Is Liquid Cooling Really Necessary? (For Any Build)

[Nubbin]

Hi,

I'm thinking of building a new desktop and spending a fair chunk of money, but with building a ~1500$ pc, it reminds me of how most expensive pre-built computers tend to come with liquid cooling.

What I'm trying to ask is when is it beneficial/required to integrate liquid cooling into your pc? It's a pretty confusing issue since higher end GPU's usually come with extra fans or a heat sync that I thought would be enough to handle any heating issues.

If it matters, I've had my eye on the GTX 1070, doubtful that I will be gaming in 4k in the next few years but it may pay to think ahead when it comes to choosing my tower and all other components associated with building a pc.

Thank you.

 

[Manny_2]

Air cooling is great when you are looking for a budget approach with decent performance, GPU stock coolers are usually really good. But if you are more of a performance enthusiast and you also want to cool certain parts of your pc. A full water loop is very quiet and powerful. At the end of the day, it's up to your choice

 

[Belphegore]

It isn't necessary or mandatory by any means... depending on the CPU. If you're going for any of the AMD FX-8xxx series, then yes... liquid cooling is a must because those CPUs run HOT.

The only time you really want liquid cooling is if you're planning on doing some OCing. If not, a good air cooler is fine.

I personally prefer AIO coolers such as the Corsair H115i because of aesthetics, and I don't like the idea of a big bulky air cooler hanging off my motherboard. But it isn't for everyone. They've made AIOs pretty affordable these days, especially if you go with the 1 fan style radiators like the H50.

Since you mentioned a GPU... liquid cooling is definitely not mandatory or required for GPUs. I have an Asus Strix 1080 myself, and the highest I've seen it go is 66C in Doom on all nightmare settings. It has a 90C threshhold before it starts to throttle. Again, liquid cooling on a GPU would be needed if you're doing extreme OCing.

Open/custom water cooling systems are very, very expensive. Unless you're doing heavy duty OCing, or have the money to throw away on something just so it looks pretty, don't even consider one.

 

[dudeman509]

It isn't necessary or mandatory by any means... depending on the CPU. If you're going for any of the AMD FX-8xxx series, then yes... liquid cooling is a must because those CPUs run HOT.

9000 maybe. 8000 are fine with a cheap air cooler. They don't make more heat than the Sandy Bridge-E processors just a few years ago.

 

[1LiquidPC]

It all depends on your goals, budget, and your interest in watercooling. Is it really necessary these days? For most situations no as air cooling options for CPU and GPU have greatly improved over the years. However, if you're an enthusiast and really push the limit for OCing, or you just plain enjoy the idea of watercooling it makes sense. Other benefits for watercooling when done right can be very low noise and temps. With noise, the sound remains the same idle or load. With GPUs especially, the boost clocks can remain constant. They go to max and stay there as temps are so low. Even testing my EVGA 1080(waiting for waterblock now) the clocks start to drop a bit after mid 50's temp. With my current 970s, they run full boost until I quit playing.

Only you can decide if its something you'd want to do. Custom especially can get expensive quickly. AIOs are much more affordable of course, but have drawbacks as well. If you don't plan to OC, and you go with a custom GTX 1070 such as ASUS Strix, it wouldn't be a need, only a want.

 

[Isokolon]

It also kinda depends on your case.
If you go for high quality air cooling in a high quality case you're fine even with some over-clocking (if you don't really wanna push it)

Most people I know that use liquid cooling on an average higher-end gaming build (i7, 1070) do it for the aesthetics, it just looks good if some.effort is put into it while big coolers are just ugly.

But necessary? Hardly

 

[Nubbin]

Thanks for all the responses. So the general consensus is liquid water cooling is for Overclocked PC's, which I don't plan on doing. Thanks again!

 

[rubix_1011]

I think most people assume that watercooling = OC or that OC = you watercool.

Neither is a dependency of the other.

 

[marcozandrini]

I'm running an Intel i7 4790k (locked) chip in a Dell XPS8700 computer. It runs BOINC 24/7 at 100% utilization. It's air cooled, and the chip case temp never gets above 60*C. Why? It has 5 fans. There's a 92mm Noctua in the front. It runs at max speed pulling cool air into the case. I have a Noctua NH12 dual fan cooler. The upper fan runs at max speed. There's an external fan on the power supply vent. It runs at max speed, sucking out the power supply's heat. The there's a 90mm fan on the outside of at the case's exhaust screen, sucking out case heat. It runs at max speed. I'm using quality fans so the noise is very low.

