LIQUID Vs AIR COOLING

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BossBruce1

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Mar 5, 2016
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My specs are: Asus Rampage V, dual 980ti, 1000w power supply a full tower case, and an Intel i7 5960x. I would prefer to air cool but I'm not sure if air cooling can handle this setup. I do not mind noise and I don't want to have to worry about maintaining a loop. Can anybody give any suggestions on which I should get and few products that would cool my pc sufficiently?
 
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DonkeyOatie
I use a horizontal motherboard when looking at 'big air' It is safer and easier to transport, so long as the system is kept upright. That's one of the big advantages of 'cuboid' cases and with traditional motherboards, I tend to use lower profile downflow cooler, to help cool the RAM and VRMs, and reduce the torque on the motherboard.
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Not sure what evidence you have to say that you couldn't use air cooling. No reason you can't. With a full tower you can get a lot of airflow with minimal noise by using many fans at moderate rpms, or several large fans at lower rpms.

Axial cooled GPUs aren't ideal without a lot of case airflow, though plenty of successful builds using two or three. You could also opt for reference designs that exhaust heat directly out of the case.

Large CPU air coolers are tried and true. Noctua NH-D15 or NH-D14, Phanteks TC14PE, a few others. Also plenty of closed loop liquid coolers that are decent.


That said a custom loop offers greater cooling, and decent silence with enough radiator area.



 
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Are you talking about cooling the cpu, the graphics cards, or both?
Will either be heavily overclocked?

What case do you have?

If your case has adequate airflow, then really air cooling is all you need.
For decent airflow, I would want two 140mm intakes in front and a 140mm exhaust in back.
If you have more front intakes which are the key, so much the better.

For a cpu cooler, it is hard to beat noctua, something like a NH-U15s.

My canned rant on liquid cooling:
------------------------start of rant-------------------
You buy a liquid cooler to be able to extract an extra multiplier or two out of your OC.
How much do you really need?
I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler like a Noctua or phanteks can do the job just as well.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
google "H100 leak"
-----------------------end of rant--------------------------

Your pc will be quieter, more reliable, and will be cooled equally well with a decent air cooler.
 
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Water Cooling is nice, I have 2 GTX 980's @ 1500mhz with EVGA hybrid coolers and at 99% GPU utilization they will not break 50C No way air cooling will do that. The CPU however is a bit different Ill get 40-50C under gaming and mid 20's idle with a H100i on a 12 Core Xeon OC'ed at 4.4GHZ. I have seen similar CPU temps on good air coolers.
 
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Air cooling works good, and is reliable. However, you have a 3lb block of copper hanging from the motherboard. Not ideal for cheapo non 6 layer motherboards and certainly not ideal for travelling.

Liquid Cooling has a tiny waterblock so that removes the massive heatsink issue. Liquid cooling doesn't work that great at idle, but it works great under full load, meaning they are great for gaming and overclocked machines. They can handle the extra heat better than a heatsink. Also if you think about it a radiator can take the heat and shove it outside the case. A heatsink shoves the heat into the case....not a big deal but still.

Radiators can be loud if you have whiny fans on the outside of your case. Heatsinks can be quieter with a big fan and it's burried inside your case.

Myself I used to recommend heatsinks, and for $40 a Coolermaster or Cryorig is a great value. But at over $100 a Noctua D15 becomes a problem. It's 3lb, massive, and expensive. There are some nice AIO liquid cooling kits for practically the same price. NZXT Kraken, Fractal Designs Kelvin, Corsair, and Enermax Liquimax II are all good kits. You can also get AIO prefilled kits from Switchtech and EKWB that use the same components as high end open loop kits. basically a factory prefilled open loop kit that is plug and play.

EKWB also has a full kit available. Install and fill yourself. There is no denying the EKWB kits are the best on the market. Second would be the AIO liquid coolers, and 3rd would be a $40 value heatsink such as Coolermaster Evo or Cryorig. I don't see the point in the $130 Noctua.

Heatsinks also double the slot space of video cards. A water block can thin out your video cards and they work great. The AMD Fury X actually requires a liquid cooler. If you want to overclock a video card liquid cooling is almost a must. For your CPU a heatsink is just fine. But a liquid cooler is just that much better, especially for portable systems where you don't want a 3lb heatsink dangling from the motherboard. Heatsinks are also massive and don't fit in small cases. Liquid is just so nice for this since the waterblocks are tiny.

 
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Your case is excellent.
The supplied fans will do the job.

I might opt for graphics cards with blower type coolers.
They get heat directly out the back of the case.
The top card in a sli rig tends to get starved for air. A blower cooler reduces that issue.

If you really do not care about noise, you always have the option of using much stronger 140mm fans for intakes.
Noctua makes a 3000rpm fan:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V3749421

The intake air will exit somewhere.
In the process, all intake air will be filtered which will keep your case cleaner.

