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Air or water coolers?

579 Views 14 Replies 13 Participants Last post by  grishkathefool, 
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Air or water coolers for an overclocked rig?
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Juggalo23451
depends how high you want to go and spend
Mugen 2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-093-_-Product
34.99

Dark knight
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-029-_-Product
39.96

True

Megahalem the best
http://jab-tech.com/Prolimatech-Mega...B-pr-4557.html

for water it is going to cost alot more 250-300 for a good setup. Custom is the only way to go in my opinion.Save money by buying parts from here in the for sale section
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depends on how high your overclock goal is, if you want quiet or noisy and your budget

for example In my case I have a 3.2ghz oc on my chip and I use the megahalem... in my opinion 4ghz and up needs wc cause to keep you temps down on air at that oc your fans get pretty loud... although wc fans can get as loud too depending on your set up...

and like juggalo said dont go for wc in a box always good to go custom

it really just comes down to your own preferences if you think about it

hope this helps
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The Master Chief
Air...

Water is to complicated
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Juggalo23451
Quote:


Originally Posted by The Master Chief
View Post

Air...

Water is to complicated

How is it complicated?? Not the hard to set up at all. All it takes is proper planning. I did 3 or 4 months of research/planning b4 I went W/C. I know way to long but I wanted to have the perfect setup/tried.
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Water is very expensive, and you always have that chance of a leak. Just save your self some time and money and go with air, unless you are trying to break some kind of OC record wc is not worth it.
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E
Air is good and simple. Just normal Dust removal maintenance. You can get good performance with a good set up.

Water cooling is more of a hobby in itself. You install it, and "maintain" it. You can't install it and forget about it. Liquid must be refilled, it must be checked for leaks, and must flush out and replace liquid periodically. So it's more hands on but then that's the whole idea of water cooling. It may also allow for higher overclocks, well usually does.

And as stated above, there is a good price difference. But when its a hobby and you are going the extra mile to improve your rig, then of course it will cost a little more. Well worth it if you like hands on projects.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. lol
=)
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Ssskiyu View Post
Air or water coolers for an overclocked rig?
If a person lives in a hot climate (but not limited to) then liquid cooling will aid in maintaining higher overclocks with lower idle temps and Deltas.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Juggalo23451 View Post
How is it complicated?? Not the hard to set up at all. All it takes is proper planning. I did 3 or 4 months of research/planning b4 I went W/C. I know way to long but I wanted to have the perfect setup/tried.
lol
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air cooling is very easy and simple, watercooling can cause big headaches but the performance CAN be better than air

you want a very good air cooler, checkout my sale thread...i'll hook you up with a good deal if you are interested!
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T
Watercooling: its really not that complicated, it can indeed be expensive. You can get way higher overclocks and it generally makes less noise. You can easily prevent leaks if you prepare and execute correctly and it looks damn good.

stronmansal, if you want a cooling platform for breaking world records look up DICE and LN2 (at least for CPU ocs) but I can directly attribute my WC system to that two Hwbot gold medals I have, I doubt I would have been able to make vantage runs a 4.6ghz on air with my chips vcore
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Water-cooling, not only for the better temps when you are running a OC'd CPU but the experience too.

I've had a few "home made" setups, and a kit from swiftech. If computing is your passion then why not go a bit further and include WC to your passion.

It's not as dangerous as it might seem, leaks maybe if you did not set it up correctly in the first place but if you pre-test it first then leaks don't just magically appear.

You can now purchase non conductive water for your coolant, so should a "leak" develop, your not going to destroy any components.

It's all about preparation, as has been said already.

Well worth it in my opinion. The results can look amazing, and the satisfaction is the same. Only downside
to WC .. is the addiction! .. but it's a good one
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Unless you are wanting to push for world records, Air will do what you need. However, there is a certain amount of "Cool" associated with a nice Liquid set up. Although water can pull heat from a source 4 times faster than air, neither can lower your temps below ambient.

Functional - Air
Functional and Really Cool - Liquid
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Your not going to break any records with water either. The only way you would be able to even come close to a WR is with extreme cooling like LN2 or dry ice.

Water cooling is as stated above "a hobby" and a cool one at that. There are not big temperature differences between the best air cooling heat sinks and mid level WC setups. It's is really a matter of how much you have to spend and how "Cool" looking you want your PC?
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I wasn't implying that Liquid was for WR Benches. For the record, I run 4GHz (500x8) 24/7 and idle at 34C with a $20 Masscool 92mm HSF. My 100% Load temp is something like 51C.
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