Water Cooling 101: Why Water Cooling and The Gear Used

Water Cooling 101: Why Water Cooling and The Gear Used

The crew at Think Computers have put together a water cooling 101 article that gives you a basic rundown on what it takes to get your rig under water.

Water cooling has been around for a very long time and has never been more popular than now. This is due to a number of reasons, including how robust water is at dissipating heat. Water has an enormous capacity for quickly taking on, holding, and expelling heat. Coupled with cleverly designed metal heat sinks called water blocks, water pumps and radiators (again just like in your car), water cooling offers you the ability to take your wimpy stock processor to the next level.

Not a bad article. A decent refresh to older articles of the same type before the all-in-one coolers became mainstream.

I think the writer could have allowed for some of the other reasons water cooling is popular other then supporting overclocking, like quiet computing or "just for the hell of it", but maybe that's a little nit-picky.

I am not ashamed to admit I went the Corsair Hydro cooler direction, and I did it less for cooling and more for sound... and Best Buy had them for some insane low price at the time (want to say $30 or $40)

Quality heat pipe coolers have narrowed the gap to near meaningless margins now.

So overall, my only real reasons for recommending water are:

1) Because you want to cool the entire overclocked system with little to no noise.

2) The desire to silently overclock the hell out of a system in a very small case, which obviously you can't do with a Noctua DH15 and a Rajintek Morpheus.

The way CPUs and video cards have been for the last couple of generations, there's little to no extra headroom in acutal clocks between a big quality air cooler and water... and much less to go wrong with your cooling by sticking with air only.

GPUs can be quite noisy though, and your talk about CPUs is only really relevant with 4-core Intel mainstream processors. The monster 6 and 8 core CPUs can still put out tons of heat, where watercooling comes in handy.

I have been considering watercooling.

I just built my first PC in march and am overall happy with it apart from a couple of things. I am using the Phanteks PH-TC14-PE cpu cooler and while the results are great, it is very large and hard to look at. Also I do not have Low Profile Ram so it does not fit very flush (one of the fans sticks out like 1/8th of an inch.

I do not do much Overclocking. I OC my gpu but have yet to OC my cpu so this is purely visual.

When I built my PC I thought WATER?!!?? and Electronics?!?!? No way!!! But obviously lots of people are doing it safely.

I figured I could get a XSPC Raystorm (led cpu block) and some Ram with LED strips on it and it would look pretty sweet and much better than the big giant block of a cooling fan that I have.

My only concerns are safety and maintenance. Is it possible your watercooler leaks? If so is this "water" safe for the pc if it does leak. And how often do you have to maintain? I will be honest when I say I'd rather not have to go inside and take things apart every few months.

Maddnotez said:

My only concerns are safety and maintenance. Is it possible your watercooler leaks? If so is this "water" safe for the pc if it does leak. And how often do you have to maintain? I will be honest when I say I'd rather not have to go inside and take things apart every few months.

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Yes it can leak, but the most common cause of leaks are human error. Use quality parts, install them correctly and be careful when handling your case and parts. Leaks are not common.

No the water is not safe, you use distilled water so it is less conductive, but its still not safe.

Maintenance is a personal choice 6 months is recommended by many 1 year is the longest I would suggest. Cleaning is VERY important. The system is not sealed from the environment, algae can grow, metal corrodes, and coolant evaporates.

Some people replace all the tubing when they do maintenance as well, but at a minimum you should clean the entire system and replace the coolant.

Not trying to discourage you, but you should be aware that custom loops are not just set it and forget it.

I am hoping this Watercooling 101 article goes into these kinds of details so that people are better prepared for the tasks.

zaniix said:

Yes it can leak, but the most common cause of leaks are human error. Use quality parts, install them correctly and be careful when handling your case and parts. Leaks are not common.

No the water is not safe, you use distilled water so it is less conductive, but its still not safe.

Maintenance is a personal choice 6 months is recommended by many 1 year is the longest I would suggest. Cleaning is VERY important. The system is not sealed from the environment, algae can grow, metal corrodes, and coolant evaporates.

Some people replace all the tubing when they do maintenance as well, but at a minimum you should clean the entire system and replace the coolant.

Not trying to discourage you, but you should be aware that custom loops are not just set it and forget it.

I am hoping this Watercooling 101 article goes into these kinds of details so that people are better prepared for the tasks.

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Yeah, it probably is not something I should get into. I am that human that would make an error lol.

Seriously though, the maintenance sounds like a huge pain. I love my PC and I game daily but I am not much of a Benchmark freak and still haven't even OC my cpu yet.

