[SOLVED] What is water cooling?

[chmuhammadsohaib]

Hi everyone. I am a beginner in PC building. So I saw some posts regarding Water Cooling PC and decided to ask some questions about that.

What is Water Cooling?
How Effecient is it in contrast to Wind(Fans)?
How to water cool my PC?
What are the requirements of Water cooling my PC or equipment required?
How much boost in performance or overclocking can I expect after water cooling?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ThatVietGuy]

https://medium.com/@meohoh/an-ultimate-beginners-guide-to-pc-water-cooling-1dd4c68f1474

You need to start here rather than being spoon fed all that information. This article should answer most of your questions. Once you are done with the article, you can read more articles or come back here.

But don't expect to be spoon fed like that, especially on a topic as broad as water cooling.

 

[PC Tailor]

Welcome to the forums my friend!

What is Water Cooling?

Basically, where air cooling is a mechanism to draw heat through a heatsink, for a fan to then extract the heat from the component. Water Cooling, instead of a fan extracting this heat, cold water absorbs the heat, which a pump then cycles the now heated water up through the cooling unit, to a radiator, which then has fans that extract the heat directly outside of the case, then pumps cool water back down to the component.

There are 2 types of water cooling, AIO (All in one) and Custom Loops. AIO are the typical full water coolers you buy online, that have everything attached together in one unit.

How Effecient is it in contrast to Wind(Fans)?

AIO - not very. High end air coolers are typically as effective or more effective as AIO. Custom Loops however are very effective in many cases, but are not typically required in 99% of cases. However AIO typically is more space efficient.

How to water cool my PC?

AIO or Custom Loops. Custom Loops are much more expensive, and require maintenance, and knowhow on how to create and service them. AIO are just "plug and play" and all you need is to buy the AIO water cooler (like a Corsair H100i for example) and install it as per the manual. But again, not necessarily any more effective than top air coolers.

What are the requirements of Water cooling my PC or equipment required?

As above. Really, you just need to make sure your case can hold the size of radiator (your case specification sheet should have support radiator size, but nearly all ATX cases will take a decent AIO nowadays). And that the water cooler is compatible with your CPU / MB socket, just like an air cooler.

How much boost in performance or overclocking can I expect after water cooling?

Same as above, not that much difference from top air coolers in most cases. Custom Loops, very different.