With the new crop of high performance air coolers, can you tell me why anyone should bother with a messy water cooling system (like I do)? Personally, I can think of only two good things, one being the opportunity to cool a Raptor or other high performance thus whiney hard disc while completetely silencing it (like I do).

BUT:
It takes an ambitious hobbyist to painstakingly install the pump in elastic cords, or it will make more noise than the quiet 5V CPU and chassi fans it is supposed to replace.
There is always a small risk that something will start to leak or corrode over time.
The computer gets heavy and above all messy, with hoses blocking access to the internals.
If something on the loop must be replaced it often turns out a nightmare to get the old out and the new in. The water loop must be clamped and or emptied, with fluid guaranteed to be dropping on the computer internals anyway and then there's the refilling of the thing again. (I just replaced my watercooled Raptor, covered with industrial sound dampening panels.)
The only other thing that is hard to make quiet is the PSU, and few are prepared for w/c. Which is probably good , since mixing 230 V (EU) and water takes caution for you guys and is downright lethal for a home professor like me.
Either way, the more watts you have to cool, the bigger, better, more radiators (passive or active) it takes. If a ducted air cooled heatsink is so effective, then what's the advantage of pumping the heat to a radiator some 15 cm down the line instead of building an air duct?

You may say that the quietest rig is one with a thouroughly damped pump and totally passive rads and you would probably be right. But the price for going from a really really quiet air cooled machine to perceived silence can hardly be justified unless you're a real freak even by SPCR standards.
My point is that those rads either make some subtle little noise (thus rendering it on par with good air cooling) or demands lots of space, enthusiasm and most likely money (E.g. Zalman Reserator and Innovatek HTCS or similar DIY) not to mention it makes the computer practically immobile.


Now, that other good thing about w/c I was talking about, that is something you air cooling guys can hardly hope to match:

The Geek Factor is just way higher.

Your asking why would anyone watercool when such great aircooling products are out. Well, in reality, most don’t! Us watercoolers are a pretty fringe lot. Hey, even if there were zero advantages to watercooling, I’m sure there would be fringe communities out there doing so. At least it’s that way for just about everything I can think of.

Just a few off the top of my head for you though.

With a watercooling system you can just add another rad, etc. if you wattage needs become greater. Last time I checked you couldn't do that with your heatsink.

You can setup a truly passive, zero-fan machine. I don't think you've ever really be able to do that with aircooling. [DrCR recalls how Zalman recommended a room fan for their TNT case for higher wattage use. Doesn’t that defeat the point?…]

You can have a remote setup, i.e. your pump, rad, cooper piping running though your basement, whatever, remote, bury your harddrives, and have a genuinely noiseless setup with the expectation of maybe your optical drives. I guess you could duct in air from a remote location to your cpu, though I wonder how effectively.

You can overclock the living daylights out of your CPU and do it quietly. (the number one plug for watercooling IMHO)

Man, the list goes one. You are 100% right though, it takes some knowhow, skill, and a measure of geekieness (though much less geekieness than computer software realms and more hands-on skill IMHO). And sure, you can have a very geeky, modded, extreme air cooled setup too. Sure, I love good aircooled products too. For my non-computer geeky peers, products like the Thermalright XP120 are just perfect.


DrCR

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One of the proud, the few, to mix ProCooling and SPCR.

Well, for one thing, I don't understand why anyone needs to suspend their pump in elastic! Mine are on the bottom of their respective cases sat on small washing-up sponges. Can't hear em, can't feel em.

Leaks, why should I get any leaks? Once the system is installed and leak-tested, why should it suddenly leak?

Are the new air-coolers so much better? Depends on whether you want silence at stock or silence when over-clocked. I don't believe I could over-clock to the level I do without water-cooling because with air, my wife would complain about the noise.

I think the #1 reason for watercooling is overclocking, not silencing. From what I read it can outperform air cooling in a top end O/C'd rig, and do it moderately quietly.

