclocking your cpu and what not, watercooling is the safest way to keep stuff stable but it is very expensive. also you need to make sure you have the room for the resevior, pump, radiator, and radiator fans (which are usually 120mm fans) a full tower case is almost a must for such a system because of the size.

if you do get it, make sure you get water blocks for everything you can (might as well right?) they make them for pretty much about every major component in your comp (cpu, chipset, ram, gpu, even hdd cooling trays). get a digital thermometer to take temp readings inside and dont skip the normal case fans also as you will still have ambient heat off other compenents, fill all available fan slots and keep the air moving in one direction usually air coming in from the front and exhuasting in the rear.

Dr. KillGood · Post by **Dr. KillGood** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:27 am

If you don't know what your PSU is, then I suggest getting a new one. A cheep PSU = Entire computer fried.

A $80 investment in your PSU can save you $1000 in the future when it dose not expload.

Ben Cebhrem · Post by **Ben Cebhrem** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:23 pm

Watercooling just the GPU alone can quiet a case down quite a bit (and sorry, 8800 is not a 'medium' gamer; you've a computer that is far above that). Watercooling the CPU in turn can cut out a bit of noise, but is likely to keep it just as loud; but if you're going to use water to keep the GPU cool (much better than air, in my opinion), then you might as well throw a second radiator in, and cool the CPU while you are at it.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:28 pm

Watercooling is cool and everything (pun), but for the price you have to pay for a system (upwards of $200), they dont really give you that much more preformance.

Living in Canada, I have been lucky enough to bring some of my computers to 10degC or lower merely by putting them outside. I found that my maximum overclock increased by a measly 80mhz and my most stable overclock only went up by a few hundred. I was all excited to watercool, but based on that I scrapped the idea. (the chip was an AMD 3200+ btw).

Anyways, my point is that for the price of watercooling you could just get a much better processor that runs on stock cooling and at the same time avoid voiding the warranty for pretty well every part inside your computer.

Of course you are already stuck with the processor that you have.

Id still advise against it unless you are really serious about overclocking. you have a pretty powerful set of chips right now anyways and I doubt you are seeing low framerates anywhere.

just my 2cents. (thats 1.9994 cents USD

)

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:13 pm

Don't get into watercooling or overclocking in general with computers unless you really know what you are doing. I fried a computer a couple of years ago; after a couple of weeks running a system overclocked, my CPU fried!

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:30 pm

How exactly? No thermal paste?

ALso, the coolant isn't conductive is it, so how ften are leakers found.

If i had a professional do it, and it leaked, would they have some sort of warranty?

Ben Cebhrem · Post by **Ben Cebhrem** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:44 pm

Some coolants are conductive, some are not. If you do the research, you'll easily find 3-4 that aren't in half hour (as well as where to buy them). Myself, I like to use distilled, deionized-reionozed water, but it's pretty expensive compared to other options.

EDIT: grammar

Also, I buy that water locally, so I wouldn't be able to help ya find it online. Sorry.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 9:58 pm

SO you watercool

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:23 pm

Use veggie oil.

Felino · Post by **Felino** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:24 pm

And what, submerse the whold thing?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:47 pm

Bibin wrote:Use veggie oil.

Mineral oil is better, it doesn't get old. I should try oil cooling something....

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:13 pm

Rule: Unless you have a QX6800, you don't need water cooling unless you're overclocking. Even then, there are some really nice (huge) heatsink/fan assemblies out there that should be able to handle any overclocking you'd be doing with your processor.

Regarding the whole living in Canada thing... I think I once saw a setup where a guy ducted in air from outside straight to his computer... it actually worked very well.

You could always go with Liquid Nitrogen cooling too...