Is air cooling a thing of the past?

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muratgemici2003

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Jan 5, 2009
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Is it ever worth it to air cool when decent water cooling kits start at $79? I bought a corsair kit for $79 and am getting amazing performance from it. I don't know why anyone would ever air cool again. The kit takes up much less room than my old bulky air cooling rig!
 
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air cooling is like the hdd, still works, still useful, but being way out classed. Air cooling for cpus is going down, but unless somebody invents water vapor cooling (hmm not a bad idea) for the entire case, you will still always see the noisy fans in cases.
 
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yea, but when water is almost the same price, more effective, easier, quieter, and smaller, why wouldn't you use it? Air still is good, but under 70 degrees isn't that impressive when you can do that with water under 45 degrees.
 
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yea, but when water is almost the same price, more effective, easier, quieter, and smaller, why wouldn't you use it? Air still is good, but under 70 degrees isn't that impressive when you can do that with water under 45 degrees.
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Not that I do not think that water cooling is a good idea, it is a perfect solution under a certain set of circumstances.
But I cannot see how a water cooling setup is easier or smaller? It may be quieter, but to me anyway, my PC is not all that noisy, does not bother me at all to hear a few fans running. But then, I don't overclock to the extreme either. It takes me all of 15 seconds to install my heatsink, and I bet it doesn't take up near the space a water cooling kit does. Your statement does not make a lot of sense. The vast majority of people do not need water cooling.
I only overclock a little, my fans suite me fine, and I for one do not think that water circulating around inside my case is a good idea when you weigh my needs over what might happen should you spring a leak.
As I said, I am not knocking water cooling at all, it just does not make sense for me, or for the vast majority of people.
 
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you are right that water cooling might be more complicated, and not really needed, but for gamers and enthusiasts air is just fading away as it is louder, and cant perform as good, and now that there are 79.99$ watercooling kits, i honestly think that watercooling is beating air in just about every department, except maybe complication, so air is becoming a little obselete. But im not knocking air at all!
 
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Do you think the average user would know the first thing about transporting or maintaining a liquid cooled PC?
Air cooling is mechanically simple and pretty much idiot proof.
Liquid cooling is great for enthusiasts but basic old air cooling is not going anywhere any time soon.
 
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yea, but when water is almost the same price, more effective, easier, quieter, and smaller, why wouldn't you use it? Air still is good, but under 70 degrees isn't that impressive when you can do that with water under 45 degrees.
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I would really like to see a Corsair unit keep a i7 920 @ 4+ ghz at 45° under a heavy load with normal ambient temps. For the price it is a good cooler but it is no miracle worker. Full blown water cooling setups with 4x120 rads for CPU only wont do that and you are saying that a single 120 Corsair unit can?

It may be better at cooling than my TRUE but it's not 30° better, a few maybe not 30. At 4ghz my load temps with HT enabled and stressing with LinX run 75~80° if run with P95 or if I turn of HT they will be close to 10° cooler these are with a fairly cool ambient of 20°.

I will post a couple of screen shots to show these temps and would like to see something similar of someone with a Corsair H50 and similar setup do the same to see the difference in temps. Just because you say that it will keep temps to 45° doesn't make it a fact.

Load
L7L.jpg


Idle
L7I.jpg


Here is one I did in April with ambient around 18°
P95%20i7%205hr.PNG


And one in Feb with around 15° ambient
p9512hrR.PNG
 
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Also, water cooling is not hassle-free in most cases. Even if you do spend the required amount of money for a proper water-coolling setup. You have to maintain it. It also has more compnents that are prone to failing if not handled correctly (e.g. the pump). Is the 300mhz increase (which might not even be 300mhz) in overclock worth the money and time?
On self-contained water cooling kits such as the h5o which i believe you are reffering to, in the odd case of a pump failing your only option would be RMA.

Air cooling is completly hassle free as long as you have a dust filter on your intakes. And in the case of dust still getting into your case a $5 compressed air can and 2-3 mins of your time are enough to clean it.

I built pc and support pc's for money (not professionally tho) and i would never suggest these coolers to anyone. If you have that kind of money to spend on cpu cooling you are better of buy a Megahalem and a pair of fans with around 60CFM. If would probably allow you to reach frequencies near (or even beyond) 4ghz and very low noise.
 
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Imo..its the other way around..water cooling is not really needed with todays cooler running stuff.
My e8400 @ 3.8ghz never goes over 50c with air.My 8800gtx with artic air cooling never above 55c..Why hassle with water cooling?
 
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I've heard alot about hoses melting on cheap water kits ....if you want a high end cooling solution, there's really no way of getting around the price of a quality setup. :) ... water is a bit more maintenance also but that's kind of a given. yeah, i haven't tried it myself but I really don't have the extra cash ...if something went wrong I would be screwed. 😛
 
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