WaterCooling Popularity: Up or Down Poll

Is WaterCooling Up or Down in Popularity?

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I'm very interested in this question as a whole. Chime in please.
 
Down, it's a pain in the ass (when you don't have time to mess with it because of work and married life) with little advantage.
 
I think the number of companies joining in and offering water cooling solutions and the ever-growing list of available products to choose from speaks for itself :)
 
Water cooling for the most part is impractical because of the risk and how difficult it is to get temps that aren't really all that great compared to the better air cooling solutions. It takes a lot of time and money to get something that really makes a difference and for what? I planned on just WC my CPU for a long time but I figured it wasn't worth the time, money, and risk involved and I feel that a lot of people who want to go into WC just go into it because its cool or the new thing to do but after spending all the money on it they find out its a pain in the ass to do.

My biggest gripe with WC is you have to butcher your case up to get a decent system going because one rad just won't cut it apparently.

I voted for neither because the people who are already into it will continue or spend a few grand on getting -100c :D
 
Up, but not really all that fast.

I see lots of "newb" watercooling threads, and I base my decision on them :p
 
I think its up a good amount, with all the kits available now, its not quite as overwhelming for a newbie.
 
I voted up slightly.

I'm building my first computer in 4 years, and I am by no means a computer expert. I picked up a few books to help guide me in picking components and deciperhing the computer lingo.

I decided to try water-cooling my new rig because I enjoy a challenge, and I thought I would like to overclock as well. Go big or stay home right? Anyway, I looked into watercooling and was suprised on the MASSIVE amounts of information, guides, and products there were out there for me to choose from.

I'm putting together my rig this weekend (see the link to my case-mod worklog in my sig) and I start leak testing for the 2nd time (for the first test the components were not mounted in the case), and I can't wait to see the results.
 
Compared to where watercooling was 5 years ago, it has increased dramatically.

Back then if you were interested in watercooling you had to do the research (you still should) and then build everything from scratch. The number of companies you could purchase from reliably were limited to just a handful.

Just look at the modification segment in general. The original hardcore modders who created windows and added UV reactive cabling and dyes spurred a lot of people into wanting eye-candy. Unfortunately, the ratio of tool-handy to tech-savvy people is low. And thus you see all of these windowed and lighted cases which are, admittedly, a huge hit among consumers who don't have the time to cut through cases and lexan or even something as simple as doing your own sleeving (which you don't have to do because just about everyone already has sleeved PSUs).

But I digress. Like I was saying, look at all the companies that have jumped into the watercooling fray. I mean you have a company like Corsair who is mainly known for their RAM, yet they just came out with a decent stand-alone watercooling solution.

It's a niche market, so it'll never become mainstream, but it's popular enough to support multiple profitable companies and it's gaining more momentum each day. Unless phase change cooling becomes widely affordable, people will turn to water cooling for an alternate solution to air cooling.
 
RexPokinghorn said:
I think the number of companies joining in and offering water cooling solutions and the ever-growing list of available products to choose from speaks for itself :)
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QFT
 
I think up slightly. Things are getting easier to build and install, and are thus becoming more newb-friendly.
 
i voted slightly down because not many can afford it and like others have said, its a bitch to maintain especially when you are busy :(
 
It's up in the sense that any nub can go to newegg and get some POS kit. More people are on water these days, there are more companies out there, and the WC industry is bigger in general.

On the other hand, enthusiast WC is on the decline. There is very little room to further improve WC components. On top of that, the results that you can achieve on $350 water are not that much different from what you can achieve with high end air. For example, my conroe did 3.5 on stock air, and 3.8 on a storm+ddc+pa120.3 loop.
 
i'd say it's going up, becoming easier to set up...less expensive. Hell even i use it
 
I voted slightly up.

Water cooling has come a long way since the days of old. I would never had thought about it back then, but with the increase of products available and information available it's much easier.

I think it's still an enthusiasts game tho'. The amount of research, cost, maintenance and certain risk factor put the mainstream crowd off. When I say to anyone I'm building a water cooled computer they looked at me like wft? They imagine a pc in a bath or a Cray supercomputer. They ask why, then I explain it's for silence, overclocking stability etc, then they think enthusiast. If you have to explain your hobby to someone, you've lost them.

