water or not

[aether]

Hi all I'm new to the forum and also to OCing.. I'm currently building a new P4 system and would like some advice wether to go AIR or WATER for cooling. I was going to spend some cash on a new thermaltake case, a good HS and use air but I see now that koollance is sitting at 200 bucks and I can have a WC solution.

Can anyone give me some advice wether or not WC might suit me better? Will I get better performance from koollance and less sound then say going with a thermaltake 3 case and a swifttech HS running on air? And can the koolance system allow me the cooling I need to OC my new 2.6c P4 to a respectable 3.2-3.4?

Advice greatly apreciated.

 

[Evil_Eye]

Since your just starting to OC, I'd suggest that your go with air-cooling first.

And yes, you'll get better performance/lower sound out of the koolance when it's vs. the swifty, but it's better to get an slk-800 as an air cooled solution. It does not require a high flow fan, unlike the swifty, and can perform equally (if not better) then the previous.

 

[Pooptacular]

I say go for the Koolance. If your going to do something do it right the first time. Also I believe the koolance is noob friendly in this case since it is his first venture into o/c let alone w/c.

 

[The_Punisher29]

I would go for the aircooled case first. A nice SLK-800 and nice hardware. Then when you get very confortable with hardware overclocking and all, and if you will still want to watercool, get a nice watercooling kits that won't requier you to change case.

 

[FrozenFears]

just a few questions for you:

1) Do you LAN or move your case around a lot? if so I would go with Air. I dont' know about you but the idea of moving a case full of water along with a resevoir makes me a bit nervous around $1000+ of hardware.

2) Is noise a major factor for you? then water could be better cause the best air cooling is also the noisiest, although there are some good fans out there with relatively high CFM and not too many dbA.

3) What temp are you comfortable running your CPU at? I think you should probably be able to get to 3.2 with air cooling just fine, but it would be running hotter than if you had water.

I'm not personally familiar with the new c series of cpus, but I've read that they run cooler??? but I can't say for sure, but to get to 3.4+ I think WC is probably best, then again if the c series really do run cooler than the b series... air might get you there just fine. I'd keep checking the forums, cause new posts about c series overclock results seem to be coming up everyday all these "just got my 2.4c in the mail lets have some fun" posts

 

[Toysrme]

Air-cooled first.
Gotta crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run.

It's best to be comfortable working inside the case, and handleing all the parts before taking a huge step.

K.I.S.S
Keep It Simple Stupid

The more complicated something becomes, the more that *can* go wrong.

Funny... It's never the disastorous major HUGE mistakes that ever kill any of our equipment... It's the one you say DUH I wasn't paying attention I've done that so many times.

 

[sangapski]

if youre getting a retail P4, just use the Intel HSF for the moment
it does a pretty good job cooling the CPU
you can also mod the fan for higher rpm
then decide later if you want to use water or air

 

[aether]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm planning on using this new system for a workstation and also gaming.

It doesn't need to be moved around but noise is a concern since I have a small home office and my current machine is pretty loud. I want to build my machine right and start playing with OCing.. I've built several machines but never OCed any of them.

Building my machine right is my main concern. With a good case and HS/fans costing about the same as a koolance rig I thought id try and get more suggestions.

thanks again!

 

[irish80122]

Air-cooled first.
Gotta crawl before you can walk, walk before you can run.

It's best to be comfortable working inside the case, and handleing all the parts before taking a huge step.

K.I.S.S
Keep It Simple Stupid

The more complicated something becomes, the more that *can* go wrong.

Funny... It's never the disastorous major HUGE mistakes that ever kill any of our equipment... It's the one you say DUH I wasn't paying attention I've done that so many times.

That is so true, I killed a hard drive and power supply once by plugging the HD in when the computer was running. I couldn't believe I did that after I had done it, but still, it didn't even dawn on me until after. Oh well, RIP.

 

[irish80122]

if youre getting a retail P4, just use the Intel HSF for the moment
it does a pretty good job cooling the CPU
you can also mod the fan for higher rpm
then decide later if you want to use water or air

How do you mod a fan for higher RPM's? I have only heard of lower...

