Is water cooling actually that efficient? I heard that it has more downsides (leaks, price, maintenance) than advantages over good fan cooling. I have Noctua 240 fans on my case and CPU. They are quiet and cool. Sorry if dumb question.
Is water cooling actually that efficient? I heard that it has more downsides (leaks, price, maintenance) than advantages over good fan cooling. I have Noctua 240 fans on my case and CPU. They are quiet and cool. Sorry if dumb question.
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Pointless from a performance standpoint in 2024 IMO, CPUs and GPUs are so locked down in terms of overclocking that you will almost never see a benefit from custom water-cooling vs a high-end air cooler or AIO. Aesthetically if that’s your thing nothing else can scratch that itch though.
The last time I saw custom water cooling being useful was the active backplates for the RTX 3090 because the clamshell memory would cause the back modules to get really hot. My friend bought a conventional air-cooled PC with an RTX 3090 and a 10900K in it, but it would constantly thermal throttle when she was doing large renders because the memory would get too hot. We ended up converting it to a custom loop together with an EK active backplate block, and it shortened her rendering times pretty significantly.
Yeah, I been wondering this too. The idea of it makes me queasy because of the reasons you listed.
Financially rn I can’t really afford to buy more of the liquid needed on a monthly basis anyways.
Watercooling is quieter.
Water cooling increases surface area for dissipation. Cools better…if it’s done right, CPU temp should be no more than 10-20% above ambient air temp.
Bigger radiator, has more/bigger fins than any air cooler.
Water transfers heat better than air, better even than copper heat-pipes.
Pumps use more power than fans, and you still need fans on radiators.
Tubes take space in the case, as do radiators and pumps, unless you are very into custom work mid-tower is as small as you can get.
Case gets heavy and difficult to manage to the lan-party.
Costs more to do watercooling – custom WC even more.
All that said, I have not built a PC without watercooling in more than 10yrs. It’s quiet, even under full load, it’s pretty, it runs cooler so it runs faster with less stress on components (less heat means less voltage means the chip lasts longer). BUT…I do IT for a living, have decent money, and I like to work on this stuff.
it’s substantially more efficient, but setting it up and maintaining it is not fun.
water cooling’s all about performance because it makes the CPU go faster. it does this by you. see there’s a water block on top of the CPU and the current runs over the block causing the electronic streams to accelerate with the water flow through the block. it’s like the Niagara falls is hitting those semiconductors forcing those little electrons to move faster and faster. this is why it’s faster using water cooling than traditional wind cooling.
Water cooling *can* have benefits. It also has downsides, and those are exacerbated when it’s don’t poorly or cheaply.
Air cooling really only has two downsides: it’s a bit louder, and a bit hotter. Since the primary goal of cooling is… cooling… “being hotter” is a pretty big downside, especially if you’re running silicon that is pushing up against thermal limits constantly.
For *most* consumers, there is virtually no reason to run water cooling; it’s super easy to offset the noise and heat penalties by making smart choices about your case and other components. Certainly much easier than it is to run a good water loop.
For people who demand ABSOLUTELY top-of-the-line hardware and performance, it’s hard to argue against the necessity of some kind of water cooling, but then they’re already spending tons of money so the extra cooling cost is minimal, percentage-wise.
Custom loop watercooling is the best cooling method that is realistically possible. However it’s VERY expensive. Expensive to the point of not being worth it. So really the only reason to do a custom watercooling loop is to look cool. It’s just not anywhere close to cost-effective.
And then there is a lot of maintenance too.
Aio coolers are a decent compromise. They don’t have nearly so high of a cost, perform well, and have no maintenance. There is a risk of leaks, but it’s small. Also they have a shorter lifespan than air cooling. But at 6-7 years average, it’s not exactly short. I still stick with air cooling, but there is nothing wrong with using an Aio cooler.
water is better at cooling but cost more and bigger chance for failure
air is cheaper and more reliable. failure is easy to fix just replace the fan.
custom water cooling looks cool but i spend more time looking at my monitor and not my actual pc not worth the money unless you already have top of the line cpu and gpu.
Water cooling is (generally) better as it is easier to attach a 360mm radiator (or larger) without applying too much shear torque around the CPU, as the radiator can be attached to the case instead of the motherboard.
Air coolers will usually be limited to the equivalent of a “240-280mm radiator” due to weight limitations and other issues with lack of space for ram. Heat pipes are also usually solid, which makes it impossible to change the position of the fans and heat fins, and due to a lack of standard for case proportions, it is infeasible to design an air cooler that also mounts to a case like a water cooler.
You can choose not to maintain an air cooled pc, but you must maintain a custom loop liquid cooling system, not the pc, but the cooling system.
Sorry for the hot take, but if you want my honest opinion its a massive waste of money unless you have a late gen i9. And even then I wouldnt buy the i9 in the first place. AIOs are fine though. I have no interest draining and disassembling a loop any thing I change anything. To go even farther, part of me thinks its a scam as the difference it makes is incredibly marginal, and the value proposition on things like $600 water blocks is OUTRAGEOUS.
At this point, for most users, I consider it an aesthetic choice with sacrifices if doing a custom loop (a good one is gorgeous don’t get me wrong). AIOs aren’t much of, if at all, am improvement temp wise over a similarly priced air cooled heatsink. I personally have only ever put air cooled HSs in my computers. Currently use the Dark Rock Pro 4
It’s very comparable to hotrod-ing in that you can get the maximum performance out of it, but it’s gonna be really expensive and require a lot of maintenance. It’s really fun if tinkering is what you enjoy, but if you want it to work just fine with minimal upkeep, get noctua fans and maybe an aio if you’re rocking a spicy CPU.
Depends, what’s actually important is the radiator increasing the available surface area compared to air cooling heatsinks and the heat capacity of the system.
If you’re just going to use it for applications where you can use the extra heat capacity for long running tasks, it’s more efficient.
However if you’re just only going to use it for short tasks or games, air cooling is more than enough. People just like to min-max builds, that’s why you’re seeing a lot of water cooling rigs.
I personally don’t like the effort involve in water cooling. At most I’d suggest AIO for the processor but that’s it. Air Cooling is more than enough for 99% of consumer PCs. Just buy a better cooler and better, quieter fans that what comes in stock.
Ive found that its good for moving a large amount of heat, elsewhere in an efficient manner.
So in smaller form factors where you want to prevent heat pooling, this can be an advantageous cooling solution.
But in my experience, air cooling is fool proof. If youre worried about noise, increase the airflow but increasing the intake volume. My fans in a midtower rarely go above 50% and temps are 50-60 under load.
I’ve had open loop for 5+ years and never had a leak. It’s quiet and CPU/GPU temps are unmatched.
However maintenance is annoying if the loop isn’t built correctly (I had to add a drain to mine after it was already built), changing parts is annoying.
Personally I don’t think its worth it unless you personally have a reason to want it. I wanted to try it, it’s cool, I’d never have it again.
They don’t use gases to cool nuclear reactors for a reason.
Unless you’re running an absolute furnace of a CPU with a substantial overclock, modern air coolers are more than enough and a large AIO will cover most use cases beyond that. Custom water loops these days are either for edge cases or bragging rights.
I just drown my whole pc in mineral oil and let in cool through some heatsinks
I originally got into watercooling almost a decade ago because GPU air coolers were loud and didn’t work all that well. If we had the chonky 4 slot coolers back then that we have now I would have stuck with air. The 6900xt liquid devil I have now will probably be my last watercooled GPU. I have the first itteration of that case in the shot, InWin 303, one of my first water cooling cases.
Same water cooler in my pc since 2013. Works like a dream.
Avoid yourself the headaches man just get yourself a AIO and call it a day.
you answered your own question, ya it’s more work and more expensive than it’s worth. unless you’re really into it and overclocking don’t bother
If you ain’t wiling to put in the money to build and maintain. Don’t bother and deal with the noise and higher temp.
Source: Grew up in the olden days where they used antifreeze and aquarium pump for WC. Built my first full loop in 2012.
i just invest in a good headset and can’t hear any fan, noise, lol
honestly water-cooling is such a hassle and prone for leakage. I personally prefer ptm7950+ aircooler.
Highly dependents on what you’re doing
Unless you’re doing crazy OCing, no one needs water. There are a few upsides like a quieter system, but maintenance is more of a pain, there is special maintenance involved and of course the possibility of leaks.
Honestly, yeah it isn’t that great. Liquid cooling is useful in more intense applications. The only thing I could reasonably justify liquid cooling is the GPU.
I switched from custom loops to AIOs. Custom loops just don’t provide enough improvement for the work and upkeep, unless you only use your PC for stress testing.
Water cooling CAN be quieter. Water cooling can reach cooler temps than air cooling. Water cooling is more expensive, especially if custom. Water cooling has less failure points, however, those failure points are much more catastrophic. If a fan bearing goes, you replace a single fan. If a fan dies, overall performance of the PC is rarely effected much. If a radiator goes, or a pump fails, or a leak develops, it can be catastrophic.
All in all, water cooling just isn’t worth the effort. It’s something for people that want to show off, or are into overengineering custom builds.
A good case with proper fans can be just as whisper quiet except in extreme load situations.
Well there is a big difference when it comes to an aio water cooler and a custom loop you have pictured.
An aio cooler shouldn’t require any more maintenance than a regular tower cooler. A custom loop is custom so you will either need to cut, heat and bend the pipes yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. A custom loop is also more prone to leaks as they are designed to be disassembled while an aio is sealed completely because you aren’t supposed to be opening it up ever.
Spent about a grand on my custom loop that I built. Pain in the ass. Wouldn’t do it again as there’s plenty of great air coolers or AIOs that do comparably well, especially cost effectively
It is one of those things that is *technically* more efficient in the physics department, but due to cost and other drawbacks mentioned the ‘less efficient but better for other reasons’ air cooler usually wins out. Custom loops look awesome but… yeah technically great for cooling but for the $$ it’s just aesthetics.
I helped a friend replace an AIO that had a pump die on one of those old hot boi amd fx series chips. It was a pre-built that had a single fan 120mm unit that was way undersized for the tdp of that chip, but it worked fine for many years before perishing. We replaced it with a massive 360mm triple fan and it was like having a whole new pc now that the chip could actually cool at proper temps. I would probably use one on my next build after being air cooled only forever. Getting the cpu heat out of the case is a cheap benefit to all your other components.
Custom loops are for if you like to tinker with your PC. Regular maintenance is a must.
Otherwise, just go with AIOs.
IMO watercooling is for the tinkerer who likes to work on their own stuff. If you want to play games and not worry, then get air cooled things and wear a headset to mute out the noise. Air cooling is fine for low – mid and high end. Water cooling is good for the high end.
My air cooled evga 3090 xc3 went from 90°C to 50°C on water under full load so I’d say it’s worth it. The added comfort of not having a jet engine on my table is a plus.