water cooling best choice for todays rig?

e.g...
dual core 64bit FX-60, 4G ram, dual X1900 crossfires, 500G HD(s), 640W PSU, PPU, soundcard

with ATX (limitations) perhaps liquid cooling is the 'sane' choice at this point?

the higher you allow the ambient temp to be, the shorter the electronic lifespan at some point right?
 
I don't think you need water cooling. The fact is, with AMD chips at least, they are actually getting more efficient (using 90nm fabrication) and are actually generating less heat than their predecessors. It's only the Intel chips that suck silly amounts of power.

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I'd say good case ventillation would serve you better than risking the dangers of water cooling (electricity and water never seem a good combination to me!). Get large, 120mm fans that push a lot of air whilst being quiet (since they rotate slower).

the higher you allow the ambient temp to be, the shorter the electronic lifespan at some point right?
True, but ask yourself what is the usable life of, say, a CPU? It may last 20 years if run cooler, as opposed to ten, but would you really be using it that far in the future, anyway?
 
thanks (espicially for the chart). i was just thinking we were nearing the limits of ATX air cooling.

BTX was supposedly a solution to the ATX cooling limitations (i read..no 4Gz cpus without it)

water an electricity don't mix...but Harley (motorcycles) stayed aircooled for too long..water cooled engines are able to produce much more power. maybe the PC was heading the same way.
 
My pump leaked in my water cooling setup, it was an unfortunate incident to say the least. Now my water cooling system is gathering dust, though at some point I will use it again I am sure.
 
Don't be afraid to get yourself a watercooling kit! Just make sure you read up on it before you install it. Watercooling is perfectly safe (deionized water will not break your computer, it's not really conductive, and leaks tend to be small) if you take your time when installing it and make sure there's no leaks. Then you only need to check on it once in a while to check the waterlevels. Cleaning the system is usually done like two times per year or less, as long as you don't have light on the water and use a anti-algae solution.

Be aware that watercooling still follows the laws of physics! You need airflow for good cooling, however passive systems are perfectly fine with most systems as long as you don't expect great overclocking results. Also stay away from stupid designs (generally one fan systems or systems with small radiators) as they tend to be highly priced (the hey it looks cool! designs) and have disappointing performance, spend a couple of evenings examining your options. Watercooling will generally give you good cooling or ok cooling and low noise (the loudest component in my watercooled system was the PSU, which is a lownoise model).

Pros: Good cooling, low noise

Cons: Price (often ~2-3 times the expense of a highend heatsink/fan), takes time to install, not ideal if you have a habit of being in your case and moving things around alot (you should test for leaks if you bumped into a hose for example)

People who has had accidents with watercooling has often ignored what other users of watercooling is screaming at them - take your time and read up on what you're getting yourself into and let the installation take the time it needs - including testing for leaks! :rolleyes:
And people claiming that it's dangerous don't really know what they're talking about, they're just repeating stuff learnt in physics lessons (yes tapwater conducts a little electricity - which is one reason why it is not used in watercooling) or what others (who also don't have a clue) have said.

As a note for others thinking of watercooling; I've had two leaks in my system with water running over components with the system powered on. Once a loose hose with a very small leak, mere drops fell on a NIC. And once the plastic on my cpu block cracked (bad mounting) and fairly large amounts of water washed over the motherboard (say up to 1/5th or even 1/3rd of a deciliter) while running. And NOTHING was damaged.
Both times it was my fault for not testing and examining the installation enough. The cpu block cracked after 1/2 a year in pretty much around the clock use (I had mounted it 180 degrees wrong:oops:). And I'll be watercooling my system in a month again (not enough cash for gpu block yet) and there's some pretty expensive components that I wont even worry about destroying because of the watercooling - because I know what to do and what not to do.

