x61 kraken vs h240-x for cpu vs NH-D15

[hunkeelin]

For the CLC: Their fans will be replaced by noctua's nf-a14 1500rpm

So which one will give better temps and performance and how big of a difference in terms of C?


BTW cost is not a factor in this comparison.

I'm too new to go customer water cooling and I don't want to risk damaging a 5k system.

Thanks

 

[hunkeelin]

^ anyone?

 

[RampantAndroid]

I probably won't have many fans for saying this but, here goes: I hate these sealed liquid coolers, and think they're an absolute waste. They have one major advantage that I see, and it's easily offset by the disadvantages.

The advantage I see is that it minimizes the weight hanging off your motherboard's PCB by a lot.

The serious disadvantage I see is how these can fail. My heatsink can't really fail, beyond falling off. The fans on my heatsink can fail, but even if they do my heatsink will continue to pull heat off my CPU and prevent serious damage (allowing the thermal protections to kick in.) These closed loop cooling systems have no such redundancy - if the pump fails, the system fails to cool. It's closed, so if it heats up too much it can rupture inside your case, or let the CPU heat up pretty fast. I'm one of those people who in a custom water loop would have two pumps.

Moreover, these closed loop systems don't really cool better than the best heatsinks - I suspect the coolers you've listed cool only as well as the Noctua. The main difference being where you mount stuff. If you move your case around a lot, maybe the Noctua isn't a good idea. If moving the case/the weight on the PCB isn't a concern, I'd personally go with the Noctua every time.

 

[Jovec]

Regarding the NH-D15, you might lose the top PCIe slot (probably only a danger on boards that use a 1x slot above the x16). And RAM clearance must be accounted for.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2394731

It's unlikely that either is going to give much better temps than the other. It's going to come down to mount quality (as in mounting hardware and your actual mount/tim application) and chip lottery. I suppose CLC fan direction matters too, as they often recommend using the fans as intakes (for the coolest air temps and thus better review results) than exhausts. NH-D15 or exhaust CLC will obviously be limited to potentially hotter in-case air, especially if the GPU cooler is not an exhaust blower design.

Regardless, the biggest temp reductions are going to be had by taming the BIOS (even at stock) settings and all of the automatic over-volting it does to get a stable MCE overclock.

 

[Owls]

I probably won't have many fans for saying this but, here goes: I hate these sealed liquid coolers, and think they're an absolute waste. They have one major advantage that I see, and it's easily offset by the disadvantages.

The advantage I see is that it minimizes the weight hanging off your motherboard's PCB by a lot.

The serious disadvantage I see is how these can fail. My heatsink can't really fail, beyond falling off. The fans on my heatsink can fail, but even if they do my heatsink will continue to pull heat off my CPU and prevent serious damage (allowing the thermal protections to kick in.) These closed loop cooling systems have no such redundancy - if the pump fails, the system fails to cool. It's closed, so if it heats up too much it can rupture inside your case, or let the CPU heat up pretty fast. I'm one of those people who in a custom water loop would have two pumps.

Moreover, these closed loop systems don't really cool better than the best heatsinks - I suspect the coolers you've listed cool only as well as the Noctua. The main difference being where you mount stuff. If you move your case around a lot, maybe the Noctua isn't a good idea. If moving the case/the weight on the PCB isn't a concern, I'd personally go with the Noctua every time.

There's a reason why CLC is popular and are getting better. That said air coolers are considerably cheaper but with Noctua you put a load on your PCB and you may lose clearance for ram and/or a PCIe slot.

Don't all CLCs have auto shutdown in the event of temps rising? The only recent case where a CLC failed was due to leakage and the user bought a crappy CoolIT CLC instead of Corsair or NZXT.

http://anandtech.com/show/6916/cool...nd-12-more-coolers-the-retest-and-megaroundup

Air coolers have their place but I see CLCs improving in the coming years.

 

[Ramses]

I had a CLC, found myself being worried about leaving the computer on overnight and when I was away in case of pump or fan failure. Did some looking at performance VS nice air coolers (d14 and d15 I've owned), and ditched it.
The 14 and 15 both fit fine on both my 990fx boards, full of ram.
I like the idea of CLC's, but they have a ways to go before I'm confident in one, and
I suspect the cost to make one I'd be confident in will make it a genuine luxury vs even a higher end air cooler. I'm still shocked at how good the 14 and 15 are. Both cooled my 9590 fine, and that's saying something.

 

[Idontcare]

^ anyone?

