Was set on h100i, now thinking about something else

[daterxies]

After reading there support forum and seeing about every 5-6 threads mentioning them leaking i have had a sudden change of heart.

I have a H100I right now and i honestly havent been overly impressed with it. I know its seated properly but doesn't do what it should. Anyways the 100I spoiled me with room and i like the look of it. But that is the only reason why i would want the h100i. The stories i read scares me to put one in a 2k dollar build... even if they do have good RMA policies id rather avoid it all together. I dont plan on doing extreme OC'ing

If i dont plan on OC (i5 4670k) much if at all is the D14 a good choice still? Or will something smaller suffice? Any suggestions?

Computer case will be a Thermaltake Chaser mk-1.. but if i dont go for the h100 i might just go with the NZXT 410 Phantom... if theres enough room.

Thanks!

 

[ahenkel]

Something like a hyper 212 should get you great cooling for less than 30 bucks and be able to handle a decent overclock if you decide at some point to go that route.

a d14 is fantastic but if you're not aiming for maximum overclocking potential the hyper 212 will work for way less money.

 

[daterxies]

Something like a hyper 212 should get you great cooling for less than 30 bucks and be able to handle a decent overclock if you decide at some point to go that route.

a d14 is fantastic but if you're not aiming for maximum overclocking potential the hyper 212 will work for way less money.

Thanks. Im trying to buy all my parts @ 1 site and they dont ahve the hyper 212 available (it says it will ship in 2-3 days.. PFFF)

Would a Phanteks PH-TC12DX be any better ? Still about half the price of the d14.

Thanks!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Something like a hyper 212 should get you great cooling for less than 30 bucks and be able to handle a decent overclock if you decide at some point to go that route.

a d14 is fantastic but if you're not aiming for maximum overclocking potential the hyper 212 will work for way less money.

He has at least a few choices -- the Hyper 212 probably more than adequate for running stock settings.

Here's a Frosty-Tech comparison review focused on the recently-released CoolerMaster Nepton 280L closed-loop or all-in-one cooler:

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2752&page=6

Our member, 4960X, thoughtfully posted the interview with Jakob Dellinger of Noctua, mentioning the release of an NH-D14 successor -- call it the "X14" for our purposes here.

I looked at several comparison reviews that included the NH-U14S (likely origin for an X14), the Corsair H100i, NH-D14 and a lot of other coolers. Pitting the U14S against the D14 with their stock "as-is" fans, there's about a 4C difference at load between the two.

Exchanging the Noctua fans on the D14 with better ones eliminates this difference, but you could likely exchange fans on the U14S as well. The H100i variously shows an improvement of 4 to 5C over the U14S. And according to the review I linked above, the Nepton performs roughly 7C better than the U14S.

As an effort of "data collection," I picked a high-end waterpump from Sidewinder's offering, mostly based on price. The Aqua Computer D5 pump shows an MTBF of 50,000 hours or maybe 5 years.

By comparison, someone had published a white-paper 40 or 50 years ago commissioned by NASA. The MTBF for a heatpipe is about a million years.

If I myself spent $2,000 on the computer parts, I wouldn't hesitate to spend anything under $100 on effective cooling. That is, I'd pick the most effective of the options, no matter the price under that level. If the Nepton cost me more than $100, I might consider it.

But this is a crossroads. Suppose you only sacrificed 4C in load temperatures with a heatpipe air-cooler over the Nepton or H100? For me, it would fill the bill.

We're all waiting for Jakob Dellinger's Noctua "X14" or the dual U14S in April. With the anticipated entry of this new model, there's a likely chance that Corsair and Coolermaster may retreat to their drawing boards to try again.

Then there's this:

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Ivy-BridgeE-Overclocking-With-EVGA-And-Corsair/?page=7

If HotHardware was able to overclock an i7-4960X to 4.6 Ghz with only a Corsair H90 AiO water-cooler, you could probably do it with a Noctua NH-D14, an NH-U14S -- and certainly the forthcoming "X14" successor to the D14.

"Hey, Ridley? Ya got any Beemans?"

 

[DigDog]

H105 and 110 are a viable alternative, as are the swiftech 220, 'seidon, and so on. pretty much every new AIO has focused on cooling rather than balance between noise and efficiency.

i'm sure the "X14" will be very successful, but the AIOs do have a higher dissipative capacity. depends on what you want, really.

(there's a really funny video of a H100i with 40!! fans on it. thats right.
forty fans in push pull, two per side, ten rows push, ten pull, basically a long tube of fans; the temps that one cooler pulls are incredible. -3c at 1.4v. ofc the noise is ridiculous.
check it out on youtube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbpb23yTK8 )

 

[BonzaiDuck]

H105 and 110 are a viable alternative, as are the swiftech 220, 'seidon, and so on. pretty much every new AIO has focused on cooling rather than balance between noise and efficiency.

i'm sure the "X14" will be very successful, but the AIOs do have a higher dissipative capacity. depends on what you want, really.

(there's a really funny video of a H100i with 40!! fans on it. thats right.
forty fans in push pull, two per side, ten rows push, ten pull, basically a long tube of fans; the temps that one cooler pulls are incredible. -3c at 1.4v. ofc the noise is ridiculous.
check it out on youtube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbpb23yTK8 )

Interesting observation, if true. Some of the makes and models you mentioned are in the Frosty-Tech comparison, even so. But if one applied the same logic and axioms to those AiO units consistent to what I've observed about fan-replacement on the listed heatpipe coolers, it would then cancel out any near-advantage of the latter.

You mentioned the Swiftech 220 -- which I later found on Newegg to see that it's likely in the same class as the Corsair and other AiO's. I also found this:

http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/swmcdrresehe1.html

Sidewinder's spec summary shows a table of "Deltas" (CPU load temp less ambient). This means that applying this "not quite an AiO" pump-rad-reservoir integration to my own system, my CPU would be in the range of 2C to 5C below the LinX load temperature I get with my NH-D14/Viper-140R combination.

I'm even a bit apprehensive about the MCR-220. Certainly, price is a crude way to assess anything, but the pump is integrated into the $160 unit. I couldn't be sure that any of the pumps used in the other AiO coolers would be as reliable as any single pump purchased for a custom water-cooling arrangement -- some with a price-tag equal to any of the AiO's.

Both the water-cooled and air-cooled factions have exploited marginal improvements -- like lapping, superior TIMs, better fans. That being said, even the TIM-plus-IHS replacement for the IB cores or better TIM with direct-die contact to those cores is hardly marginal temperature-wise: there we're talking about 10 to 20C improvement over the other differences noted here which are maybe 5C each in magnitude.

For those with the IB socket-1155 cores, de-lidding would be a temptation -- even advisable. The IB socket-2011 cores still use solder. Either way, it's hard to see the AiO's as more than a marginal advantage to heatpipes now on the market. Only custom-water-cooling might reap more advantages -- particularly some integrated with large reservoirs.

 

[doyll49]

I don't think CLC are much if any better cooling than top air. Add the reliability issues, usually louder, usually cost more, if pump fails you have no cooling while if an aircooler fan dies you can strap on any fan to keep running...

There is also the fact that a single good radiator or pump in a custom H2O loop costs more than an entire CLC system.. well..

 

[schmuckley]

Build a bong

http://www.overclock.net/t/406256/the-official-bong-lovers-club-56k-fail/0_100

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Build a bong

http://www.overclock.net/t/406256/the-official-bong-lovers-club-56k-fail/0_100

First -- my opinion leans in the direction of doyll49. I've been turning these options over in my mind through about 9 years of computer building, and my decisions leaned to the heatpipes consistently starting with the TR XP-120 cooler for ancient Northwood Pentium-4 systems.

But I'd been eyeing the "bong" option ever since that day. Here's some off-the-cuff observations I wrote yesterday but held off posting:

=========
Everyone is familiar with the Zalman Reserator cooling products. They are external aluminum towers or boxes with tubing installed between it and the computer. The Reserator holds a limited amount of fluid -- less than a liter. A larger aluminum tower could hold a lot more.

Or you could build a bong cooler, fitted with filters and a shower-nozzle that drizzled coolant past the filters, while an intake fan at the "bong-bowl" would force air up and against the drizzling water. Some of the water would evaporate; the remainder would replenish the reservoir. This would make a good room-humidifier, but you would be running it whenever you use the computer, and you may want the computer running 24/7. This type of Rube Goldberg also exposes the coolant to the air: you could expect contamination. I would think you could also run a closed loop through a copper coil in the reservoir, and then only manage the replenishment of the reservoir. It would make up for the evaporation losses. But you would need an external pump to circulate the water in the bong reservoir.