The Watercool for me would be purely for visual appeal. I guess I can deal with that big ugly block fan lol.

Water coolers just look so much nicer. Plus You can see the Ram and I could get some LED ram or even the LED cpu block. Maybe one day.


Thanks for the info.

Maddnotez said:

Yeah, it probably is not something I should get into. I am that human that would make an error lol.

Seriously though, the maintenance sounds like a huge pain. I love my PC and I game daily but I am not much of a Benchmark freak and still haven't even OC my cpu yet.

The Watercool for me would be purely for visual appeal. I guess I can deal with that big ugly block fan lol.

Water coolers just look so much nicer. Plus You can see the Ram and I could get some LED ram or even the LED cpu block. Maybe one day.


Thanks for the info.

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You could always go with an AIO, some of them have LEDs on them, no maintenance, but they need to be replaced at 3 - 5 years

Custom loop vs AIO water cooling is a big difference. But the biggest issue with custom loops was cost. Something like a water block could cost you $50 to $100 for something so simple. Why? Well I'm going to show everyone my guide on Ebay Water Cooling.

$17 Water Block that I'm using for my 8350. Works good, no problems.
$40 120mm Copper radiator. You could get a $30 120mm aluminium radiator which I don't recommend aluminium in water cooling.
$30 pump you may recognize if you've water cooled.
$27 resevior that I use.
$27 GPU water block, though I'd use heasinks for the memory and VRMs.

Tubing and fittings can be $20 to $40 depending if you go barbed or compression fittings. Though acrylic fittings, and tubing is really cheap. I haven't moved to acrylic but that's because my tubing is working and I'm lazy. Also use antifreeze to avoid corrosion and electrolysis. I've been using green coolant for both my PCs for a year and haven't needed to change it. You can use 90% distilled water and 10% green coolant. Before criticizing car coolant, know that AIO coolers use Ethylene glycol, which is car coolant.

Decent guide.

DukenukemX said:

Custom loop vs AIO water cooling is a big difference. But the biggest issue with custom loops was cost. Something like a water block could cost you $50 to $100 for something so simple. Why? Well I'm going to show everyone my guide on Ebay Water Cooling.

$17 Water Block that I'm using for my 8350. Works good, no problems.
$40 120mm Copper radiator. You could get a $30 120mm aluminium radiator which I don't recommend aluminium in water cooling.
$30 pump you may recognize if you've water cooled.
$27 resevior that I use.
$27 GPU water block, though I'd use heasinks for the memory and VRMs.

Tubing and fittings can be $20 to $40 depending if you go barbed or compression fittings. Though acrylic fittings, and tubing is really cheap. I haven't moved to acrylic but that's because my tubing is working and I'm lazy. Also use antifreeze to avoid corrosion and electrolysis. I've been using green coolant for both my PCs for a year and haven't needed to change it. You can use 90% distilled water and 10% green coolant. Before criticizing car coolant, know that AIO coolers use Ethylene glycol, which is car coolant.

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Waterblocks cost a lot for a reason. Take apart your cheap waterblocks, and compare them to some of the more expensive ones. I can almost guarantee you there would be a world of a difference in how they're designed. That machining is the bulk of the cost, not so much the material itself.

CLCs use ethylene glycol out of necessity, due to mixed metals. An all copper (and brass and nickel) loop doesn't require ethylene glycol, which has been known to gunk up blocks, especially the more restrictive ones. If you haven't changed it, how do you know the effect it has had on your blocks?

That DDC is a 10 watt pump. It's not very strong, and barely enough for an unrestrictive single CPU + GPU system. Toss in restrictive radiators and/or blocks, and it's not going to have enough flow. The DDC (MCP355) that people recommend is an 18 watt pump, and the D5 is a 24 watt pump.

That radiator won't cool a CPU + GPU system quietly. The Alphacool XT45 240 is $65, and the 360 is $85. Known high quality, and far better $$/performance.

Tsumi said:

Waterblocks cost a lot for a reason. Take apart your cheap waterblocks, and compare them to some of the more expensive ones. I can almost guarantee you there would be a world of a difference in how they're designed. That machining is the bulk of the cost, not so much the material itself.

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My 8350 doesn't go past 50C with Prime95 so really I care what matriculate care the expensive water blocks were given.

CLCs use ethylene glycol out of necessity, due to mixed metals. An all copper (and brass and nickel) loop doesn't require ethylene glycol, which has been known to gunk up blocks, especially the more restrictive ones. If you haven't changed it, how do you know the effect it has had on your blocks?

