Should I air or water cool my gaming rig?-Please help!

[Silverion77]

Cause this OP doesnt seem to listen....at all

People told them all there views said air was fine and water if he wanted to OC/ quieter but No, he keeps complaining and keeps asking posts 2 other threads w/ the same question hoping to get an answer i mean rly...

 

[faster3200]

Alright, I don't want to prolong an argument, it doesn't help anyone. I think the biggest issue is that he didn't want to listen to people who were going off on his Tri-SLI GTX 280 choice. Anyway, lets just leave it at what it is shall we?

 

[Guest]

no




PS. got last word in 😛

 

[UltimaSlayerVII]

ultimate slayer - I have a similar setup to what you want except i just went with 1 4870x2 card and i did go with 8gb of ram. The rest is the same. I even have the stacker 830 except i went black.

I decided to do air cooling and here is my configuration:

2 Fans in the front - Blowing in
2 Fans on the side (custom windowed side with only 2 fans instead of 4) Blowing in
2 Fans underneath - Blowing air in
1 Fan on top - Blowing out
1 Fan in the back Blowing out
2 Fans in the PSU
1 Fan in the CPU Heat Sink
1 Fan on the Video card - which i modified to have it run at 90%

Noise doesnt bother me so i bought 8 fans:
2 Delta Fans that blow 200+CFM
6 Scythe 3000 RPM 150+ CFM

Seriously the air flow is so strong it is no wonder that no parts have blown off yet in my case. You def want to tie any wires down. Anyways i just wanted to state that i have similar setup and you can buy some powerful fans that keep air flowing through your case like a tornado and im OC'd at 3.6 with no issues.



Good Luck.

PS Did i mention that it is worse than being in a server room or server farm when sitting right next to it?

Yea, thats about the number of fans all the cases I'm looking at will fit. But tell me, can you sleep with that damn thing on?

And does it muffle the sound?Because I'm spending $200 on a sound card, and $300 surround sound, so huge noise from fans is a no-no, but I can deal with the noise people cry about a lot that isn't really a big deal... but 12 fans sounds like it might be louder than my surround sound.

What you think?

 

[UltimaSlayerVII]

Wow, I guess missed the part where we weren't supposed to help a clearly frustrated OP. Maybe I should unnecessarily start a fight while not really contributing, that would probably be more on topic. Maybe I should post less coherently, after all why would I want the OP to acknowledged that I actually helped him make a decision?

Please, got off your high horse. I am not the one who takes himself so seriously that I go on forums and bitch because someone already made up their mind.

+100000

Thanks, at least you understand. So many of these people look for every opportunity to insult my setup, or knowledge of anything I don't know about, it being the 1st time I've ever built my own setup. Hell, before these last few weeks I've been reading about computers computers computers, I couldn't even tell you what a video card was.

Thanks for your help. And thogrom, shut up, you didn't say what he did. You just whine and bitch on your high horse and say a word or two to make it sound like you're helping

 

[UltimaSlayerVII]

Alright, I don't want to prolong an argument, it doesn't help anyone. I think the biggest issue is that he didn't want to listen to people who were going off on his Tri-SLI GTX 280 choice. Anyway, lets just leave it at what it is shall we?

Why is it nobody will stfu bout my triple GTX 280s(not you faster, but the others)? I mean cmon! I WANT to blow a ton of $ on GPUs. Why wont you leave me alone? It's my decision, and I'm getting them regardless, so why dont you shut up and actually help for a change instead of trying to prove I'm stupid. This is a thread about WHAT COOLING I SHOULD GET not "HOW RETARDED IS MY SETUP?"

Seriously, you idiots piss me off.

 

[Silverion77]

then GO AWAY....
and im actually happy we did

U are too dumb to get by the fact that PLENTY OF PPL told u what to go.
Here ill sum it all up for u in a simple manner u can understand:
1) AIR COOLING is fine if u have fans, it will be loud but it will be fine

2) Water cool if u want to either A!!) be quieter or B) overclock ur cpu higher than capable of air in that setup

 

[Guest]

here is the summation of this thread


ultima is 12 years old

faster is mature

ultima tagged onto faster

i insulted ultima

ultima boo hoos

faster defends ultima

ultima thinks faster and himself are friends
and yet fails to realize he has no friends in life...

 

[rubix_1011]

Hey guys, what'd I miss??

Good lord, you would almost think that people submit multiple bashing posts just to drive up their post counts, because I don't see much use for about 3/4 of them on this thread.

There were excellent suggestions made for both air and water; with that, it is the OP's decision on how much money he decides to spend. If he has the ability to get tri-sli 280's and H2O blocks for them all...so be it. This wasn't a thread about frugality, so let him blow his wad however he wants...maybe he can at least post some pics when he is done.

 

[UltimaSlayerVII]

then GO AWAY....
and im actually happy we did

U are too dumb to get by the fact that PLENTY OF PPL told u what to go.
Here ill sum it all up for u in a simple manner u can understand:
1) AIR COOLING is fine if u have fans, it will be loud but it will be fine

2) Water cool if u want to either A!!) be quieter or B) overclock ur cpu higher than capable of air in that setup

ZOMG RLY?~?!?!?! OH NOES NOW I HAS 2 REBUILD MY ENTYRE RIGS! MIND=BLOWN WOW UR SMRT!1!1

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

ZOMG RLY?~?!?!?! OH NOES NOW I HAS 2 REBUILD MY ENTYRE RIGS! MIND=BLOWN WOW UR SMRT!1!1

Here's why I don't agree with the tri-sli.

I honestly feel that you would be better off with a watercooled setup. The thing is that you don't want to spend huge amounts on the cooling.

What I propose is a switch to a 4870X2 CF setup saving you around $200-300 on the video cards and picking up performance.

Also, now you only need two Full Length GPU blocks rather than three (a savings of around $150).

$350-450 savings for better performance and a better cooled more silent system.

That is what I propose.

 

[Silverion77]

ZOMG RLY?~?!?!?! OH NOES NOW I HAS 2 REBUILD MY ENTYRE RIGS! MIND=BLOWN WOW UR SMRT!1!1

omg ur like a damn 2 year old seriously

Some ppl do not have lots of fans, they just use a heatsink, its still air cooling. U dont need fans to air cool now do u?!? Ever heard of Passive cooling?!? guess not

Now choose whats best for u. If u have as much money compared to how much complaining u do then do water. We dont care, its not our build, our money, or our time

 

[Silverion77]

I mean here ill help u:

Get 2 or 3 pumps (MCP 355/Laing DDC 3.2) w/ aftermarket tops (XSPC i think are the best)
Swiftech GTZ/D Tek Fusion v2 on a cpu only loop w/ a 3 x 120 rad
3 EK full cover 280 blocks
3 EK full cover 280 Back blocks
Put those on a separate loop with, hmm id use a 4x120 rad (Feser or Black Ice Xtreme)
And a EK 150 or 250 reservoir (looks rly nice)

Total: Around $1400

 

[kazuya-kun]

I read all that crap up top but meh.. Not gonna bother trying to start a long debate of hate.

I got a P182, it should be roomy enough to fit your 3x 280gtx and also the there's an intake fan that will blow air directly to your gfx cards. Although like what most people mentioned already, those 3 cards one on top of each other are gonna get toasty no matter what, but at least with a fan with high CFM set to max, it should bring the temps down a fair bit.

If worse comes to worse, just try to get one loop going for your gfx cards only or your cpu since all the heat from the cpu is getting dumped back into the case.

Your cpu is going to be an insane bottleneck, for that setup, since your not going to OC it much, but air cooling for a nominal OC is perfectly fine. As soon as you go up to 3.6~3.8ghz you'll want to switch to WC.

PS. Don't expect to be running max settings/max res with those cards in 4 years. Look at Stalker CS, on max settings, they'll make the tri-280gtx cry. It's worse than "Crysis" in terms of GPU requirements. Go to 3dGuru for the review of Stalker CS.

I would have gone with the 2x 4870x2 in CF, cheaper and almost as good. You could of spent some money getting a QX9770 since almost 90% of today's games are more CPU dependant than GPU.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

I mean here ill help u:

Get 2 or 3 pumps (MCP 355/Laing DDC 3.2) w/ aftermarket tops (XSPC i think are the best)
Swiftech GTZ/D Tek Fusion v2 on a cpu only loop w/ a 3 x 120 rad
3 EK full cover 280 blocks
3 EK full cover 280 Back blocks
Put those on a separate loop with, hmm id use a 4x120 rad (Feser or Black Ice Xtreme)
And a EK 150 or 250 reservoir (looks rly nice)

Total: Around $1400

Or move to a 4870X2 CF setup saving around $350.00

2 Pumps (MCP355) (I personally use two MCP655s) $150 total
Swiftech Apogee GTZ (I use this one) $70 total
1xSwiftech MCR220-QP (I use this one) $45 total
1xSwiftech MCR320-QP (I use this one) $55 total
2xEK Full Cover blocks (I use these) $340 total
1xEK 150 res (I use this one) $45 total

Total: $705 - 350 (from graphics card switch)
=
$355 for a better performing, totally cooled system. Fact is you only need a single 3x120mm rad to cool two 4870X2 cards.. at least this is what I use and they idle in their 30s and load in the 50s.

If you want more graphics cooling power you could go for a HW Labs Black Ice GTX Xtreme 480 for ~$75 more.