is it difficult to maintain a liquid cooled gaming pc?

[knighttime]

im not sure im gonna buy one but if i do my questions are.
does a prebuilt come with liquid already in it?
do you use special coolant or just water?
how often do you change it?
is it loud? (keep in mind loud gaming pcs do not bother me so i dont care if its noisy)
i read articles about what if the coolant spills on your hardware. that scares me can this happen?
is it hard to change the coolant or water? i never owned one.

[Generation X SMURF]

Yes on prebuilts
You can use water but ppl use anti fungal water for less maintenance
It will be as loud as whatever fan you put
Coolant spills are a danger but its made not to be electrically conductive

I used to do water, got tired of it, a good 3rd party tower hsf does just as good. I added a delta 6000 rpm fan to my HSF and i never go past 45 degrees, On stress test yeah but doesnt reach the TDP limit of 62. Stays fine @ 4.5 ghz 1.55 V

[knighttime]

what do you mean will be as loud as whatever fan you put? can you please be more specific?

[Generation X SMURF]

Originally posted by knighttime:

what do you mean will be as loud as whatever fan you put? can you please be more specific?

Well they come with fans which are pretty n00b imho, you can add whatever fan you want to the water radiator. You can do that with water and regular 3rd party towers, well most, noctuas I think have thier own fans so you cant just put any 120 or 140 mm

[GTsimms]

I ran water cooling for 7 years with the Thermaltake Kandalf LCS case. It started to get the fungus about the last year. Not bad for Louisiana with the ridiculous humidity here, but noticeable in the lines. All I did was add coolant.

[Arya]

Originally posted by knighttime:

what do you mean will be as loud as whatever fan you put? can you please be more specific?

The types of Liquid Coolers you get in pre-built PCs aren't worth the money 99% of the time. They normally use small radiators, and don't actually cool as well as a normal Air Cooler would. They're also much louder, you've got a very noisey pump and usually a very low-quality fan.

I'd save some money and get a good Air Cooler. The best air coolers cost around $60 and will outperform most off-the-shelf liquid coolers, and run a lot quieter at full load.

[Generation X SMURF]

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey ☯:

Originally posted by knighttime:

what do you mean will be as loud as whatever fan you put? can you please be more specific?

The types of Liquid Coolers you get in pre-built PCs aren't worth the money 99% of the time. They normally use small radiators, and don't actually cool as well as a normal Air Cooler would. They're also much louder, you've got a very noisey pump and usually a very low-quality fan.

I'd save some money and get a good Air Cooler. The best air coolers cost around $60 and will outperform most off-the-shelf liquid coolers, and run a lot quieter at full load.

I have an evga acx tower got it for like 39, fan costs almoset 30 dollars lol

Only tower I seen better in my hands was a xigmatek darknight edition, best HSF I ever had, too bad I sold it, cant find it anymore

[Arya]

Best I've used was the Cryorig R1 Universal, about $50 incl fans. It's a lovely thing, but not the kind of cooler most people would consider. It's a gigantic twin-tower designed for very hot Intel HT Quads like the i7 6700K. About the size of a ten year old's head and weighing over a kilogram.

[Generation X SMURF]

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey ☯:

Best I've used was the Cryorig R1 Universal, about $50 incl fans. It's a lovely thing, but not the kind of cooler most people would consider. It's a gigantic twin-tower designed for very hot Intel HT Quads like the i7 6700K.

90 bucks I see it on newegg. Reminds me of the Coolermaster V8 which actually had electrical cooling, I forgot what they were called no one talks about them anymore. You apply a charge to a plate inbetwen Heatsink and mating surface, this charge makes the side that touches CPU frosty cold but other side LOTS of heat more then just CPU alone. It was invented by a frenchmen I forgot what its called. You get subzero temps but need heavy duty cooling for the hotside of the plate. Ppl used to do this over a decade ago, might still do it now.

Ohh yeah now I remember, french woord, PELTIER COOLING

[Arya]

Cooler Master still has Peltier models around, but they're basically updated V8s.

[knighttime]

Originally posted by Teh Anarchist!!!:

Originally posted by knighttime:

what do you mean will be as loud as whatever fan you put? can you please be more specific?

Well they come with fans which are pretty n00b imho, you can add whatever fan you want to the water radiator. You can do that with water and regular 3rd party towers, well most, noctuas I think have thier own fans so you cant just put any 120 or 140 mm

i wouldnt have a clue on how to install a fan into a computer is that what you mean? or blow a tiny fan on the computer?

[Arya]

Originally posted by knighttime:

i wouldnt have a clue on how to install a fan into a computer is that what you mean? or blow a tiny fan on the computer?

Fans attach onto Fan Brackets mounted inside the computer. It's an extremely simple process - the fan bracket as four screws and a cable with a plug. Unplug the cable from the Fan Header and unscrew the old fan, pull it out, and insert the new one. Do up the screws and plug the cable back into the fan header.

You'll know it's a Fan Header because it's got "FAN HEADER" written on it in massive block letters.

[Generation X SMURF]

Originally posted by knighttime:

Originally posted by Teh Anarchist!!!:

Well they come with fans which are pretty n00b imho, you can add whatever fan you want to the water radiator. You can do that with water and regular 3rd party towers, well most, noctuas I think have thier own fans so you cant just put any 120 or 140 mm

i wouldnt have a clue on how to install a fan into a computer is that what you mean? or blow a tiny fan on the computer?

Then dont venture into water terriroty if you have no experience. Thats for overclocking any 3rd party cooling. If you dont know the first thing about how to overclock just use stock default cooling

[Arya]

Originally posted by Teh Anarchist!!!:

Then dont venture into water terriroty if you have no experience. Thats for overclocking any 3rd party cooling. If you dont know the first thing about how to overclock just use stock default cooling

Absolutely. If you don't know what you're doing, buy the simplest solution on offer. In this case that's a standard Heatsink-Fan cooler air cooler (HSF).

[Generation X SMURF]

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey ☯:

Cooler Master still has Peltier models around, but they're basically updated V8s.

Hmm how are they? The v8 was criticized cause the HSF couldnt keep up with the peltier and overheated.

I might do peltier on dream zen build, not sure especially if I have to change HSF due to AM4

[Arya]

Originally posted by Teh Anarchist!!!:

Hmm how are they? The v8 was criticized cause the HSF couldnt keep up with the peltier and overheated.

I might do peltier on dream zen build, not sure especially if I have to change HSF due to AM4

I really don't know them well enough to comment. I built an Intel dream build in mid January and they didn't even appear on my radar. I read a lot of HSF reviews and they were usually towards midpack or below.

The top three across all reviews were the Noctua NH-D15, Cryrorig 1 Universal and BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro. The BeQuiet! lived up to it's name and was magnificently quiet, but sacrificed some cooling power. The Cyrorig had the most outright cooling power but sacrificed some noise. The Noctua had the best balance of both, but with the most expensive and had hideous brown fans.

Based on that I bought the Cryorig R1, and it's comfortably the best cooler I've owned. The build quality is very nice, it was easy to install and the RAM clearance is exceptional for a big HSF. It's one of the louder big-bore HSFs, but still quieter than an AIO liquid cooler and still barely noticable in my soundproofed case. My CPU is an i7 6700K, and I'm reaching roughly 40 celsius under full gaming load in a CPU-intense game.