Is watercooling noob-proof?
Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 1:25 pm
All hail, Caesars of the electrolyte.
I'm considering my first total PC overhaul in 4 years and have been wondering if water-cooling could help my circumstances.
We live on a farm, and it's almost impossible to create a dust-free environment. My PCs have always had more dust on them than your average roadie, and big fans in big numbers with big dust clouds every 6 months has been the norm.
Were I to do away with the fans on the CPU and GPU, I'm sure there'd be less dust settling down, and the possibilities for overclocking in the future become less scary.
If I was to water-cool a PC now, though, does it have to be very expensive?.
I'd most likely be looking for a Q6600 on some sort of X38 mobo for the future possibilities, with an HD3870 or 8800GT.
One new SATA DVD drive for now, with one old ATA hdd and one new SATA hdd for Vista-bashing.
I'd probably only want the CPU and GPU water-cooled, although the GPU might be going too far, as the hdd and dvd drives don't usually create problems, and my main concern is not so much for noise as for cooling.
So I've had a look around and read a lot of the threads here and there is no mention of 'all-in-one' kits. Is this because they are a bit too noisy for those who pursue truly noise-free gaming PCs?
I've seen a Gigabyte kit of pump, rad with fan, tubes, coolant and CPU block(albeit with a fan on top too) for £60. This is the same price as most of the highly-regarded pumps here, so is it a case of 'pay peanuts, get monkeys'?.
Is an external radiator with a fan relatively effective in cooling a CPU?.
Are such kits likely to be much noisier than 4 80mm fans and a PSU?
What's the minimum acceptible budget I should be aiming for to get safe temperatures if I go for a record in Bioshock?.
Thanks in advance.
Al.
I'm considering my first total PC overhaul in 4 years and have been wondering if water-cooling could help my circumstances.
We live on a farm, and it's almost impossible to create a dust-free environment. My PCs have always had more dust on them than your average roadie, and big fans in big numbers with big dust clouds every 6 months has been the norm.
Were I to do away with the fans on the CPU and GPU, I'm sure there'd be less dust settling down, and the possibilities for overclocking in the future become less scary.
If I was to water-cool a PC now, though, does it have to be very expensive?.
I'd most likely be looking for a Q6600 on some sort of X38 mobo for the future possibilities, with an HD3870 or 8800GT.
One new SATA DVD drive for now, with one old ATA hdd and one new SATA hdd for Vista-bashing.
I'd probably only want the CPU and GPU water-cooled, although the GPU might be going too far, as the hdd and dvd drives don't usually create problems, and my main concern is not so much for noise as for cooling.
So I've had a look around and read a lot of the threads here and there is no mention of 'all-in-one' kits. Is this because they are a bit too noisy for those who pursue truly noise-free gaming PCs?
I've seen a Gigabyte kit of pump, rad with fan, tubes, coolant and CPU block(albeit with a fan on top too) for £60. This is the same price as most of the highly-regarded pumps here, so is it a case of 'pay peanuts, get monkeys'?.
Is an external radiator with a fan relatively effective in cooling a CPU?.
Are such kits likely to be much noisier than 4 80mm fans and a PSU?
What's the minimum acceptible budget I should be aiming for to get safe temperatures if I go for a record in Bioshock?.
Thanks in advance.
Al.