 

[scuzzycard]

The short answer is "No." The best air coolers offer performance competitive with the AIO liquid coolers. They also have the advantage of fewer moving parts, which means that they are usually quieter, and that there is less to go wrong. The main advantage to AIO liquid coolers is aesthetics. To really get to a level of cooling performance that is beyond that of air coolers, you need a custom liquid setup. You can also get to a level of aesthetics beyond that of the AIO coolers with a custom setup. There is a level of satisfaction that comes with designing and building it yourself, while having great looks and great performance to match. The downside is that they are more expensive than air coolers and AIO units, and not everyone is up to the task of putting one together.

 

[rubix_1011]

Part of the bigger problem is that when the majority of the population hears 'liquid cooling' they immediately associate that to closed loop cooling. You then get the association that any liquid cooling = all liquid cooling and then all liquid cooling = good liquid cooling.

There is also a lack of understanding in what actually are good temperatures and how to correctly calculate delta.

Given that TDPs have been dropping (in some instances) in newer hardware, you see less need to apply extreme cooling to accomplish a moderate goal. However, if you still want to accomplish a very high end overclocking goal, you're going to need something beyond moderate cooling to do so.

I've watercooled for almost 14 years and I continue to do so just because it is a fun hobby and it can be very rewarding if you have the time and money to do so. Watercooling being necessary is only an argument that someone can really have with themselves...and if you aren't 100% certain around the pros and cons, you're really just asking the opinions of others who may/may not know the full argument of both sides without a baseline for yourself.

 

[Belphegore]

It isn't necessary or mandatory by any means... depending on the CPU. If you're going for any of the AMD FX-8xxx series, then yes... liquid cooling is a must because those CPUs run HOT.

9000 maybe. 8000 are fine with a cheap air cooler. They don't make more heat than the Sandy Bridge-E processors just a few years ago.

With an air cooler, I was seeing temps as high as 75C on games like Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. It even triggered my PC to shut down a lot.

 

[yoki_ikoy]

I used to think overclocking was just a fad that'd eventually go away. Admittedly, my PC is almost exclusively for gaming, and it's made up of not the TOP TOP TOP-of-the-line hardware, but there isn't a game out there -- with the exception of the poorly coded/optimized Kingdom Come: Deliverance -- that my system can't more than fully manhandle with just its out-of-the-box specs. And in the past, whenever gaming demands caught up with my system specs, I'd simply upgrade. Never saw the point in overclocking. But I suppose you guys who do do a lot of overclocking are doing are either dealing with video processing or something, or you just like to OC for the sake of doing it lol. I suppose I Just like to keep things simple, and for me it's just so much more convenient to upgrade rather than go crazy with OCing and worrying about the extra heat.

 

[yoki_ikoy]

It isn't necessary or mandatory by any means... depending on the CPU. If you're going for any of the AMD FX-8xxx series, then yes... liquid cooling is a must because those CPUs run HOT.

9000 maybe. 8000 are fine with a cheap air cooler. They don't make more heat than the Sandy Bridge-E processors just a few years ago.

With an air cooler, I was seeing temps as high as 75C on games like Wolfenstein: The Old Blood. It even triggered my PC to shut down a lot.

I'm guessing you didn't have this badboy installed in your case?....Noctua NH-D15 6 heatpipe with Dual NF-A15 140mm fans My i7 8700k was running soooooooooo hot on this cheapo cooler I bought in lieu of the stock cooler, so with a little research I ran into this guy, and he'll handle all of your cooling needs while barely breaking a sweat.

This guy is as good or better than any liquid cooling system, except for maybe the custom ones mentioned by all the overclock-aphiles out there. Most of us really don't EVER need to overclock for any reason if. Don't let the fact that it's basically a bit of a long-lived fad convince you that you must also do it.

 

[Gaidax]

Holy necro batman guys.

 

[vMax]

Is watercooling required, no absolutly not but there are certain times when watercooling comes in handy. For seriouse overclockers who want to extract max performance, for people who just like the look, for people who enjoy the work required for a great custom loop and for those like me that do not want a huge chunk of metal hanging of there motherboard like the Noctua NH-D15 and yet still want a good overclock and cooling performance. I have used AIO's for quiet some time now and just find them easier to work with, they cool well and of course the clean look suits me....