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Air or Liquid Cooling?

Which is a better Cooling?

  • Air

  • Liquid

Results are only viewable after voting.
F

firebolt059

Junior Member
Would u suggest me getting Air or Liquid? i am getting a system from my friend for free(he own his own pc shop), and the system will have : Core i7 960, 6 GB 1600 Mhz Corsair RAM, and dual ATI Radeon 5870 In Crossfire. What do you think? I do not plan on overclocking my Processor
 
Your poll asks "which is better?" water givves better temps. period, which is better for you? This has many variables and is ultimately a personal preference.
 
Gosh, I wish I had friends like that.

As WoodButcher said, liquid cooling gives better (lower) temperatures.

For non-overclockers, that does not matter.

Additionally, liquid cooling equipment needs occasional maintenance (drain/refill). They are also more difficult to transport and add more points of failure.
 
Zap said it perfectly, but to throw in my own two cents:

A GOOD (custom) liquid cooling setup will give better temperatures overall. It is also much more difficult to setup than a simple air cooler, and requires regular maintenance. If it fails, the results could be (but won't necessarily be) catastrophic. With that said, liquid cooling does look much more impressive. I currently won't buy a windowed case unless I'm liquid cooling.

If this is just an average (multi-task or gaming) PC, I wouldn't bother. If this is an enthusiast PC that will be tweaked and toyed with constantly, then why not?

Finally, don't buy any of the crappy kits from Thermaltake and the like. Some are half-way decent, but most are horrible and overpriced. Custom is the way to go, unless you're buying a "my first liquid cooling" setup like the Corsair H50. While it does perform well and the price is excellent, most enthusiasts don't consider the H50 to be "real" liquid cooling (sort of like putting training wheels on a bike, except this does the pedaling and steering for you too 😀).
 
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Well you said you are getting the system for free. What about the watercooling components? And what do you want to cool? That can get very pricey with 2 gpus .

Do you have experience with water, or is he going to do all the work for you? Of course water is better, but it's also expensive and more difficult to install and maintain.

I would look at getting dual loops, one for both gpu's, and another for the cpu and possibly nb if you'd like. Decent custom wc parts for that would be at least $500.
 
water is more expensive then air.

A well built water setup will excess somewhere between 4-5x the cost of traditional air.

And even then you will go over your budget.

Water isnt for everyone. Its not even meant for a general population.
Water is a hobby, its something someone does to there computer because they enjoy the hobby we call PC moding.

Think of a computer like a car... everyone would be fine with a civic, but theres always a few that wants to throw in the super charger, get headers... paint it really bling with the big logo's powered by honda.

That is water.

What does water have advantage over?
Usually its quieter.
They cool a lot better if you plan'd your system out.
There very eye candy.

If you never worked with water b4, i dont recomend u building one for your friend.
The person whose computer it belongs to should know how to assemble and disassemble a water loop at any given moment.

I will never loop up a system for anyone unless they know what there getting into.

Also if u plan redundancies, pump failures dont mean down time.

I have 5 pumps in my system. The only non redundant loop i have is my board loop.
 
If you're not overclocking than just stick to air. The advantages to water are cooler temperatures and less noise. If you're not overclocking, the cooler temperatures water would give you aren't nearly as important, since your chip will be cool already. Neither will the reduced noise be very noticeable, since high fan speeds, i.e. high noise, is only needed with an overclocked chip.
 
I couldn't aircool after water cooling. There is no way to quietly cool high end video cards with air alone. Too much power, sometimes 300W and card area is too small to allow low rpm fans over massive heat sink and instead rely on high RPM blowers which are loud. Water is only way to be quiet. Move heat to someplace else to dissipate it quietly. Water transports heat to large radiator(s) which can be cooled near silently even with the highest end equipment.

Can't comment on better. I'm sure some of those high-end HSF like Tuniq, which are basically water cooling since they carry water in their heat pipes, are even cooler than my systems. It just matters what you're after. I'm into silence with high-end equipment and water is only way I found.
 
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Doesn't seem like water cooling is worth the trouble/money if you're not going to overclock. Other other hand, if you're getting that for free... why not.
 
After converting to water the silence is well golden not to mention the end of the heat that was pumping out of my case. I run a fan controller to my rad fans and even with them turned to 50% the heat dissapation of the water blows air cooling out of the water. I don't think that I could go back to air again. The last thing I'm going to add to my system will be a water blocked 5970 but that will have to wait until prices moderate. I can't say enough about the hk 3 cpu block and the ek mb blocks. I'm oc'd and they keep my pwm temps 42F cooler than the air did stock.
 
ScorcherDarkly said:
If you're not overclocking than just stick to air. The advantages to water are cooler temperatures and less noise. If you're not overclocking, the cooler temperatures water would give you aren't nearly as important, since your chip will be cool already. Neither will the reduced noise be very noticeable, since high fan speeds, i.e. high noise, is only needed with an overclocked chip.
Click to expand...

There is always the corsair H50. Not necessarily an extreme overclockers option... but if does offer a lot of the benefits of water cooling at a great price. A nice big slow rpm fan cools the radiator and you can barely hear the pump. It is an enclosed system so you don't have to worry about refilling, etc.

You can get a nice quite are cooler for $20-30 or a corsair H50 for around $50.
 
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