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I've always wondered, is water cooling actually any good?

And does it compare to the normal heatsink and fan solution? Is it really as expensive as some people say it is?

http://www.koolance.com/products/produc ... egory_id=2

Check out Koolance here. I have a friend who has a water cooled AMD XP 3000 and that thing runs cold, real cold. But you always have the chance with the water system failing and we all know it only takes a few seconds to burn out a CPU without any cooling. If a fan fails, all you might lose if the CPU, if the water system fails and water leaks, you can lose all the components.

Water cooling could be great, but there's always a chance for error.

I'd advise against it really..
Call me a tinfoil hat all you want.

performance wise water cooling and fan cooling are about the same. however if you're wanting to keep the noise your machine makes down, water cooling is the way to go. It's also good for bragging rights and making your box look neat.

The pre-installed cases from Koolance run about $200 US + accessories.

It's much quieter (It hard to hear the fans above room background noise) and it has fail-safes that will automatically shut down the PC in case the pump fails. The Koolances have two pumps anyways. They also include easy to follow instructions on how the cut and crimp the tubing.

If you can build a PC from scratch, then you should have no problems running watercooling. My watercooled Athlon 2800+ runs at a solid 30 Celcius no matter how hard/long I am gaming.

Done right, watercooling is safe. It is also very quiet.

I've run a watercooling rig before, and I can honestly say it takes alot to kill a system. I've had several leak issues due to me running the pump too fast. Once, when I was running my old Asus A7V, I had a hose blowout and the entire board got soaked. Didn't kill a damn thing. Theres no reason to have a hissy fit over a little leak. As long as you shut your system down and turn off your power supply, you're fine.

That being said, watercooling is a great way to keep temperatures down. Just keep an eye on your temps to be sure they don't go below your case's ambient temperature. Also, be aware that your tubing will radiate heat into your case so don't assume that just because your system is watercooled that you can remove all your fans. While watercooling won't keep your rig ICE cold, it'll make your temperatures far more stable. I'd still be running a watercooled rig if the temperature in this room wouldn't get so damn hot during the day.

Water-cooling can be considerable more effective then air cooling, but you should only need it if your intent to run a high end system that's over clocked. For normal operation of just about anything your fine with good heat sinks and fans.

Vertigo1 wrote:While watercooling won't keep your rig ICE cold, it'll make your temperatures far more stable. I'd still be running a watercooled rig if the temperature in this room wouldn't get so damn hot during the day.

That's why people have cases with air conditioner compressors inside of them.

Sea Skimmer wrote:

Vertigo1 wrote:While watercooling won't keep your rig ICE cold, it'll make your temperatures far more stable. I'd still be running a watercooled rig if the temperature in this room wouldn't get so damn hot during the day.

That's why people have cases with air conditioner compressors inside of them.

Yeah, but I'm not that hardcore...