Qns about water cooling

TechNuB

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Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D
 

fx3861

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Custom watercooling or AIO? In your case, i would suggest AIO (all in one) as custom watercooling does takes a lot of investment, time & maintenance.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes. Roughly $200-$500 depending on brands
 
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tmfwy

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Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D
How one manages dust is all about case designs

Very rarely does cheap and nice match with engineering efficiency
Cases that are designed with Maintenance is a boon
Cases like the Node 202 is #$#%#%$

Going into topic
You don't need regular maintenance to clean out dust for air cooled systems. All it takes is a bit of common sense

1. Anything sucking air in needs dust filter
2. Reduce moving parts
3. Anything with air out, dust filter is good to have but not so necessary

With the above in mind.
My FTZ is relatively dust free requiring little to no maintenance after 2 years of usage.
Once in a while 6 months, take out magnetic dust cover dust from exterior of case to wipe it. then snap it back in place.

Water cooling, there are pros and cons.
But If you don't want to do maintenance for air cooling, i'd suggest going against water cooling. Coz i'm gonna guess you will only bother about maintenance once the pump breaks down. Like a car, once the water cooling breaks down, your entire pc does down.

CPU fans on the other hand, i have rarely seen it fail ( Intel Stock fans ) in all my life.
The only time i see it fail is when it is choked with dust balls ( Smoky lan shop environment never maintain for 3yrs )
 
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tangpx

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If lazy, Get a gaming laptop. Maintenance free.
All pc require a little maintenance to keep the pc running from over heat by cleaning the dust out.

If use pc, put it in the table as it is less dust.
The floor has the most dust and will choke your pc fast.
Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D
 

joshuaho

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For AIO:
1. Depends on brand, fan curve and pump noise. Do a quick search on the brand before deciding, usually will have reviews.
2. No maintenance, breakdown either RMA/ buy new one
3. Filters for intake is the answer to this
4. Range from 80-200+

For custom loop:

1. Choice of fans, and pump. Noctua fans/gentle typhoon/ Magnetic lev fans are a bit more popular for lower noise levels. D5 pumps are also more silent than DDC
2. Depends on coolant, if using distilled water with NUKE, should be able to use quite Long without maintenance. But if u go for those showcase type of coolant like primochill VUE, be prepared to change within 2 weeks
3. Same answer, filter on intake.
4. Made in China, cpu cooling on (reasonable but not the best) can be around $100. Want the atas type like EKWB or made in Germany aqua blocks, can go up to 400-1k depending on how sophisticated your setup is

Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D
 

ronnie_gogs

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I ran a custom loop for years.

1) Is it quieter? Depends. I had 2 radiators. Quad 560 radiator and double 120 240 radiator in the loop with a total of 10 fans. Even though I used low noise fans when 10 fans spin up it was not a quiet system. My current air cooled rig with cryorig heatsink is much more quieter.
2)Yes it needs a lot of effort to get it right. Leaks, aesthetics, performance are some of the concerns which take a lot of time. Maintenane wise if you get it right just a top up of water is enough to maintain it.
3) You have the radiators which need to be cooled. So you can't make a completely isolated system, unless you put them all outside the rig.
4) Custom water cooling needs a lot of things which add up to significant amount.
 

Piezoq

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Not quieter. The fans on radiators tend to spin faster to push air through the dense rads. Air cooled rigs are usually quieter, properly tuned.

I'd say buy a new case with a proper filter design. The open grill gamer cases are horrible when it comes to dust.

Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D
 

ra[g]e

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Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D

I ran a custom loop for a couple of years and completely regretted it. You can see my WC build on the right.

1. WC is more quiet than air in that you won't have small loud fans like the CPU or GFX fans. These are instead replaced by radiator fans and the pump noise. If you want to reduce noise I'd recommend quiet fans for the radiator and a fan controller to clock down the RPMs so that it can be super quiet.

2. Water requires a lot of effort and maintenance because it is super difficult and troublesome to build the loop, and when you want to upgrade it is super difficult and troublesome because you have to break down the loop.

3. The fans will still bring dust into the radiators. If you put the radiators outside the case and you have proper MOBO vrm and RAM waterblocks as well, maybe you can get buy with 1 or 2 case fans. You can try no case fans but I'm not sure how the heat will be for the HDD/SSD. If you can buy blocks for everything then you can seal up the case and technically make sure very little dust goes in. Radiators will still be super dusty, but easier to clean I guess.

4. If you are getting AIO its not expensive at all. E.g. AIO CPU coolers are not difficult to setup and maintain since they are little different from air coolers except for the attached radiator. Some gfx solutions some with AIOs as well. For a custom loop you will have to buy individual parts across multiple areas, fittings, pump, tube, blocks, etc. It is super expensive and good for looking nice but completely not bang for buck at all.

