air cooling vs water cooling

[Hayden123]

If the water cooling breaks wont it fry your computer or is the chances of it sprining a leak verry slim. Does the air cooling provide sufficent cooling power to cool overclocked chips fast when you need it too or will it burn up that way too??

 

[xBuddhax]

K enough posting of which is better... do a search... it's been asked a billion times already!

 

[p0intblank]

I agree about doing some research but you dont have to be such a dick about it. To the OP, hes right though, just do a little research on the two and make your own comparisons. Hell, if you look around on here you'll prolly find your answer.

 

[TeeJayHoward]

I agree as well. Search!

However, I'll give ya a quick response - You can overclock pretty damned well on nothing more that air cooling. The XP-120 and XP90c are great examples of what a heatsink should be like. My rig (In sig) is running on the stock cooling solution.

However, if you've gotta get that extra 100-200Mhz out of your processor, H2O's the way to go. It can also be quieter, which is important for some people.

Take a look into the "extreme cooling solutions" if don't care about noise. Vapor-phase-change cooling can achieve some amazing results.

 

[banGerprawN]

K enough posting of which is better... do a search... it's been asked a billion times already!

Haha..you noticed that too? I did a search on all of the posts he's made so far....lmfao, it's been a great waste of 20 minutes.

 

[ikellensbro]

As has been said, water can give you an extra 100-200MHz over good air, but you're gonna need a lot of loud fans to get close to quality water cooling. Air cooling is usually much cheaper than water cooling (any kit >175 will maybe keep you a couple degrees cooler than air...if that), but water cooling will almost always be able to cool down more and hotter components with fewer, quieter fans at lower temperatures than air.

If you live in a hot area where it's hard to the ambient air cool, water cooling's other advantage shines in that it can easily keep load temperatures just 15*C or less above the ambient (add ~10-15* for gpus, just like aftermarket gpu hsf's, cooling gpus is difficult and not as easy as cpus).

Of course, water cooling can easily look really good, with glowing dyed water easily noticeable above anyone else's computer at a lan. Their definately is a lot of "geek cred" that comes with water cooling, as it is more expansive and potentially mroe dangerous than air cooling...if you're don't run a 24 hour+ leak test.

It's really your decision about how much cooling and silence is worth it to you, I myself have become addicted to water, so you don't need to ask me if water is worth it to me

 

[Ingonuts13]

My vote goes for water. If you take your time, research, plan properly, and correctly set everything up...you can have a very satisfying experience. I went water cooling a little over a year ago and wont be going back any time soon. If anything, I am considering going to the next level even and doing pelts or phase.

 

[SpoogeMonkey]

As has been said, water can give you an extra 100-200MHz over good air, but you're gonna need a lot of loud fans to get close to quality water cooling. Air cooling is usually much cheaper than water cooling (any kit >175 will maybe keep you a couple degrees cooler than air...if that), but water cooling will almost always be able to cool down more and hotter components with fewer, quieter fans at lower temperatures than air.

If you live in a hot area where it's hard to the ambient air cool, water cooling's other advantage shines in that it can easily keep load temperatures just 15*C or less above the ambient (add ~10-15* for gpus, just like aftermarket gpu hsf's, cooling gpus is difficult and not as easy as cpus).

Of course, water cooling can easily look really good, with glowing dyed water easily noticeable above anyone else's computer at a lan. Their definately is a lot of "geek cred" that comes with water cooling, as it is more expansive and potentially mroe dangerous than air cooling...if you're don't run a 24 hour+ leak test.

It's really your decision about how much cooling and silence is worth it to you, I myself have become addicted to water, so you don't need to ask me if water is worth it to me

Pretty much sums it all up there. If you plan on oc'ing you cpu, gpu(s) to their limits, than water is the way to go. And nothing beats the uber-geek value of water (except phase change). I have more people coming over to my apt cuz they heard I "put water in my computer and a big ol radiator too". Of course I don't think anyone else in this town has ever even heard of water cooling, except Influx.

 

[N H O]

As has been said, water can give you an extra 100-200MHz over good air, but you're gonna need a lot of loud fans to get close to quality water cooling. Air cooling is usually much cheaper than water cooling (any kit >175 will maybe keep you a couple degrees cooler than air...if that), but water cooling will almost always be able to cool down more and hotter components with fewer, quieter fans at lower temperatures than air.

If you live in a hot area where it's hard to the ambient air cool, water cooling's other advantage shines in that it can easily keep load temperatures just 15*C or less above the ambient (add ~10-15* for gpus, just like aftermarket gpu hsf's, cooling gpus is difficult and not as easy as cpus).

Of course, water cooling can easily look really good, with glowing dyed water easily noticeable above anyone else's computer at a lan. Their definately is a lot of "geek cred" that comes with water cooling, as it is more expansive and potentially mroe dangerous than air cooling...if you're don't run a 24 hour+ leak test.

It's really your decision about how much cooling and silence is worth it to you, I myself have become addicted to water, so you don't need to ask me if water is worth it to me

well said there and ur not the only one thats addicted

 

[Bio-Hazard]

Air cooling????????? What's air cooling............... Air cooling is only run on my test system when I'n doing a HSF review. My main rig has never had a air cooler on the CPU or GPU...............

 

[ryuji]

water cooling is much quieter then air cooling, and you get a bonus in voltage, water cooling let me use 1.575v on my prescott, i ended up blowing my mobos caps because my cpu was consuming too much power(calculated it out to about 160-180 watts) no it didnt run cool, cpu ran at 62C load with my room at 30C but video card never saw higher then 47C the only thing that stunned me was the fact that my system as a whole consumed over 400 watts of power(measured from 120v outlet) oh yea and i cooled the cpu and vid card silently

whats going to be a PITA to figure out is how im going to mount the water block when the ct-479 covers the screw holes , ohwell time for some clever retrofitting, lots of fun

 

[Roliath]

to the OP, high end water cooling kits can yeild fantastic results but so can air cooling.
All you have to do is make sure you have proper air flow in your case.
My 3700+ is overclocked to 2.7Ghz, albeit with 1.4volts it doesn't generate that much heat. But my xp90 is able to keep the max load temp under 40c at all times. I idle around 29c/30c.
If you have good air flow than you can have good temps with Air.

 

[Deadsexy]

I had a water cooling setup but disconnected it once my memory controller died and took most of my ram with it, had nothing to do with the water really I was just to lazy to hook it back up. Honestly I dont notice that big of a difference in the OC I can do though the temps are a little better with water. Also my water cooling system was usually much louder then good air cooling during load. Quality air cooling done right will be most likely quieter and just as good as moderately well done water cooling though I have seen some insane WC rigs that blow air away but its costs some $$$ and takes A LOT of work.

Besides do you really want geek street cred? Just get a girl friend....