What would a real water cooling setup, better than H50 run me?

2

2wiced

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 14, 2005
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Im very interested in building a water cooling system. I currently use a Coolermaster elite 370, its a small midtower case (a part of me loves it and a part wants a better one, anyways).

I currently have an H50, and was interested in purchasing a dual radiator type cooling set up. Whats the average cost I am looking at?

$100? or is less than 100 possible? or is it 150+

I know nothing about this topic.

Thank you
 
What are you looking to cool?

Basic watercooling kits can be had for pretty cheap, and some of the cheaper ones will have quality problems. But it depends on what you want to cool. When you say dual rad, do you mean 2 120mm or a single 240mm double length one?

For example, XSPC make a few cheap kits. I've never used one, so can't comment about the quality (fans/pump might be loud, and tubing stiff), or recommend it, but it has everything you'd need (minus coolant) at $130. Theres a $150 triple rad option too, which would have better cooling ability, but would be more difficult to fit in that case.

Adding twice the radiator (and more fans) will mean extra cooling. If you're feeling adventurous you could swap the h50s rad for a 240mm? For the cost of the rad, voided warranty and a few fittings, it might be doable (If the pump is strong enough). Or if you haven't just adding a second fan to the h50 will increase its cooling ability.

That case wouldn't be the easiest to work a watercooling setup into, lacking multiple fan slots or tubing ports. But you could modify the case to make it better (could cut fan holes in bottom to mount rad, or front, losing hdd rack, or adding tubing ports to the rear and mounting the rad on the back/top of the case.) So you could save youself some of this by getting a case thats a bit more suitable, but most cases are workable.

One cheap option which would get you possibly higher quality parts cheaply is th FS/FT threads on this board. There are always people dumping radiators/blocks/pumps. As long as you have those and some fans/tubing thats all you really need.
 
I moved from the H50 in a push/pull to the XSPC RX360 kit. My temps on the CPU dropped about 8 degrees at full load. (Granted it was heavily overvolted)

Cost me slightly under $200. I highly recommend the kit (or one of its companions) but if your not pushing your CPU than your not going to see a big temperature drop and it would not be a worth while investment.
 
The XSPC kits are great for people who want to jump into water cooling or upgrade from their H50/60/70. Many people have been using them they are simple and pretty much a straight forward install. It's highly recommended for those on a budget and its price/performance ratio is very good.

For your case you may have to mount the radiator externally or mod the inside of the case to fit it.
 
caniba said:
Be warned. WC is an expensive, but fun hobby. :D
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yes it is....it can be done for cheap, but cheap is not always good.

just the waterblock for my 5870 was $100.00 ......then another $65.00 for the CPU....

all together I probably have about $400.00 invested...but its well worth it to me.

if your on a budget and want high end stuff, buying used is a great option....
 
Wow. I don't have that kind if money just yet. I just spent my cash on a 2500k msi p67 and a second 6950 2gb
 
Huh? You can get an XSPC kit for under $200 you don't need to spend $400... Did you not even read what DeathPrincess and I wrote?
 
AdvanSuper said:
Huh? You can get an XSPC kit for under $200 you don't need to spend $400... Did you not even read what DeathPrincess and I wrote?
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I did, but 200 is still more than I can spend right now. I really do appreciate your guys's suggestions.
 
I have my old water cooling setup collecting dust, wanna trade for that H50? j/k I know that sort of thing has to go in the FS forum, and I dont even know if I want to get rid of it.




FYI I dont know what they are charging now, but I put together a dual 120 setup with 4 yate loon fans (the quiet ones) with sleeved wires and all, for like $240total like a year and a half ago. Not sure if its any cheaper or more expensive now though. I got my stuff from frozencpu IIRC.
 
lol. Im blind guys. I totally missed that:eek:. I apologized. Thanks for being persistent :)
 
Do you guys think its worth it to upgrade to water cooling?

my 2500k right now is running at 1.38v @ 4.8ghz with temps never exceeding like 55 during bfbc2 on average. I think it hit 59-60 once and then went back down.
 
2wiced said:
Do you guys think its worth it to upgrade to water cooling?

my 2500k right now is running at 1.38v @ 4.8ghz with temps never exceeding like 55 during bfbc2 on average. I think it hit 59-60 once and then went back down.
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On my custom loop it looks like I'm lowering my load temps about 10C on my CPU from my Corsair H50 that I had with push/pull and ghetto fans. My loop is cooling GPU/CPU/NB/MOSFET as well.

Money wise my custom loop costs were about 6 times as much as my corsair H50. It's worth it to me. Not because I feel like I got a good deal but it is worth it to me because I designed and built a custom loop. If you enjoy building stuff then I think you will will value a well designed custom loop that works. I'm really glad my CPU temps lowered about 10c under load over the Corsair H50.


Water cooling is fun. Performance wise water cooling works well.


Just don't expect crazy temp drops. Air cooling and self contained water units like Corsair H50 work very well for cooling and can cool most modern cpus cool enough for nice stable over clocked settings.


Again water cooling is fun and it is worth the expenses to me.
 
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Price/performance-wise, watercooling is almost never worth it.

Watercooling is a fun hobby you have to get into, not do it for the sake of performance. Of course, there is the performance aspect, but it's about half the reason. Half the reason why you do watercooling is for the performance, and the other half is for the fun of it.
 
I plan to give the xspc rasa kit a try, i think liquid cooling with be really fun going to switch out the tubes tho with some better stuff make sure you get a silver coil or pt nuke too :)

Right now my h50 with my [email protected] it maxes at 80c. I want to take it too 4ghz so need more cooling lol :)
 
2wiced said:
Do you guys think its worth it to upgrade to water cooling?

my 2500k right now is running at 1.38v @ 4.8ghz with temps never exceeding like 55 during bfbc2 on average. I think it hit 59-60 once and then went back down.
Click to expand...

I would say with Sandy Bridge that good air is enough for up to 5ghz depending on case cooling and voltage required. But i wouldnt be afraid of temperatures in the mid 70's.
 
Aus10 said:
I plan to give the xspc rasa kit a try, i think liquid cooling with be really fun going to switch out the tubes tho with some better stuff make sure you get a silver coil or pt nuke too :)

Right now my h50 with my [email protected] it maxes at 80c. I want to take it too 4ghz so need more cooling lol :)
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My rasa RS240 kit arrived today. I am currently using an H70 with push/pull and a high pressure fan on the push side. My 970 @4.4ghz will top out around 83C on the H70, so i am going to see what one of these kits is like.
I used to run a ghetto external watercooler that i used for many years, so it will be interesting to see what this internal kit is like by comparison.
 
86 5.0L said:
Hehe my h50 hits 100* regularly lol
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My H50 worked great. But i had mine configured extreme with Scythe kAZE fans push pull and ghetto shrouds.

H50DFIX58JRwithdual25mmghettoshroud.jpg


Kept my I7-930 in the 70s under 100% load with cpu at 4.2GHZ stable.

I liked the H50 so much i even tried the H70 but stuck with the H50 because of how well it worked with high cfm fans.

My cooling progression. Started with Zalman 7800 air heat sink then to Corsair H50/H70/H50 and now to custom water loop.

Water loop is expensive but it has been alot of fun buidling it and I look forward to tweaking it as time goes on.
 
yeah, my temps would creep up because of dust build up or ambient temps rising.

Now im moving on to real watercooling, Im just waiting for a deal on a 480mm rad to finish my WC build.
 
have the Rasa installed now, temps are now maxing out in the high sixties on my i7 970 @ 4.4ghz 1.45 v. Big improvement!
 
It is around there, maybe 15% max. It does not look that dark in person. Its shows much greener in the photos.
 
kirbster said:
its the 240. I paid 149CDN for it. I think that is a steal.
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its pretty fucking sweet. lol. I bought an SSD and a 6950 instead of water cooling. I use G35 headset to block the noise
Kirbster that is a really slick looking system though, good job.
 
Yeah, thanks! I won the system at the Gigabyte G1.Killer Launch party in Toronto a few weeks ago. Still have to write my review. It came with an H70 and an i7 950, but i swapped those out for the XSPC and an i7 970.
 
You have 3 tubes that go off picture, is there another rad in the setup, or just an out of sight pump and a fillport?
 
If you are handy and want to get your hands dirty/like home depot it can actually be done for really cheap.

At work I have an old athlon xp block on a 775 core2quad with a ghetto retention bracket I made, plus a really old rio fish pump in an electrical junction box, with a PS cooling rad from ecology, and home depot tubing. If I had to buy it all....I doubt I could hit $50.
 
I did the ghetto water cooler for years. And i had no issues with it. I used an old heater core for my rad and built a fan box for it. But the XSPC kit is a great deal if you start looking at individual prices for things like a bay res or 12 v pumps. Plus the water block it comes with is rated really weel against the competition.
 
Performance is a good reason, but isn't noise another big one ?

I don't have any experience in WC so I don't know if the noise difference is that big. Is it ?
 
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