Is water cooling better for a graphics card than air

[bitdman]

Thread title asks the question

 

[jyjjy]

Water cooling is quieter and very effective in general but also much more complex and expensive. If air cooling does the job(and it usually can) then water cooling is pretty pointless unless perhaps you are trying to build a totally silent PC for home theater use. Outside of that I guess it would be appropriate for setups containing multiple high end/high power cards(aka GTX 470/480/570/580.)

 

[wa1]

^+1
Nothing less...

 

[Caruda]

If you are planning to build a machine that you will be overclocking and would like to get the absolute best possible performance without making your room hot, then liquid cooling options are the best.

In my case, liquid cooling my video cards and CPU makes it so my max temperature at full load is less than the temperature I was getting with stock cooling when idle. It is also much quieter depending on the fans you use.

The overall downside to it is that it is much more difficult to setup and it can require more extensive maintenance to keep running.

If you don't have problems with temperatures and you don't overclock, air cooling is a better option. It's certainly much easier.

 

[dontqqnub]

Water cooling will beat normal air in almost every situation.

 

[jgarrow]

If you are planning to build a machine that you will be overclocking and would like to get the absolute best possible performance without making your room hot, then liquid cooling options are the best.

In my case, liquid cooling my video cards and CPU makes it so my max temperature at full load is less than the temperature I was getting with stock cooling when idle. It is also much quieter depending on the fans you use.

The overall downside to it is that it is much more difficult to setup and it can require more extensive maintenance to keep running.

If you don't have problems with temperatures and you don't overclock, air cooling is a better option. It's certainly much easier.

water cooling doesn’t magically get rid of the heat Caruda ... your card or cards may run cooler, but they are still putting out the same watt's of heat

 

[Caruda]

jgarrow is correct there. I believe I worded that improperly. It's early in the morning, so my bad there.

The heat produced will always been the same, in fact, it might actually be a little more due to the fact that you're adding a pump into your case which also produces heat.

Either way, liquid cooling is superior in performance in just about every possible way to air cooling. The only downside is maintenance and setup.

 

[cats_Paw]

The only thing to add to "jyjjy"s opinion is that watercooling requires more maintaince, and a lot more care (since liquid will destroy your pc if it gets on any component and your pc is on.

Also watercooling is quite expensive, and the models are hardly compatible with next procesors generations (if you change your GPu, you will likely have to change the watercooling block as well.).

On a side note, liquid cooling does give you also a higher longevity for your components.

 

[monsta]

When something goes wrong with watercooling , it really goes wrong, woke up today and found a green puddle on my table , had to strip down my whole pc and put it back together because of a loose hose clamp from the radiator. Lucky it was the bottom hose.
For graphics cards I'm too scared to water cool them now, I would have done major damage if it leaked from the CPU or GPU.
Not all cooling systems are perfect either , pumps make a humming sound, maintaining the hoses and checking the clamps and topping up the coolant can be fiddly. Most non reference graphics cards come with excellent cooling systems , liquid cooling your GPU's is more of a personal choice these days.

 

[bitdman]

Best answer selected by bitdman.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar