Problems with water cooling

[BigTibbs]

Ive recently installed a DeepCool Captain 120EX water cooler in my PC, my CPU is an AMD A10 5800K non overclocked.

The reason i installed it is because my air cooler was performing poorly, with Battlefield 1 making it run at 86c. Installing this cooler has slightly helped this, staying around 79-78. Im 100% sure ive installed it correctly its pretty simple, all the screws are right nothings loose.

Even at idle i get around 48c, and just opening chrome takes it up to 58c.

It doesn't help that 4 different cpu temp programs show different readings.

core temp 1.5 is showing 29c under load and 4c idle which i find hard to believe, and HWmonitor is showing the 79-78 readings...

2 main points from this,

is 79c a normal temp under load?
Is there a problem with my cooler?

Picture of my pc
http://imgur.com/a/R5A1W

 

[Ecky]

What are you using to monitor temps? The only program that can read the temps of AMD APUs is Overdrive, anything else will give nonsense readings.

 

[BigTibbs]

I tried overdrive but it only shows thermal margin nor actual temperature? I've used HWmonitor, core temp, openhardware, all give different readings

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The Deepcool, or any CLC for that matter, isn't likely to bring you better performance than a similarly priced air cooler, not with 1800 rpm fans.

 

[Ecky]

You can't get a real temperature reading from an AMD CPU. AMD themselves have stated that their CPUs don't display temperature, just an arbitrary scale. Thermal margin is the only number that has any meaning.

 

[BigTibbs]

The Deepcool, or any CLC for that matter, isn't likely to bring you better performance than a similarly priced air cooler, not with 1800 rpm fans.

CLC? so should i just return it and get a a cooler from a more repeatable brand? i want to avoid that if i can...

 

[BigTibbs]

You can't get a real temperature reading from an AMD CPU. AMD themselves have stated that their CPUs don't display temperature, just an arbitrary scale. Thermal margin is the only number that has any meaning.

so what am i looking for high thermal margin or low?

 

[Ecky]

Thermal margin is the temperature you have left until it's too hot, so any number higher than zero is good.

EDIT: CLC = closed loop liquid cooler. Typically, CLC's don't cool as well as similarly priced air coolers. They make sense in a few niches, but in general I consider them to be a poor value.

 

[BigTibbs]

So for example, replacing it with a equal model from Corsair or nzxt make little to no difference? I feel a bit cheated tbh haha

 

[JackNaylorPE]

CLC? so should i just return it and get a a cooler from a more repeatable brand? i want to avoid that if i can...

No... what I am saying people have this huge expectation that CLC type "water cooling" or what I like to call "Faux water cooling" will bring this huge change in thermal performance. It doesn't happen for several reasons:

-Water cooling enthusiasts have determined that 1.0 gpm is the minimum flow rate for a custom water loop system ... CLCs only provide 0,11 or so.

-CLCs use aluminum radiators, which has a much lower heat transfer cooefficient

-To overcome the thermal deficiencies of aluminum CLC manufacturers oft use extreme rpm fans which make lot of noise.

-When trying to address that problem by lowering fan speeds. the units lose much of their ability to compete with similarly priced air coolers.... and they still remain much louder.

To borrow a phrase ... let's go to the videotape (17:10 mark)

The $85 Noctua air cooler is shown here delivering CPU temp of 71C at a noise level of 33 dbA. Corsair's flagship CLC - H100i can only manage 73C but it has to be 12 times louder at 68 dbA to do it... and that's with a 2 x 140mm radiator and 2 fans. Now if you look to the left, the Swiftech AIO which is an OLC (Open Loop Cooler), it manages to bring the CPU temps down a whopping 7C compared tot he Corsair and, due to its slower speed fans, copper radiator and 1.0+ gpm pump manages to do it while being only 1/6th as loud as the Corsair.

i don't know what cooler you started with but any expectation that a somewhat decent $60 CLC will outperform a somewhat decent $60 air cooler is misplaced.

Looking here for example, we see the $150 Gamer Storm Captain (70C) with 3 x 120mm radiator and 3 fans only manages to get close to the $85 Noctua (69C) and that's with 3 times the amount of radiator and fans. OIts also more than twice as loud.

If you were going to spend $150 tho... you could buy the Swiftech H240 X2 (2 x 140mm). It beats the H100i by 9C and the Noctua by 6C

 

[Ecky]

This is an oversimplification, but in a nutshell the reason CLC's perform poorly compared with air coolers at a similar price is that in a CLC the manufacturer also has to include a pump, waterblock, coolant and tubes, when the only really important factor is the cooling surface/radiator. Or, from another perspective, air coolers can have more cooling surface at the same price because you don't have to buy all of the junk that CLCs need to function. There's nothing inherent in water that makes it better, water is just one way to move heat from the surface of the CPU to the cooling surface, and heatpipes really work just as well.