The time will come when everyone will understand. By that time you will be able to get a water cooled pc from PCWorld or Dell or wherever, sealed for life and guaranteed never to leak (like other white goods, fridges, dishwashers etc). That time will come when the market needs to adapt; computers are getting more powerful but also more noisy with all the fans in them. Consumers will want water cooling in the future, they just don't know it yet, although 95% of them won't/can't fit it themselves.
 
If it wasn't gaining in popularity quickly then you wouldn't see every accessory MFG out there jumping into the fray with both feet. As it stands nearly every MFG out there has jumped on the water cooling bandwagon. I predict it's just a matter of time before we start seeing H2O cooled Dells and HPs.
 
It depends on how you look at it. I think the old customize your own system is probably on it's way down, but the all in one kits are on their way up.
 
Way down. With the massive 120mm air coolers on the market utilizing heat pipe technology and the gpu coolers like zalman you will max out your hardware before your temps max out making water cooling obsolete.

The only reason to watercool anymore is aesthetics and bragging rights.
 
BarneyGumble said:
Down, it's a pain in the ass
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I agree. I have been out of the whole w/c bit for quite a while, but that's mostly because of the pain the ass factor.
I don't know, maybe the newer kits make it alot easier, but it was a big pain in the ass for me and the cool factor wore off pretty quick.
Just my opinion.
 
Alright.

I put slightly up, if for no other reason than pure numbers of kits sold now. Every cooling product company has an H20 line now...that wasnt the case just 2-3 years ago. Kits are now designed to require less invasive installation measures (i.e. you don't have to remove drive bays, cut out case panels, or remove fan grills.). The prevalence of kits and the ease of installation has taken it from an semi-exotic cooling method, to any newb can do it.

I am definitely not saying that getting the most of a H20 kit isn't science, because as anyone who has built a setup from parts from multiple vendors knows that anything goes. It isn't just laid out for you, and there are multiple mistakes that can be made, and that tweaking everyones parts to work well together isn't as easy as opening a Thermaltake Big Water Instruction Booklet.:)

(Some personal experience)Cooled 3 systems with either Danger Den/Hardware Labs/Thermochill/Swiftech/Cathar's WW hardware. I have also setup about 8 Koolance setups (for other people), and I finally retired my gear after I TEC/H20 cooled two systems (2500+ AXP and an A64 3500+).

I would have to say that I am probably done with water cooling, I won't compeletly write it off, but since straight up water can't go below ambient, I have lost interest in it by itself. And the fact that going subambient requires all kinds of messy/pain-in-the-ass condensation prevention measures, I have walked away from that too. I really, really hated having to remove anything having to do with the CPU block once everything was sealed. Dyelectric Grease, Silicone Sealant, Conformal Coating...it's just a mess, and a pain.

There will always be the argument for noise reduction, but everyone has it so good nowadays. It was more a valid argument, when the best heatsinks on the market performed best with a 60mm Delta that whined worse than most politicians. Now you have the likes of Zalman, who make heatsinks that are near silent, and still perform almost to the level of your "average" water cooled setup.

Everything above is purely my opinion (except for my experience, that would be fact). So other peoples experiences may differ from mine.

I think watercoolings 'heyday" is over to be honest. My .02
 
Way up, and not in a good way. Every company now, ahem thermaltake, has shitty watercooling kits. Shit like the TT SilentWater or those $40 all-in-one kits, is what people look toward for water. Not the high quality stuff, not like the dark ages of water when many items were fabricated. Water is dead.
 
ZXN said:
Way down. With the massive 120mm air coolers on the market utilizing heat pipe technology and the gpu coolers like zalman you will max out your hardware before your temps max out making water cooling obsolete.

The only reason to watercool anymore is aesthetics and bragging rights.
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Are you serious?

I've got a Core 2 Quadro running at 65C under heavy load on stock voltage overclocked to 3GHz. I'm pretty positive this thing will do 4GHz with better cooling.

Also, I'm using a Scythe Infinity with 120mm cooling and ample airflow through the case.
 
I think it's up...

I just got my first loop going and I love it. It was so easy to find a huge amount of information on the topic.. much easier than it was say 3 years ago when the idea to try it first popped into my head.


lol@the people who say water cooling is pointless with the high end 120mm fan air coolers. I'm sorry, but when I had my si-120 it didn't make me look at my computer completely differently. It didn't give me a huge sense of accomplishment. And it sure as fuck didn't give me these kinds of temps OR overclock.
 
I voted slightly up.

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EDIT: Apparently I voted stayed the same... it was intended to be slightly up though, haha... I just fucked up and voted for the wrong one =X

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With all of the new kits becoming available I see a WTTF: Watercooling parts at the bottom of most FS threads and numerous WTB: watercooling parts threads. On top of this, companies dont go into markets so strongly if they think that they are dying and they arent getting a decent return on the products. Obviously the kits are being bought up like crazy based on the sheer amounts of mew kits available and amount of money companies are spending on research.

Personally, I have both watercooled and air cooled systems. All of my water cooled systems run cooler BUT none of them are pure watercooled. Just because you throw a waterblock on there doesnt mean that you no longer need good air flow throughout your chasis. Anyone who cuts all their fans out because they think they arent necessary just doesnt know what they are doing, in my opinion.

Watercooling has its applications and so does air, its that simple.

To everyone who complains about how much of a pain in the ass it is, I really have to disagree. Yeah, it takes more time than snapping or screwing in an air cooler. The thing is though, if you put the time into it in advance and plan out the lines and how about how long they need to be and think out the parts before you jump on here or head to a (r)etailer, it isnt bad at all. As I said, yeah, it takes more time in the long run, but anybody who sets up air in under 5 minutes has crap for cooling. I look at pictures of so many systems on these forums that have worse cable management and routing systems than fucking Dell, the king of overheating PC's.

Whether you are going air or water, take a few minutes beforehand and plan out what you are going to do. Not only will it give you a MUCH better outcome, it will decrease the amount of time it takes you. Learn this lesson well -- it applies to just about everything in life.

Minus shipping times and letting the watercooling setup run over night to leak test it, my watercooling systems have taken about 2 hours to setup including planning, buying, and installing the parts and I havent had a single watercooled system ever leak or cause any sort of damage to any components. Granted, one of the things that my company does is build systems so I have built well over 10,000+ systems, but if you honestly do the research and planning at the start, neither are really that much more difficult than the other.

Back to the subject however, more kits are being marketed, more people are buying watercooling parts on the forums, and I am getting more orders for watercooled systems at my company, so I have to say that it is rising in popularity a little.
 
Bbq said:
Way up, and not in a good way. Every company now, ahem thermaltake, has shitty watercooling kits. Shit like the TT SilentWater or those $40 all-in-one kits, is what people look toward for water. Not the high quality stuff, not like the dark ages of water when many items were fabricated.
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Its kits like these that give water a bad name. Water was never meant to be your every-user replacement for air. It is something that you have to have experience to pull off or else you are going to drown your system because you have no idea what the fuck you are doing. If you buy a $500 piece of shit from Dell and then you buy a $39.99 complete watercooling kit, you just wasted $540 + tax + freight. Most of the high end kits are even pieces of crap. Honestly, just spend the money on some good parts and put the water system together yourself. None of this all-in-one bullshit. Go to mcmaster or a damn hardware store and spend $20, lookup some radiator theory online, and build yourself a rad. The best parts you are going to get are going to be the parts that you research and build yourself so long as you put the time into learning the information and planning out what you are doing. Do some testing. Learn what works and doesnt work.

If you want to spend $40 on a good cooling system, stay with air and spend an hour cleaning up your cabling so that the air actually fucking moves. I dont care how many or how powerful of fans you put in your case, if you have a solid wall of cables running between your components and the fans, you might as well just hit it with a hammer and put it out of its misery. Sad that it needs to be said, but the same goes for water guys. Just because you have some water blocks in your system doesnt mean that your chasis doesnt need some decent air flow. You spent a good penny on all of the water parts (( assuming you didnt buy shit )) and you put the time into planning and installing it, spare a few minutes or an hour and clean up your fucking case and make it nice and pretty :) Trust me, youll enjoy higher clocks and cooler temps.
 