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Cause before I was using car coolant I had electrolysis problems even though I had bought coolant specifically for water cooling. So I had a habit of dumping the coolant and taking apart the water blocks to clean them out every six months. I've taken apart my loops only to find it was a waste of time. Never been cleaner and zero corrosion.

Before my Chinese basement made water blocks, I was using a Zalman water block that was using aluminium with copper. Aluminium top with copper bottom. Some parts of it eroded away and growth was found. The coolant I used was blue and gave everything a stupid blue tint.

That DDC is a 10 watt pump. It's not very strong, and barely enough for an unrestrictive single CPU + GPU system. Toss in restrictive radiators and/or blocks, and it's not going to have enough flow. The DDC (MCP355) that people recommend is an 18 watt pump, and the D5 is a 24 watt pump.

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My gaming PC has 120mm 140mm radiators with a GPU+CPU+VRM water block with one pump. There's things you can do to beef up that pump but I didn't need to.

That radiator won't cool a CPU + GPU system quietly. The Alphacool XT45 240 is $65, and the 360 is $85. Known high quality, and far better $$/performance.

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[/quote]
My HTPC has a CPU+GPU water block with one 120mm radiator that never goes past 50C under load and is quiet. The 120mm fan for the radiator is connected to the motherboard where it says CPU.

This is a problem I have with the water cooling community. it's either go expensive or go home. And there's so much misconception about what you can or cannot do with water cooling. It's disgusting. BTW my Radeon HD 7850 is overclocked to 1200Mhz GPU with 1300Mhz memory. Never goes past 50C in Fallout 4.

Go expensive or go air for equivalent cooling at equivalent prices.

I really would like to see what happens when you load up Furmark and IBT at the same time.

I used Big Air, little AIOs and Big AIOs, my current system is my third full-custom WC setup.

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE who says that Big Air can compete with even a modest custom-loop is exposing their stupidity.

The difference between Big Air and Big AIO? Not a huge gap. That may be where someone would get such an idea. But as soon as you make the jump to copper radiators, big reservoirs and decent pumps, Big Air is left behind. This is with 240mm radiators, and custom water can have a whole lot more than 240mm of radiator space.

BUT, I build custom water for the artistic, eccentric side. Its not practical. Its a good step more efficient at cooling down components, but it is a whole lot more than a few steps more expensive.


If you want cost-effective cooling, go little air, like Hyper 212.

If you want to be 'that guy' who has a huge air cooler, go for it, but I don't see the point when AIOs do the same thing and look so much better.

Tsumi said:

Go expensive or go air for equivalent cooling at equivalent prices.

I really would like to see what happens when you load up Furmark and IBT at the same time.

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I've ran Furmark before just fine along with Prime95. Hey you have a 4930k with a sizable overclock. Why not run Prime95, preferably the version with AVX extensions. I bet your overclock won't last without burning up the CPU.

DukenukemX said:

Custom loop vs AIO water cooling is a big difference. But the biggest issue with custom loops was cost. Something like a water block could cost you $50 to $100 for something so simple. Why? Well I'm going to show everyone my guide on Ebay Water Cooling.

$17 Water Block that I'm using for my 8350. Works good, no problems.
$40 120mm Copper radiator. You could get a $30 120mm aluminium radiator which I don't recommend aluminium in water cooling.
$30 pump you may recognize if you've water cooled.
$27 resevior that I use.
$27 GPU water block, though I'd use heasinks for the memory and VRMs.

Tubing and fittings can be $20 to $40 depending if you go barbed or compression fittings. Though acrylic fittings, and tubing is really cheap. I haven't moved to acrylic but that's because my tubing is working and I'm lazy. Also use antifreeze to avoid corrosion and electrolysis. I've been using green coolant for both my PCs for a year and haven't needed to change it. You can use 90% distilled water and 10% green coolant. Before criticizing car coolant, know that AIO coolers use Ethylene glycol, which is car coolant.

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That just looks like you spent a lot of money on mostly cheap looking generic Chinese parts and could have used an AIO cooler. The mounting system for the CPU block looks like a joke (though I'm sure it works fine). Just the parts for the CPU section are $124+ extra cash for fan(s) / hose / barbs / water additives. Since the GPU block doesn't touch the RAM or VRM and people generaly don't cool a CPU + high power GPU on a 120mm rad I am not even considering that into the equation.

Meanwhile an AIO can be found for ~$55 that looks cleaner, mounts better, includes all needed hardware, has a 5 year warranty, doesn't need maintenance, can be oriented in any direction (many reservoirs aren't good with being flipped over), and cool well. So even with your selection of low to average quality parts, it still cost much more than many AIOs. H60 example:

DukenukemX said:

I've ran Furmark before just fine along with Prime95. Hey you have a 4930k with a sizable overclock. Why not run Prime95, preferably the version with AVX extensions. I bet your overclock won't last without burning up the CPU.