I've actually started to think about mounting a laptop harddrive in my computer to reduce noise as I fear that my very quiet Samsung P120S will be making the most noise. And this will be a high end computer with a heavily overclocked dual core opteron running fully loaded around the clock. So I hope I've encouraged some of you to take the step to watercooling.. You'll be amazed at the simplicity of it and how quiet your system becomes. If you want advice don't hesitate to ask ;)
 
maaoouud said:
...(deionized water will not break your computer, it's not really conductive, and leaks tend to be small) ...
Ok ill fill a bathtub up with deionized water, and u get in, then ill toss a pluged in radio...lol Not "realy" conductive!. Distilled then deionized would be the bestchoice in a water system, and a leak would still be a bad bad thing. But the quality of water is very suspect if u dont know where it realy came from.
 
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I've been watercooling for a year or so now (for the purposes of silence, not for overcl0ckz0r to getz my fram3z up or any of that shite). The upside -- yeah a decent w/c setup will cope with any heat you want to throw at it and do so (generally) in a very quiet manner. The downside -- besides the expense it's a bloody PITA to set up and to alter. Swapping a graphics card becomes a major operation.

It's stopped me fiddling with my rig, which in turn has meant that I've mucked it up less, and I've spent less random money on it. But I've had less fun in many ways. I'm rebuilding in a few months and my new setup won't be w/c; silent cooling tech has advanced a fair bit in the past few years so I can achieve what I want without the old H2O.
 
maaoouud said:
Don't be afraid to get yourself a watercooling kit! Just make sure you read up on it before you install it. Watercooling is perfectly safe (deionized water will not break your computer, it's not really conductive, and leaks tend to be small) ... and use a anti-algae solution.

This part annoys me

If you add ions back to the solution then suddenly it will conduct electricity again, I am not really sure why they therefore insist you use DI water...

In addition it is likely that your motherboard has residual material that will cause the water to be contaminated in a leak.

BTW my leak was in the pump, that worked fine for months and then just began leaking. And no it actually did not do any damage to components, b/c I had the pump on the bottom of the case, but it was still quite a mess.

It was a swiftech kit btw, I got an enheim pump afterwards and it worked flawlessly, now though I have a different mobo and CPU and the wateblock won't fit so there is no use to the system till I get a new block.

Nuttball has a very good point too, I muck about in my rig all the time swapping something or other, and the watercooling is to much of a pain to accomplish that. If you set it up andleave it though it might well be worth it,but I am changing CPU, video crad, mobo, and HDD quite often as new deals come and go.
 
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If you want the best performance for your money, I think the water / phase cooling systems are becoming a cheaper option than buying that very best processor. Especially something like this.

Mainly because we hit the wall, for air cooled speeds. They won't improve much, if any, anymore. And while multi-core is interesting, it won't offer a large speed improvement today, with current applications.
 
i just noticed. of the 2 build to order companies (why not more?) for crossfire (from ati website) 1 (all american computers) is watercooled. monarch is aircooled.

all american rig has fewer options. and what i'd like to build is around $5200
monarch has more options and is around $3200 (w 2x the RAM (4G) too)

equivalent fx60, dual x1900 512M (xtx and crossfire), 620W PSU.

2 grand for water cooling? or just markup philosophies?
 
You can get phase cooling (MUCH better!) for 300. See the link above. And you would be better off building your own rig in any case.
 
since im not a hardware expert. i look to the builders for combos or brands that are likely to work. im afraid i wouldn't get compatible or proven combos just selecting components from a catalog.

unfortunately i had hoped for more "build to suit" firms to survey.
 
The amount of electricity the water would conduct would most likely be very low indeed (imagine the resistance the water will have compared to the circuit - actually that may be the wrong way of thinking.. it should be how much current it'll actually conduct). I've heard of people getting water in the agp slot (high current - and one 12V line I think) and killing motherboard/graphics but those cases have been people not leaktesting and spilling alot of water into the slot (I don't know what additives were used and if deionized water was used). Besides some obvious planning when you install the kit enables you to pretty much avoid cases where you'd potentially get catastrophic results if the water found it's way there - you don't place the reservoir and pump above the vent for the PSU. Likewise if you're afraid of leaks just put some paper or some other material that'll soat up water and let it evaporate before it could become a problem.

Subzero (or any cooling that cools something to temperatures below ambient) cooling such as phase cooling has their own problems and are even more prone to problems with water since moisture can form once you have a temperature difference of more than 10 degrees. You're pretty much forced to use dielectric grease to insulate electrical components from potential moisture forming, or use insulating materials (tape plastic foam on the motherboard). Also worth noting is that they are not that quiet.

Sxotty part of the reason you use deionized water because it's clean and don't carry impurities that would cause corruption of the components (read waterblocks). Also the amount of ions present in the water heavily influences it's ability to conduct electricity. **

Also nothing prevents you from slobbering dielectric grease over the mainboard/components if you're afraid your mounting of the watercooling is poor. Well, apart from the obvious mess it makes.

** EDIT: Most watercoolers use waterwetter to improve the properties of the water (reduces the tension between watermolecules) and it has nice sideeffects - it'll help prevent corrosion from occuring and thus ions forming and algae don't like it.

EDIT2: Cartoon Corpse, unfortunately prebuilt watercooled systems are still ripoffs. A decent watercooling kit should cost you about 300USD, if you buy separate components then you can put a cheaper system together. However that does require some basic technical knowledge and alot of reading. Actually getting into watercooling requires many hours of reading and researching (I think I mentioned this before) but the benefits are very much worth the effort in my oppinion.
Nutball, regular silent cooling has improved alot, you're quite right about that. But you'll still be somewhat limited in what kind of system you can put together and still have it "silent". Also with watercooling the water is simply a conductor for the heat, you will still have to have fans (if not using passive cooling) just as a silent aircooling system would have, the diffrence is that you'll have a much larger area to transfer that heat to the air and can use more (more fans and slower/not as loud) quiet fans. I was very tempted to put together a system that was entirely passive, but the cost was simply too much for me to bear - those huge passive radiators do not come cheap.
 
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Gigabyte 3D Aurora :love::love::love::love:

The case has THREE 120mm fans, one infront with a vent preinstalled, and two in back, and say for some reason you decide to go to water cooling later own you can use a good external raditor and the case holes on the back with rubber mounts just for that. Not to mention that if you want to you, you can get the version of the case with the grill side add a super thin filter material over it and then your graphics cards fans will suck some cool air through that too. Add a top blowhole to the case and its the best air cooling system I've set my eyes upon. Plus its sexy, IMO. :love::love::love:
 
I highly doubt that the upcoming OCZ phase change unit is anything near what I'd call quiet.
A good watercooling setup that's built to be quiet should be below 25db, or even 20db.
The OCZ unit seems to have space for one 12-14cm fan. That fan needs to remove something like 150W of heat I suspect. Sure as temperatures in the radiator goes up, compared to ambient air, the cooling efficiency of that radiator increases. And then there's the compressor that's bound to make a bit of noise (for comparision open the door to your refridgerator and let it's temperature rise to make the compressor go to work).

That said, I must admit to being extremely interested in the kit. At that price (I just hope it wont be overpriced in Sweden) and with a few modifications (maybe cooling it with a watercooler) it might just land on a level of sound that I could learn live with.:devilish:
Or I'll just have to move the computer out of the room and get longer cables :LOL:
 
Cartoon Corpse said:
since im not a hardware expert. i look to the builders for combos or brands that are likely to work. im afraid i wouldn't get compatible or proven combos just selecting components from a catalog.

unfortunately i had hoped for more "build to suit" firms to survey.
You don't need to be an expert man, it is pretty failsafe in general. Worst case call up the company you are buying from and say will this work together they will tell you. Further you can always ask on here and people will hook you up with good info. Any motherboard from Asus, Abit, Tyan and some others not in my head right now will work well if you don't buy the first revision.
 
That was on toms as well, or maybe it was a link to it, but that is such a silly idea.

If you want to do something wierd get flourienert and use that, it is much niftier.
 
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