Personally, I don't overclock (much) and I've looked into watercooling many times before, but for my purposes (medium performance, low noise, low cost) I've never been able to justify it. And as mentioned, air cooling technology is more than keeping up with increases in heat generation (for now), and is much simpler to install.

But I certainly don't think it's obselete, just serving a slightly different market (i.e. geeks ). And who knows, in a few years time it could become mainstream with advances in w/c technology and ever increasing heat output of processors/graphics cards.

Watercooling often equals modding for a good setup. However, we might start seeing it more often in system units (rather than whiteboxes). Perhaps something like Apples 'liquid' cooling in its new G5.

The cost issue is really only the initial cost. For example, I really doubt I'll be able to effectively use my $50USD aftermarket heatsink on a CPU 4+ years from now, but I most certainly will be able to use my Iwaki MD-20Z, G4 Storm, heatercores, etc. for my future setups. Watercooling is one of the few computer arenas where the parts do not necessarily become obsolete in later years.

DrCR

________

True, but then you don't have the excuse to buy a huge sexy new heatsink when the XP-120 or the new crop of bling tower coolers come out!!

OK, I admit I'm a geek too! (why else would I be here )

Just because your waterblock isn't obsolete doesn't mean you can't buy a new one anyway.


Have you seen the new Storm G4?

Well, I agree with you all.
Water cooling is better than air cooling for overclocking purposes.

The problem is that w/c has a reputation of being the holy grail of silence and people here continue to ask questions like "I wanna w/c for silence, which extreme rad should i hook up on wich industrial grade pump?" and there won't be anyone telling them the machine isn't going to be all that quiet compared to a ducted air cooled case with top heatsinks.
That rad probably scored top on some ExtremeOverclockingBeyondInsanity site when coupled with their reference 80 cfm Delta fan.

Concerning the o/c business:
Not many SPCR folks o/c. It's just not the way to go if you want a quieter machine. Moreover, the rational reasons for o/c are worse off than ever before.
Just a few years ago new software left any home computer feeling old and outpowered in less than a year. That's no longer the case. Today, a two year old pc (2 GHz, 512Mb) can still handle it with ease. To o/c your pc 15% is basically to make it last some 3 months longer! Those three months, that you otherwise would have to wait for a faster CPU to become available for the same price, are becoming less and less interesting if a computer can now last several years, wouldn't you think?
Now I won't argue the fun of overclocking. But my take on this is that today most people just want their pc to be stable, non-irritating, quiet, un-ugly, not-to-big and generally user-friendly. (Especially QUIET, naturally. No swearing in the church here.) It seems overclocking is firmly contraproductive for all but a dwindling group of enthusiasts.

Should I take up o/c again I'd go for a Vapochill with lots of neon lights anyway. Definitely scoring better on any geeky lan party.


Before you hack me to pieces, let me again clarify:
I acknowledge there are still some good reasons for water cooling. Cooling noisy hdds and / or using passive rads hold value for SPCR readers.


Btw, HaloJones, things get older. Tubes can get dry and develop cracks, aluminium details may corrode, seals can slowly wear down. I know many properly installed (not DIY, mind you) w/c systems that over time started to leak. Or pumps dying.
What great pump are you using? I only tried differnet Eheims and they all vibrate a lot and make some subtle noise even when suspended.

Just remembered I also at the time appreciated the opportunity to be able to move the w/c system to my next generation computer. But that means scrapping the old one or buying new coolers anywway. New coolers for the old computer makes no sense, since you can bet your ass there will be new coolers out there making your old setup look ridiculous. I always keep old computers for various reasons. Don't you?

I'm not completely sure that you can accurately say that you can't do watercooling more quietly than aircooling. The trouble with watercooling is that most of it is still a bit behind the curve, silencing wise. It's about where high-end air cooling was two years ago, where the goal was all performance and no concern over noise.

Just look at the Res1: it boasts cooling power on par with the best aircooling, yet its quieter than any fanned cooler could ever be.

If you assume that CPU's will continue to get hotter, then I think you'll see more and more watercooling-type solutions. Aircooling is getting really close to the limits of what it can do (quietly at least)...you really can't get much bigger/heavier than they are now.

