Is water cooling good/safe?

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josh1002

josh1002

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Aug 4, 2017
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I have a pentium g4400 and I was wondering if I upgraded in the future, would water cooling be a safe option? I'm just worried about water leaking and frying some components.
 
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JackNaylorPE
Like anything else, the answer is ... it depends.

1. As far as CLCs go, there is no CLC that has better performance / noise than comparably priced air coolers. So when under $150, the air cooler is not only leak worry free it's the better option from all angles. The only advantage of a CLC that I can see is you don't like the look of a big metal heat sink but looking at a big radiator is OK.

If you keep a CLC long enough, the corrosion inhibitors will use up their useful life in 18 - 24 months and after that galvanic corrosion will accelerate, much more so than in other water cooled systems because CLCs use a cheap, thermally inefficient aluminum radiator. Having different aka "mixed metals" in a water loop is a very bad thing...
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Unless you have a insanely high ambient (room) temp there's no need to have to cool that CPU with water. While water coolers are better made now there's always a rare chance of a leak and destroying your other parts. Depending on your case a good quality cooler such as the Cryorig H7 or even a Noctua would be more then sufficient enough to keep that CPU cool under load and be quieter then a water cooler.
 
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in theory water does not conduct electricity--the ions/impurities in the water do

so again in theory you can buy de-ionised water which shouldnt conduct

but you are totally reliant on the producers of the water to be actually accurate with their description

100% de-ionised and purified water isnt a simple thing

and my bet is a lot of the stuff you buy has simply been filtered and maybe put through another process

making it absolutely pure needs lots of stages and reverse osmosis and other processes done to it too

not that i know exactly whats involved but pretty sure google could explain it all
 
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Good? Yes. Safe? Check Youtube for AIO water leak. There are many. Is that the majority? No. It's really more of a fashion statement. Some would not want a relatively gigantic Noctua HH-D15 or even a Cryorig H7 or 212 Evo in their case. The 280mm(just one of many sizes) radiator can be installed out of sight in many cases such as my Vivo Titan. It offers a cleaner look. The liquid inside also doesn't heat up and cool down quite as quick as an air cooled cooling solution does. Then the pump dies. The fan is running but the pump isn't. There isn't any auditory or visual indication of a problem. If you have a utility installed that can warn the user then that's good.

Personally I prefer a simple air cooler. I have a 212 Evo with an extra fan for that push-pull thing.

Odd fact of the nanosecond - Radiator fluid will ruin a custom loop water cooler.
 
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Like anything else, the answer is ... it depends.

1. As far as CLCs go, there is no CLC that has better performance / noise than comparably priced air coolers. So when under $150, the air cooler is not only leak worry free it's the better option from all angles. The only advantage of a CLC that I can see is you don't like the look of a big metal heat sink but looking at a big radiator is OK.

If you keep a CLC long enough, the corrosion inhibitors will use up their useful life in 18 - 24 months and after that galvanic corrosion will accelerate, much more so than in other water cooled systems because CLCs use a cheap, thermally inefficient aluminum radiator. Having different aka "mixed metals" in a water loop is a very bad thing and the corrosion can not only lead to leakage but ....

https://martinsliquidlab.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/corrosion-explored/

The performance is also gimped by the weak pumps and extreme speed fans needed to offset the low thermal transfer of aluminum.

2. Custom loops are, as you likely expect, designed around performance and noise rather than trying to get the price low enough to compete with air coolers. You can buy 'kits' for a reasonable cost or go all out with custom designs where the water cooling components for a particular aesthetic along cost upwards of $2k. Possibility for leakage is very small and 99.8% dependent on user assembly. "Dry Run" testing should always be performed with only the pump powered and all PC components off.