One bong-cooler pioneer showed data proving a temperature under various load conditions of 7C below ambient. How his AMD test-bed compares to today's IB-E or Haswell in the ability to absorb thermal wattage, I cannot be sure. But in the Intel line, TDP specification has included one subset of 130W in most model lines for desktops and workstations.

For such a reservoir or bong-cooler, you would want leakless quick-release couplings installed, most likely at the computer case. And you might want the ability to switch between two alternative pumps and loops, with couplings between the CPU and either a radiator or the external reservoir. This way, you could shutdown the computer after selecting a mild overclock profile, decoupling the reservoir and running at settings handled by the internal radiator.

=======
Now -- continuing . . . The link you provided cites myths about bong-coolers, one of which had put me off: room air humidity. I won't be able to resist going through the links provided by the posters in your referenced link.

 

[doyll49]

Keep in mind most of the reviews comparing air coolers to CLC are hardly fair. They are done in a case so we can make "real world" comparisons.. Problem is the testers' "real world" is never the same as our "real world." So what is the "real world" they are using?

• They use exactly the same setup for CLC and air cooling. But the CLC fans mean the case has more airflow than when air cooling.
• The CLC is mounted in case vent so the heated air coming out of CLC cannot mix with cool air going in CLC.
• The air cooler is mounted inside of case and no testing is done to see insure that it's heated exhaust leaves the case without warming up the cooler's intake air.
• The temperature base for testing is room temp. Think of their room as a house, their case as a room and the CPU as a fireplace or heater in room. Room will not be the same temperature as rest of house if fireplace or heater are being used. Why not use the temperature of air going into the cooler / radiator? Cooler/radiator intake air is what is important, not the room temperature.
• We have heated exhaust air from air cooler warming up the case air plus less airflow than CLC resulting in higher cooler intake air temps which means higher CPU temps.
• Reviews done in open testing stations on benches still don't monitor the air temperature going into cooler/radiator, but it is way more likely the air going into each is about the same.

Case cooling is as important to a cool running system as what coolers are being used.. Far too many builders will spend all kinds of time making a beautiful looking build and spend little or no time actually testing their case to know if it is cooling efficiently.

To me air cooling is as good and way easier. :thumbsup:

Edit:
There are many new coolers coming out soon.
Cryorig R1 Ultimate (released in Japan & Korea now, Germany next)
Thermalright Silver Arrow IB-E (on their website but no reviews yet)
CapTherm MP-1120 (showed at CES)
Noctua NH-D whatever soon.. we all hope

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Keep in mind most of the reviews comparing air coolers to CLC are hardly fair. They are done in a case so we can make "real world" comparisons.. Problem is the testers' "real world" is never the same as our "real world." So what is the "real world" they are using?

• They use exactly the same setup for CLC and air cooling. But the CLC fans mean the case has more airflow than when air cooling.
• The CLC is mounted in case vent so the heated air coming out of CLC cannot mix with cool air going in CLC.
• The air cooler is mounted inside of case and no testing is done to see insure that it's heated exhaust leaves the case without warming up the cooler's intake air.
• The temperature base for testing is room temp. Think of their room as a house, their case as a room and the CPU as a fireplace or heater in room. Room will not be the same temperature as rest of house if fireplace or heater are being used. Why not use the temperature of air going into the cooler / radiator? Cooler/radiator intake air is what is important, not the room temperature.
• We have heated exhaust air from air cooler warming up the case air plus less airflow than CLC resulting in higher cooler intake air temps which means higher CPU temps.
• Reviews done in open testing stations on benches still don't monitor the air temperature going into cooler/radiator, but it is way more likely the air going into each is about the same.

Case cooling is as important to a cool running system as what coolers are being used.. Far too many builders will spend all kinds of time making a beautiful looking build and spend little or no time actually testing their case to know if it is cooling efficiently.

To me air cooling is as good and way easier. :thumbsup:

Edit:
There are many new coolers coming out soon.
Cryorig R1 Ultimate (released in Japan & Korea now, Germany next)
Thermalright Silver Arrow IB-E (on their website but no reviews yet)
CapTherm MP-1120 (showed at CES)
Noctua NH-D whatever soon.. we all hope

As before, I mostly agree. I only wince slightly when I hear people saying my HAF midtower is "ugly," and somehow the 200mm fans seem "extreme" -- like some Rube Goldberg flying machine. But my "custom-fit" NZXT "190mm" in the flimsy HAF side-panel is not just quiet -- it makes me think I've done a gurr-eat personal achievement with wire ties and Spire rubber foam. It's almost "too" quiet! That fan is rated for 166 CFM. What I want to do -- is get motherboard fan-control for that fan so it spins up with the CPU fan. Then, maybe, less dust and kruft . . . or the fan will last longer. But I've run out of reliable three-pin thermally controlled mobo fan-plugs. I'm now looking at "splitter" options, like this Swiftech unit:

http://forums.anandtech.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=36004447

But it doesn't provide for my 3-pin NZXT. I might find myself adding this to the equation:

http://www.svc.com/pwmx.html

Whole purpose being to avoid spending $80 on something like the Aquaero 5 LT controller. Sheesh! I only need to control one . . . more . . . fan!

And so far, to date, the only AiO coolers I've seen don't accommodate a 200mm fan. But air-channeling or air-ducting is important -- or just plain "focused" exhaust.

We can't test all these options by ourselves, so we rely on reviews. Your point is well taken: In looking at those reviews, it's important to see even the unintended bias of the test-beds. That was also my point about those Noctua fans.

 

[DigDog]

Well, for once i think we're all being rational .. let's just hope AMD and NVidia don't get in the coolers market
(joke)

AIOs have the sole strength of being "the new air". They are easy to install, are not likely to fail ***DISCLAIMER: no idea why the corsair pumps are so bad. All i know is that they have been trying really hard to replace them ASAP, so i wouldn't be too worried about getting a dodgy H100***, and provide a slightly superior efficiency to classic air because:

(imagine no fans are used in any of these examples)
1) they have more copper-y stuff.
copper stuff is good. they got lots. aluminium is good too, but copper is a bit better.

2) they are big.
the shape might be easier to install, but they have more surface than normal air.

3) water is better than heatpipe. not "a million times better", but better.
in theory, if a pump were to break, you could open it, remove the pomp mechanism, and the cooler would *still* work, just by using the still water inside the tubing.

You really can't escape the laws of physics - so much heat transfer, so much surface contacting the end medium. You use better fans, you get better results. You use a pump, you get more noise.

Water is liquid, and its easy to get the hot water right into the dissipative blades; If you had a classic air, with a motor, which moved the hot copper to the dissipation area, you'd basically the same effect that you get with a AIO.

RE: the H220 .. its quite a lot more expensive than the H100. And you get somewhat better results.

I have a hard time accepting usage outside of the "ideal performance-price/functionality/realworlduse" spectrum. I find the bong cooler to be ridicuolus, just like external cooling units, phase change, and in a pinch even custom loops(*because fragile*), but with a AIO, you can have pretty much teh same safety that you get with air. The likelyhood that something bad will happen with your "any brand asetek product" is about as likely as a BeQuiet! breaking your motherboard.

It can happen .. but come on, its really unlikely.

I recommend , strongly, that you go with a corsair h model, because IRL, they have pretty good products and amazing customer support. Or so i believe. My honest impression is that these guy are trying *reeeealy hard* to be loved, and thats never bad for us customers.

FYI there's better AIOs, the swiftech in primis. But i have never dealt with swiftech before, and i dont really want to spend 50 pounds over the 90 that the corsair costs, for a couple degrees.
It's not the variable blades of the fan, or the shape of the radiator, or any of those sorceries that makes up the vast majority of the AIOs cooling power: it's just how much freakin copper and water they have, and how big they are. The other "advances" make up for very little, and although they are welcome, they aren't critical.

From a realistic point of view, i say the best AIO choice right now is either the H100i or the H105 (or even 110).

also: the 105 and 110 are new asetek builds. *hopefully* they have fixed the pumps, but i am not sure.. one can only hope. the 105 is slightly thicker, while the 110 is even too thick, and imho will cause problems when mounting.

ok enough typing

 

[DigDog]

actually, one more thing.

AIO advantage - moves the hot air quite far from the case.

