I mean in terms of overall system performance. As shown in HardOCP's K7Master review, overclocking the FSB to achieve 1450 (145x10) gives much better overall system performance than overclocking with multiplier to 1466 (133x11) even if the CPU itself is clocked higher because you are also overclocking other components when you increase FSB.
I know you can overclock the CPU and even the GPU to higher clock speed with watercooling. But what about other components? We all know that GeForce cards are limited by RAM rather than the GPU. Are those RAM sinks good enough to handle high bus speed? What about system RAM? Northbridge? And other PCI devices? Hard drives? All of these components radiate heat and need cooling as well if you raise the FSB rather than the multiplier to achieve better overclocking results. Can we possibly watercool all these components?
If done properly, I think one advantage of air cooling is the fact that it cools the whole system rather than just few key components. You might not be able to reach as high CPU clock speed as the water cooling but I am pretty sure air cooling will allow you to reach higher bus speed and overall system performance. I guess one downside of air cooling is the noise.
Just my 2 cents.
--BrianC
I know you can overclock the CPU and even the GPU to higher clock speed with watercooling. But what about other components? We all know that GeForce cards are limited by RAM rather than the GPU. Are those RAM sinks good enough to handle high bus speed? What about system RAM? Northbridge? And other PCI devices? Hard drives? All of these components radiate heat and need cooling as well if you raise the FSB rather than the multiplier to achieve better overclocking results. Can we possibly watercool all these components?
If done properly, I think one advantage of air cooling is the fact that it cools the whole system rather than just few key components. You might not be able to reach as high CPU clock speed as the water cooling but I am pretty sure air cooling will allow you to reach higher bus speed and overall system performance. I guess one downside of air cooling is the noise.
Just my 2 cents.
--BrianC