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Water- or Air-cooling?

What type of cooling should I get for the CPU?

  • Total voters
    5
Rocky

Rocky

TRIBE Member
Finally pulled the trigger on some new computer parts. I've had my current PC since 2008 with only some minor upgrades since. With things starting to slow down, I decided it was time for a real upgrade.

Here is what I have on the way:
  • MSI Z170A XPOWER Gaming Titanium Edition ATX LGA1151
  • Intel® Core™ I7-6700K
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW Gaming ACX 3.0

Going to get about 32GB of DDR4 as well, probably some 3200 Mhz TridentZ, and am thinking about what type of cooling to get.

Should I get a AIO water-cooler for the CPU? Or is air-cooling better? I'll probably over-clock it (which I've never done before). How about the GPU?
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
Nice one! I'm also eyeing that 6700K processor. A different motherboard and I already have an SSD and a GTX 960 so it's good enough for me. My existing computer's architecture is also from 2008!

I think for the cooling it depends, if you do plan on over clocking then I would say to go for it. There's also the loudness aspect of cooling to take into account, so bigger fans are essential.

What kind of power supply do you have? I believe I have a 750Watt right now. Hopefully it's enough for the 1151 architecture + all of those power hungry components.
 
Lojack

Lojack

TRIBE Member
I just built a system with an EK Predator 360 AIO. I did it because I am overclocking my 6800k. I chose the Predator 360 because I will be adding my GPU to the loop (waterblock needs to be installed and I am being lazy). It wasn't cheap but it does get me what I want (an overclocked CPU). If I was going to do it again, I'd probably shop around a bit more to save money but I would not choose another AIO. My SO has an Corsair 110 AIO and it is perfect for her 6700k. She didn't want to watercool the GPU so it made sense and was a lot cheaper.

The GPU is a great choice, I have a 1070 FTW. EVGA did mess up though, the VRM's are not properly cooled by the ACX 3.0 cooler, so they are offering free thermal pads to install. GPU's built late October or later have the thermal pads added.

As for the PSU, 750W will be more than fine. Plenty of room.
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
Corsair AIOs are fine if you wanna "set it and forget it"

EK setups are great if you're looking for a step up that gives you a bit more customizability for sure, even for their AIOs.

I have a corsairs H80i in my HTPC and its great. In my other PC I have one of the most massive air coolers ever built with giant fans on it I never even hear (Noctua D-18).

I don't really know if I care too much about either one over the other - both are doing the job just fine in their PCs.

My big pc is in a mammoth case with enough room for a 4x140 rad in the bottom so one day i hope to go all in for a custom DIY water solution, just everything works now, yknow? Feels like total luxury spend so Im unsure i will ever do this. Why drop a G on that when I can drop the same G on an amazing G-sync monitor, or a new GPU??
 
Lojack

Lojack

TRIBE Member
I'll admit I was seriously thinking about a Noctua but decided on the EK. The Noctua would have been a lot cheaper.
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
I bought a Z710-A mobo, 16GB of 3200OC ram, and the 6700k cpu. Should be good for several years.
 
Rocky

Rocky

TRIBE Member
djfear said:
I bought a Z710-A mobo, 16GB of 3200OC ram, and the 6700k cpu. Should be good for several years.
Click to expand...
That's basically what I have. Still have to get my RAM and CPU cooler, which I will do this week. Probably going to go with 32GB of 3000 or 3200Mhz RAM, and maybe the Corsair H105 AIO cooler for the CPU.
 
glych t.anomaly

glych t.anomaly

TRIBE Member
Nice on the 6700's , it interesting to read the comparison's between the two.

Haswell vs. Skylake-S: i7 4790K vs i7 6700K

i currently have

Processor Model: Intel Core i7-4790K
Processor Speed: 4.0Ghz
Processor Cooling : Liquid
Number of Cores: 4
Chipset Intel Z97 Express
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 4GB
Memory 16 GB
Memory Type DDR3 1666mhz
SSD Capacity 240GB

Plus i just bought Asus ROG Swift PG279Q Review - TFT Central and WHOLY FUCKING SHIT

I definitely didnt understand what a real monitor with the hardware capabilities this thing has paired with my 980 !

I am playing

Rise of the Tomb Raider
Titanfall 2
Overwatch

Settings are quite high if not maxed out, the gaming experience is beyond description. Dropping from a 32 inch to 27 inch, going from 1080p to 1440p @ 165Hz !?!?!?!?!?!!?

Amagad, its fucking STUNNING. nothing is now out of my peripheral focal range with the Asus wall mounted and basically almost the identical distance from me as my 32 inch Vizio was.
Everything is beyond crisp, clean, fast, fluid, rich, textured, colours are fantastic.

From cinematics to fast paced action, i honestly have to almost slow down going through these games just to appreciate what im seeing with my eyes.

Also, this monitor has ' warmth ' settings to combat the harsh blues that are prone to fatiguing your eyes.