WC won't ever be necessary, its too complicated/expensive for that, but it won't likely ever go away either.


As for overclocking: you're completely right on. It's a dying, increasingly pointless hobby. The performance gains are essentially useless now. (the few people that really are CPU-limited in their tasks are not the same people who overclock) When I could take my 350mhz K6 to 550Mhz, that was a useful speed increase. Taking a 3200Mhz machine to 3400Mhz doesn't do anything.


Not that OC'ing will ever go away completely either...there will always be a need for something by which the geeks of the world can measure their penises. OC'd CPU's are the muscle-cars of the online world.

But other than that, I think you're right about everything you wrote, Rusty. Although I'm not so sure future CPU's will require more and more watts. There are at least some tendencies and demands pointing towards a trend break. We can at least hope?

actually tomshardware had a review of a sanyo denki watercooler that may be used in larger computer builders and maybe even become the stock cooler. since current designs are becoming too noisy for an office envoirment.

Also I think Ocing will more likely die when processors start putting out 130W+ watts. and we're using on chip pelts like the ones AMD patented to cool their super small 65nm cores, even then i think it won't.

Some people have gotten 2.4c's to 3.4ghz and more. I would not call that useless. even when we're done with ocing cpu's we still have the gpu and ram etc..

Overclocking is a want thing more than a need thing most of the time. It's not necessary to be able to play Doom 3 at 1280x960 with 16X aniso and 8X FSAA and maxed out grafx detail, but there are people who seriously want this, or even crazier like the same thing at 1600x1200. Your options to achieve that are either buying an $800 CPU and $500 GPU all at once, or spending $200 on a CPU, $400 on a GPU and $300 on water cooling and overclocking it to the same performance level. that's $1300 vs. $900 for the same (minimum) performance. Of course it's true that on the same token if you bought the $800 CPU and the $500 GPU and then added on the $300 water cooling you'd likely be able to overclock to even higher rates than the $900 setup will, but at that rate you'll also likely be looking to crazier things like peltier or phase change.

Need? Not at all.

Want? Sure, some people do want it. That's why they seek it. It's not obsolete to people who want this sort of thing, and people who want this sort of thing will likely never disappear completely, either.

-Ed

Need vs want - in that sense OC'ers are just the same as us. We don't need to make our PCs any quieter (once they get to a certain point) but I just can't stop myself tinkering with my setup to improve airflow/reduce noise just that little bit.

For the more serious PC enthusiasts among us it's a hobby and it's fun, whichever branch you take - OC'ing, watercooling, silencing, case modding, whatever. It's rarely a need thing when it gets to a certain stage

Well, as some people have cited in the other thread about why we build silent rigs, there are professionals in here who literally need their machines to be silent or extremely close to silent in order to actually do the noise sensitive work they are engaged in.

I'm still trying to figure out what sort of professional requirement would involve overclocking.

I don't think any production environment should run an overclocked machine. If its absolutely critical, the extra performance would not be worth the risks. On top of that, if such an organization does in fact require cutting edge performance, they should allocate the funds necessary for the hardware.

Preach it brother! Right on the money.



Ahem to that as well. A good watercooling setup simply requires, well, a lot of hassle. Though I guess some WC vendors could start making there own system units / whiteboxes. But then the price tag really starts going through the roof i.e. Alienware.


You guys consider taking a 3000+ to 3200+ overclocking?! No, no overclocking is taking what was a $40 1600+ Duron, modding its cache to T-Bird specs, and running at 2.4GHz (~3400+). We're talking about taking a $40 and turning it into, what, $300 at the time of the Duron's release. Doesn't sound like folly to me. Taking a 2600+M to ~"4200+" specs doesn't sound like folly to me. Take what was a $150 or so A64 3000+ and a $100 motherboard and run it at "3600+" which was a $400+ CPU and required a $200+ motherboard. You're taking $250 and turning it into $600. Not folly to me. Then of couse, you have all the ATI video card modding history.

