Thinking about going watercooling, is it really worth the investment?

[demenion]

I pretty much have the "high-end" air cooling setup. However I am contemplating moving to a watercooling setup.

Those of you who have been watercooling:

Do you really think it's worth the up front costs of a good watercooling system?

How difficult and expensive does it get maintaining it?

If I am going to spend $200-300 on a high end watercooling setup, Is it reasonable that it will last for 2-3 years through M2 and future generations?

 

[Gannon]

I wouldn't touch the lower end watercoolers just yet.

IMHO if I was going to get a cooling system I'd go for something like a vapo-chill system by http://www.asetek.com/ because then you are making an investment that you wont have to re-invest in for a long time and you'll never be stuck "wondering" how much you can overclock, but in my opinion it's not really worth it, just try to realize the irrationality of being addicted to overclocking because overclocking is basically a blackhole for your money, you gain nothing but the high that you overclocked yoursystem and then you're at it again! Trust me, I've fallen victim to the same thing and it's not pretty, you can easily waste your money because you can't just focus on something else better to do with you time and wait for technology to progress. You'd be amazed how much time flies if you find another hobby and forget about cpu's, gpu's and overclocking for a while. hah.

 

[Shadrack]

Originally posted by: Gannon
I wouldn't touch the lower end watercoolers just yet.

IMHO if I was going to get a cooling system I'd go for something like a vapo-chill system by http://www.asetek.com/ because then you are making an investment that you wont have to re-invest in for a long time and you'll never be stuck "wondering" how much you can overclock, but in my opinion it's not really worth it, just try to realize the irrationality of being addicted to overclocking because overclocking is basically a blackhole for your money, you gain nothing but the high that you overclocked yoursystem and then you're at it again! Trust me, I've fallen victim to the same thing and it's not pretty, you can easily waste your money because you can't just focus on something else better to do with you time and wait for technology to progress. You'd be amazed how much time flies if you find another hobby and forget about cpu's, gpu's and overclocking for a while. hah.

I would stay away from the Astek Vapo Chill system.
Its just another gimmick like the Zalman CNPS9500.

 

[seanmcd]

Originally posted by: Shadrack
Its just another gimmick like the Zalman CNPS9500.

Why would you consider that a gimmick? As far as air cooling goes - it gets rave reviews from any hardware website that reviews it. The only thing gimmicky about it is the LEDs

And as far as watercooling goes - well if you are "addicted to overclocking" and you want to get the most out of your hardware, and can spare the money then yes it's worth it. On the otherhand if you are looking around your room for things to sell on ebay to pay for one - then perhaps you should wait.

 

[Nirach]

I'm using what most would consider to be crap water coolers, TT Aquarius threes, and I get some good cooling from those.

Graphics card for example, 60 degrees load with a 600/600 overclock from 400/490.

Processor stays around the 30 degree mark, just about hits 40 under load.

If you do go for it, then it's best to do a hell of a lot of research on blocks, tubing, coolants, pumps and so on. I second what seanmcd said, if you can afford the better parts, go for it, if you're scavenging for cash, save it for a while until you can afford to do the lot all in one, draining systems is no fun, I'll tell you that for nothing!

 

[Greenman]

The thing to remember is that the water blocks you use in your currant system prolly won't work in your next system. So it's not something you buy once and use again and again. Every time you change sockets or video cards you might have to buy a new waterblock.
I run a pretty good water system, and wish I'd spent the money on other upgrades. The project was fun to do, but not worth what it cost. Once you live with it for a while, it's just one more thing you need to maintain, one more thing in the way when you need to get in the case. I'll be going back to air on my next upgrade, almost as good as water, and no headachs.

 

[Jagercola]

AMD 939 waterblocks will work with socket M2 I heard, they use the same mountings.

 

[Nirach]

Greenman: Depends on how often you change your CPU producer. I know that some blocks will do Socket A, 754, 939 and possibly M2. Video card wise, yes. You will quite often be changing blocks. For me that's not a worry, I only upgrade my video card once a year, if that. And even then I don't often change generation