to liquid cool or not to liquid cool

[anyaka21]

What is the main benefit to liquid cooling vs air? Is it a performance difference or does it mainly depend on which one you use or how it used in terms of overclocking benefits?

Building a new pc now and want to start it off right and not have to swap a cpu fan after about a month. I want to build it right the 1st time.

Mainly looking at either Corsair h100 or h80, or Intel liquid cooler

Or going air with maybe the Noctua dh14 or just the coolermaster evo or the 212+

Here's the links to the items, and if you have any other or better suggestions, it would be appreciated

Intel liquid cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835203006
Corsair h100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181017
Corsair h80: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181016
Noctua dh-14: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608018
CoolerMaster 212_+: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065
CoolerMaster 212 Evo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103099


Also, what's the main difference between water cooling ones and the liquid cooling ones?

[n0cturnal]

What? I don't even.

You should probably put a bit more thought in to your post before you actually post it.

[chazus]

As far as I can tell, Liquid Cooling is pretty much just for cool (as in aesthetics, not temperature) factor these days. From what I can see, a Noctua air cooler works just as well as liquid cooling, and may well be quieter too.

[n0cturnal]

Liquid coolers such as the H100 performance at the same level as a Noctua NH-D14 and other air coolers at the top level.

Some get liquid coolers because they think it will be more silent but it won't, you still have to use fans on the radiator and you add a pump to the equation.
Some get liquid coolers because they want to have more space free around the CPU socket.
Some get liquid coolers because they don't want to have a 1 kg metal piece literally hanging in 4 screws around your CPU. This can matter if you move around your computer a lot.

[chazus]

Liquid coolers are also nice to not have to get low profile ram but that's ... not difficult to do these days. Also, liquid coolers are notorious for being LOUDER than air coolers under full load.

[anyaka21]

Liquid coolers such as the H100 performance at the same level as a Noctua NH-D14 and other air coolers at the top level.

Some get liquid coolers because they think it will be more silent but it won't, you still have to use fans on the radiator and you add a pump to the equation.
Some get liquid coolers because they want to have more space free around the CPU socket.
Some get liquid coolers because they don't want to have a 1 kg metal piece literally hanging in 4 screws around your CPU. This can matter if you move around your computer a lot.

I do like this as a benefit. It definitely seems like a large air cooler could potentially warp your mobo after a while. Though the main drawback that I see on some reviews is that some of the pumps go bad after about a year

If it helps, mobo is a ASRock extreme6: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157295
cpu is the 3570k

[n0cturnal]

I do like this as a benefit. It definitely seems like a large air cooler could potentially warp your mobo after a while. Though the main drawback that I see on some reviews is that some of the pumps go bad after about a year

If it helps, mobo is a ASRock extreme6: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157295
cpu is the 3570k

It isn't really a problem if you have your computer stationary at home, but if you bring it to LANs or friends every so often I think a liquid cooler is the better choice.

[MickoLis]

the difference between what you listed and a decent aftermarker air cooler is minimal. if you want to overlook air is usually fine as long as you have a case with good air flow and good aircooler. if you want water, do it right and buy a proper liquid cooling system with a pump reservoir and cooling plate for you cpu and gpu. there are great videos on YouTube for that information.

[Divineknight13]

the quick and easy / dirty guide to cooling systems in your pc

True water cooling - for serious overclockers and pc show offs - you need to replenish your coolant after so many hrs of gaming which imo makes your com more of a hobby thing then a gamer thing

Corsair cooling - this is my personal choice ... with a effective push pull air system through your com you can clock up your gaming com nicely without major constant management on your system ( aka gives your more time to pwn face rather then checking if your com is ok every 8 hrs you use it ) im running a pushpull systems with a corsair h60 through my system

air cooling - the best air cooling system is a push pull system ... which means you wanna push air through the front of your computer and have fans extracting heat out of the top and the back of your system thus for increasing airflow over your graphics cards and cpu ... you also need to keep an eye out for cable management inside your system to increase air flow... you can get good cooling through this but if your looking at serious clocking on your processor your gunna need one hell of a heat sink on that thing

[Lumocolor]

As far as i've read the $30 evo 212 CPU air cooler gets about the same temps as most water cooling and you can put the extra $50-$60 on a better video card or something.

[CheezusCrust]

the quick and easy / dirty guide to cooling systems in your pc

True water cooling - for serious overclockers and pc show offs - you need to replenish your coolant after so many hrs of gaming which imo makes your com more of a hobby thing then a gamer thing

Corsair cooling - this is my personal choice ... with a effective push pull air system through your com you can clock up your gaming com nicely without major constant management on your system ( aka gives your more time to pwn face rather then checking if your com is ok every 8 hrs you use it ) im running a pushpull systems with a corsair h60 through my system

air cooling - the best air cooling system is a push pull system ... which means you wanna push air through the front of your computer and have fans extracting heat out of the top and the back of your system thus for increasing airflow over your graphics cards and cpu ... you also need to keep an eye out for cable management inside your system to increase air flow... you can get good cooling through this but if your looking at serious clocking on your processor your gunna need one hell of a heat sink on that thing

Corsair cooling?

I believe it's caled closed loop cooling, Corsair isn't the best at that.

[Sweetleader]

the quick and easy / dirty guide to cooling systems in your pc

True water cooling - for serious overclockers and pc show offs - you need to replenish your coolant after so many hrs of gaming which imo makes your com more of a hobby thing then a gamer thing

Corsair cooling - this is my personal choice ... with a effective push pull air system through your com you can clock up your gaming com nicely without major constant management on your system ( aka gives your more time to pwn face rather then checking if your com is ok every 8 hrs you use it ) im running a pushpull systems with a corsair h60 through my system

air cooling - the best air cooling system is a push pull system ... which means you wanna push air through the front of your computer and have fans extracting heat out of the top and the back of your system thus for increasing airflow over your graphics cards and cpu ... you also need to keep an eye out for cable management inside your system to increase air flow... you can get good cooling through this but if your looking at serious clocking on your processor your gunna need one hell of a heat sink on that thing

I think you are getting something confused here. I think you are thinking of people who use sub-zero coolants (ln2, helium, ect...) to push there systems to the extreme. A custom water cooling loop never needs refilled. However, I would still agree that a custom loop is more of a hobby project than for only gaming. We build these custom loops because we enjoy working on computers.

Also, you can overclock an Ivybridge CPU pretty damn high on air with no heat issues. They are very efficient processors. You also don't need to micro manage your computer that much when on air. Set up your overclock, prime 95 it to see what the max temp it reaches and to ensure you are stable, and you are golden for as long as you want.