Is a quiet watercooling setup cooler than a quiet air cooling setup?

Currently I run a system with a Zalman CNPS-7700Cu on my CPU and a Zalman VF-700Cu on my video card (both on low). I have 2x Thermaltake 120mm fans running at 5v and a Antect NeoPower 480 power supply. Overall, this makes for a pretty quiet system, but maybe it is too quiet. See I have a 3200+ Winchester chip that I want to overclock since I can't really afford a chip that matches the speeds that I hear these chips can run at. Well I am thinking that with the air cooling setup right now I am not going to be able to make it very far since I run such a quiet system so I thought about going the water cooling route so I can overclock and still stay quiet. However, I am not sure if a water cooling setup running at around the same decible level will give me a very good improvement on temperatures. I have enough money to dump a few hundred into a good water cooling system and I think I have enough experience to do something homebrew if need be. For all I know, water cooling systems may be very quiet but all the pictures that I see have these systems with 2 or 3 or 4 120mm fans and if those fans are running at full speed, that is something I don't want to get into.

Air cooling = craming whatever disappates the heat into the air into a small package

Water cooling = unlimited disappation capabilities.


The more surface area you have the less air flow you need. The less air flow the less noise.

Or in this case, 0 noise (well minus the pumps)

Depends on a lot of factors, but if done correctly, you can certainly build a quiet watercooled system that will cool better than a quiet air cooled system.

In a word, yes, I built my watercooling for silence and my CPU never exceeds 100F.

Do you think I would be at a big disadvantage by going with a kit my first time around? I was looking at the Asetek Waterchill kits, especially the new external ones and I think that would fit my needs. Their stuff seems to get good reviews but I guess they are comparing directly to other kits and not comparing to home made setups.

A kit will not get you the performance of a DIY set. A kit just gives the advantages of having a quick out of the box experience. A DIY will take a lot of planning, a little time to install, and a lot of patience.

I planned my system for 2-3 months.
Installed in over a weekend (16+ hours).
Reinstalled it after adding a few things (12+ hours).

Overall the loudest thing in my system is the hard drives, and they are 7200rpm drives.

Check out the stickies and you can build a very quiet system, and get better performance then you would with any kit.

That asetek kit with at 120mm x 3 radiator is a good kit. Hydor l35 pump + whitewater + BIP III would be about the same performance... But the asetek kit is pretty $$$

if you are going for silence, you might as well build your own kit so you will have complete control over all the components you will be purchasing. D5 pump with BIP II and some yate loons (possibly undervolted) is usually a good choice. Asetek kits can get pretty expensive for what you get....

Currently I run a (http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/product/Chassis/midtower/tsunami/bna/bna.asp) case and part of the reason I was drawn to the Asetek was because it was external and it looked like it would match pretty well. This case seems pretty small to me and I am soon going to have nearly full PCI slots so I don't know how much room there would be. I only run one hard drive and one optical drive so I guess I could relocate my hard drive to the 5 1/4 bays but that still may be cutting it close. Unless these systems are a lot smaller than I think they are. I am sure I would get more satisfaction out of building my own set but if I had to build something external I doubt I have the craftmanship to match what Asetek does with their external system.

If a kit suits your needs, it just does. DIY is fine, it's the way I went. However, this approach may not be for you right now, which is fine. It's not like you're making a permanent decision after all. As for whether quiet water is quieter than quiet air, as someone said, it depends on the components you pick. Quiet water will perform better though, which may or may not be important to you.

My new watercooling setup runs as loud, maybe less louder than Dell notebook ispirion 9400 during using it. I can't even imagine that air cooling would keep the Overclock and even if it would be as quiet. All depends on component selected.

By far the best quiet pump is the swiftech mcp350, it has very high head pressure and runs at or below 22dBA, plus it has 3/8" fittings which are ideal for quiet, lower flow loops.

I am using a small car radiator with no fans, two intake and one exhaust scythe ninjas at 7 volts, and I can tell you that it is very quiet. If you really want quiet, it is going to be hard to find a kit that will fit the bill. Most people would go with an mcp350/DDC pump, BIPII with scythe ninjas or yate loons or the like, and the blocks of your choosing. This will yield a very quiet setup that can handle whatever you throw at it. A quality kit is fine IF it does what you want it to, but if you are really going for quiet, you are probably going to be happier doing it yourself, provided you have the skills to do so. Not to mention that I see a 380 euro pricetag on Asetek's xternal (OUCH!)

Yeah after looking at the pricing I think it will be cheaper to just buy a new case that can house a custom built system than it would be to buy a quality external kit so I think that is what I will do. Thanks for all the suggestions!

Well with aircooling you could get a xp-120 and silenx like 20dB fan, you can't even hear it. But it won't cool near as good as watercooling.

watercooling is just sweet, once you get it all setup and sit back and look at what you've made its great and then yo fire up your computer and look at the temps


GL!

-aDaM^ said:

watercooling is just sweet, once you get it all setup and sit back and look at what you've made its great and then yo fire up your computer and look at the temps

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You’ve got a great attitude, adam. It’s refreshing!