Deciding best route for cooling

[Deleted member 96510]

Being here on [H], you know I'm a tinkerer. I've got some parts to rebuild my rig that was having some issues. Now I'm trying to quantify the value of water vs air.

First here is the current config of the key parts:

Asus Rampage III Formula
Xeon 5650 w/ TRUE Black + NZXT FN120 blowing towards rear exhause
Asus R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3 GB
NZXT Phantom (Front FN120 intake, Side 2x FN120 intake, Rear FN120 exhaust, Top FN200RB intake)

Parts also on hand:

GELID Icyvision Rev. A
Alphacool Nexxxos waterblock
Swiftech MCP655 with speed control
XSPC D5 Dual Bay Res
XSPC RS120 radiator

As it stands there are no issues ATM. I was intitially considering doing a CPU only loop because I have the parts, but then why not add a 240 or 360 rad and add the GPU? I would also need to buy a universal GPU block (not doing full covers anymore). Alternative is just save the money add another 200mm fan up top and maybe use the Icyvision if it will cool better than the DCuII cooler.

Water could be slick and probably allow me to overclock a little better, but I don't know if that will translate to tangible performance gains. I know the silence will be a plus. I just want some [H] input.

 

[Brian_B]

In my experience:

Unless your doing active cooling on the water loop (phase change/evaporative/peltier/etc), you aren't going to get appreciably better temps than you do with a decent air cooler. Your overclock may change slightly, but as you suspect, it probably won't be by enough to really be noticeable. Going into the active stuff is pretty difficult to do, gets expensive in a hurry, and can be very temperamental - but if your into it as a hobby or trying to break records, it can be fun - just don't expect it to be your everyday gaming rig at that point.

There are two big benefits to water cooling (and temperature or overclocking are not among them):
1) Noise: you ~can~ pick a big enough radiator which allows you to use larger/slower fans, which will reduce noise. It's possible to use a radiator of sufficient size to not require a fan at all.

That being said, the noise reduction benefit only comes into play if you are replacing the noise of the component that is causing the most noise in your system. I've heard of a number of people complain that a AIO cooler didn't reduce their system noise, because the power supply or hard drive or video card was the noisiest item in the build, and it didn't do much to reduce the noise of those component at all. Or someone building a custom loop and they hard-mounted the pump to the case, which caused a deal of vibration and hum. Or putting fans on the radiator that were just as noisy as the ones you replaced on the air cooler.

2) Heat/Air paths. With a air-cooled heat sink, you dump the heat inside the case, and you use case fans to pull it out where you want it, along with every other component inside the case. With a radiator, you can more precisely control where your heat is being exhausted. That can lower your overall component and case temps if you set it up correctly, and better optimize your case air flow. This doesn't have a huge effect on most builds, but if your working with a small enclosure or some other physical restrictions, it can have a big impact. Not having 100W (or more) worth of heat venting almost directly up into your power supply, or across motherboard VRMs, that can have a decent impact.

With regard to water cooling your video card. I've done it in the past. It's extremely easy to brick the card removing the factory cooler, and it's extremely easy to not get adequate cooling to the VRAM. It's entirely possible to do, but it's not nearly as easy as a CPU is. Also, once you start daisy chaining devices in a water cooling loop, the more difficult it is to work on your rig - something as simple as popping out your video card for troubleshooting something becomes an entire exercise in draining, unhooking, rehooking, refillling, and venting your system. If you plan on doing it, it can work well, and for some cards that are notoriously noisy it can have a dramatic impact, but plan on doing it once, the right way, and hopefully never having to touch it again because it's a colossal pain in the rear to do much of anything inside your case.

 

[Deleted member 96510]

I agree with you. I feel like I'll be fine enough on air. I guess I'm trying to justify watercooling

 

[verylostindeed]

Watercooling can have a steep learning curve at first, that's for sure. You'll see better temps, especially on the video card, and there will be less noise. For me, it was an interesting learning experience, but there are frustrations as well (adding new components, swapping things out, etc., all require more work vs. air cooling).