If I remember correctly for my setup on the right, I spent at least $2k, and this is on the water cooling components only. On hindsight I would have stuck to air cooling so that it would be easier to upgrade stuff.
 

tangpx

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sDKShdE.jpg

This is example of my water cooling. It is still under construction. Price for water cooling is over 2k, depending in the type of water blocks for your hardware. Not all blocks will fit, you need find out which are compatible and price is different too.
 

kNiGhTseVen

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I ran a custom loop for years.

1) Is it quieter? Depends. I had 2 radiators. Quad 560 radiator and double 120 240 radiator in the loop with a total of 10 fans. Even though I used low noise fans when 10 fans spin up it was not a quiet system. My current air cooled rig with cryorig heatsink is much more quieter.
2)Yes it needs a lot of effort to get it right. Leaks, aesthetics, performance are some of the concerns which take a lot of time. Maintenane wise if you get it right just a top up of water is enough to maintain it.
3) You have the radiators which need to be cooled. So you can't make a completely isolated system, unless you put them all outside the rig.
4) Custom water cooling needs a lot of things which add up to significant amount.

Leaks will never happen if you have good o-rings and fittings. ;)
If those items were working before and you still got leaks then it's your tubing issue ;)

It's quite impossible to have leaks if you do it right ;)
 

kNiGhTseVen

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I ran a custom loop for a couple of years and completely regretted it. You can see my WC build on the right.

1. WC is more quiet than air in that you won't have small loud fans like the CPU or GFX fans. These are instead replaced by radiator fans and the pump noise. If you want to reduce noise I'd recommend quiet fans for the radiator and a fan controller to clock down the RPMs so that it can be super quiet.

2. Water requires a lot of effort and maintenance because it is super difficult and troublesome to build the loop, and when you want to upgrade it is super difficult and troublesome because you have to break down the loop.

3. The fans will still bring dust into the radiators. If you put the radiators outside the case and you have proper MOBO vrm and RAM waterblocks as well, maybe you can get buy with 1 or 2 case fans. You can try no case fans but I'm not sure how the heat will be for the HDD/SSD. If you can buy blocks for everything then you can seal up the case and technically make sure very little dust goes in. Radiators will still be super dusty, but easier to clean I guess.

4. If you are getting AIO its not expensive at all. E.g. AIO CPU coolers are not difficult to setup and maintain since they are little different from air coolers except for the attached radiator. Some gfx solutions some with AIOs as well. For a custom loop you will have to buy individual parts across multiple areas, fittings, pump, tube, blocks, etc. It is super expensive and good for looking nice but completely not bang for buck at all.

If I remember correctly for my setup on the right, I spent at least $2k, and this is on the water cooling components only. On hindsight I would have stuck to air cooling so that it would be easier to upgrade stuff.

If you have intention to upgrade all the time, you should get AIO, not custom WC. There is nothing to regret for custom WC. It was meant for premium setup in the first place. ;)
 

ra[g]e

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Leaks will never happen if you have good o-rings and fittings. ;)
If those items were working before and you still got leaks then it's your tubing issue ;)

It's quite impossible to have leaks if you do it right ;)
For a custom loop sometimes you will want to route the tubing in a particular way, etc. At the initial stages leaks are common especially if you are trying to avoid 90 degree fittings to maximise flow rate. Even for older setups you always hear something happening to the loop resulting in massive failure.
 

ra[g]e

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If you have intention to upgrade all the time, you should get AIO, not custom WC. There is nothing to regret for custom WC. It was meant for premium setup in the first place. ;)
No point spending $2k+ on the whole setup, when 1 year later some cheapo upgrade will own your overclocks while you will be stuck with the custom waterblocks for your gfx and cpu. Looks nice, song for a bit, completely waste of money IMO.
 

tangpx

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There are some block can use on any cards or board without the need to purchase another block.
 

Mikiberry

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Hi gurus

i m thinking of switching over to water cooling but theres a few question in mind.

1. is water cooling alot more quiet than air?
2. does water cooling require alot of effort/maintenance
3. does it totally shut out 95% of the dust going in?
4. is basic water cooling set up very expensive? whats the min. investment required?

i m not over clocker or anything..
just a casual gamer who is lazy to maintain the dust filters and fans all the time.

thanks in advance :D

If dust and maintenance is the reason why you chose to WC then I suggest you not to. Extremely high maintenance and definitely not dust free. lol
 

ra[g]e

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There are some block can use on any cards or board without the need to purchase another block.
Not sure how are the universal blocks now, previously the ones were not very good. With EK blocks I think you can buy a small part to fit to a new socket, not sure how it is now.

Also not sure how will a universal gfx block work.
 

tangpx

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They have mounting plates to change. Mine is mono block for mb and i dont often change the boards. Intend to change every 7 yrs as i want a big change and not small change every year.
n4VvYeo.jpg

This is universal, can be use on any gpu, just change the mounting plate will do.
 

tangpx

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Some prefer nice looking block which cover the whole gpu. That type of block will limit your upgrade. Some even request custom made based on their design projects, price will be different. It is up to the company to decide whether they want to make according to your request. It depends on everyone preference.
 
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