3. The intermediate ground is OLCs or Open Loop AIOs like the Swiftech, EK and Alphacool units. As expected the EK units, I would say are the highest quality and they are very easy to add extra components. It must be noted that there was a flaw in the original units:

a) For EK, the first units off the line had a faulty O-Ring and a small % of units leaked over time. EK revised the design and released version 1.1 which doesn't have this issue. They are now moving to a modular approach where you buy a radiator / Pump assembly, CPU water block assembly and, if desired, a GPU block assembly (installed on GFX card). Each part "snaps together" and you never have to add a drop of liquid yourself ... availability if 4th quarter.

https://www.ekwb.com/news/ek-is-announcing-modular-liquid-cooling-products/
https://www.vortez.net/news_story/ek_water_blocks_teases_ek_mlc_modular_liquid_cooling_solutions.html

Jump into this thread for the non-modular designs

http://www.overclock.net/t/1566468/ek-predator-club-discussion-thread/6120

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq4iNbCD844

b) Swiftech was the 1st to enter this category, has a built in reservoir to view coolant and is much less expensive. They crush any CLC on the market and are less expensive than many CLCs (Kraken X62) ... they are louder than the betetr air coolers but 12 times louder like the H100i. We have done many builds w/ the Swiftech units.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKdKVxbnp8&t=1379s
http://www.swiftech.com/aio.aspx

H240-X2-COLOR-PICS.jpg


The initial Swiftech designs also had a design flaw if ya could call it that in that they had a bleed screw in the acrylic reservoir. If over tightened by the user, you could crack the acrylic which could cause leakage. The bleed screw has since been removed... (about 2.5 years ago).

As far as the upgrade goes, unless you are overclocking, there is no reason to use anything other than a stock cooler.

 
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Solution


The minute you open the bottle, that goes away.... once inside the loop, it will pick up ions from the metals

https://martinsliquidlab.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/corrosion-explored/

But even before that, ions are created just by absorbing air gases.

http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Distilled_water

Caution must be taken, however, as distilled water exposed to air will quickly absorb carbon dioxide and produce carbonic acid. Over a period of 24 hours this reaction can result in a pH between 5.5 and 6 which can trigger adverse reactions with some materials. For use with metals in particular, it is advisable to monitor the pH of distilled water, as it has the potential to be highly corrosive
Click to expand...

 
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well yeah i did say in theory lol

 
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The reason you use water cooling is that you want to overclock higher than air coolers will allow.

temp_oc_aida64.png


The Hyper 212 is a "great cooler for the money", but the emphasis is on the last 3 words. It is enough to to the job for moderate overclocks. But as you can see above. spending a bit more can result in massive decreases in CPU temps. Where the $30 212 gives ya 80C, the $45 Scythe Fuma gives ya 69C ... and the heavily discounted $37 Scythe Mugen Max gives ya 72C. The only thing that tops them is the OLC type coolers (Swiftech / EK) mentioned in above post but that's $100 more

 
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not to mention the fact that custom loops can also cool your graphics card too

there are arguments for/against air/water cooling

personally in 5 or 6 years mine has never leaked destroying anything

so i am pretty happy with watercooling--custom water cooling that is
 
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Most AIO water coolers are no better than high end air.
Air cooler no chance of leaks, nothing to break but the fan, if the fan fails you can put a case fan their in a pinch, with water if the pump fails your PC is 100% down.
 
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1. I have yet to see a single CLC type AIO that is better than an comparably priced air cooler. Air coolers costing $80 outperform $165 CLCs like the Krkaen X62. OLC type AIOs will get ya better temps but will usually still be louder at max fan speeds. However if ya look here @ 22:50 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKdKVxbnp8&t=1400s

Ya see that the OLC delivers better temps at the same sound level ... and that's where ya gonna be with a 280mm rad on a CPU.

2. On a CLC and even an OLC, that's true. But we install dual pumps on most custom loops.




1. I don't know how you are setting up ya loops but all our WC provide the exact same warnings as on an air cooler. The pump speed control *can** connected to the exact same MoBo header in either case.

2. Are you talking "car radiator" ? Otherwise, if anything, coolants intended for water cooling do the exact opposite. If you put plain distilled water in a loop, the ions created will immediately form a galvanic cell. With custom loops and OLCs this is not a big concern as all metals are copper / brass / nickel which are very close in galvanic potential, still corrosion inhibitors should be used. On a CLC, the aluminum rad and copper block create a strong galvanic cell due to wide disparity between copper and the less "noble" aluminum.

Coolant is formulated normally with distilled water, corrosion inhibitors and algaecides to limit galvanic corrosion. They (the good ones anyway) have a useful life of 18 - 24 months. The problem w/ CLCs is two fold:

a) They are "maintenance free" which in advertising terms means, they have invested the money in providing the means for you to properly maintain the system. Mindset is, by the time corrosion begins 18 months down the line, you will either move on to anew build or corrosion won't result in actual leakage before the warranty runs out. But here's what happens when you mix aluminum and copper in a loop

copperaluminumcorrosion.jpeg


With a custom loop or OLC type AIO, a) a means of replacing coolant with new algacides and inhibitors is provided and b) the potential for corrosion is drastically reduced as there are no "mixed metals" in the loop.



 
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The water coolers on the market now are generally very safe. I've heard of leaks before, but they're rare. I'd be more worried about pump failure after a few years, but again, current water coolers are safe and well built, so this isn't too likely to happen in the computer's lifetime.

I'd only really recommend water cooling if you use a very high wattage CPU or do high overclocking. If the CPU you use is rated at 130W or under and you don't overclock, just use a good tower cooler instead. The only thing that can fail on one of those is the fan, and those can of course be swapped easily.
 
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With today's highly efficient processors, water cooling is done as much for noise reduction and aesthetics as performance improvements.... at least for Intel and nVidia products. Years ago Scythe was a big thing in the cooler market and they have been quiet in recent years .... but their current products perform as well or better than coolers from Cryorig and Noctua costing twice as much.

It's also rendered the low end budget coolers irrelevant

For $30, the Hyper 212 gets you 80C on above test
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099

For $37, the Scythe Mugen Max is getting you 72C, a drop of 8C for $7 is the proverbial "no brainer"
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9ZH3S91415

For $46, the Scythe Fuma is getting you 69C, a drop of 3C for $9 still is quite easy to swallow
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9ZH3ZD3946

To get any better, you are going to spend $150, $104 more, for an extra 3C down to 66C. From a price / performance standpoint, that's hard to justify. Or a jump of $86 for the Cryorig A80 CLC for the same gain but the A80 is more than 50% louder then the Scythe and 15% louder than the Swiftech






 
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Scythe USA was shut down a while back, and it took some time for the main branch to get their products available again in the US. They were definitely missed for the period that they were gone! The Gentle Typhoon fan they made with Nidec is still one of my favorites.
 
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In addition to limited availability, they just weren't sitting at the top of the performance charts for a few years. Now the onlly one that top them in performance are twice the price ... and that is w/ just a single fan !

That fan is still made and sold by Nidec tho it has slipped a bit in performance / noise ration to others
https://www.amazon.com/Nidec-Gentle-Typhoon-D1225C12B5AP-Silent/dp/B001Q6RUVO

Hard to justify given that the PH-F14SPs can usually be had for $10 - $14

Top Ten
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1345-page7.html

Phanteks PH-F140HP/TS/SP
Noctua NF-A14 FLX
Noctua NF-A15 PWM
Noiseblocker B12-2
Noctua NF-P14 FLX
Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120-12
Noiseblocker M12-S1
Corsair AF120 Quiet
Corsair AF120 Performance
Thermalright TR-TY15




 
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Interesting, I didn't realize Nidec started selling the the lower speed Scythe versions themselves! Looks like the slowest one is the 1,450RPM model, but that's still better than the 3,000RPM they sold separate from Scythe before.

Looking at that list, the only 120mm fan that does better is the NB B12-2. The rest are 140mm. Those M12-S series fans are definitely excellent though, and the Corsairs aren't bad either. I wonder how the new Noctua fans would compare?
 
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With noise being a primary design factor, we never use radiator or case fans > 1250 rpm in a custom loop. Typically the radiator fans peak at 850 rpm, case fans about 650 rpm

If you take the Noctua fans off a Noctua cooler and replace them w/ Phanteks PH-F140SPs, you drop CPU temps by a whopping 6.3 C

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/phenteks_f140/3.htm

Noctua NH-U14S w/ Noctua NF-A15 @ 1200 rpm = 56.3C
Noctua NH-U14S w/ Phanteks PH-F140SP @ 1200 rpm = 50.0C

Noctua has anew design coming w/ extremely strong reinforced fan blades that allows tighter clearances between fan and shroud. These should increase fan efficiency due to less blow-by but haven't seen any test results yet
 
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