Air is better than water
The problem with Noctua is that you need a lot of space…
Because a water pump, water block on both the CPU and GPU and tons of tubes, don’t take up much space?
Imagine having a big Noctua on every component…
EDIT: I wanted a Noctua but with my two big GPUs, there is no space for a Noctua… and depends on which motherboard also includes water cooling tubes already built-in.
Much more space on CPU (at least you see the RAM and other components), yeah, depends on how you built it. The PC can “breath”. When I said “you need a lot of space” I mean on the CPU, if your RAM and 2 GPU is all near there… all the heat gets concentrated.
DIY Perks on YouTube did a beautiful machine with a Noctua cooler on a GPU. All with a nautical theme.
As I have more GPUs, inside the case it’s full of components and with a Noctua (if it even fills in) would be hard to “breath”. It’s not that difficult to understand…
Big air coolers don’t fit because there isn’t enough height off the CPU inside the case. An O11 Dynamic (regular size) doesn’t fit an NH-D15, for example, but it fits water cooling with at least one regular thickness 360mm rad on top just fine. (And also one on the bottom, and a thin one on the side).
Noctua master race
NH-D15 supremacy
I love the sound of jet engines during morning boot-up.
I didn’t know they even made a three-phase computer fan. That’s nuts.
Where there is a will, there is a way
Got to love that condensation that will happen in the PC
At last instance…
Kind of beautiful
Small form factor computers are a lot easier with water cooling. That way the GPU can be put right next to the motherboard, and the CPU radiator moved away from that area.
Nothing like a gamer sandwich
I like not having to worry about a leak destroying all my expensive hardware.
I once had a PC with watercooling. It died because I was drinking with a friend and wanted to show it off. So I removed the sidepanel and my drunken self tipped the beer bottle which promptly spilled over the running mainboard. Welp, it was some form of water that killed my PC I guess.
yea but whatercooling is a complete new space in the whole building process, when building alone gets boring it opens a whole new door to customization, dedication and „learning“ (its not a really usefull skill), but if its something that pleases you, its just freakin cool, even tho it sucks compared to air cooling its a huge subspace in the custom pc scene. its an enthusiast thing for people who are a bit freaky :) i love it and im always happy when i look at my machine
Eh, how does it suck compared to air cooling? I mean, yeah it’s expensive and requires more maintenance, but it’s way quieter and keeps the components cooler than air cooling.
E: a lot of people who are saying all the stuff that could go wrong sound like they’ve never built a WC system and refuse to acknowledge that many of these issues are likely operator/installer error. Installation absolutely does require more care and effort than an air cooled system. I’m not trying to suggest anyone WC or that it’s better than air, you do you, I don’t care, but WC is trouble free if done correctly with good components.
It has more points of failure, and that failure can be more catastrophic. If your air cooler falls off somehow or the fan dies, CPUs these days are pretty good about shutting themselves off before they melt. If your fittings leak, it can destroy everything.
That’s certainly a risk one takes. FWIW I built mine with custom hard lines and fittings, and after the initial shakedown test, have had zero leaks in 6 years. YMMV, I guess.
you can destroy your graphics card before even putting it in the system when you fuck up the installation of your block? your system can leak and everything dies because of a short? one cirtical component in your loop dies (like the pump) and all of the work starts over again? it doesnt suck, but if youre not into this whole builiding thing, it sucks compared to aircooling because you have almost no advantage beside temps and noise, even those can be worse if you dont know what youre doing. it doesnt suck as a whole thing, but compared to aircooling its not worth the money, the work or even the flex of you dont enjoy the process of putting it together!
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I sincerely doubt this as some sort of random or unknown issue. It uses the exact same attach points as a stock cooler or even a good aftermarket cooler. None of those warp the mobo or gpu. Keeping the temperature extremes down should prevent warping, if anything. I’ve been through two WC motherboards and 3 gpus and have experienced zero warping.
The only thing I can offer is either the boards that do warp are cheaply made and unable to support the weight of a good waterblock or the installer is over-enthusiastic about securing it and does so too tightly and thereby causes the damage. My current waterblock has specific instructions regarding installation to prevent over-tightening and damage to the motherboard and components. IOW I suggest it’s an installer problem the vast majority of the time.
Didn’t Linus tech tips do a video on this and find that water cooling doesn’t make much if any difference.
A preferable (1000x) source would be an actual expert, Gamers Nexus. He reviews cooling solutions and thermal pastes probably more than anyone else, and he benchmarks many models.
Water cooling is just air cooling that moves the fan. If you have a crappy radiator, you aren’t going to get great cooling. Water is a great way to move heat, which is why we use it for cars, heating, and power production.
I wouldn’t cite LTT for much, but IIRC, that was only true to a point. The NHD-15 is great, but a lot of cases can’t fit one. Same with many other high end air coolers. It might also cool to the same temperature, but is also running the fans harder to get there.
*NH-D15 🤓
The entire computer is throttled into a power consumption you can sink through air coolers. So, unless you are overclocking something, it should always be enough. That will hold until companies start to design the components specifically for water cooling.
But the people claiming it can be quieter or thinner are quite right.
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Remember kids, if you’re ever feeling useless, you’ll always be more useful than a 120mm AIO.
Molten Salt cooling. That can handle CPU temperatures of several million degrees. Your CPU may not handle that, but that’s not my problem.
just admitting you dont know how cooling works. thats cool.
Okay but what is there to know that isn’t there to know via basic physics and chemistry?
Any cooling works by allowing heat to gather in a source like say a heat sink combined with a way to conduct the heat to somewhere. Either into the surrounding air or liquids.
Then you need something to move the hot conducting matter away to replace it with cold conducting matter. A fan happens to be convenient for moving the hot air that gathered around and inside the heat sink.
I literally just installed an NHD-15 and it dropped my idle temps 10 degrees vs my old AIO. Load temps are about 5-10 degrees cooler, too.
Even cheaper models are incredibly capable.
IMO, if you aren’t using at least a 360mm radiator there’s not a lot of point water cooling.
The point of water cooling is that you can transfer the heat from the heat producing component out to a large surface area by physically moving the hot liquid. 2x 360mm radiators give you a ton of cooling capacity. 1x 240mm? You can do almost as well for much less money with a really nice air cooler.
I’d also offer that it allows you to dump all the heat outside the case and avoid warming other components (assuming you put the radiator on an exhaust fan). This is a benefit with any size of radiator.
My GPU had a shitty blower cooler, switching to water-cooling made my system so much more quiet!
Did you consider this earth shattering idea of replacing shitty stock fans with actually good fans? Or mounting atop good fans?
I don’t understand why they sell GPUs for up to $2000, and they still come with the same crappy fans we had on $150 cards.
Want watercooling? Have fun invalidating your warranty.
There are also great coolers that come on stock cards, you just have to pick one that isn’t shitty. No temp issues with my EVGA or Gigabyte cards that have huge heatsinks and 3 big fans on them.
I don’t follow. The cooler designs on modern midrange and high end GPUs are way bigger and more elaborate than anything that has ever shipped on a $150 GPU.
Blower style coolers on gpus can be quite good just depends on the card. I’ve had good blower cards and bad blower cards also in certain cases it may be beneficial to get a blower card over a normal card for temps alone as they stuck air up and blow it out towards the back
It’s all fun and games until you want a beefy setup in an ITX form factor.
