Great cooling solution for Skylake mobos...

[JPPoulin]

Hi (awesome) AnandTech gurus!

I'm trying to assemble a sensible water-cooled Skylake system. As I'd be buying the motherboard, a $370 Skylake CPU and a new case I'm trying to make sense of the many permutations of choices for a decent water-cooled system:
- Should I purchase a motherboard with built-in cooling?
- Should I buy a case with embedded cooling?
- Should I purchase a custom cooling solution myself?

My system is used for software development and some gaming (CivV, XCOM2, Fallout4, Battlefield, etc) with one NVidia 980 card (no SLI) driving three 4K monitors. For mobo features I need U.2 and USB3.1 & USB-C with U.2 and built-in WiFi being plusses. My requirements are 1) rock stable 2) relatively quiet and 3) cool running. For the mobo + CPU + case + cooling solution I'm trying to keep it under $1000.

How should I go about choosing a coherent cooling solution?

Jean-Pierre

 

[ReignQuake]

I would say one of the most exciting things for me are the Monoblocks, cooling your CPU and motherboard with one waterblock. Installing this yourself opposed to having it pre-fitted saves a lot of money, then to cover yourself have a fan blowing over the Ram/CPU socket area.

Starting at half of the price you can get a waterblock for the CPU and just have a fan blowing over the suggested area. Perhaps by making a saving by not buying separate motherboard watercooling blocks or by just cooling the CPU, you may have more money to spend on bling and nice fittings. I would choose the satisfaction and looks over practicality, it is quiet, cool and stable.

 

[JPPoulin]

Hi ReignQuake,

Many thanks for taking the time. I'll certainly look at the monoblocks... so I take it that NOT buying a motherboard with these cooling blocks is a lot cheaper? I will certainly look at these DIY solutions!

Since my CPU only has 75W heat emission I don't think I'll need a great water cooling solution... but I just care about system stability and noise so a cheap water-based solution appears to be the right fit.

 

[rgallant]

"- Should I purchase a custom cooling solution myself?"
if you want water leave the mobo on air and use the money for a gpu block maybe.
this looks expandable for a kit with good items in it but I didn't look that close ,just to give you a idea whats out there
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ek-releases-brand-new-p-series-kits.html

 

[JPPoulin]

Hi RGallant, thanks for taking the time.

Given I only have 75W to dissipate I think the cheap water solutions are probably more than appropriate. Am still looking at good cases that feature good water-based cooling solutions. Thanks!