Do close looped coolers ever leak

That seems to be the sole argument for an air cooler. Noise.

But really, you could have LESS fans and run them slower with an AIO. Atleast thats my opinion on that.

Yeah, with my H110i GTX, the fans are always running at their lowest PWM setting, unless I load them up with some heavy benchmark.

Now, I will say, that I am disappointed with the fans corsair paired with it.

The airflow to noise ratio is good, but their starting RPM is ~900, at which point they are still audible (not by much, but still audible)

I'm going to try a pwm to voltage converter to see if I can control them at below 900rpm (not yet sure at what voltage they will overcome friction and start spinning).

If this doesn't work, I'm going to swap them out for another fan.

The radiator is great, but I have found that even highly overclocked, and overvolted, I don't really need the highest fan output, and would instead appreciate something that can spin down slower.
 
I feel I am the minority here.. I am not really bothered by the noise. Heat kills computer parts and the lower it is the longer it will last. I dont upgrade often so I want these things to last until I bore of them.

For the first 2 years I ran my fans full tilt and it didnt bother me at all. Then one day I realised that I hadnt really played video games like I used to in a while and decided to drop the fans to their lowest setting. Because of the difference in sound I believe they were silent but considering the dB the fans run at high it may have had a slight noise. Changing it from high to low only raised my temps by around 7 degrees.

So there are good and bad with any system. If I was gaming I would keep it at max and when not I lower it. Always manually. In the end temperatures sell me. Not noise.
 
I'm cooling i7 920 @4.0GHz and GTX58 with 4x total fans running less than 1000rpm max at full load.

AIOs have low quality radiators with fins at such high density they will only function properly with fans working quite hard, and therefor making a significant amount of noise when system is working hard.

Most coolers are within 2-5c of their peak cooling ability with fans running 200-500rpm slower, but it makes a huge difference in noise level.
 
I feel I am the minority here.. I am not really bothered by the noise. Heat kills computer parts and the lower it is the longer it will last. I dont upgrade often so I want these things to last until I bore of them.

For the first 2 years I ran my fans full tilt and it didnt bother me at all. Then one day I realised that I hadnt really played video games like I used to in a while and decided to drop the fans to their lowest setting. Because of the difference in sound I believe they were silent but considering the dB the fans run at high it may have had a slight noise. Changing it from high to low only raised my temps by around 7 degrees.

So there are good and bad with any system. If I was gaming I would keep it at max and when not I lower it. Always manually. In the end temperatures sell me. Not noise.

I'm the opposite. I find fan noise, both while doing other things, and while gaming to be annoying, so I always use automatic PWM control, to adjust fan speed to be jigh only when absolutely needed.

I've never had a CPU or GPU fail on me (except for that one 7970 I slipped with a screwdriver and destroyed).

At stock speeds, I will set fan profiles so that they both run near Tmax. The higher delta-T results in the cooling subsystem being more efficient, and this lower fan speeds are needed, making it quieter.

When I overclock, I usually set all my fans at max, then find my max stable clock, and then back the fans back down and find out the max temp I can have while being stable, and set the fan profiles for that.

The only reason I find to lower the temperature is to get a higher clock. I'm not worried in the slightest about silicon degradation.

My 3930k is 5 years old now. Been running it hot and overclocked for all that time, without any indication if it getting bad.

Yes, silicon (but more often solder) can degrade over time with high heat, but the effect on computer parts has been highly over-exhaggerated.

  • Firstly, companies (like Nvidia, Intel and AMD) set their Tmax specs with this degradation in mind, and validate to it.
  • Secondly, most of the time, the CPU and GPU's are idling or near idling anyway, and are thus cool.
  • Following this approach the hardware will be long obsolete before any noticeable heat degradation takes place.

The only exception to this rule was Nvidias fail in the G88/G92/whatever era, when due to a manufacturing error they used a solder that was not able to survive repeated heat cycling, and over time lead to video card failure.

This isn't something we have to worry about unless you have a similar manufacturing error in the future, and if that happens, all you are going to achieve by going for low temps is extend the life a little bit, they will still eventually fail.

Run 'em hot, so if they are going to fail, they fail while still under warranty! :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1041952566 said:
Yeah, with my H110i GTX, the fans are always running at their lowest PWM setting, unless I load them up with some heavy benchmark.

Now, I will say, that I am disappointed with the fans corsair paired with it.

The airflow to noise ratio is good, but their starting RPM is ~900, at which point they are still audible (not by much, but still audible)

I'm going to try a pwm to voltage converter to see if I can control them at below 900rpm (not yet sure at what voltage they will overcome friction and start spinning).

If this doesn't work, I'm going to swap them out for another fan.

The radiator is great, but I have found that even highly overclocked, and overvolted, I don't really need the highest fan output, and would instead appreciate something that can spin down slower.

"I'm going to try a pwm to voltage converter...."

The later Asus boards give you the option to run PWM fans in DC mode (built-in DAC feature) and one can get lower idle RPM in DC mode. In fact, if one runs the BIOS Q-Fan tuning utility, invariably, it will automatically choose DC mode for PWM case fans and run then at less than 600 idle RPM.