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I don't even break 70 C, mostly in the 50-60 C range. I haven't even overvolted this CPU yet, this is at stock volts. 4.2 ghz is nothing.

DukenukemX said:

Custom loop vs AIO water cooling is a big difference. But the biggest issue with custom loops was cost. Something like a water block could cost you $50 to $100 for something so simple. Why? Well I'm going to show everyone my guide on Ebay Water Cooling.

$17 Water Block that I'm using for my 8350. Works good, no problems.
$40 120mm Copper radiator. You could get a $30 120mm aluminium radiator which I don't recommend aluminium in water cooling.
$30 pump you may recognize if you've water cooled.
$27 resevior that I use.
$27 GPU water block, though I'd use heasinks for the memory and VRMs.

Tubing and fittings can be $20 to $40 depending if you go barbed or compression fittings. Though acrylic fittings, and tubing is really cheap. I haven't moved to acrylic but that's because my tubing is working and I'm lazy. Also use antifreeze to avoid corrosion and electrolysis. I've been using green coolant for both my PCs for a year and haven't needed to change it. You can use 90% distilled water and 10% green coolant. Before criticizing car coolant, know that AIO coolers use Ethylene glycol, which is car coolant.

Click to expand...

Or, for about $100 more, you could get a decent WC system. Figure another $30 to $50 if you want a cheap reservoir. And Koolance sells a decent universal GPU block for <$50

Tsumi said:

I don't even break 70 C, mostly in the 50-60 C range. I haven't even overvolted this CPU yet, this is at stock volts. 4.2 ghz is nothing.

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I don't think you understand the situation Haswell's have with AVX and running Prime95 with AVX support. The AVX portion of the Haswell's get so hot that it can break the CPU and Intel doesn't recommend running Prime95. Gets too hot in one spot of the chip.

Ocellaris said:

That just looks like you spent a lot of money on mostly cheap looking generic Chinese parts and could have used an AIO cooler.

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AIO coolers aren't better than custom loops. Barely equal to some massive air coolers.

The mounting system for the CPU block looks like a joke (though I'm sure it works fine). Just the parts for the CPU section are $124+ extra cash for fan(s) / hose / barbs / water additives. Since the GPU block doesn't touch the RAM or VRM and people generaly don't cool a CPU + high power GPU on a 120mm rad I am not even considering that into the equation.

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Most people don't actually water cool. BTW I do have heatsinks for the memory and VRMs on my GPU. The CPU mount works fine but I did something like use the plate from an air cooler underneath for added strength. Works the same for the GPU which also works just fine. Again my temps never go past 50C, so yea.

My setup if you're wondering.

Meanwhile an AIO can be found for ~$55 that looks cleaner, mounts better, includes all needed hardware, has a 5 year warranty, doesn't need maintenance, can be oriented in any direction (many reservoirs aren't good with being flipped over), and cool well. So even with your selection of low to average quality parts, it still cost much more than many AIOs.

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AIO coolers aren't better than a custom loop. My parts aren't low to average. The pump for example is a LAING Delphi 12V DC pump which is one of the highest quality pumps you can find, and that particular one is very powerful version. Like many things companies just take it and rebrand it with their name. This is without a Corsair or Danger Den name slapped on it. And because of this the pump is modular and you can add things to it like this. The water blocks are generic but they're just simple things that a lot of water cooling enthusiasts would machine them at home. It's literally just a top made out of a random material and the bottom is usually copper with both slapped together with a large O ring gasket.

DukenukemX said:

I've ran Furmark before just fine along with Prime95. Hey you have a 4930k with a sizable overclock. Why not run Prime95, preferably the version with AVX extensions. I bet your overclock won't last without burning up the CPU.

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What software are you using to link temps and fan RPM?...Speedfan?

Eldata said:

What software are you using to link temps and fan RPM?...Speedfan?

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HWiNFO64 mostly because it also tells me the temps of my motherboards VRMs as well as CPU & GPU.

DukenukemX said:

HWiNFO64 mostly because it also tells me the temps of my motherboards VRMs as well as CPU & GPU.

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Okay. Say you're running just Furmark and your GPU temp starts to rise, what fan control software are you using to monitor GPU (or liquid) temp and increase radiator fan RPM accordingly? Same would apply to CPU temp. Some people use free software like Speedfan for custom loops and some people want something like this;

http://tinyurl.com/mkdnlfg

What is your approach?