RexPokinghorn said:
Unfortunately, the ratio of tool-handy to tech-savvy people is low.
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This statement is so true. I grew up with a father who was a mechanic for 40 years of his life so I had somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000 worth of tools and air compressors and everything known to man in my garage. On top of which, my dad added on several expansions to our house, laid all of the tile and hardwood floors, and did so many modifications to the house that I grew up in that we had tools for everything. Throughout junior high and high school my best friend's father owned American Sheet Metal, so I had all the access to water jet cutters (( there is just something so damn cool about cutting through a foot of steel with water )) and interned at Honeywell for my senior year of high school.

Everything I do a case mod or check out the modding sections on forums, I thank God I grew up in that sort of atmosphere and have that experience. I look at some of the comments left about water systems here and one of the things that stands out are comments like "you have to mangle your case to install a decent water cooling system". If you take your time and do it right and plan it well, it should come out looking better than your case did origionally. While youre cutting, add a few other mods, change faces on things, throw in a window, add extra fan holes, extra drive cages, extra anything. I promise, if you do it right, you will love it. There is still those nervous thoughts while planning it, of course, but it ends up great. I have modded hundreds of cases, but I waas still nervous when I just cut apart my $xxx P180 case a few months ago. Outcome? It looks bad ass :)
 
Blue3ffect said:
I look at some of the comments left about water systems here and one of the things that stands out are comments like "you have to mangle your case to install a decent water cooling system". If you take your time and do it right and plan it well, it should come out looking better than your case did origionally.
Click to expand...

You only end up mangling things if you have no skills or experience. You can still plan, measure twice, and cut once and still screw your case up. Seen it more times than I care to...

I agree though, that when done right, not only is an H20 cooled system functional, but it can definitely pop and have that WOW factor.

I would also have to say that kits from say, Thermaltake, require less inginuity when it comes to installation, than a piece together solution. You can say what you want, and maybe I am waaaayyy to anal about how the insides of my computers look, but it took a good bit more than two hours to get things installed exactly the way I wanted them, and I planned until my eyes popped out of my head. If I took just one of my projects, two hours, would be a small percentage of installation time. To each his own I guess.
 
Oh, I agree. You can plan and plan and plan and mistakes still do happen from time to time even with the most skilled of people and of course you do have to take into consideration the fact that most people are not mechanics or highly skilled laborers in areas of trade like this. I just look at a lot of friends who just start cutting and they have no idea what they are actually cutting for. A good friend of mine helped me with a project a few years back and I trusted in his skills because he had done many a mod and install himself. As it turns out, he has to cut a hole for one of the steps and instead of starting small and working his way up since a perfect bit wasn't on hand, he started with his closest guess of what would work... the piece that was supposed to fit in the whole fit... but it just dropped through. I have a lot of raw materials lying around for reasons that were mentioned above (( same reasons I have a few hundred thousand dollars of quality tools lying around )) so I typically try cutting holes in the same or similar materials before I do it on the actual piece. This way I make sure of the pressure and rattle and size and everything else. Another mistake I see happen all the time is people who use the wrong tool for the job because they don't really know what they are doing. Once again, this ties in with the fact that most people aren't very tool-handy as they haven't ever been required to know such things or work on similar projects, but that is the time that you do the research before you make any permanent changes (( usually it screws up the most expensive piece beyond repair it seems... lol ))

I guess it should be noticed that that 2 hours includes setting up the water cooling solution into a case that has already been modded to accept it with the components already in place and wire management already handled, so its just literally installing the water cooling setup. As well as the fact that as I said, I build systems for a living and I think I just used a sticker with the serial number of 135xx at the office today and have probably done a good 4xx-5xx builds for office, home, and hardware test systems... good experience goes a long ways in matters like this and I pretty much do that on that on a daily basis for a living. A good case mod, though, might take a couple of days or weeks depending on what cuts and soldering and welding and other things need to happen -- for a water cooling setup I wouldn't suspect that more than simple cutting and drilling needs to be done and some filing or other means of reducing sharp edges. I typically select a case that needs as little modding as possible to be paired up with my water system because as much as I love modding systems and building things, I also enjoy relaxing, playing games, watching tv, and just generally having a good time without having to worry about time or money constraints, haha.

The biggest point I suppose was just that I see so many pictures of systems that have cables going every which direction and might as well be cutting off airflow entirely its so messy. I guess I am just really anal about cooling now, but that is where I pick up most of my business -- corporations and individuals who went with Dell for a while and had too many overheating problems so they turned to a smaller setting like the company I own that turns out a good number of systems but everyone is tested to make sure that every piece of hardware is working and that temperatures stay nice and cool without any leaks or loss of airflow, depending on what sort of cooling solution is requested.

Kits do take a lot less time and planning and money to use and are much less risky (( sometimes )) but a cheap kit is a good indicator of low quality pieces as nobody is going to sell their product for less than they spend on making it. I'm not saying that these kits are a total waste or that they don't have their place, just don't expect 100% performance from them if you are looking to get every last drop out of your hardware with a water cooling implementation. They cost less to buy because they cost less on research and development and production. It all just depends on what the aim of the system is. Are you going for every last drop to be gotten out of the setup, are you looking for a quick install and setup, are you just looking to play it safe, are you looking for the fewest mods required to install the solution, are you looking for a low-budget setup, or what really. Everything is practical and effective for some sort of solution for someone. It all just depends on what you hope to achieve from it. So if a ThermalTake kit works for someone, all I have to say is more power for them and I hope that it fits their needs perfectly. I just hate to see people who claim that water cooling is a waste of time because they bought an all-in-one kit that cost them $25 and they weren't satisfied with it so that must mean that water cooling is stupid and a total waste and anyone who employs it is a fool. The same goes for someone who spend $400 and put everything together wrong or didn't leak test their parts first and fried their machine and come to the conclusion that that is what will always happen with water cooling and that everyone else had that happen too so its a waste of time and money. Give it a chance, make sure to plan well, make sure that its all setup correctly, and if its not for you, its not for you, but don't claim that its stupid and so is everyone who still uses it and enjoys it, you know? Thats all anything is really about anyway -- finding what works for you. Thats the way I see it anyhow.

Note: When I say you, I don't always mean YOU. Usually it just means anyone in general, so don't take any statements like that personally and think I'm saying anything badly about you in specific or calling you unskilled or anything like that cause I'm not :)
 
I think the popularity of watercooling goes up ...but that doesnt mean that it is the best cooling u can get . Its just more popular then before . About the temp improvement v. aircooling i doubt it . It looks fancy and cool in ur case ,but thats almost it . I guess that soon watercooling will be obsolete . With the new generation of aircoolers and TEC u get the same or even better temp with less complicated setup and way safer for long term use .
I guess the future will be TEC, once the coolers get cheaper and smaller .
Anyways just my opinion . :D
 
Wow are people really complaining about how hard setting up a WC rig is? :( Maybe I'm really old to reading about WC but by todays standards WCing is a breeze to the way it was.

Now you can buy any any part you need from tons of sites. 99% of the work is already laid out for you. When I first started reading on WCing people were going to junk yards and measuring heater cores (pinto heater rocked BTW). I remember an excel spreedsheet with heater core sizes. Pumps. Geez the only option you had was from fish tanks. Blocks were all hand built from blocks of copper. The only reason you have companies like DD and swiftech is cause of all the hard work the older WCers did.

Ok we covered the fact that you can now buy just about anything you need for WCing with total ease lets cover installing it. These days everything is handed to you to install. Prebuilt kits and cases built just for WCing. I mean really if you can mount a mobo into a case you are more then ready to mount a pump and rad. You guys (myself included) are being spoon feed here and crying about it. You really have no clue how much easier things are.

As for WCing not being worth it. Not everyone WC's for heat reasons. I myself have never OCed anything. I WC for sound reasons only.

And my vote would be WCing is up. :p
 
I have to agree about the setup complaints. It really isn't that difficult unless you rush through it really fast. Is it more difficult than screwing or snapping on an air cooler? Well, of course. But does that really constitute a major pain in the ass? I really don't think so anymore.

I guess I just have to look at it from the standpoint of being one of the junk yard scavengers, and it sounds like you were too IOerror. I found a lot of success with Chevell heater cores so I have about 4 of them in my closet from some really ugly looking water cooling setups. I think I have my first water block around here somewhere because I never throw anything out, just a block of copper that I milled out a little maze in and sealed it shut with some JB Weld and silicone. Setups back then gave you decent temperature drops because of how primitive air coolers were at the time. My first loops dropped CPU temps by about 10*C idle and 5*C under load.

