Is custom loop water cooling actually worth it in terms of silence if you're not a heavy overcocker.
I mean, some look pretty slick, but for the CPU you can just slap on an NH-D15 or whatever and it's dead silent.
For the GPU most cards now don't even spin the fan under light load and I presume under heavy load, you would also have noise with water cooling.
I'm especially worried about pump noise and maintenance when you want to add radiators or swap CPU or graphics cards. I assume it's a huge pain in the ass to drain the whole loop first and then refill everything again?
You basically answered your own question, friend.
>>51723697
>water cooling
>silence
Pick only one. Nobody has ever claimed that water cooling is quieter than high end air cooling. You go water for the temperatures and overclocking potential, not silence.
>>51723697
Don't bother. The biggest benefit of liquid cooling is with multi-GPU setups. On air, the first GPU will be choked or will be sucking in hot air. Liquid cooling solves this.
However, it does look sexy.
>>51723697
It's useless for the CPU when you have a huge ass heat sink like the D15, but you can get (some) gainz from GPU cooling. Not that's it's worth it price-to-performance wise though.
As you said people do it because it looks sexy if done correctly and - while not super silent - it's still pretty silent.
Also if you want to go extreme overclocking (more extreme than air cooling would allow but not so extreme as with LN2...)
>>51723697
I have a custom loop for my cpu/gpu. During gaming the fans never spin up past 600~700rpm and and the cpu/gpu doesn't go past 65c/45c even with both heavily overclocked.
>>51724004
How about draining/filling/maintenance?
>>51723697
Watercooling isn't silent. A D15 would be quieter. Water cooling still needs fans on the radiators, and in addition had pumps that chat noise.
I just use a decent case and a D15. Even under full load my system isn't noisy enough to hear over any games/music/movies/ect. And my temps are plenty low, even with a heavy overclock.
Watercooling is just something you do because you want to for fun. It's not really a big improvement over good air cooling, costs more, and is often more noisy due to the pump noise.
>>51724036
>draining
you pop off a tube wherever convenient and let it drain. it's easy.
>filling
you funnel it through the reservoir, also very easy
>maintenance
blast it with a can of air once in a while if it's dusty. the water can stay in for a few years with no issues.
depending on your loop setup the only difficult part might be disassembly. but that can be solved if you use quick disconnects. it's up to you how easy everything is.
What about closed-loop watercooling...?
>>51724108
you can be like this guy for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_rmfXrRTKY
he has quick disconnects everywhere meaning he can exchange a part in matters of seconds whenever he feels like it.
the only downside is cost. a pair of qdc will run you 20~30 usd.
>>51724146
Utter shit marketed at gaymer morons.
>>51723728
>You go water for the temperatures and overclocking potential, not silence.
If your temps are lower at the same noise level (which it likely will be) then that means you can slow the fans down and get the same temps with less noise.
Of course this is dependant on many factors (what air coolers you're comparing to, loop size and components) but it's certainly possible for water cooling to be quieter than air cooling.
>>51724387
watercooling will always be quieter than air cooling when done right.
>>51724477
Air cooling can be completely silent (fully passive) while for water cooling you always need a pump
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to shit on water cooling, I thoroughly enjoy it, but if you just go for silence at medium overclocks, air will most likely be the better choice
>>51724187
So essentially for $120 a high-end air cooler is better than a closed-loop system?
Custom loops are an "enthusiast" thing I guess. Proportional to the amount of money you spend for a full loop, you really don't get performance gains. As others have said, multi-gpu loops have some practical need for watercooling...
Buuuut
In a well ventilated case with a decent motherboard you shouldn't have any problem running multiple gpus. I ran reference 290's and with a fan curve they didn't hit 85c after overclocking. So even then, I really don't think there's an argument to be made.
However, if you have the time/inclination it can be a really cool project that looks sexy as fuck afterwards.
>>51724603
Absolutely. Just get the Noctua ndh14 or whatever it's called. It has been near the top of the air cooler foodchain for years.
>>51724387
You cannot eliminate pump noise, which will just become the most noticable thing in your system if you slow the fans down. Furthermore, there's only so slow that fans can go. I have all my case fans undervolted to 5V and I'm on pure air. My CPU fan rarely gets about 600RPM unless I'm stress testing it. Temperatures are fine.
>>51724477
Wrong.
>>51724603
Yes. A high end air cooler like the NH-D15 is better than any shitty, overpriced meme CLC out there. They are exclusively purchased by retards and tech-illiterates being suckered in by clever marketing.
>>51724558
>Air cooling can be completely silent (fully passive)
the thing is those passive air coolers are essentially useless if you're running anything other than pure shit. they outright fail when under stress.
in a real world scenario if you want the absolute least noise you'd go with an airplex or a mora radiator with two d5's set to the lowest setting.
a d5 on setting 1 is inaudible. anybody saying otherwise has never watercooled before.
watercooling is objectively better than aircooling at everything except for cost.
>>51724673
>>51724670
Thanks mates, I'm an illiterate dumbfuck when it comes to cooling.
>>51724558
>Air cooling can be completely silent (fully passive)
That's essentially a different class of computer, if it's low enough on power to be passive cooled then of course I wouldn't suggest watercooling it, chances are that would probably double the cost any way.
>>51724673
>You cannot eliminate pump noise, which will just become the most noticable thing in your system if you slow the fans down
Do you actually have any experience with custom loops, or are you just basing this off shitty AIOs? I can't hear my pump over my fans and they're not loud at all. If my system was low enough on power that I could stop the fans completely then I still probably wouldn't be able to hear my pump from inside my case.
>Furthermore, there's only so slow that fans can go.
That applies to air cooling too, the difference being that watercooling can make it easier to get the fans down to the minimum speed whilst maintain decent temps.
>I have all my case fans undervolted to 5V and I'm on pure air. My CPU fan rarely gets about 600RPM unless I'm stress testing it. Temperatures are fine.
My system's quiet enough and cooled well enough that I just keep my fans at a constant speed (around 30-34dB), even under heavy load it's still quiet. If I really wanted I could slow my fans down even further (perhaps even stop them) under low load.
My temps are also fine, to give you an idea my two 290s (with a slight overclock) never go above 60c, typically in the low 50s whilst gaming with an ambient in the low to mid 20s.
>>51724648
I live in the tropics and my 3 way sli was thermal throttling. I made a radbox and the problem stopped. That said thats not necessarily the case everywhere else.
>>51724603
Yes. And $120 is already overpriced even for a high-end air cooler.
>>51724774
Cost and maintenance and ease of use.
For the common person, these three factors are more important than getting bleeding edge overclocks (which might garner the user an additional 3 - 5 fps over what they could muster on traditional air cooling alone.)
>>51724673
>>You cannot eliminate pump noise
>>51723697
Save yourself hundreds of dollars and just game with a pair of headphones on.
>>51727638
Nice sponge bro. What was it like 20 dollars?