What it overclocking comes down to is knowing what chips and motherboards, etc. are good and using that to your advantage. With overclocking and the right knowhow, you can pay for a budget computer and have the highest end (and often beyond the highest end stock compoents). You can, as it were, have your cake and eat it too. Why doesn't everyone OC (I guess what some would say extreme OC)? Well, it requires a lot of knowhow and confidence in what you know. Overclocking isn't all that different than silencing. It takes... forum lurking!

DrCR
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generally, faster (and disproportionately more expensive) CPUs made on the same process (any given one) won't overclock as well as the lower-end ones... not a big deal if one is intent on throwing their money down a hole, but sort of justifies simply spending less and still overclocking. not to mention even if you could still oc the highest CPU in a line by say >30-40%, you'd still be paying the gigantic premium.
nothing particularly magical or dangerous about overclocking either, all CPUs in any given line are basically the same, just sorted out (and priced) based on which happen to work better when all is said and done. running an overclocked CPU in a nice environment can't be worse than running a CPU at stock speed in a typical environment where cases are shoved up against walls and never cleaned, and manufacturers presumably test under rather poor conditions.

edit: i agree that most people aren't going to "need" to overclock (except perhaps contractors that do most of their work on their own PCs? hard to imagine any other circumstances), but you could say the same of audio PCs - leave it to the professionals, buy a $3000 enclosure.

The overclockers are circling the wagons.

If you take away the vanity of being able to tell your buddies that you're running your 2600 at 3800 speeds, what does overclocking an already fast chip gain you? Besides the hobbiest aspect of , "how fast can I get it to run?"

With "old" chips, an increase of 25-40% meant huge leaps in meaningful performance. Running a current chip 25% faster rarely results in any perceptible performance boost. (bumping your benchmark scores does not count as "meaningful", that's more penis measuring )

Gaming is perhaps the only area where a significant OC can affect performance, but even then the CPU is usually not the limiting factor.


......stirs the pot some more......

Rusty, I can think of a few reasons for wanting to OC. (Note: I do not overclock any of my machines)

I sometimes dabble with Raytracing, and my renderings can take several days. 25% higher speed would mean a lot there. Other people like to do distributed computing. An extra 25% folding performance isn't to shabby.

Unfortunately, not the case with GPUs like 6800GT/Ultra and VPUs like X800XT/XT PE.

The situation has simply changed once again. Pairing, for example, a K7 at 1800Mhz to a GeForce 6800 Ultra is a waste of money on the GPU; a 6800GT would literally perform exactly the same on this CPU in 95% of cases (not counting ridiculous insanity like 1600x1200 16X aniso and 8X FSAA in Doom3 and similar lunatic settings).

This was not the case with Radeon 9X00/GeForceFX and older VPUs & GPUs. The highest end of the latest generation is such a massive performance leap that the CPU and its platform are very much a limiting factor.

Sorry to disagree with you on that one Russ, but it's simply a fact with the latest graphics accelerators; nVIDIA and ATi have completely changed the system around again.

Oh well, you did say, "usually."

Of course, as you and I both know, it only matters if you're going for the last ounce of eye candy. A standard $200 GPU like a 9700 and a well matched CPU like a K7 at 2GHz would be, "perfectly fine," to run any game, even Doom 3, comfortably at low-mid level quality settings, anyway. It's a matter of wanting the higher resolution, sharper textures, softer jaggies etc.

That's why this overclocking thing is only done by <1% of the people that actually have computers (including the millions who bought a Dell, use AOL and are happy happy with it). Looking specifically at people who built their own systems, I'm sure it's still easily <10%. And even in the case of those <10%, only maybe ~10% of those have the necessary 6800/X800 card as well as a valid reason for doing it (People who do it to get 120fps rather than, "just," 100fps are just plain wasting their time, energy and money)--this is why the same people don't just overclock their CPUs, but look for the highest possible FSB/HTT speed at that maximum clock rate on the CPU, as well as overclocking the GPU/VPU and the graphics memory--any place where noticeable gains can be made, will be made, since it's just so difficult to get playable framerates with absolutely maxed out eye candy on the latest, heaviest games.

I'm just making the case for the ~10% of the <10% of the <1% of the people who actually have computers. Statistically insignificant? Maybe (but not according to companies catering to overclockers, huh? ), but I'm still one of them.

These are subjective things. There will always be a split between group A and group B on subjective matters. Nobody needs a car that can do the quarter mile in under 12 seconds, and not many people even want one, but there are people who want this and more (the, "10 second," car, for example). Asking, "what's the good in having a car that can make 1/4 mile in under 12 seconds?" Is like asking, "What's the good in having super high resolution, super sharp textures and super jaggy-less imaging?" No need at all, just pure want--and that is a subjective matter. I don't think there's any good grounds to argue on things in regards to taste.

-Ed

In fact, according to Ken Huang in the Shuttle interview: Which is pretty scary!

But I guess that is enough!

there's no way it's 10% of 10% of 10% of 10% of 10% etc etc, look at the target audience for any high-end video card, they're all going to at least try OCing it.

and you aren't stirring anything Ralf, you're more right than you think you are - most people don't need anything faster than anything Via sells to begin with.

You mean Russ? Yes, he's right for 99% of the time, just not the 1% of the time I mentioned.

No pot stirring at all; if you're talking about 99% of the time, you may as well be right anyway, considering the statement, "there's an exception to every rule."

And why does everyone keep calling me Ralf!?!

yeah, meant rusty, no i didn't get him confused with ralf, just didn't double check original post before i submitted.
and not sure what you mean by 99% of the time - i'm just saying that if overclocking is silly because you can get another 25-40% out of your already-amazing CPU, it's just as silly getting that CPU in the first place when one that's 3 years old will almost certainly do you just as well.
by extension, then, a lot of people that bother buying high-end (but still intended for joe consumer) equipment will probably want to push it as far as it can go. yeah, it's still not a majority, but i think (for the sake of example) it's worth making the distinction between 10% of 10% of 10% (as the chance of an ordinary person with any new or old pc suddenly deciding they want to try ocing) versus, say, 50% of the people who buy an FX53 and X800XT for any reason deeper than "price tag is ridiculous, must be good".

or a better way to put it, barely anyone complains about Dell's crippled BIOSes, because they don't know don't care.

i wouldn't really consider myself an ocer, but the way i see it is that since the manufacturers themselves don't really know what they're getting when they turn the crank, why should i accept the number on the box? my opinion would change if it were somehow possible to make any modern cpu/gpu/ram that ran perfectly at a predetermined speed.

edit: and trying to get 120fps instead of 100fps isn't that silly, because it means your minimum fps will also be higher, and that your setup is more future proof... the stupidity comes in when people try to argue that actually playing at 120fps looks better than at 100fps.

Oh, I agree 100% that overclocking to get a 100+ extra fps on a benchmark that is well over a gazillionfps already is nuts. (Quake3 anyone?) Of course, some overclock because they believe their minimum frame rate shouldn't be less then their high frequeny montior refresh rate. But as a flight simmer, I'm happy with a minimum refresh rate at 23fps (very happy if I can meet this when they first come out, Lomac was a killer when it was released lol).

That's why I usally find my stable max and max max OC soon after I buy and then run at stock settings for the following year at least. Perhaps longer than two years even. But then around that time out comes an eye candied game that I want to run at the same resolution and image quality settings as I have on games in the past. That's when I start overclocking.

Now it is true there are times when I overclock before then, but usually only temporary for particular jobs, like video rendering for example.

