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is water still king?

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ares350

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Mar 23, 2004
have there been any good comparisons recently of something like a extreme 120 air heatsink vs a quality water setup?

Im a little disappointed with the performance of my new system.

E4300 in an IP35 pro. I can finally open her up, and I only got the voltage to 1.44 and the temps are easing over 60 under load. thats only like .1v over stock...

my setup is a swifttech storm, a dual rad, and an MCP 655. 1/2" tubing, coolermaster830 case and about a zillion yateloon fans.

and yet... even at idle, I wasnt getting near the high 20s that anandtech gets from the top air coolers. I ran right around 35degrees infact... and when the overclock, they dont get over 50degrees, while Im topping 60.

all in all, I have to ask myself, whats the point? have heat pipes and ridiculously huge heatsinks made watercooling a thing of the past?
 
Hello,

Well, IMO its like this, highend air equals lowend water etc. :beer:
Thus water is better than air but is more expensive. :beer:

I myself am building my first watercooled rig currently. Choosing the right pump. Soon i will get it done and then i will be watercooled.

Good luck,
 
ares350 said:
my setup is a swifttech storm
Click to expand...
Well, there's your problem! :D

The storm does best on naked CPU's and on single core systems, where the core is directly under the jets.

I'd say that is the reason that your temps are high, as I have pretty much the same setup, except I have an Apogee with a [email protected]@1.60v at 51c.

Water is still king, air CAN'T compete! :bday:
 
They seems to have a higher difference in temperature between idle and load. That's where water will beat out air. If they both start at the same idle temp, the load temp on water will be less, considering a good setup.

Also, remember that Anandtech may not have had the same ambient temperature that you do. It's unwise to compare their 65 F office with your 78 F home.
 
Captain Helghas said:
Also, remember that Anandtech may not have had the same ambient temperature that you do. It's unwise to compare their 65 F office with your 78 F home.
Click to expand...

True,

It is really no use comparing temperatures with review sites that run their tests in offices that have industrial air conditioning that keep the ambient temperatures very cool and very constant.

Just to add, I have read that unlike the majority of Intel IHS's, the E4300 does not have the IHS soldered to the CPU die; in other words, that nifty jet impingement Storm can show its true colors with a naked core again. :)

What clocks are you getting with your E4300 despite your 60C ish temps?

bryan d
 
Tyranos said:
Laser cooling to absolute zero is still king ;)
Click to expand...


Hell any sub-zero cooling beats out water, that's not the question here, tho i know about sarcasm :p


Between H20 vs Air, the answer is obvious. In order for you to get really good temps on air, you'll have use a top of the line sink paired up with a high cfm fan. Pros about this is the more cfms the fan, the noisier it is, which kinda defeats the purpose of quiet air cooling.

H20, tho a tad more expensive, can be cooler with less noise. This is not to mean it's dead silent. Even with high cfm fans you will have the noise just like air cooling, but with H20 you have a much larger heat exchanger ( the rad) versus the large sink, so with low cfm fans you can achieve cooler temps. Now with both Air and H20, both is dependant on ambient air,

My office' ambient temps are normally cool ( 78F) during the summer as my office is in the back, With an XP120 and a 74cfm 120 mm fan, my temps idle @ 40-ish and loads @ 50-ish or so. With my current setup and H20 in the same office my idle temps are 30-ish and loads around 40-ish. This is with 3-80mm fans running @ 55% for less noise. So I get the cooling i want with the noise I don't want. The best of both worlds :D
 
Last edited:
bryan_d said:
True,

It is really no use comparing temperatures with review sites that run their tests in offices that have industrial air conditioning that keep the ambient temperatures very cool and very constant.

Just to add, I have read that unlike the majority of Intel IHS's, the E4300 does not have the IHS soldered to the CPU die; in other words, that nifty jet impingement Storm can show its true colors with a naked core again. :)

What clocks are you getting with your E4300 despite your 60C ish temps?

bryan d
Click to expand...

its running 3.4ghz, which is respectable for sure. but at the same time, not much voltage so I should have more!

no but seriously, Im about to put a Q6600 in and if the E4300 isnt staying cool, I need to figure something else out.

few months back the storm was the best thing available, now it isnt? :( well since the quadcore is coming, what block should I use? apogee GTX?
 
ares350 said:
E4300 in an IP35 pro. I can finally open her up, and I only got the voltage to 1.44 and the temps are easing over 60 under load. thats only like .1v over stock...

my setup is a swifttech storm, a dual rad, and an MCP 655. 1/2" tubing, coolermaster830 case and about a zillion yateloon fans.
Click to expand...
What is the ambient temp?
 
I dont really know. 76 or so?

I just made sure the air was out of the rad, got a few small bubbles loose. idle temp is still 41degrees though. I drop my room temp 10 degrees, maybe I get 5 degrees lower? still not close to the 20's...

I guess I can try a GTX or something... I dont know. I feel like the water is just a middle man, bringing inefficiency into the process of removing heat to the air. I mean, these air heatsinks easily have the surface area of a radiator I bet. and they dont have the heat of a pump, and the heat pipes are probably better conductors than the water in our loops, shorter too
 
I'll bet if you remove the ihs you can see ~10 Degree drop, but if youre going quad then definetely upgrade the block. If youre not satisfied with water then the only upgrades that will give you a better performance is phase or tec. Otherwise if you dont believe water is giving you the results you want compared to air then just grab a tuniq and stick a high cfm fan on it and see if thats any better.
 
Id remove the IHS in a second but I didnt think that was possible on intel chips, only AMD. intel uses thermal epoxy on the cores I think...
 
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