FEATURED [2013] What kind of cooling do you use?

[OCMusicJunkie]

The reason it's so high is because AIO is bundled in with it, where AIO really shouldn't be as its closer to air cooling in performance, and price as a matter of fact.

90% agreed. I am a bit curious as to what happens with the AIO units if compared using aftermarket fans, which is how I think most people configure either their air or AIO coolers in real life. Since there would be at least twice as much surface area for the fans to cool as with typical tower cooler, the AIO units should get a bit more separation there in theory.

But yeah, for the most part, I'm waiting for water until I have time for a custom build because I don't think that a closed loop setup will net me anything more than turning on the AC does.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I am wondering on that study since the Air coolers are so close to the AIO loops, which is louder? Maybe that's the tradeoff for going closed loop compared to a screaming Air cooler?

 

[doyll]

H100 is 17dBA louder than SA SB-E and 1c cooler. That's 1.5 times louder.
H100 is 1dBA quieter than SA SB-E Extreme and 7c hotter. 1dBA difference is less change than human ear can hear.

i7 3820 @4.75GHz
Temperature is delta.

H100 . . . . . . . . 41c 2500rpm. . . . . . . . 55dBA 2
SA SB-E . . . . . . 42c 1100rpm & 1300rpm 38dBA TY-150 & TY-141
SA SB-E Extreme 34c 2500rpm. . . . . . . . 56dBA 2x TY-143

jump in to 3:40 for results

 

[Boulard83]

If you have the space, i big dual tower heatsink is MUCH better than any cheap AIO ( only the H220 is not cheap, all other are IMO ).

My Phantek cooler is damn huge but is dead silent and it can handle an OC any AIO can do. + it dont have a pump and tubing wich can fail. ( these wanabee WC have cheap pump .. )

 

[freeagent]

I've got my trusty Ultra120 Extreme circa 2007 back on. The pump on my h100 went on me today after 2 years of service. I would have used my d14 but its on my q9550, and I like the ultra120 better

 

[Squadfer]

Just switched back to air cooling for good. Reason behind my decision is I just had my pump fail on me. Now that alone is not the reason behind my decision but when my pump went down, that brought down my whole system. This posses a unique situation, when in a time crunch what does one do when his system is down and a part is not readily available on the shelf of a brick and mortar? At least with a simple heatsink/fan(assume the fan is dead in this example) you can still turn your system on, log into the system, retrieve whatever is important and then shut down before the over heat protection shuts you down... Couldn't even get past the grub menu before the water block got too hot to cause the protection to kick in.

 

[DAKz]

Wow I just installed an h100 and so far I am pleased, I replaced a hyper 212 plus which performed flawlessly, was very hesitant about the whole liquid thing, And my hyper 212 is still handy and would have no issues going back on in an instant should it be pressed back into use. However....the h100 is running 4.5ghz with my normal stuff open @16c, where the 212 would be running about 10c hotter, the h100 cools down very very fast and I used the push/pull fans to help with air through the rad. And running prime for 50 minutes on this setting it did get up to 57c though I missed it, I saw 54-55c during the 50 minute test on the 4.5 run. I watch the temps very close since it is overclocked and load, ram and temps tell me how its all doing, so I am using 29% RAM to run maybe 5% processor and its running cooler then the 212 at a higher speed, isn't that what we go liquid for?

 

[Mjolnir]

Wow I just installed an h100 and so far I am pleased, I replaced a hyper 212 plus which performed flawlessly, was very hesitant about the whole liquid thing, And my hyper 212 is still handy and would have no issues going back on in an instant should it be pressed back into use. However....the h100 is running 4.5ghz with my normal stuff open @16c, where the 212 would be running about 10c hotter, the h100 cools down very very fast and I used the push/pull fans to help with air through the rad. And running prime for 50 minutes on this setting it did get up to 57c though I missed it, I saw 54-55c during the 50 minute test on the 4.5 run. I watch the temps very close since it is overclocked and load, ram and temps tell me how its all doing, so I am using 29% RAM to run maybe 5% processor and its running cooler then the 212 at a higher speed, isn't that what we go liquid for?

I'm curious what you're using for your temperature monitoring. Remembering you can never be lower then the ambient temp around you with air cooling or AIOs really. Do you know your ambient temp? Because 16 degrees sounds very low. I'm going to assume in whatever program you're using you might not have set your offsets right? (I know older Phenoms, like my X3 720 needed to be offset up about 10 degrees to get more accurate readings as the temps it was giving was on par or less than ambient which is impossible considering it's on air.

 

[DAKz]

I am using CPUID Hardware monitor Pro. And yes you can be lower then ambient, thanks to a thing called wind chill A great example of that is show by one of your country men here, and a 16c ambient room temp is 60 F, not a hard stretch considering the part of the world I live in. And with Air conditioning I run it cool because of my emphysema so I can breathe, LOL I am not one of the young guys.I also use a program called Core temp's desktop gadget, which so far matches the temps that HW has. With 9 fans in the case and 4 on the rad turning over 2600 rpm's, I can believe it, and to touch the tubes, water block and rad they feel cold to the touch which would indicate a lower temp then ambient. Also the Asus Thermal scan monitor agrees with the other two. I think that with the lower humidity that we have here is a big factor, as anyone can tell you the lower the humidity the easier to cool air by moving it.
To be honest I am indifferent to what that actual temp is, I am only interested how much it goes up, how far it goes up, and how fast it comes down, After that its just a number.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

To be honest I am indifferent to what that actual temp is, I am only interested how much it goes up, how far it goes up, and how fast it comes down, After that its just a number.

