Water vs HSF? (Condensation)

Okay...

I think I am ready, please bless me with your knowledge of below ambient temp cooling and condensation. Please see my specs below and then tell me is it worth the hassle of going to a water cooled system. I am a little afraid to go with a radiator. I would like to think I could purchase a copper water block with hoses and a pump. Use a two liter bottle with ice cubes for a little extra cooling. Do I have to worry about condensation? If so what procedures would I have to take to go watercooled get better temps and not have to worry about condensation? My system temp is usually around 24-27c depending on the weather. My cpu is always 4-8 degrees hotter it seems I should get better results considering the lengths I went to to cool it down.

Why would you be afraid of using a radiator? It will be a must if you are overclocking. The ice in the two liter bottle would melt very quickly cause you wouldnt have anything to take the heat out of the water. And thats only a temporary cooling solution anyway.

As far as condensation goes unless you are running with a peltier or chilling the water well below ambient temp you wont have any condensation. But if you do plan on running the water chilled you would need to insulate all of the hoses, as well as the cpu and waterblock.

all and all watercooling is nice and worth the hassel. Cause you get the same or better results but with a lot less noise!

Well I want better results not the same results. The noise is not really an issue for me considering I am either blaring MP3's or playing CS. So if I want to see temps below what I am able to obtain with AIR COOLING what do I have to do? Condensation concerns me a great deal since I just put this system together about three months ago. If I must use a radiator to cool the water below ambient temps so be it. How much better results can I expect and what precautions must I take? Do you have any brand or model suggestions. I can't see to find one that really turns me on. Also exactly at what point do I worry about condensation. Do I have to seal everything no matter what type of water cooled system I implement?

Water cooling alone will never cause condensation (unless you are using an evaporator cooler. Then you're not going much below [maybe 5C] and your processor certainly won't be). Even with a radiator. The absolute lowest temp you can get is going to be ambient. The radiator is the only thing cooling the water in that setup. So if you don't get one, you'll just be able to run your computer a little bit longer before it overheats (the water takes a bit of time to heat up...). The only reason you might consider water proofing your system with a simple water cooling setup is in case of a leak, which really isn't terribly likely (assuming you do the proper testing out of the case).
Air cooling alone will also absolutely never ever cause you to go below ambient. Even with 5000 cfm of air flow through your case.

To achieve below ambient temps in a water cooling system you need to incorporate a TEC somewhere. You have a couple of choices here. You can stick that right on the cpu (with a cold plate, of course) and have the water cool it off or you can set up a system where you use them to cool the water, in which case you need some other alternative to cool them. There are other ways (cooling the water in a freezer, stuff like that), but that's pretty much the gist.

With aircooling you could use a TEC, though only with Intel (currently) and I don't think you'll really get much below ambient with that.

Condensation could occur whenever you go more than 4C or so below ambient (depending on humidity and such) so keep that in mind.

Hope this has helped you some.

I was having a fairly large problem with condensation until i went out and bought me a 50cents mouse pad,cut a square in it the size of the pelt, and then trimmed it to the same size as the cold-plate, since then i have not detected any condensation and i usually turn on the pelt,fans & pump a few minutes before firin' the noisy thing up.temps or doing good but will increas greatly when the new h20 block gets out of the machine shop,r&d is done and looks to be pretty darn good, 46 inches of water surface area inside the block.
Tim

Thanks for your responses.

I guess I didn't realize how much goes into all this Pelt, Cold Plates, etc.
I am going to do some more research and wait till I have the money to
purchase a complete quality kit.

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