I've posted a couple times about looking into water cooling, got some good suggestions, and have been reading through all the manuals and guides I could find... it's all very interesting, but some of it got me thinking...
1. I do minor overclocks, but nothing extreme, no competitive overclocks or anything
2. I live in south central florida, high humidity and fairly high ambient temps (house is usually 74-75F), I know these things affect cooling, but have yet to see anything regarding how much and whether I should realistically lean towards water cool vs air cooled because of my location.
3. I keep reading reviews like http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-cooler-charts-2008,1779-20.html and find myself questioning whether or not water cooling will really have a significant benefit for me.
4. I planned on water cooling my current system first (because realistically I plan on buying a new one within a year or so anyways), so with that in mind, I figured I'd throw out some specs on what my planned new system will be so you have an idea of what my end goal of cooling is.
wanting to get a gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R revision 2, running an intel i7-950 w/ 8Gb RAM and a radeon 5970, with everything slightly overclocked, but nothing serious... now I will admit that fan noise has been an issue on my current system, but honestly I havent tried to fix this with any new air cooling solutions and I'm sure I could easily make this run quietly on air...
so... with all this in mind what are the realistic benefits (if any) of water cooling over air are for me... or if you feel like arguing the other side, what benefits (if any) does air cooling hold for me?
edit: just read through this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-cooler-charts-2008-part-2,1782-13.html which bodes well for water cooling in general, but again, with my situation, my location, and my planned hardware, would really appreciate input.
1. I do minor overclocks, but nothing extreme, no competitive overclocks or anything
2. I live in south central florida, high humidity and fairly high ambient temps (house is usually 74-75F), I know these things affect cooling, but have yet to see anything regarding how much and whether I should realistically lean towards water cool vs air cooled because of my location.
3. I keep reading reviews like http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-cooler-charts-2008,1779-20.html and find myself questioning whether or not water cooling will really have a significant benefit for me.
4. I planned on water cooling my current system first (because realistically I plan on buying a new one within a year or so anyways), so with that in mind, I figured I'd throw out some specs on what my planned new system will be so you have an idea of what my end goal of cooling is.
wanting to get a gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R revision 2, running an intel i7-950 w/ 8Gb RAM and a radeon 5970, with everything slightly overclocked, but nothing serious... now I will admit that fan noise has been an issue on my current system, but honestly I havent tried to fix this with any new air cooling solutions and I'm sure I could easily make this run quietly on air...
so... with all this in mind what are the realistic benefits (if any) of water cooling over air are for me... or if you feel like arguing the other side, what benefits (if any) does air cooling hold for me?
edit: just read through this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-cooler-charts-2008-part-2,1782-13.html which bodes well for water cooling in general, but again, with my situation, my location, and my planned hardware, would really appreciate input.