 

[Eclypsyr]

people.....recommending.......koolance????

if you do decide to watercool in the long run, head on over to the watercooling forum and piece together a decent setup

Jon

 

[WA2]

Yeah...do not go Koolance, that **** is a joke. Also, go 1/2''.

There is nothing that can prepare you for water cooling...you just have to jump in.

 

[Caffinehog]

Why Koolance? It's cheap, and it's easy. It also outperforms almost all air cooling solutions, and any air that outperforms it is as loud as a jet plane.

You can do a lot better with water cooling than a Koolance will do, but a Koolance is easy.

To be honest, I would go with a good air cooled solution now, and move up to water if you're interested enough.

 

[FishDog3]

Definetly take the K.I.S.S. approch first as Toysrme recomended, get comfrtable working with all your hardware, learn what it can and can't take, learn to be careful and inovative, than if you are still looking for more proformance move on to a WC setup.

Also Toysrme is 110% correct in his "its the DUH mistakes that kill" my last "DUH!!!" was putting on my cpu heatsink and the RPM monitor wire had gotten wedged on a corner of the CPU right on on of the foam feet... booted up to the BIOS and messed around, restarted and nothing... again and nothing... opened case and looked at the heatsink... shook head and thought DUH how could you miss that, anyone want a key chain?

 

[Tecumseh]

You know if the industry started with water cooling as the default
then it would seem like a brilliant idea to go air-cooled.

As much as most of us here like the idea of water cooling there
is less and less reason to do so all the time.

If you can build a machine that is quiet enough for your tastes
then air cooling is probably the way to go.

I'll bet in 2 or 3 years from now most of us water cooling
today will look at those rigs and wonder what the heck we
were thinking.

 

[greywood]

aether - please take everything Toysrme said, and double it in Spades!
Murphy's Law is at work here - the more complex you make something,
the more likely something will go wrong. And, if Murphy ain't bad enough,
there's always O'Toole ("Murphy was an optimist!").

After all that enouragement good luck and have fun!

 

[Eclypsyr]

You know if the industry started with water cooling as the default
then it would seem like a brilliant idea to go air-cooled.

As much as most of us here like the idea of water cooling there
is less and less reason to do so all the time.

I'm going to have to disagree with you (personal opinion) I go w/ watercooling for improved temps and less noise...not because its different. Just a thought.

Jon

 

[Tecumseh]

I'm going to have to disagree with you (personal opinion) I go w/ watercooling for improved temps and less noise...not because its different. Just a thought.

Jon

I hear ya. It can go either way. I run a lot of duals and the
only reason left for water cooling is the --possible-- noise
reduction for me. The few extra MHz is just not worth the
complexity.

I still say that todays water cooled rig will look ridiculous
2 or 3 years from now.

 

[ssgohan434]

i dont know about anyone here, but im going water within a month. main reason is i am moving from here (San Jose, CA) to Seattle WA area and heard it is hot there. second comes the noise factor. its all up to u. u wanna go extra safe, then go air. i say water cooling is pretty safe as i have learned, that is if u know what ur doing. the thing that makes water cooling safe is that if u just run the water cooling setup on a table first for some hours to check for leaks and drips (when doing this you dont have it connected to a computer on the table.)

 

[Toysrme]

Hah hot up there... Go to a desert, the plains, or come live with us in the south, where in the dawg days it can be 95-100 for three weeks and more than 65% humidity outside and yet no rain. Chyea, Washington's hot LoL!

Thanks, for the above comments.

Just rememebr there is no substitue for experiance!!! I problably hold the record for all time CPU's killed in a rough two month span at... let's count! 1500+ early christmas 1800+ by new years 1600+ sometime later, 2000+ after that, 1600+ after that...
Anyone beating 5 in the same amount of time should be drug out in the street and shot! -Garfield the cat

I had to go watercooling a year and a half ago for noise, and stability. They mistakenly turned the heaters on in our dorms whilst our room A/C were breakered off. My Dragon orb couldn't get the damned duron 750 cool at 750...

*That* is the opitimy of why low ambient temps are nearly as important as the cooling itself LoL!