NH-D15 vs Kraken X61 vs Hydro 115i (or 110 GTX) vs Thermaltake Ultimate 3.0 vs Swiftech H240x vs Swiftech H320vsDark rock pro

TheFinalEpic

Reputable
Nov 6, 2015
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Hey guys i've been debating this for weeks and has been researching for a long time and cannot come to the right conclusion, so I'm wondering if I could get fresh eyes on my situation.

This is my current build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/FFxV3F

Pics:
http://imgur.com/a/l5ml3

I've been building the entire thing over the courses of a year and adding touches+ buying the peripherals one at a time and I think I've come to a really good point where I can just stop (The only thing I'm planning to upgrade is the Graphics Card, waiting for polaris/navi/vega to be released, never going to buy Nvidia again due to gameworks/gimping old cards/nvidia doing bad work ethics/amd being better with dx 12/nvidia can't do async compute)

But there's one thing that seems to be bugging me for the past week and I can't just leave it alone. The CPU cooler.

With such an expensive rig and accessories it feels underwhelming to just have a 30 dollar cooler.



So the question is:


Should I keep my Hyper 212 Evo or upgrade it to one of the water coolers (Kraken X61 vs Hydro 115i (or 110 GTX) vs Thermaltake Ultimate 3.0 vs Swiftech H240x vs Swiftech H320) or upgrade to one of the higher end air cooler (NH-D15, Dark rock pro 3, cryorig r1 ultimate)


is it worth it to ditch my hyper 212 even though its doing a fine job? If I do upgrade to one of the listed coolers, it'll only be for aesthetics/ CPU being cooler/ Having a CPU cooler already if I ever build a new rig.I would still leave it at 4.4 ghz 1.2volt-since I have fiddled around with the settings on water before and don't find the heat/volts to be worth it (I got 1.3V at 4.7 ghz stable at 80C with my friend's kraken x61)- Thus upgrading will get me 0 performance increases except for aesthetics/cpu being about 10 degrees cooler.

Yes I've know the difference between all of them and the pros and cons of air/water (ram clearance, weight of the cpu, cleaner look for water, bigger radiator is better, points of failure is pump, pump won't last forever, leakage, water will perform slight better etc etc)

I would love to hear your thoughts on this; any other coolers thats not listed is welcomed. I'll be reading this thread and the votes for my decision.

Votes:
http://www.strawpoll.me/10338851

Oh and a little random vote (case lighting, only 2 choices, cable mod RGB or Hue+)
http://www.strawpoll.me/10338858
 
Solution
Can you get a 180$ Swiftech H320 X2? Because if you can then its one of the most awesome looking Water coolers. Its transparent and you can see the water flowing. They give you the freedom to choose color of liquid. It performs awesome also.
http://www.amazon.com/Swiftech-H320-X2-All--Liquid-Cooler/dp/B01AOG1P3U/ .
Because Hyper 212 EVO already performs fine and there will be very little benefit in Adding a water cooler, it should be awesome looking. Otherwise a small performance benefit is not at all worth. So for asthetics you can chose this.
Good luck ;)

Krishan Mourya

Distinguished
Oct 4, 2015
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18,960
Can you get a 180$ Swiftech H320 X2? Because if you can then its one of the most awesome looking Water coolers. Its transparent and you can see the water flowing. They give you the freedom to choose color of liquid. It performs awesome also.
http://www.amazon.com/Swiftech-H320-X2-All--Liquid-Cooler/dp/B01AOG1P3U/ .
Because Hyper 212 EVO already performs fine and there will be very little benefit in Adding a water cooler, it should be awesome looking. Otherwise a small performance benefit is not at all worth. So for asthetics you can chose this.
Good luck ;)
 
Solution

qpepsilonqp

Commendable
Nov 22, 2016
1
0
1,510
My opinion would be to go with either the NH-D15 if you don't care about looks or the Dark Rock Pro 3 if you do. Now I do have a bias against AIO's but I think it's well justified.

You are talking about 1 - 3C difference in temps between a high end air cooler and a AIO and you do add the possibility of the AIO leaking or the pump breaking down and overheating your CPU. Which to be honest the latter almost certainly wouldn't kill your CPU unless you left it like that for a long time because it will thermal throttle first and then shut down the the PC once it gets to a certain temp.

And while yes the Fans could break on a air cooler passive cooling would keep it below Tj, but I don't think the risks which I admit are miner, are worth the small improvement in performance.

Never mind that to get that extra performance the fans and pump have to run louder than a good Air cooler like a NH-D15 or DRP3 and that a Water cooler that will beat a NH-D15 or DRP3 will cost more.

If your working with an ITX or Micro ATX system in a very small case with limited airflow; that is, I would say is one of the rare times a AIO is called for, because it can push the air from the CPU right out of the case and will get better performance than a Air cooler with a profile which could fit in such a case.

But for Normal mid Tower like a Define R5 or anything with similar max CPU cooler heights it's got to be air cooler all the way in my opinion, unless your going to go fully custom, or you just like the look of the AIO.

But I can only really give you the cost / performance analysis, atheistic are a personal thing which is upto the individual.

As to there being a small difference between a hyper 212 EVO and a NH-D15 or DRP3, Wrong.

When your pushing 1.3v the the difference between a 212 EVO and NH-D15 can be like 10 - 20 C under load which is significant, that's the difference between a overclock that is fine to a overclock that is beyond acceptable temps.

See here a 22 degree delta under load between a hyper 212 EVO and the NH-D15 and you are probably getting some thermal throttling there.
http://www.relaxedtech.com/reviews/noctua/nh-d15/8