DrCR

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My in progress setup: quazi-external (more like modular) rad box + 'reserator' (actually an uninsulated waterheater tank):
My New WC Setup. Any Comments or Suggestions? (ProCooling)
Any Wattage to Heatercore Surface Area Ratio? (PcPer)
What fan and layout setup are you using on your heatercore? (SPCR)
What am I running now?
Primary: 900MHz T-bird, 512MB PC133 CL3, 9600XT AIW (just got it for $155 w/ shipping)...don't laugh lol, she's 4+ years old now and I only upgrade my primary ever 4-5 years.
Secondary: 2600+ @ stock, 2.4GHz stable on Zalman 6000AlCu (bad HS choice. Pre SPCR days), 2x256MB PC3200 DC CL3

I started a new thread about this in "the silent front" section.

I want to go and vote!

Seriously? There's a lot. Think raytracing, video editing, or some kind of encoding, which all has been mentioned in this thread I believe. They all require raw CPU power by the megahertz's. But as someone mentioned, if one needs it so much they should have the fundings to buy the necessary computing power. Well, maybe they don't. There is actually people sitting at home rendering more or less complete movies, even if it isn't Toy Story or Monster's Inc.

I think it's kind of silly being a computer professional, which you are when writing for SPCR, and saying you can't figure out what professional requirement would involve overclocking. I also understand that Pixar probably don't run overclocked CPU's because they don't have to, but not everyone is Pixar or have their fundings. For a lot of people, a 5% or 10% increase in CPU processing power will be a significant change.

And for all of you saying there's no difference between 100 and 120 FPS - sorry to tell you this, but you are so wrong. Sorry to "push you down", but you obviously haven't played FPS games on a really high level, and you shouldn't talk about what you don't have enough experience to talk about. I get so upset when I read the things you write.

A couple of years ago I played in a top ~8 Quake 3 clan in Sweden. Considering how big Q3 was then, and the fact that Sweden has a history of being really good at FPS gaming, I'd say I really know what FPS gaming is all about and what it requires, and that I know what I'm talking about.

First of all, I'm perfectly aware that if I stare at a blank screen, my eyes can't discerne the difference between 300 and 200 FPS, even though you can easily notice the difference between 85 and 120 FPS. Many people tend to think like when thinking about TV's.. "I can't tell it's really just pictures showing at 24 FPS, so my eyes can't see more than 24 FPS". Everybody knows how easy it is to tell the difference between 60 and 85 FPS. But that's not what you talk about when talking about FPS.

1) You talk about minimum FPS. That means, when you say you have "100 FPS", that means you have 100 FPS at the worst moment, when your whole screen is filled with moving stuff. Everybody can have 500 FPS staring at a wall - the point is maintaining that FPS while in the heaviest fight, with multiple enemies, rockets and fire shooting everywhere. Translate this into benchmarks, this most often means that you have to have hundreds of FPS to be sure that you won't suffer from too low FPS while in the heaviest fights.

2) Another point with high FPS is that while you may have 200 FPS while just runnning around, you also have to have those FPS when you make a 180 degree turn in a split second. Having 85 average FPS just won't do it in those situations. You have to have a lot more to be able to compensate for the losses you face when turning fast/being in those resource-hogging moments.

Ok, ranting over.. sorry if I come about as being uptight - I just don't like when I think that people talk about stuff they only have artificial experience with. Try playing a FPS game at a national/international level (granted that it's a fast-paced game like Q3 for example) at a benchmarked average 100 FPS and see if you don't notice the difference when playing at a benchmarked 200 FPS. Trust me, you will notice the difference, if you play long enough.

Ecto, you skipped the word "professional" in Ed's post. "Professional" implies in business; "sitting at home" is not professional. As someone who works in a field where raytracing is done professionally, I can assure you that no one is running OC'd machines at their business (no one that I've ever heard of at least). Feel free to insert some a comment about "I just don't like when I think that people talk about stuff they only have artificial experience with", here.


As entertaining as your rant about gaming FPS' was, I'm not exactly clear who you were directing it towards. Was it DrCR, who said, "Oh, I agree 100% that overclocking to get a 100+ extra fps on a benchmark that is well over a gazillionfps already is nuts. "? or me where I said, "Gaming is perhaps the only area where a significant OC can affect performance"?

As I said, a nice rant, but no one in this thread said anything about low FPS being better.