Is water cooling the proper cooling solution for me?

[phermumbles]

Wasn't sure to put this here or in the other cooling board but I suppose the mods can move it if need be. Anyway, last September I finally put together my first gaming rig.

My build is as follows, Intel i5 2500k @ 3.30 Ghz, Radeon HD 6850, 8Gb 1333 RAM (4x2), 3 hard drives, no disk drive, etc. My case is the Cooler Master HAF 932, and this thing has turbines and it pushes some serious air.
Now my problem isn't that my system isn't stable or anything like that, and I don't plan to overclock the i5 till I need to. It's that my room is a good 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. I notice it most when I forget to shut my PC down or put it to sleep before I leave and when I come back in the afternoon the room is much warmer. Now I live in Kansas where the winters are cold and the summers get hot, and I don't want to imagine how bad this will be in the summer time. My older brother has been pushing for water cooling with his argument being it'll cool everything down in the room and just be more effective cooling all together. He says it won't be as expensive as I think because you can use aquarium pumps and things like that. He did it before in a much more DIY sense, (sautering together metal and things like that, cutting all the tubing) with a Core 2 Duo I believe and he said he got a lot more power out of his system. While I don't plan to overclock anytime soon at all it does seem to be an effective method of cooling.
While water cooling does sound like a fun project, it would be somewhat expensive and I don't want to do it, yet at least, if it won't fix the problem at hand. I think the reason my room is hot is because the cooling provided by my case is too effective. The components I have are on performance level and they will generate some serious heat when used which is why cooling is so important, but the HAF 932 has all those huge fans maybe it's just moving all that hot air out into the room and that's the real problem.
I know it seems like I answered my own question, but that doesn't help me. What do you guys think would be the best solution so I don't just bake in here during summer gaming sessions?
And thanks in advance for any help.

 

[geofelt]

Water cooling is really air cooling.
It differs only where the heat exchange takes place.
Your pc generates a certain amount of heat per minute.
The cooling system removes the heat from the components and sends it into your room.
The heat going into your room will be the same, regardless of air or liquid cooling.

In the winter, open the window a touch if you need to, but it might be nice to have a warm room.
In the summer, turn up the air conditioning if you have some.
Otherwise, use a window fan to exhaust the room heat to the outside.

Other than using lower powered components, there is not much more you can do.
ivy bridge, ssd's, and 28nm graphics are coming that will help.

Do not worry too much about heat damaging your parts. They are designed be hot, and will downclock if necessary to protect themselves.

 

[rubix_1011]

Now I live in Kansas where the winters are cold and the summers get hot, and I don't want to imagine how bad this will be in the summer time

Welcome- I live in Kansas as well. Where are you from?

Geofelt is correct- your PC still continues to generate the same amount of heat based on computing power. However, due to the ability of water being able to absorb and carry more heat in watts than water, it is a more effective cooling agent and better able to transfer heat from the components to the radiators for dissipation. This means that you are dissipating the same amount of heat, but more effectively and more quickly into the surrounding area. At the end of the day, your room will likely still be warm due to the PC regardless of your cooling solution- it's just the nature of the beast. Water moves heat better and is able to expel it faster, but you still have heat being moved from one area to another by the cooling solution.

 

[phermumbles]

East Kansas, near Overland Park and all that. And yeah I'm liking the idea of the fan, and it does help warm it up when it gets cold, lol. But as I said I'm not worried about the components themselves as they've been nothing but stable.

 

[rubix_1011]

I live in Lawrence, work in North KC. Cool to see a local member around here...

 

[ahnilated]

The only way you could get the heat out of your room would be an exhaust vent hooked to the back of the computer sucking or pushing the air out of the house.

I have thought of doing this for my big rig but it is a lot of hassle to do this and requires about a 6" hole through the wall.

 

[rubix_1011]

This wouldn't really apply to most watercooling setups, but this setup only really works when ambient at the source is always hotter than ambient at the destination.

 

[phermumbles]

Best answer selected by Phermumbles.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey