WC vs. SI-120

[andrewbabcock]

Why would anyone get a prescott? I am not being sarcastic they suck... If i poured lava onto an Athlon 64 it would run cooler than that socket of fire...What gives?

 

[JEDIYoda]

I see we have another AMD troll...

 

[Elfear]

I dropped approximately 15C at load going from an XP-120 to a medium-level watercooling setup. That was definetely worth it for me. What was even better was the drop in temp for my video card. I just added a $45 block to the loop and gpu temps dropped ~40C at load.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Elfar what was your idle temp before water and after water??

 

[HardWarrior]

Originally posted by: seiyafan
I am just wondering how many degrees can a decent water cooling rig drop vs. SI-120

This is a hard question to answer considering the wide range of parts that could be deployed. The best I've seen in a review of the SI-120 on a 64 3200+ at load were 35c with an ambient of 23.7c (Delta T=10.2C) using a Delta SHE producing 59.8 dBA. This isn't bad at all, except for the noise, and that's only if you're bothered by the racket. A top notch block and supporting WC gear would shave maybe 1-2C from that number, and with a fraction of the noise.

IMO, if you consider water it should be for all of its potential benefits, not just lower temps. If you don't have the spare cash or the time to put into learning the ins and outs of water-cooling, the SI-120 coupled with a powerful fan would seem to be a fine solution, even for the overclocker.

 

[govtcheez75]

I've never owned an SI-120, but I used to own an XP-90 and recently switched to a "decent" watercooling setup, the Corsair COOL (Basically a swiftech kit). My idle temperatures only dropped about 4-5 degrees, but load temperatures dropped from about 53-57 at full load to only 41-42 at full load. Mind you that my motherboard temperature readings are way high too.

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that with the XP-90, I was using a 92x38mm fan that was LOUD and pushed a LOT of air. The fan that's used on my water cooling radiator is very quiet and so is the pump.

 

[racinjimy]

your idle should not be that different but as stated in the above post your delta should be a lot lower with good WC