Water cooling is overrated

[Ad Hominem]

It's expensive, requires more care and maintenance, and is prone to failure mechanisms that aren't present in air cooling (that can destroy your sytem), and doesn't have the maintenance free longevity vs air, all for marginally better temps compared to high end air cooling.

Aside from specific use cases, for example when a planned build is small and physically doesn't have the space for adequate air cooling. Or if you enjoy the extra tinkering and maintanence that comes with it (absolutely nothing wrong with that).

Why spend $130+ on an AIO with all the downsides when you can spend $90 for one of the best air coolers on the market?

[Monk]

Got to say, I consider watercooling and aio's 2 separate things, aios are very reliable now and don't require ant maintenance.
the extra cost is more for looks until you get to 360mm aios where they tend to pull ahead of air coolers.

Custom loops for watercooling are WAY more effective than air or aio's but then they can cost 10x as much and do need yearly maintenance, but they do offer the best performance.

[Ad Hominem]

İlk olarak Monk tarafından gönderildi:

Got to say, I consider watercooling and aio's 2 separate things, aios are very reliable now and don't require ant maintenance.
the extra cost is more for looks until you get to 360mm aios where they tend to pull ahead of air coolers.

Custom loops for watercooling are WAY more effective than air or aio's but then they can cost 10x as much and do need yearly maintenance, but they do offer the best performance.

What makes custom loops more effective? Isn't the radiator the final destination for waste heat? So a 360 AIO would perform the same as a 360 custom loop, all else equal?

I should have added looks to the list in favor of water. Custom loops can be jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Especially rigid pipe, and especially especially glass imo.

However, in the testing I've seen on Youtube from Jayztwocents, a 360mm vs Noctua NH-D15, the air cooler was only a few degrees behind water.

I guess my point is that water isn't a good choice for your average gamer, or even your average entheusiast, and based on merit it probably shouldn't be as popular as it is. I know AIO's are very reliable these days, but compared to an air cooler the air will get many many years of operation with doing nothing but the occasional dust off. AIO liquid has a shelf life of a couple years AFAIK before it starts to need replacing.

[Omega]

Liquid cooling is indeed overhyped and overrated.

I would even consider it worse then air cooling due to the fact that the liquid can take ages to lose heat making it unnecessarily loud for 10 minutes or longer after running any kind of heavy workload for an extended period of time. The only way to counter this is by going crazy with a thick 360mm rad or even more.

I did liquid cooling once on my own machine, never again. It's loud, expensive and the cooling performance sucked. During Prime95 the CPU would instantly rise to 90-100c, I tried liquid metal even and it didn't make any difference.

Talking about liquid metal, same stuff applies here. Overhyped, overpriced and mostly useless.

[InfinityJosh]

Yes I totally agree, the only pro are noise and esthetics, but not worth it.

[tacoshy]

Custom loop is not limtied to a 360mm radiator. you have quad radfiators and can connect as many radiators as you like to each other. Besides the pumps are better.

[Ad Hominem]

İlk olarak tacoshy tarafından gönderildi:

Custom loop is not limtied to a 360mm radiator. you have quad radfiators and can connect as many radiators as you like to each other. Besides the pumps are better.

Right, custom is custom. But once you get to the point where your components won't saturate the loop because the radiator is big enough, adding more rad doesn't do anything but take up space. And a 360 should be plenty more than a single CPU can saturate, and probably enough to handle a GPU in the loop too, depending on how thick the rad is.

[Chr1s123]

haters guys people water cool for looks and the min performance gain so for ex i can put in a 560mm rad yes 560mm and have great fans and have great cooling

[Ad Hominem]

İlk olarak geekgamer2001 tarafından gönderildi:

haters guys people water cool for looks and the min performance gain so for ex i can put in a 560mm rad yes 560mm and have great fans and have great cooling

Yea I'm not saying it's bad by any stretch. And it can look really really sexy as far as PC sex appeal goes. But it's hyped up a little too much and has a lot of downsides that almost never get mentioned when people recommend it to gamers looking for advice who don't know any better.

[tacoshy]

oh btw there UV covered tubes like copper tubes that dont need maintanance as you have no biotic build up without UV rays.

[Ad Hominem]

İlk olarak tacoshy tarafından gönderildi:

oh btw there UV covered tubes like copper tubes that dont need maintanance as you have no biotic build up without UV rays.

That's actually pretty cool. Unless you shell out big bucks for an all copper heat plate, fittings and radiator you'll have to clean out corrosion though since most rads have aluminum fins and a lot of other pieces will end up with mixed metals. Even AIOs have this, although their fluid is usually some super engineered fluid designed to slow down the process, it still will eventually happen. The only thing you need to do with an air cooler is dust it out once every few years, maybe change the thermal paste once it eventually goes stale.

[Snow]

I guess the result of a multiplication of effectiveness, price, aesthetics and noise is a universal constant at this point.

[Monk]

The thing with aios vs custom loops is area, materials and flow rate.

A good custom loop has a far stronger pump, the radiators are larger, the whole system is copper vs aluminium, the fin arrays that make up the actual plates are better designed.

Most aio's use 20-25mm radiators while custom goes all the way to 80mm, I use a pair of 35mm x 480mm to cool my system, and I'd like to add more, as despite technically having more heat dissipation than the components create, spreading said heat over more radiators will allow the temperature to drop further, which also allows you to run your fans at a slower quieter speed to maintain performance.

My cpu can still hit 70c and the gpu's creep into the mid 50's.

Now.if its worth it, is an entirely different question lol.

[tacoshy]

İlk olarak Ad Hominem tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak tacoshy tarafından gönderildi:

oh btw there UV covered tubes like copper tubes that dont need maintanance as you have no biotic build up without UV rays.

That's actually pretty cool. Unless you shell out big bucks for an all copper heat plate, fittings and radiator you'll have to clean out corrosion though since most rads have aluminum fins and a lot of other pieces will end up with mixed metals. Even AIOs have this, although their fluid is usually some super engineered fluid designed to slow down the process, it still will eventually happen. The only thing you need to do with an air cooler is dust it out once every few years, maybe change the thermal paste once it eventually goes stale.

its not an issue and there also steel and aluminum tubes...

aluminum fisn are not an issue aslong as the tubes within the radiator are copper. the water just cant have direct contact with aluminum and another material.
a mix between rbass, nickel and coppers is no issue.

[09]

Glad to learn.
Last build I debated the idea. Put off the liquid ideas for later.
I find no need as air seems fine for my use.
40 to 50C max at high thru-put but cools quickly. 18 to 20C idle.
FX 8300 16G ram 1080ti 4G nothing overclocked. fwiw

[𝔇ave]

i personally like AIO's because they make for a cleaner and less cluttered looking build.

i dislike having half a kilo of aluminium dangling from my motherboard blocking the view of other components