 
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I'm not sure 'ordinary' big air will do the job. Look at the CPU! Overclocked and loaded that thing can pull north of 300W. I think this is one of the situations where liquid is the correct answer, and serious liquid at that.

A Swiftech H240X would be a good start, but they may be out of production at the moment.
 
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Air can cool that no problem. A Coolermaster EVO 212 or Cryorig for under $50 no problem. If you want massive and quiet a Noctua D15. The D14 is the old generation and can be had at a great deal, but the D15 performs quite a bit more.

You case should be cooled just fine as is. If it's too loud check out Noctua case fans, high CFM and very low noise if you get the low RPM ones. And if you go liquid I recommend the Enermax Liquimax 2, although NZXT, Fractal Designs, and Corsair are all good closed loops no maintenance systems.

 
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You are suggesting a Cooler Master EVO 212 for a 300W + processor!!!???? No problem???? Have you looked at the dissipation ratings for that cooler?

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/67240-intel-haswell-e-i7-5960x-review-15.html

 
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Small air (~120mm, single tower coolers) will not be sufficient here. The EVO and H7 are only rates up to 180w TDP.
The sheer amount of heat on that processor warrants the use of a water cooler.
Since the H240x is not in production, and the H240x2 is not available, I recommend a look at the EKWB Predator series (360mm) or one of their kits if you want to jump into the GPUs right away.
 
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My mistake that's a 5960x 2011 CPU. That's 140W base and is capable of reaching 300W. I looked up some specs and one guy said a Noctua D14 struggled to keep it cool. And some closed looped liquid coolers were barely enough.

I'd be going open loop.

That swiftech is out of production. They make the X2 which is reasonably priced but has no compression fittings. The prestige version is more expensive but has compression fittings and better fans.

One step up is the EKWB predator. But it has the pump and reservoir on the bottom of the radiator so a 240mm is actually 280mm or so and won't fit in some spots. The swiftech has the pump and reservoir on the face of the radiator so it is normal sized...240mm is 240mm. But it's thicker and the fans can only mount on one side limiting your options. So between the swiftech and EKWB you can get something to fit your case.

The EKWB pradator is the better unit. EKWB also has a kit available that includes all hardware for an open loop and you assemble and fill it yourself.
 
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I actually own an EKWB predator in one system so can vouch for it. The zmt rubber tubing will not cause evaporation so it truly is a maintenance free system. Enermax also uses similar tubing. It also uses a Liang DDC pump and reservoir so it's a factory filled open loop system. This gets the pump off the water block unlike AIO kits like Corsair that has the pump integrated with the water block. It's a beautiful AIO kit but you have to watch the dimension of the radiator, because the pump makes it longer than a normal Radiator.
 
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Cooling the video cards would require 2 water blocks which would get pricey fast.

A 360mm Radiator would serve better.

If your going to be adding water blocks for video cards, then an open loop is a must and custom. I wouldn't choose the swiftech, and the EKWB predator with 360mm rad can be used in a pinch with the quick connects. I'd rather choose the EKWB kit and build up your own system, or just choose other parts for a do it yourself loop.
 
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While I'm not the most knowledgeable on Cooling and component tech, I can go by my own experience. My and a friend both have Stock speeds fx 6300 cpus. He's liquid Cooling and I'm Air cooling with an EVO 212. My average temps are 10 degrees (Celsius) lower than his. I have to really push my rig to hit over 40 degrees at load.
 
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Well the 6300 is far from Haswell-E levels of temps, and the EVO is better than most 120mm AIO coolers (which I assume your friend has)
 
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Granted, Gam3r01. I was just trying to show that air cooling can be quite effective.
 
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What happens is at lower temperatures a heatsink can be more effective than water. The heatsink itself has heatpipes and works quite well at wicking temperature away compared to a water cooler. But with excessive heat water is more efficient at dissipating the extra heat than a heatsink.

A heatsink has limits. Once the copper block is fully saturated there is no more it can do except wait for the air to cool it so it can dissipate more. With water you can increase the reservoir size and therefore the size of the thermal load it can take in. You can also increase the size of the radiator for extra cooling. Take the size of the radiator and the capacity of water and compare that to the fixed slab of copper that is a heatsink. For extra big thermal loads and overclocking, liquid cooling just works good.

You could increase the size of a heatsink and use longer heatpipes, but there are limits. Physical size is one as you can't hide a heatsink like you can a radiator and reservoir. Second is the weight hanging on the motherboard. 6 layer PCBs has allowed for larger heatsinks but the Noctua D15 at 3lb is a beast. Water cooling is just so convenient. A tiny water block and go as big as you need on the rad and reservoir.
For the everyday Joe with a bedroom computer, a heatsink would suit his needs just fine.

 
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