Super Super fucking stoked.
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
Damn, that screen looks baller. 144hz! The name also reminds me of Rob Swift from the X-ecutioners

I wonder how that monitor fares in photo editing.
 
glych t.anomaly

glych t.anomaly

TRIBE Member
Ill let you know, i havent put it through the paces in LR or PS yet, but going to give it a whirl this week and see how the different settings help how images look on the screen etc.

and it overclocks to 165Hz;)
 
Rocky

Rocky

TRIBE Member
Haven't read too much about monitors yet, but will be soon. I have a 4K video card, so will be looking for a matching monitor soon. What's the benefit of a high refresh rate? Smooth gaming? I'll probably be looking for something with V-synch at 4K with a Retina-like pixel density, and I guess a high refresh rate. Not sure if there's anything too affordable like that yet? OLED would be nice, too.
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
Rocky said:
Haven't read too much about monitors yet, but will be soon. I have a 4K video card, so will be looking for a matching monitor soon. What's the benefit of a high refresh rate? Smooth gaming? I'll probably be looking for something with V-synch at 4K with a Retina-like pixel density, and I guess a high refresh rate. Not sure if there's anything too affordable like that yet? OLED would be nice, too.
Click to expand...
High refresh rate reduces eye strain, and... well at 144hz+ you're eliminating motion blur, specifically in video games. Your gaming will be as smooth as eggs.
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
Rocky said:
Haven't read too much about monitors yet, but will be soon. I have a 4K video card, so will be looking for a matching monitor soon. What's the benefit of a high refresh rate? Smooth gaming? I'll probably be looking for something with V-synch at 4K with a Retina-like pixel density, and I guess a high refresh rate. Not sure if there's anything too affordable like that yet? OLED would be nice, too.
Click to expand...
No real OLED options at the size people have on their desks - fab issues still at smaller sizes

Gync, if you're nvidia, or freesync, if you're ATI, is good way to go to future proof. 3 years down the road when you are turning down settings on your card and losing frames you'll appreciate how smooth it keeps things rocking!

Acer/Asus make the best gaming monitors these days it seems...
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
Well fuck me. Didn't realize that the LGA775 fan is not compatible with the LGA1151. :| Looks like I'm going to spend more flow on a cooling solution. Probably going for a 140mm fan.

Before I used to be on top of hardware reviews, spec'ing everything out, and making sure that I had everything in place. Now... I don't care as much. But we'll see what I get.
 
djfear

djfear

TRIBE Member
Managed to grab a $40 (10% off) coolmaster fan, installed everything, and it ran the first time. Of course, the OS didn't work anymore so I have to re-install it. :p I wasn't able to prepare it in time. I also realized that my motherboard doesn't have the old serial cables for hard drives anymore and I forgot to grab everything from it. Ah well... I can always dump it into another computer somewhere and extract the files.
 
RumRogerz

RumRogerz

TRIBE Member
water... air...

I suppose it depends. I'm going to take the lazy man's route and tell ya:
air = blows shit all around your case. Doesn't matter if you have positive or negative flow in your case: dust be abound. It will diffuse heat... into your case.
water = way less dust. But then you need to consider the dust that collects on the rad. And the other dust that collects on the fan blades. Granted, you also isolate your dust duties to only your rad and your fans. My computer is pretty much always on, and it's pristine inside. Looks like I just pulled it out of box. I've never had heat as an issue, unless I was gaming for 6+ hours. After that the GPU really starts to warm the room up a bit; but hey, those hell spawn aren't going to slay themselves.
If I was a die hard and wanted hyper efficiency with airlflow, I would invest in a liquid GPU cooler; but the die sizes and PCB configurations change so often I consider it a waste of money. If only we could drop a GPU on a mobo with it's own dedicated RAM.... that would be lovely.
 
RumRogerz

RumRogerz

TRIBE Member
Speaking of which, my next pet project is building a console killer. Small console sized case with a balling GPU. That way I can take it to my parents house and jam away on their wicked huge TV without having to lug around a big ass tower like a chump
 
praktik

praktik

TRIBE Member
Well-designed cases will take a few measures to combat dust.

I had one case that needed thorough air blasting every week or two as it had negative pressure and no filters really and the thing just collected particulates like it was a passion for it or something. I was a smoker then too so that didn't help.

With the Silverstone TJ11, i got two giant fans pulling air through slots that have removable, cleanable dust filters on them. Its also a positive pressure design.



I'm WAY late on dusting but its kind of optional now.

Takes forever to accumulate. Its been months since my last tour with a can of air.

And you know, liquid cooling should not absolve you of having fans. Your case should still need to pass air over components to some degree.

Takes some specialized parts and some engineering trickery to have all components covered by water blocks.

Even mobos that offer some liquid cooling built in are only doing the MOSFETs and a few areas of the board. The rest should still have a gentle breeze flowing over it.
 
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