Water Cooling or Air?

[ScottAD]

I've read the informational threads but I'd still like yo get community opinion.

I have a 2500k in a Carbide 400R case that is cooled by a CM 212 + Which does an excellent job for what I do now but in the near future, when new GPUs hit. I am going to probably go with an SLI setup to do some heavy video editing and gaming. Skyrim will be the biggest thing I'll be putting on it for now. Diablo 3 will be something in the future but it's demands will not be nearly as great as Skyrim.

With doing the editing and rendering which will probably put the largest load on the CPU and GPUs do you think that water cooling will be a good choice?

I don't necessarily want to throw down $1k on a loop atm and I was looking at the H100 which would fit in the 400R like a glove since it is basically designed with that Rad in mind. Would it be acceptable until I do piece a loop together?

I currently am not OCing the CPU but I do plan on trying to hit 4.5 with it.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I've read the informational threads but I'd still like yo get community opinion.

I have a 2500k in a Carbide 400R case that is cooled by a CM 212 + Which does an excellent job for what I do now but in the near future, when new GPUs hit. I am going to probably go with an SLI setup to do some heavy video editing and gaming. Skyrim will be the biggest thing I'll be putting on it for now. Diablo 3 will be something in the future but it's demands will not be nearly as great as Skyrim.

With doing the editing and rendering which will probably put the largest load on the CPU and GPUs do you think that water cooling will be a good choice?

I don't necessarily want to throw down $1k on a loop atm and I was looking at the H100 which would fit in the 400R like a glove since it is basically designed with that Rad in mind. Would it be acceptable until I do piece a loop together?

I currently am not OCing the CPU but I do plan on trying to hit 4.5 with it.

it doesnt matter. with enough fans in your case, your temps should be fine

 

[Kenmitch]

Your case looks to offer good airflow with optional fans so I wouldn't worry about your temps for now. When the time comes and you decide to try overclocking your CPU then just use something like Intel Burn Test to see your worst case senario temps. Load temps are dependant on voltage required to meet your goal, airflow of your case, and ambient temp of your room. Adding more case fans might be all you need to do when the time comes. The added heat of sli/crossfire may be of no concern if you have good airflow in your case also. Just need to get as much fresh/cool air to your CPU cooler as possible to keep the temps down.

 

[Kenmitch]

Oops! Thought I edited

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Your case looks to offer good airflow with optional fans so I wouldn't worry about your temps for now. When the time comes and you decide to try overclocking your CPU then just use something like Intel Burn Test to see your worst case senario temps. Load temps are dependant on voltage required to meet your goal, airflow of your case, and ambient temp of your room. Adding more case fans might be all you need to do when the time comes. The added heat of sli/crossfire may be of no concern if you have good airflow in your case also. Just need to get as much fresh/cool air to your CPU cooler as possible to keep the temps down.

+1

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Water cooling is rarely a necessity. I'd suggest using your computer for its desired application and see if the noise levels are something you can live with. If you find your computer is too loud, the maybe look into watercooling.

Usually though, you water cool your computer for nerd points, not for any practical use.

 

[SZLiao214]

The 2500k just doesn't get hot enough to require water cooling. If you need a little more cooling ability for cheap look into the true spirit 140.

 

[Kenmitch]

Water cooling is rarely a necessity. I'd suggest using your computer for its desired application and see if the noise levels are something you can live with. If you find your computer is too loud, the maybe look into watercooling.

Usually though, you water cool your computer for nerd points, not for any practical use.

Pretty much sums it up.


My 2700k is water cooled as was my 2500k, i5-750, Q9550. I just swing my loop out of the way and do MB/CPU combo swaps when the time comes. The biggest gain for water cooling comes from GPU's. The noise they make can make your ears blead. Adding a full water block to the GPU will give you pretty much one noise level to deal with at all times under all conditions.

 

[rgallant]

just saying
I could not control the heat dump into my small office even with house A\C and open windows.
-moving heat is what watercooling does ,so I moved it downstairs[rads] , now the room is at avg. house temps[21-22c] not 32c +.

 

[GAM3RIG]

Whoa, I last visited: 03-13-2011 at 08:03 PM... Anyway,

- SUPER TR2-R1 COOLER -

Plain & simple, I actually won't spending up $80 - 200 on Hi ended CPU coolers as the results are no better than this.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

The noise they make can make your ears blead. Adding a full water block to the GPU will give you pretty much one noise level to deal with at all times under all conditions.

This is what got me. I had 2 GPUs running at full load in my room for months on end thanks to bitcoin. The machine I had to live with got watercooling as a result.

Watercooling CPUs really doesn't make as much sense as GPUs. With a CPU, it is in a position where you can already mount a huge heatsink with a quiet fan and get great temps for a fraction of the cost. With GPUs however, are in a place that has severely limited space, so no huge coolers for GPUs (most of the time) Watercooling GPUs usually cuts GPU temps in half and reduces the noise level by even more.

2x 6970s with a 3x120mm radiator.
Air: 85-90C on full load, and with lots of fan noise..
WC: 40-45C on full load, very little noise.

I have no problem recommending watercooling if you do some type of work that keeps your GPUs loaded at all times and share a room with your computer.