You are asking in the wrong forum, try:
Cases & Cooling

 

[RampantAndroid]

There's a reason why CLC is popular and are getting better. That said air coolers are considerably cheaper but with Noctua you put a load on your PCB and you may lose clearance for ram and/or a PCIe slot.

Don't all CLCs have auto shutdown in the event of temps rising? The only recent case where a CLC failed was due to leakage and the user bought a crappy CoolIT CLC instead of Corsair or NZXT.

http://anandtech.com/show/6916/cool...nd-12-more-coolers-the-retest-and-megaroundup

Air coolers have their place but I see CLCs improving in the coming years.

I remember a report of a Corsair bursting on the HardOCP forums. Everything in his case below the CPU (motherboard, CPU, RAM, video cards etc) was toast. Corsair replaced it all so it wasn't a terrible outcome, but I'd rather just stick to my heatsinks and call it good.

To the OP, why do you need this much cooling? Why not a lighter heatsink? If you're looking for incredibly good overclocks, you should be looking at a custom water loop.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

We were all waiting like begging squirrels last spring for the NH-D15 release. It is better than the D14 by at most 4C under common room-ambient and stress-tests.

Which leaves me to explain my latest 'discovery" -- a cooler that was released a few months after I purchased my D14:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-004-_-Product

Benchtest review comparisons showed the ACX (formerly, the "SuperClock") to perform with 6C lower temperatures than a D14. I did my own tests, and proved it to myself. In my test, I had a DUCTED D14 compared to a DUCTED ACX, and the improvement over the D14 was ~5C.

The LED fan provided with the EVGA cooler is noisier than any Noctua fan, and that's a drawback you can solve easily.

I know it's weird -- the ACX seems designed and intended for folks whose heads are turned by "bling." You can only attach one fan directly to it as a pusher.

I'm pretty sure the ACX would match the performance of an H110, and would exceed it simply by throwing in a $7 ThermalRight rubber accordion duct.

 

[Ramses]

I'd give up five or six degrees to maintain my computing dignity and euro-cooler snobbery level.

 

[Makaveli]

Seems to be alot of paranoid people in this thread about the CLC.

In the event of the pump failing and the cpu temp rising your bios should shutdown the system.

I think the H240X would be a great buy for this build.

 

[Ramses]

Paranoia and overkill are two of my favorite things.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

On the matter of your PCB and the weight of heatpipe coolers.

The approximate weight of a 120 or 140mm fan is around ~7 oz. Excluding the fan or fans, much of the weight of the cooler itself is in the base or close to the base. Therefore -- less torque. The base itself exerts no torque. Add the fans, then there's some torque.

But it's really not that much. With the backplate and mounting hardware for most of these heatpipe towers, any stress is reasonably distributed on the board in that area. I just don't see any risk with them.

Then there's the possibility of pump failure. the pumps are getting better. But the system should shut down when temperatures reach a threshold level. Maybe there's even some risk that an aging AiO/CLC will leak -- I can't say.

But the risk as a matter of probability wouldn't amount to all that much. If it worries you, set your machine to hibernate when you're not right there using it and monitoring it. Or sleep-- then hibernate.

It really boils down to this.

If you look at the reviews of AiOs preceding the H240X, the edge over heatpipes can be closed with low-tech mods to the latter. So what temperatures are acceptable for a given overclock, in respect to a range of expected operating temperatures that Intel specs could suggest?

It's almost a toss-up between many AiOs and heatpipe coolers. And you can add the same low-tech mods to AiOs: WGusler recently started a thread about his project with a 4790K, Corsair C70 case and H80 cooler.

On the custom-water end, our resident guru confirms my own belief that folks tend to invest in excessive cooling with questionable benefit. If the overclocked processor operates in the expected STOCK temperature range for an AiO or heatpipes, it does little good to cool it so that the load temperatures are less than 5C or even 10C above ambient.

Under that latter scenario, you won't get higher clocks at lower voltage. You'll get approximately the same clocks at approximately the same voltage, or higher clocks with higher voltage. Mostly, you'll just get an overvolted processor with less thermal stress. But the difference in thermal stress between two different cooling solutions may not amount to a handful of beans. . . . Instead, you'd be facing the temptation to overvolt the processor with greater risk of accelerated electromigration. And excessive voltage poses more of a risk than any thermal stress, especially if the thermal stress is within the STOCK expectations of Intel.