That number is most important. Even though core temps on FX chips are whacked to say the least, the spike or jump is what you look for. When a Cpu core spike really hard, jumping to a high temp right away is a good indicator that the water block is mounted with not enough pressure, or the Cpu TDP exceeds that of the cooling system.

Glad to see some one go from Air to Liquid and really get off on it. Although a custom loop will bring lower temps, nothing beats liquid cooling on a daily driver!

 

[DAKz]

LOL it was hard to go to liquid, I spent 36 years keeping liquid out of computers. So for me the step to liquid was as big as going from DOS to Windows 3. The numbers could read 2000c at idle, and if they spike to 3000c then that would indicate a problem with the system, so whether it reads 20c or 2000c its the change we are watching for. And thats why I keep the gadget from Core Temp on a corner of one of the monitors so I can always see it, especially with this being a new aio, and new concept for me.

 

[Squadfer]

Wow I just installed an h100 and so far I am pleased, I replaced a hyper 212 plus which performed flawlessly, was very hesitant about the whole liquid thing, And my hyper 212 is still handy and would have no issues going back on in an instant should it be pressed back into use. However....the h100 is running 4.5ghz with my normal stuff open @16c, where the 212 would be running about 10c hotter, the h100 cools down very very fast and I used the push/pull fans to help with air through the rad. And running prime for 50 minutes on this setting it did get up to 57c though I missed it, I saw 54-55c during the 50 minute test on the 4.5 run. I watch the temps very close since it is overclocked and load, ram and temps tell me how its all doing, so I am using 29% RAM to run maybe 5% processor and its running cooler then the 212 at a higher speed, isn't that what we go liquid for?

Something is not adding up here.... going with your starting number, 16c at idle and then 55-56c at load... that is a 40c difference. This number seems odd to me considering the h100 is a 240 rad. My simple single 120mm heatsink doesn't see that high of a spread between idle and load. When I was on water myself, i only saw a max spread of about 10-15c but that was with a 360 rad and with my GPU included in the loop. Or is that normal for these AIO's? dunno but seems a tad ineffective to me...

 

[DAKz]

the h100 was a bargain deal I got with 4 fans, so I jumped on it, the drastic temp rise happened when I had to push the voltage up pretty high to get over the 4.3 ghz mark, the temps rose a lot higher for that voltage increase to the cpu and to the nb. Is the h100 a great aio? No probably not, is it better then the Hyper 212 I was using? I would have to say yes. The point of it is easy, 3 temp monitoring software all read the same for the temps, low and no load and high with it loaded by prime. so is it the best cooler? I doubt it, Will I end up with a custom loop, sure, but it won't be till I am way more comfortable with the technology involved. As I indicated I am old and this was a bigger step for me then going to a DOS prompt to a mouse and clicking in Windows 3. Now with all the fans in this thing I feel safe saying there is a 15mph wind through the case, so the cooling makes sense.
Also lets remember, this is not a high what processor, so it started lower then the 8 core series, rated at 95 watts, rather then the starting no load 125, so I can see it running cooler a lot cooler instantly.

 

[DAKz]

LOL just reading the post that got me convinced to go liquid....

Yep, one suggestion.....

Liquid Cooling.

You'll have a better OC @ 50c opposed to 60-70c and it'll be stable too.

Depending on what AIO kit you look at; preferably a 120.2 rad set up at minimum, it's worth every penny and usually mounts to multiple platforms too!

Do a little research before you buy though!

Those are the temp changes I am seeing which ShrimpBrime suggested in another post LOL

 

[Tech Tweaker]

I've got a Corsair H60 in my main PC at the moment. Had an H100 in there before that, up until I had to send it in for an RMA. The H60 is much quieter than the Ultima 90 I had in there before, runs cooler too. H100 was wicked loud at full speed, absolutely had to undervolt its fans to 5v otherwise I couldn't hear myself think.

All of my benching and testing PC's are currently on air though (Thermalright Ultima 90's and Ultra 120 Extreme's).

Need to find something to do with the H80 and H100i that are just sitting. Hmm...

 

[DAKz]

I have no real noise issues with the h100, to be honest I can ramp my video card up to be louder then the h100, and if you message me I might take the h100i off your hands, if you want to part with it.

 

[EarthDog]

The reason it's so high is because AIO is bundled in with it, where AIO really shouldn't be as its closer to air cooling in performance, and price as a matter of fact. The Noctua NHD14 and the Thermalright Silver Arrow and a bunch of others beat the H100 and come within 5C of the H100i, I'm not sure about any others but AIO's should have either A: their own class, or B: bundled in with Air, as actual custom loops cost much more than AIO and perform better.

performance doesnt change the medium its cooling with. There is water inside that rad there and are as good or better than air (most 2x120 aio's are as good better than air).

I don't call my car a bike because its slow.

 

[scoutcamper]

Ive got my trusted Cooler Master V8! I stay away from watercooling solutions because there does not seem to be much benefit to them considering the tradeoffs, IE if it fails your pc is unuseable untill you have a new one, vs my V8, if the fan fails i slap my spare fan on it and go.

 

[EarthDog]

One can just as easily revert back to the stock cooler in case of failure. LOEffort is a bit higher but you are not stuck unless you trashed the stock cooler/don't have a spare.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

One can just as easily revert back to the stock cooler in case of failure. LOEffort is a bit higher but you are not stuck unless you trashed the stock cooler/don't have a spare.

I was just going to say that. All you got to do is use the stock cooler or go purchase a $20-$30 premium air cooler and just have that as backup forever for any of your rigs. That's what I am planning on doing.