As lots of people have said, you have some pretty fancy air cooling solutions available on the market now, but it all depends on your situation. If you live in somewhere like Buffalo or Detroit or some country that sees low temps most of the year, you're set. If you live in somewhere like Arizona where we are stuck in summer 9 months of the year (( but do we ever have beautiful winters :) )) you will see decent returns by switching to a water based cooling solution over air if you set it up properly and have decent airflow in your chassis (( which you should always have no matter what )).

I'm very anal about heat because of my job. We have more customers that come over to us from Dell because they have 40-75% failure rates because of Dell's out of control heat problems.

I also have to note what error said as well. Not everyone goes to water because of heat problems or so that they can get the highest overclocks possible. My primary rig is currently running water right now, but temps were fine on air before. However, I have the system in my room a few feet away from where my head is when going to sleep and my system stays on downloading, compiling, etc. at night. I was in a bad car accident a few years back and suffered massive head trauma and ever since noise has always been something that really bothers me. So I have all of the fans in my system setup on voltage control methods and I turn everything down low before heading to sleep so that it is virtually silent but still cooled well.
 
RexPokinghorn said:
I think the number of companies joining in and offering water cooling solutions and the ever-growing list of available products to choose from speaks for itself :)
Click to expand...

+1

I just jumped in with 2 feet.. spent over 600


Also, setting it up is half the fun.. for me anyawy. I have always like constructing/building things, especially wheny ou get to pick out all the parts. Its like Legos for big kids. I'm like a 8 year old on christmans morning when I wait for the UPS truck (hot chic..) to come with my goodies.

/nerd
 
I said "slightly down".
Usually, by the time established companies make it to market with product (and it's obvious that there are more choices than ever before), the impetus that created the market initially has already begun to subside.
Given that CPUs are getting less power hungry (hence, cooler), only GPUs are really going to benefit from the additional capacity that watercooling offers and after this next round of new tech video stabilizes, I'm betting they join in and video power requirements will drop as well.

WCing will go back to being the niche market from which it evolved.
 
Brav said:
+1

I just jumped in with 2 feet.. spent over 600


Also, setting it up is half the fun.. for me anyawy. I have always like constructing/building things, especially wheny ou get to pick out all the parts. Its like Legos for big kids. I'm like a 8 year old on christmans morning when I wait for the UPS truck (hot chic..) to come with my goodies.

/nerd
Click to expand...

I agree. Setting it up is one of the best parts of the whole thing. Building systems is one of the best sides of computing, in my opinion, but I suppose I have been out of gaming for a number of years due to a lack of time between work, family, friends, and heading back to school to get a second degree. But yeah, wheres the fun in pushing a few clips through mounting holes or screwing a few screws in and being done with it all? Just not the same...

And Legos kick ass :cool:
 
I believe like alot of people have said that the amount of watercooling products available and the amount of exposure it gets compared to a few years ago atributes to it gaining popularity... regardless of the 'pain-in-the-ass' factor
 
I think it ought to be going up. I do not know if it is, but I surely won't go back to air.
 
I think you guys missed a point that i felt is quite pertinent.

user self installed water cooling has prob stayed the same with some fluctuations. Those hardcore enthusiasts or ppl with lots of time on their hands are always gonna try it, the rest that arent tech savy, lazy, newcomers who messup then give up, these ppl cause some minor fluctuations but thats about it.

commerical custom pc companies offering water cooling technology and the consumers who buy them, thats going way up. Compare the number of companies offering water cooling now versus just a year or 2 ago, and you can see the difference. The custom pc market that offer watercooling in their custom built pcs are catering to consumers who would otherwise have turned away from watercooling.

overall, i voted popularity is going up. some top notch custom pc companies offer high quality watercooling in their high end models worthy of the reputation water cooling deserves albeit you pay a premium, but its in my opinion better than buying a kit u have no idea about and installing yourself. Youd have to be extremely tech savy to do your own water cooling and come out a happy camper
 
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