 

[Lepton87]

CLC aren't really any better then the best air coolers and even custom loop is only about 20-25C better, water-cooling is a waste for just the CPU, I gained only 100MHz(because it overheated with air cooling) more and 20C less by going with a custom loop that cost me 400$ over the noctua NH-D14 but I rationalized the cost by the fact that I'll be using it for the next 10 years or so. The biggest benefit to be had with WC are graphics cards which are extremely space constrained if you are using multiple cards.

Under that latter scenario, you won't get higher clocks at lower voltage. You'll get approximately the same clocks at approximately the same voltage, or higher clocks with higher voltage. Mostly, you'll just get an overvolted processor with less thermal stress. But the difference in thermal stress between two different cooling solutions may not amount to a handful of beans. . . . Instead, you'd be facing the temptation to overvolt the processor with greater risk of accelerated electromigration. And excessive voltage poses more of a risk than any thermal stress, especially if the thermal stress is within the STOCK expectations of Intel.

That's true but you underplayed the effect of the temperature on the longevity. Every 10C less about doubles the longevity of the IC.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Just an FYI, but the h240-x has been shown to cool better than the nh-d15. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the most powerful AiO available and more powerful than any commercially-available HSF.

I'm sticking with my nh-d14 for now, since the price tag on the h240-x has me keeping my distance from it.

 

[avx81]

I'm not sure why there is so much hate toward clc. I have seen benchmarks where they are right up there with custom loops and xspc kits which are basically a custom loop. The h240x uses all quality parts that you would find in a custom loop and you could expand it but at that point I would probably go full custom.

To the OP you should check out the below youtube video. It actually compares all the coolers you are looking at. The D15 is a great cooler but the thing is massive and ugly. The problem with watercooling in general is that it would have more points of failure and without going all out with a large radiator or multiple radiators it may only perform as good as a high end air cooler. The pump could fail, there could be a leak but unlikely. Those are things you have to consider. If you get a case with a clear side window would you rather look at big ugly hsf or get a clc that may have some eye candy to it. You will have to weigh you the pros and cons of both and do what is best for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKdKVxbnp8 - HiTechLegion comparing the coolers you listed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ1p9QbZ9tc - JayzTwoCents talking about pro/cons of each type of cooler

 

[Ramses]

Just an FYI, but the h240-x has been shown to cool better than the nh-d15. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the most powerful AiO available and more powerful than any commercially-available HSF.

I'm sticking with my nh-d14 for now, since the price tag on the h240-x has me keeping my distance from it.

Is it another five degrees cooler, 10db more noise for twice the price kinda "better"?

That seems to generally be the case with most of the big nice AIO coolers vs any of the bigger nicer air coolers last time I checked. If so, I'll pass too.
Seems like air through a radiator is just loud unless you have a massive (custom) one with low flow. And they are just plain expensive. I'm the first guy to spend more money than reasonable for a solution that is "better" from some esoteric engineering warmfuzzy coolness neato geek point of view, but the only time this seems like a solution for an actual problem is in space limited cases. I still don't see anything glaringly better than the D15 for the money, or even twice the money, that isn't introducing a new set of problems that were conquered years ago. Not hating, just saying.

If I needed to cool something really hot in a small case, I'd be all over water.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Is it another five degrees cooler, 10db more noise for twice the price kinda "better"?

Judge for yourself. Yeah it's noisier than the stock nh-d15 fans, but I wouldn't run those anyway . . .

Regardless, the h240-x shows up as being quieter than the other AiO solutions while delivering better performance. The only AiO in the linked review that makes less noise is the little brother, the h220-x.

Don't get me wrong, I think the nh-d15 is awesome (still looking for some charts/numbers from BonzaiDuck before I pass judgement on that ACX cooler). I don't mind having a massive chunk of metal strapped to the socket. The h240-x just cools better, that's all. Though, I do sort of wonder how things would be with faster/noiser fans involved . . .

 

[Ramses]

Looks like about the usual results. In most pursuits once you hit a certain point in performance, the small percentage gains start to cost a disproportionate amount.

 

[xthetenth]

I consider a decent chunk of the 240-x's price tag to be going to the form factor and ability to cool higher TDPs, since it seems to hit the same ratio of noise/cooling as the D15 but be able to cool more for more noise. If you want more cooling than the D15 can provide or to not have a giant chunk of metal hanging off the socket (although the compatibility is good on the D15 and it has a very nice compatibility list for mobos), then the 240-x makes sense. However, within the range of noise and cooling the D15 can do, it doesn't seem to perform more than 2 C worse than the 240-x.