$100 cooling budget - Air or Watercooling?

[Darkwhisperer]

Hi guys...

Im interested in only cooling my cpu, not GPU. I've read some great things about high-end Air coolers, and some not so good things about low-end water coolers. However, with a $100 budget, I wont be able to afford a powerful watercooler, only a low-end one. Noise isnt an issue. So my question is, would it be better for me to get a high-end Aircooler? Or a low-end watercooler? Which would be better for my CPU overclocking needs? And which products would you suggest to support your answer?

Thanks in advance...

 

[waylander]

Sorry but as I went from stock air cooler to water cooling I don't know many good air coolers but I've heard some good things about zalman 9500 and scythe ninja.

If your budget was $150 then I'd suggest the Bigwater 745 but if you can't go that high then get air cooling. The 745 I suggested above is the minimum water cooling I could suggest.

 

[lcdguy]

whats the cpu ?

for good highend air coolers i would look into the following brands

Thermalright (i personally use this one on my A64 3000+)
Zalman

both make some very good air coolers, the only thing with zalman is thier heatsinks tend to be very large.

for thermalright i would recommend XP90, XP90C, XP120 with a decent 92 or 120mm fan.

 

[chuckshissle]

I have used the Thermaltake Big Typhoon and paired with a 120mm Silverstone FM121 fan. Keeps my overclocked 840 @ 3.840Ghz cool to around 45-50 full load. Keep in mind that the 840 is a hot running cpu. The Zalman 9500 is also a good cooler as well as the Scythe Ninja so the choices are yours as it's prices are about the same.

As for low end water coolers like Kingwin and Cooler Master liquid cooling kits, there pretty good but not really an ideal for high overclocking. So if you don't overclock then a low end water cooling is for you. The difference between aftermarket HSF and low-end water cooling kits are about 5-10c which is not bad but about $50-60 difference in price.

Im using the Kingwin Aquastar AS3000 water cooling kit for around $110 for my cpu and Im getting 33c idle and 38c full load at 30c room temp. My cpu is at 1.4v Vcore and oc to 3.840Ghz. I have installed an extra 1-120mm fan radiator for extra cooling. As you can see the difference between the Kingwin and Big Typhoon on my cpu at the same settings are good lowering the temps down to more that 10c! That's a good difference but the cost is also a big difference. But all and all Im very satisfied on my HSF and water cooling kit.

 

[wun911]

Dont get crap wc set up..... the best air cooling will beat the worst water cooling...

Get zalman 9500 or 7700 etc etc

 

[gudodayn]

I am not sure where abouts you are at but I have a "Sunny Stone" water cooling kit.....the basic kit

It costs $1780 NT ($56 USD) and consists of a CPU waterblock (one inlet - 2 outlet), 8 x 16 cm copper radiator, a 800L/hour pump + reservoir.
I have a A64 ~ 3200+ thats running at 270 x 10 (5:6 divider) which in summer, room temperature at 33C it idles: 41C - Load: 49C; in winter, room temperature at 16C it idles: 23C - Load: 30C............these temperatures are with a additional copper GPU waterblock in the loop cooling a 6600GT!

The temperatures will vary from machine to machine but they do indicate that the water cooling system is working quite efficciently removing the heat!!!

The price is cheap but the company is actually quite well known here in Taiwan........stll some enthusiasts still like to use Swiftech and DD but from what I've seen, its not that big of a difference for 3x to 5x the price!!!

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

that kit sounds horrible, and from the temps, its not even as good as my big typhoon

 

[RichPLS]

I use a Thermaltakes BigWater 745 system. I have it and believe it to be of excellent quality and design. You get a single radiator plus a dual core radiator with 3 - 120mm fans and a good quality 400lph water pump.

I am only using it with the dual core radiators, and am not using the additional single core radiator (a spare or starter for another PC), and it keeps my Opteron 175 overclocked to 2.64GHz cool and under 48C during heavy loads and typically runs daily around 40C to 41C.
Also it only costs $145 complete, and is well made and looks cool too.

 

[Darkwhisperer]

Hi guys...

Yeah, I am going to overclock my CPU. Most likely its going to be an E6600. Im going to wait about 3 months to see if theres any new & better Core2 boards coming out... The ones currently out either cost an arm & a leg, or are a bit dodgey...

The impression Im getting is get good watercooling, or get good Aircooling. I can deal with that. I really like the zalman 9500. It totally kicked ass in Toms AirCooler fighout.

Thanks for your responses...

 

[bluesquid]

I know one thing.

I have a swiftech vga mc 60(I think, its the best one), some tubing , a used pump, and a radiator. about 130 bucks in all.

My 1900 xtx used to get to 90 degrees C. Now it gets to 54 maxed out. It is amazing.

But It also helps my CPU. Must be the tubes with cooler water running through, but it cools my CPU by 15 degrees C.

so I think, you should invest a little more money. It is amazing what the water cooling has done for my pc. also mind you, my previous temps were in the winter. My new temps are in a house without air conditioning on 90 degree days. it is that good.

 

[waylander]

I know one thing.

I have a swiftech vga mc 60(I think, its the best one), some tubing , a used pump, and a radiator. about 130 bucks in all.

My 1900 xtx used to get to 90 degrees C. Now it gets to 54 maxed out. It is amazing.

But It also helps my CPU. Must be the tubes with cooler water running through, but it cools my CPU by 15 degrees C.
so I think, you should invest a little more money. It is amazing what the water cooling has done for my pc. also mind you, my previous temps were in the winter. My new temps are in a house without air conditioning on 90 degree days. it is that good.

The reason your cpu temps have dropped is because your gpu is not putting 90C hot air into the case anymore. CPU and GPU water cooling does have that side benefit of dropping the case and motherboard temps down significantly as they are the biggest sources of heat inside the case.

