What Kind of Cooling System Do You Think is Best?

[Zephyr2011]

Howdy all, I'm looking into constructing a new computer (and I'll probly be making more threads looking for advice as I get closer to actually making purchases and such near August) and I've been wondering weather I should stick with a coventional fan cooling system (currently the main graphics cards I'm looking at have individual fans) or a liquid cooling system. I'm not sure which would be most efficient or if it's really worth spending a ton of money on a cooling system when the computer will only be in use for a couple hours at a time running games like New Vegas and (eventually) Skyrim on full detail but I'm looking into HD graphics cards and such so they should be more than capable of handling this so considering how little at a time the computer will be in use I'm not sure if it's really worth getting an extreme coolig system or not. Please let me know your toughts and thank you all for your time.

 

P.S. The reason I stuck 'other' as another category is because I know a little about computers but am by no means an expert so I'm not sure if there are even more types of cooling systems out there.

[Fonger]

it's probably changed in the past few years - - -

 

but

 

after many months hard search

 

found out that liquid systems require yearly disassembly, cleaning and leak checks ---- far too much work and prone to substantial errors for most mortals.

 

Have seen what looks like self contained liquid cooling blocks --- but why bother with liquid when metal pipe (air) cooling blocks also exist and are by definition - not prone to leaks.

[Qwaxalot]

What Fonger said.

 

Unless you are doing something outrageous, or planning on substantial overclocks, you'll be fine with air cooling, and a whole lot happier in the long run.

[Zephyr2011]

Ok thanks for your input. I've been doing more research on NewEgg and found a case with 7 existing fans...pretty nice especially considering my planned mother board has ceramix tech for better heat distributon and management, my power source a 130mm fan and my graphics card its own indiviual fans. It may sound akin to a microwave but it's not going to over heat anytime soon with that set up (and the microwave is a non-issue as it will be about 15 feet from me and I have surround sound mounted in the room that will be hookd up to my rig)

[urbex]

Depends. SLi GTX 570s? You'll want watercooling.

[Feltmarskal]

Air cooling is the simplest. The only negative thing about air cooling is the noise, but it's not pretty bad. When you use your speakers or headset, you'll barely notice the noise. My Antec 1200 case has a system temperature of 26C with the 6 standard fans. If you want it simple then pick air cooling, but if you want a crazy system and doing some extreme overclocking, then pick water cooling.

[mcole254]

Air cooling:

Pros:

-cheaper

-no maintenance

-good cooling (based on what you get ie venom, d-14, megahalem)

Cons:

-good coolers are big and heavy (the can block ram slots)

-based on what fans you have, can be quite noisy

 

Water

Pro:

-unbeatable temperature performance (compared to air)

-customizable

-based on setup can take up less room on/over the mobo

Cons:

-cost

-complexity

-require some maintenance (though using distiled water and PT nuke there have been those who have gone 2 years without cleaning and no growth)

-chance of leaking (though if you properly set up your loop, this is a very low probability now a days)

 

Keep in mind that this is purely subjective and I do not consider the prepackaged water cooling (Corsair h50/70) under the water cooling category.

Edited January 10, 2011 by mcole254

[Vagrant0]

Best cooling? Full submersion in liquid nitrogen in a sealed container. It's far beyond what any normal person could afford or be able to maintain, but you can overclock like mad.

 

Fonger pretty much nailed it down... Although air cooling systems can also need some occasional maintainence to clean out any dust and to check out the fans. I was reminded this recently when I noticed my computer running a bit warm. I opened it up and found that the processor heatsink had a solid, paper thin, layer of dust between the fan and the grill. After removing it I was a whole 10 degrees cooler.

 

For liquid systems, in my opinion it's just not worth the effort, even if you are doing things with high demands, it usually makes more sense to just go with a case that has good airflow and install some reasonably good fans (in cubic feet per second, not just size and rpm). Most processors these days can handle a little overclocking even with stock fans. You still have to know what the heck you're doing if you don't want to fry something though.

[Paxan_1]

Hi,

 

a good build air cooling is cheap and can be silent. For example, i have a tower cooler with a 120mm Noctua fan at 1000rpm for my C2Q 9450. It is overclocked to 3.6GHz and the temperatures are okay. Well, maybe with watercooling you can have some lower temperatures, but i'm not sure if you need it. The cpu can handle up to 90°C without being damaged.

And another advantage of air cooling, it is easy to install and you can change components without ripping of your whole system ;)

[CommanderCrazy]

A rig completely submerged in mineral oil.

 

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php