Water Cooling

[Pickerz420]

Hey all!

After extensive googling and still finding myself unpersuaded I thought i'd turn to the forum for advice!

Looking to cool my AM3 socket Phenom II x4 955 for a little bit of OC treatment!

Have been looking over the Corsair H## range.

Currently considering:

Antec Kuhler H2O 620 @ £50
Corsair H60 @ £60
Corsair H70 @ £75
Corsair H100 @ £90

This will be first venture away from air cooling, can anyone with a bit of experience share with me the pro's and con's of the above units or any other units they reccomend?

I've disregarded the H80 after reading reports of it being overwhelmingly noisy. I'm not too bothered about noise as long as it doesn't sound like its about to take off

Main factors i'm looking at are a good price and powerful cooling for moderate clocking, nothing to extreme - maybe just up to the 4GHz mark?

Thanks in advance

 

[EarthDog]

This would like best be placed in the water cooling section for optimal exposure to water cooling people (I'll bug a mod to move it).

Just get the H100 and call it a day.

 

[Pickerz420]

Oh thanks, brand new so not too sure on the structure of this forum yet but thanks!

Hmm very tempting but it's the extra bucks putting me off, any experiences with the H100?

 

[EarthDog]

I own one, yes. It keeps a 2600k nice and cool at 4.5Ghz no problems. You could probably get away with H70, but...

 

[Pickerz420]

Okay great, what sort of temp's are you hitting idle and full load? And how's the volume?

Cheers.

 

[EarthDog]

I have a completely different processor than you so you cannot even begin to compare. But I load around 66C with fans at the middle setting (audible, not loud) at 20C ambient.

 

[\dev\goat]

FYI the stock corsair 120mm fans are like 92cfm, and REALLY loud. They move a ton of air on the high setting, but they sound like an aircraft.

Earlier today I dismounted mine from the H80 radiator and just held one in my hand. SUPER loud.

Few minutes ago I replaced them with 2 of these from my spare parts box:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835214001

Not loud at all on the medium or high speeds now.

 

[Pickerz420]

Yeh thats exactly what I'd heard. So if changing the fans eliminates the noise issue, whats your experience with its cooling performance?

 

[\dev\goat]

I don't really wanna talk you out of getting the H100. I bought the H80 because it fits in the perfect spot in my case. To use the H100, I would have needed to make a shroud or remove the 180mm fans from the bottom of my case.

Also I have a different processor architecture than you as well. My max load temps during prime95 with the H80 set to "balanced" mode are between 55 and 60C, which is pretty good for intel. It would be a different, lower set of temps on your AMD though.

 

[ssjwizard]

If your going to bother going up from air the H100 is the only option IMO. Any of the single 120mm lclc systems are not going to provide enough improvement to be worthwhile.