 

[s3anister]

could any of you post the exact parts that you have? like cpu/gpu and watercooling systems? cause i'm really looking to get into watercooling but it's kinda hard to choose what to get for watercooling cause they all look somewhat the same. 8O

 

[moof]

if u want good air cooling get a Zalaman Fan/heatsink its $63 at newegg.

 

[ZOldDude]

Hi guys...

Im interested in only cooling my cpu, not GPU. I've read some great things about high-end Air coolers, and some not so good things about low-end water coolers. However, with a $100 budget, I wont be able to afford a powerful watercooler, only a low-end one. Noise isnt an issue. So my question is, would it be better for me to get a high-end Aircooler? Or a low-end watercooler? Which would be better for my CPU overclocking needs? And which products would you suggest to support your answer?

Thanks in advance...

Thermalright SI-120 and a Siverstone FM-121 fan.
The cooler also helps cool your ram,voltage regulators ect.

Also remove the rear fan guard(s) on your case as this can aid in up to 70% more exit airflow. In fact this alone my be all you need if your not OC'ing too much (and it is free).

I have the cooler and fan(s) above in Coolermaster cases with Optrons OC'ed 1Ghz and the cpu's run only 2C over room temps.

 

[dimwhited]

DEFFINATELY get a zalman. I myself have a big typhoon, and havent been too impressesd with the temps. My stock 630 runs at around 40 degrees just doing internet, ms word, and opening a quick photoshop every once in a while. I've seen it up to 49 after playing games

 

[RichPLS]

could any of you post the exact parts that you have? like cpu/gpu and watercooling systems? cause i'm really looking to get into watercooling but it's kinda hard to choose what to get for watercooling cause they all look somewhat the same. 8O

This is my PC...
Complete water cooling cost me $145 for a very good quality kit which includes 2 radiators, one is even double sized...

Lian Li PC-60plus Black Aluminum Case (w/TR-3B Black Thermometer/Fan Controller 3.5” bay and a L.I.S.2 (5.5” bay USB LCD Fan Controller))
Opteron 175 (OC’d 2x 2.64 GHz, 2MB cache, Socket 939, .09 micron, E6 stepping, OSA175DAA6CD)
ThermalTake BigWater 745 liquid cooling system complete kit
Asus A8R32-MVP Motherboard (ATI Radeon Xpress 3200 CrossFire, socket 939, SATA2)
HiS X1800XT Graphics Card (625 MHz/700 MHz OC core/1500 Mhz/1600 MHz OC mem, Dual DL-DVI VIVO 512 MB PCIe)
ATI TV Theater 550 PRO Tuner (PCI TV and FM Tuner)
4x 512MB Corsair Micro Xpert DDR RAM (2.5-3-3-8-2T (spd 2-2-2-5-1T) TwinXP 1024-3200XL)
2x 74gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives RAID-0 (WD740GD RAID0 150gig Boot Drive)
2x 250gig Western Digital Caviar SE16 Hard Drives (WD2500KS storage and data)
Plextor 716AL Black 16x DVD/CD Burner (IDE slot loading type)
Antec TP-II 550 Power Supply (550 Watt ATX12V v2.0 PSU)
Dell 2405FPW 24-inch LCD Monitor (UltraSharp Wide Aspect Flat Panel Display)
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech Cordless Optical TrackMan
Case Fans (PanaFlo 120mm intake, Adda 120mm exhaust blower, PanaFlo 120mm internal circulatory Fan, PanaFlo 92mm exhaust and PanaFlo 80mm Fan)

 

[bluesquid]

mcw 60 vga cooler

80 mm radiator

10 feet tubing

MCP655 pump


all of the above by swiftech

generic reservoir from xoxide.com

metal clamps


I cant say enough about this setup. cheap, easy to setup, and so so so so effective. I could OC this hard, but I dont want or need too. swiftech makes some great stuff.

the cooling effect is amazing. the tubes full of water help the "air" inside the case cool off. so "everything" is cooler. way, way, cooler.

 

[Darkwhisperer]

Ummm, dude, did you notice the $100 part of the headline? I saw +-$250 for this setup. You got a contact you want to share? *GRIN*

 

[Dan1317]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835116017 not sure if this would interest you. this only covers the gpu and not the ram tho so here are ramsinks http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118220

 

[waylander]

could any of you post the exact parts that you have? like cpu/gpu and watercooling systems? cause i'm really looking to get into watercooling but it's kinda hard to choose what to get for watercooling cause they all look somewhat the same. 8O

You kind of hijacked this thread but that's ok as I think the orginal author will also learn something.

I have:
CPU block Swiftech Apogee (storm soon, stupid snail mail)
GPU block NV78SLI from Danger Den
Pump MCP655 from swiftech (same as D5 from Danger den)
Radiator 2 x 120mm from swiftech
Reservoir Alpha cool cape 25cm

 

[Darkwhisperer]

Its all cool

Anyways, its looks like I'll be getting a Zalman 9500. Its got great reviews, and water-cooling only really works well if you got the bucks to pump into it, i.e. $200-300. Which if you think about it, is approaching the price of a E6600. So I'll stick to the Zalman for about $75

Thanks all the same for the responses...

 

[waylander]

Its all cool

Anyways, its looks like I'll be getting a Zalman 9500. Its got great reviews, and water-cooling only really works well if you got the bucks to pump into it, i.e. $200-300. Which if you think about it, is approaching the price of a E6600. So I'll stick to the Zalman for about $75

Thanks all the same for the responses...

Yep, like I said in my first response. I spent almost $400 on my W/C system (those two full gpu water blocks from Danger Den were $250 alone). But even with the GPU's OC'd I never go above 55C (this is when my room was 30C).