Air advantage - cools the motherboard somewhat.(they seem the same, but aren't)

Your air cpu is always going to be dependent on case fans to extract the hot air, due to its shape - all it does is take the heat from the cpu, and place it in a blob of air about 4 inches away. Then the case fans draw that air away .. hopefully FAR away.
The fan on teh cpu cooler also does give the VRM a bit of a draft, so there's a slight advantage there.

AIOs by virtue of their long tubes and mounting typology are more likely to blow air outside the case, just like a GPU blower when compared to a open cooler. But they don't give any additional cooling to the mobo, and in high OC systems, an additional fan blowing over RAM and VRM would be a good idea.

Incidentally, i don't know why, the extreme OC community hasn't yet come up with a "wind tunnel" case, as it would be - fantasy math incoming - ten times more efficient than any current cooling solution.
We put so much effort into taking heat from our components, put that heat into the air ... right next to our case. Hoping that somehow that heat will just vanish once it's outside the case.

A closed tube would be substantially more efficient, with the PC internals encased in it. As it's closed, regardless of where in the PC the heat is generated, once it contacts with air, it's drawn out, and then could be routed somewhere safe, like "outside a window".
Maybe cool air could be drawn from outside too, depending on where you live, etc.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Well, for once i think we're all being rational .. let's just hope AMD and NVidia don't get in the coolers market
(joke) . . .


. . . ok enough typing

No problem from me -- I read through your entire post. I actually have come to believe that my fingers are faster than my mouth, and that I personally have a "problem" with this. Is there a 12-step program for compulsive verbose posters? :$

I have to "wait and see" per the expected Noctua entry.

I'll comment on the excerpted post above as well as you afterthought-post.

Yes -- the bong cooler -- I think it was the "Rube-Goldberg" dimension that kept me from running down to Home-Depot for 4" or 5" PVC pipe, shower-nozzle, filters etc. Ideally, you want everything "inside the case." Apparently, the "industry" never took bong-coolers seriously as a commercial option, or someone would've produced a "kit." Still -- better than phase-change (no condensation or easy to mitigate), cheap, effective but less so in environments that are already extremely humid.

I'm still skeptical about the pumps of the AIO's. Despite your assurances, if the pump dies, effective cooling dies with it. If I build a system with an i7-4960X or even the 4930K, I'd "feel better" slapping a heatpipe on that sucker. Of course, the heatpipes may continue to be bested by AiO's and custom-water.

I just think it's a simpler compromise even if your load temperatures are 5C higher. Suppose I DID spend the kilo-buck for the X chip. I'd probably be perfectly happy running it at 4.4 or 4.5 if air did the job.

Gotta see what Noctua comes up with, and we're gonna wait until April as I see it . . .

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I first become a ducting hot-dawg around '05, first with Lexan and foam-art-board on a Northy P4, then with a Q6600 in a large case.

The case-makers have to accommodate many buyer preferences with one case design. I've seen people believe that they have to put fans in all the fan-vents for a particular case, but not true. Right there -- a use for foam-board and neat nylon screws and nuts or wire-ties: to block off vents you don't want to be "venting."

Then, I think Silverstone (correct me . . ) came out with a windtunnel case in a case design that put the mobo opposite the traditional position.

I think it is possible to buy Lexan tubing with 4" or 5" diameter. Or you can buy the flat lexan, cut it and use a heat gun to either make a "square" duct, or make a round one (with a seam) using a Quaker-Oats barrel as a "mold." I'd guess you'd want to wrap the cardboard in aluminum foil, hoping that it doesn't catch on fire!

Then the simplest -- folded, glued panels of art-board. I think I posted here a couple weeks ago as to how ASUS had done something in this regard with one of their Sabertooth mobos and some 40x25mm fans.

The right design could really cool down the VRM and other mobo components, especially in a pressurized case with relatively high CFM intake.

There's a lot of DIY stuff enthusiasts can do, and the proof of the pudding is in the attention to measuring the results.

 

[DigDog]

^ you really gotta give me some pics of that, i'm interested. But not tonight, i've done 24h of work in 2 days and im near-death.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

^ you really gotta give me some pics of that, i'm interested. But not tonight, i've done 24h of work in 2 days and im near-death.

I'll see what I can do. I had found the photos a couple weeks ago -- cleaning up my web-pages and looking at the local file folder I keep. . . I'll just try to remember.