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Water cooled or not water cooled computer survey

gray eagle

gray eagle

SOH-CM-2025
I am interested in hearing from those that use the Water Cooled CPU systems.

I am also interested in finding out anyone that has a recent computer (all in one tower) that is air cooled and the specs on it
and how it preforms. I know there are water cooled and air cooled computers out there that will support P3D V4 series and interested
in hearing what works for you as far as P3D V4 is concerned. Manly interested in best bang for the buck ($$$)

I am doing a search and comparison on what types of newer computers (tower) and how the Intel I series and the
AMD Ryzen fair with P3D V4 series. I want a tower that will support P3D V4 and later and updates in the future.
The Mobo would have to allow 3 or more PCI cards and handle more then one internal HD. Have a few USB 3/2 ports as well.
I know the water cooled runs quieter and cooler but I would think down the road corrosion would be a factor or leakage inside
the boards.


Thanks.
 
Gray Eagle, both my gaming machine and internet machine are built by Falcon North-west and feature water cooled CPUs. As part of the warranty package they guarantee no leaks for 5 years. Both are their Mach V brand machines.
 
Water cooled processors on both of my computers (one Intel and one AMD). Water cooled GTX1080 GPU on main computer.
 
Used Liquid cooling on everything I've built for over 10 years and never had any problems at all.
I'm using a Corsair Obsidian 900D Full Tower at the moment as it was the most flexible box that I could get without going to silly prices.
It will fit 9 hard drives and 3 optical drives along with 4 graphic cards.......:encouragement:
 
I dabbled a few years ago, but gave up after a fried motherboard and expensive graphics card (due to faulty leaking components rather than my assembly). Plus wrestling with a truly dreadful piece of kit called a Zalman Reserator, guaranteed to drive you insane. Once I found out that it was Zalman's own (expensive) coolant that was crystallizing in the blocks and clogging up the whole kit, then it was back to good old fans for me !

I'm sure modern professionally built kits are fine, but just remember the old maxim that water and electricity are not made to live happily together..........
 
Use sealed-loop coolers. 6 years later, used on 2 different computers, one of my Corsair coolers is still going strong.
 
Air cooled all the way. I keep the room cool so never had a problem with excessive heat anyway. Just buy as many fans your case allows and a very good fan cooled CPU cooler setup and you will be fine ,unless you live in a desert. Saving up to build a new rig and i'm still going air cooled. A full tower is a good place to start as they run cooler than a mid-tower.Had friends with liquid cooled rigs and ALL had problems later on.
 
Most of the "Gaming" computers I saw were water cooled equipped. I wonder if I could find a non-gaming computer (pre-built) with plenty enough power to run P3D V4 series
without the slide show effects. I've managed to get my moneys worth out of all the computers I've had until they were slowed down by all the power demanding code (bloat) that
the flight sims had. I go back to the Tandy 1000 (with no HD) with 5 1/4 floppy drives and could play 1st flight sim on it.

Now It seems like one almost needs a Cray computer to play latest from P3D. (just kidding) :biggrin-new:

Price wise I am almost inclined to look at the non-gaming pre-builts with enough oomph to run current P3D - an is expandible - i.e. enough PCI slots and CPU that both
could be upgraded without starting from scratch. I know back in the day and it still holds true today - this stuff is planned obsolescence - buy it today and tomorrow, take it
to the dump. :bee:
 
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It depends on the climate where you live. If winters get really cold, I would advise against them. A friend of mine has had problems with liquid cooling during exceptionally cold winters and it eventually borked his motheboard and cpu.

With the speeds that are offered by the current processors, overclocking isn't really needed, so the CPU will stay cool with good air cooling. Oh and good air cooling is quiet too.

As for CPU's, I personally don't even consider buying AMD. Intel all the way!!

of course, this is just my opinion.

Priller
 
Sounds of Freedom

There is nothing like the sound of 6 case fans and a humungous CPU fan spinning at Max RPM to make you feel like your B-36 is ready for take-off!
 
You know you have enough cooling fans in a tower when a 70lbs Dell aluminum cased tower comes to a hover when all the fans are going... :biggrin-new::engel016: :bee:

Sorry...
Pat☺
 
If we could get our towers to achieve take off, we would not need Flight simulator.

Of course I would have died years ago from one of my famous landings. :biggrin-new:
 
I don't run P3D, but FSXA is fully loaded with junk. It runs on:

Thermaltake Commander G41 case
Intel I7-6700K 4.2 GHz
ASUS Z170 Aura MB
Corsair Vengeance D4 2X8GB 3200m
2 512 GB SSD
2 1Tb 7200 rpm HD (RAID)
ASUS GeForce GTX1070 STRIX OC 8Gb video
CoolerMaster 212 LED CPU fan

Last Summer when the room temps reached 39*C I couldn't hear the fans run ( but could see them working) There was more residual heat from the 3 LED monitors than the computer and the 16" room fan was far louder than the cooling system. Good airflow in the case makes a world of difference - like routing the cables along the backplane rather than all across the case's airflow. I finally heard my fans running the other day when I leaned my ear against the front air vent as I retrieved a cable I'd dropped. The smaller case was a compromise but I could install a 2nd GTX-1070 if I swapped one of the SSDs for a M2 drive. With a larger case that would be no issue.

All my long-term storage is done on external HDs so the four drives are sufficient.
Once upon a time I swore by liquid cooling, but now I wonder whether the extra layer of complexity (of course NOTHING EVER breaks) is worth it and this is by far the coolest-running system I've ever had.
 
I just built a new system with EVGA CLC 280 CPU cooler with 5 yr warranty. First time water cooling for me and I'm impressed!

Love the Intel 9000 series processors and how easliy they overclock to 5.0 GHz on all cores with the Gigabyte Aorus Z390 Pro. Also with the 970 EVO 250 GB NVMe for Windows + programs and a 960 EVO 1TB for gaming its supper quiet and blazingly fast.

Oh and the the powersupply draws fresh air thru its own case filter... another plus. Also love the light show! :biggrin-new:
 
Priller said:
It depends on the climate where you live. Priller
Click to expand...
Very good point.
We live in a relatively warm Winter which would be viable for AC only but during the Summer temperatures hit 40C+, not exactly in my location but enough for me to use Liquid Cooling.
I used Noctua air coolers on a couple of smaller 'customer' units I built a few years ago and even as an interim measure on a backup box for myself. (I forgot to mention those)
Noctua are amazingly efficient and quiet, they're also huge.
Best to build your own PC from the ground up and fit it to your needs, while many of the 'Commercial' builds do the business they often come with a 'Warranty Void if Case Opened' disclaimer and are sealed.
The last 'Built' box I purchased was last Century......!
:biggrin-new:
 
Priller said:
It depends on the climate where you live. If winters get really cold, I would advise against them. A friend of mine has had problems with liquid cooling during exceptionally cold winters and it eventually borked his motheboard and cpu.

With the speeds that are offered by the current processors, overclocking isn't really needed, so the CPU will stay cool with good air cooling. Oh and good air cooling is quiet too.

As for CPU's, I personally don't even consider buying AMD. Intel all the way!!

of course, this is just my opinion.

Priller
Click to expand...

The climate where I live in Australia is why I just purchased my first system with watercooling. My previous system coped pretty well for the past 7 years with air cooling only, but my CPU did run very hot. It was an i7-2700k OC'd to 4.5GHz, and would run up to around 80 degrees celcius and higher. The hot summers here don't help. Yesterday we had temps up to 45 degrees celcius.

I actually just set up my new PC today, and now I have an i9-9900k, Asus ROG Strix 2080 Ti, a "THERMALTAKE LEVEL 20 GT RGB EDITION" case and "THERMALTAKE FLOE RIING RGB 280TT PREMIUM EDITION AIO CPU COOLER". All up the case has 8 fans running including the 3 in the RTX 2080 Ti. I bought the parts separately through a place called Centrecom in Australia, and they built the PC for me, and I actually purchased 3 more 120mm fans when I selected all the parts, but the guy building it said he couldn't fit them in :untroubled:. I wanted to make sure my cooling was good.
 
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