"I don't really need the highest fan output, and would instead appreciate something that can spin down slower..."

Again, the later boards allow one to specify transient fan behavior in terms of how long it should take for fan RPM to step up or down. Take a look at the manual for one of the later boards even though that won't help you with your current setup.
 
"CLCs typically have the edge only because they use high speed fans. At the same noise levels, they typically perform worse than equivalent cost air coolers"

Someone who's into serious OC is probably going to want better cooling performance, regardless of noise, at some point. This review highlights the shortcoming of air coolers when it comes to that since it focuses more on raw performance;

http://tinyurl.com/p92hde9

OCCT just about disqualifies all the air coolers from the extreme CPU test..."Finally our 4.6GHz test. Don't be fooled, this is an extreme test and the graph reflects this, you will only see the very best featured in this graph. If we really want to measure outright performance, this is where we do it."

After the dust settles, there is nothing stopping one from retuning the AIO's fans for less noise. Who really cares if the CPU is running just as hot or few degrees hotter than the best air cooler provided noise levels are satisfactory and heat is properly contained?

Noise!..The last refuge of the "air benders".

And there's nothing stopping you from strapping on high speed fans to air coolers either. It goes both ways, it's not a one way street.

By far, the main reason for getting a better cooler is for better noise/performance, NOT raw performance. If you want raw performance, go with a full custom watercooling setup. CLCs cannot beat those.

As for that test, he even says it in the article. It was mostly about fan speed. Strap 2000-2500 RPM fans on a NH-D15 and it'll qualify for that test, as will a lot of others.

It's not noise. It's noise/performance, price/performance, and no worrying about the possibility of pump failure. And for some sensitive people, not worrying about pump noise.

That seems to be the sole argument for an air cooler. Noise.

But really, you could have LESS fans and run them slower with an AIO. Atleast thats my opinion on that.

See above.

CLCs need MORE fans to achieve the same/slightly better noise/performance than air coolers. That is fact, not opinion.
 
"And there's nothing stopping you from strapping on high speed fans to air coolers either. It goes both ways, it's not a one way street."

Well, the high speed fans come with the AIO so it would be an extra cost for an off the shelf quiet AC like an NH-D15 to equal the raw performance of the AIO if and when needed.

"By far, the main reason for getting a better cooler is for better noise/performance, NOT raw performance. If you want raw performance, go with a full custom watercooling setup. CLCs cannot beat those."

Couldn't care a rat's a$$ about noise/performance when validating the OC capability of a CPU or motherboard. And as said already, there's nothing stopping me from retuning the fans for low noise when done. Don't have to go strapping on different fans or wasting money on a custom setup. Perhaps if younger and more impressionable, I would, just for bragging rights.
 

Well, the high speed fans come with the AIO so it would be an extra cost for an off the shelf quiet AC like an NH-D15 to equal the raw performance of the AIO if and when needed.



And the extra few dollars will pay for itself when you have to replace your entire AIO in 3 years and my air cooler keeps humming along for 10 with maybe a fan replacement.
Stop trying to prove one is better, you can't.

You only say you prefer water cooling and tell us why, but it doesn't make it better or worse.
 
And the extra few dollars will pay for itself when you have to replace your entire AIO in 3 years and my air cooler keeps humming along for 10 with maybe a fan replacement.
Stop trying to prove one is better, you can't.

You only say you prefer water cooling and tell us why, but it doesn't make it better or worse.

You may have missed this earlier post of mine in this thread;

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1041949826&postcount=27
 
I haven't run a CLC but in theory I like the idea of moving the heat out of the case more directly/faster via the radiator (similar to running a blower GPU vs. internal exhaust) if all else was equal, that's the problem, keeping the noise down to match high end air.

When I built this PC 3.5 years ago I bought an NH-D15 on sale for $65CAD. at the time I believe the H100 was $120CAD so almost double the cost. 3 years later it's running perfectly and the fans are still as quiet as they were on first boot.

I'm with the poster who says you either go air for easy OC's or custom water if you want to push.
 
Ok guys, we have debated this to death in this thread, that wasnt even comparing a CLC to a Air. Lets keep this on topic. If you want to start a discussion on the merrits of both lets make a new thread for that.
 
I have been on air, CLC, and custom loop. Its completely user depandant as well as what you plan on doing with the pc. For all cases you also need to determine what the ambient will be. CLC's don't do so hot with high ambients in my experience.


I had the h50,h60,h80,h80i,h100,h100i and will get my first experience with the h110i GTX shortly. I think AIO-CLC's are great for a very few scenarios where air would do it better, or you need to just go all out and do a custom loop to do it right the first time. At this point if you want a CLC your best options are the expandable ones, they are essentially now truely custom loops in a box. They are refillable, they are expandable, they have replacable parts. Oh wait, isn't that the same concept of us building our own pc's in general vs buying store bought? :)

Your results and opinions will vary, but truth be told they are all good in their own right in different scenarios. Nail down the worst ambient scenario and the space its in, along with your noise tolerance and fan availability. Use this to determine which cooling method best fits your needs.
 
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