AIO cooling I7 6700k

[AlexAXL]

Hey guys,
As the title says I want to go liquid cooling for the CPU. What should be better in terms of cooling and noise? The kraken x61 or the EKWB Predator 360?
What's your thoughts on this?
Thank you!

 

[RejZoR]

Well, I'm running overclocked 5820K on a single radiator with 2 push-pull fans in absolutely silent config. Considering my CPU is older manufacturing process with more cores and I can cool it well, I think 6700K shouldn't pose any problems to any of the listed coolers even when overclocked. If you have the space and money, I'd go with EK. It has a stronger pump and it's just more robust. Hook up the fans to motherboard and use silent fan curve profiles (I think Gigabyte has very similar fan control as ASUS). It'll be very quiet on desktop and still ready for heavy CPU loads, though with such big radiator as with Predator 360, I'd just force fans at inadible speed and keep them at that. You'd really need some extreme long term load to exceed its cooling capacity.

 

[AlexAXL]

So, in theory, the predator 360 is better overall. Hope it's better than the predator 240 version, as after seeing the tests, I was quite disapointed

 

[Hnykill22]

I have a Kraken 61X with 2x Noctua NF-A14 PWM 140mm on my i7 5820K. im running it on push mode, overclocked to 4.2 Ghz on 1.220 V. fans at 60% (1020 rpm) almost dead silent ..under full load on Prime95 it sits still on 63°

I also have a Corsair Obsidian 450D case with 2x 140mm fans in front blowing cold air inside. so if you have a properly ventilated case and fans, this will give you pretty good performance picture

 

[raffriff]

I stumbled in your post googling around, and since I just finished to put up my build with the i7 6700k i wanted to drop my two cents. I'm running the skylake cpu at 4.2 ghz, with a kraken x61 in push-only config (nzxt original 140mm fans). I have stress tested with intelburntest (which is based on prime95), and the maximum temp it got to was 57. At idling cpu stays at 1 deg. higher than room temp (currently 27).

I must add that my kraken is the same that was cooling my previous cpu, a i7 960 OCed to 4.0ghz. It wasn't a very good chip and had to put my vcore at 1.375 to run 4 ghz stable - anyway, that cpu would, under stress (always intelburntest) easily reach about 95 degs with a noctua air cooler, yet the kraken kept the temps below 70 at 100% load, for unlimited time.

In my experience hence, I would say that the x61 is an excellent cooler, would recommend with absolutely no reserves. Don't know abt the predator, yet several benchmarks I've read seem to be pointing to the kraken as the most efficient cooler.

rgrds,
R

 

[ypsylon]

Not really fan of AIO for anything except stock speeds, but if I had to choose between the two then obviously EK's Predator is a better choice. Simply because it's from a company which knows fair share about liquid cooling and its not just re-brand of a re-brand of a re-badge of Asestek or somebody else.

 

[RejZoR]

AiO's are awesome. You can finally relocate cooling solution into places not possible with the tower heatpipe coolers. Like front of the case so it sucks in cool air directly into the radiator. Where tower coolers always sucked some hot air from other components no matter what case you had.

Plus, from my experience, you need a lot lower fan speeds to achieve same cooling effect. Probably also thanks tot he fact it's sucking cooler air into the radiator from the front of the case.

 

[AlexAXL]

Well, you cannot place a 360 rad on the front (at least in my case), so the only way to go is on the top of the case.

 

[raffriff]

imho, when concocting the air flow, one of the most important things to keep in mind is convection. Warm air goes up, cold air goes down - no way to change physics laws. So best way, if possible, is to put radiators on the top of the cabinet, so that the warm air naturally flows outside. In such way, the fans have also their work facilitated much more, since they push air in the direction of convection. Another important thing is to provide them with fresh air: hence in a cabinet, the ideal situation is to put fans on the front, which constantly suck fresh air in so that the aio fans can push it trough the rad and outside thru the top. The back fan(s), which are fitted to the higher portion of the case, "suck out" any residual warm air produced by components like RAM and chipset. Graphics card instead, normally have their own cooling cycle, with fans that pull their hot air through the back of the cabinet, by working "laterally". Same goes for the PSUs, which normally sucks in from the bottom and extract trough the back. This scenario would be my ideal air flow setup - ofc there are almost infinite possibilities depending on what hardware is available

 

[peche]

well, the fact that EKWB has several years in water-cooling market and shit makes me trust is more compared to other, so could be a solid option, if you have the space go for it, I have a AIO and is pretty excellent for the work, keeps my delidded non K 3770 i7, so all depends on what do you really want and expect from your processor, also the overclocking process it's not like Over clocking a 775 P4 like 10 years ago that heat and power consumption were insane…

Get the one with the better reviews or according to your wallet, I'm pretty happy with my asetek unit,

 

[EarthDog]

Not really fan of AIO for anything except stock speeds

Really? The stock cooler is plenty fine for that. Why you would pay $100+ for stock clocks?

 

[erixx]

Plus the stock fan reports by its noise of the temperatures without ANY MONITORING SOFTWARE

 

[EarthDog]

LOL, ok, sound is one good reason to get a better cooler, but spend $30 on Hyper 212 Evo or something. Don't drop $100 on an AIO for stock.. LOLOLOLOL. Seriously.

 

[cadaveca]

Really? The stock cooler is plenty fine for that. Why you would pay $100+ for stock clocks?

6700K doesn't come with cooler?

 

[EarthDog]

Ziiiiiiiiiiiing! HeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyOOOOOOOOOOOO! Good one dave!

(See post 13)

 

[raffriff]

asetek units are just fine, both corsair and nzxt coolers use them and from what I could read on support forums, not many people complaining about defects. IME the kraken is doing a great job on my i6700k, my cpu now at 4.2 (I' m not OCing more so far as the most complex 3d games, like P3Dv2 and DCS world are running so smooth that it's not necessary).
Temp not surpassing 49 under load after a couple of hours of heavy simming in DCS - I can say I'm happy with it. Yes 6700k doesn't come with stock cooler, I guess it's just all right as I don't rly know who would bother buying a 500$ cpu and cool it with a 2$ unit. Moreover, nobody not planning to Oc would buy unlocked multilpier cpus and then again, this users would not economize much on the cooler.
If I have to really point out some defect in the kraken, I noticed a rattling sound coming from one of the fans when at maximum speed. Contacted nzxt support which already sent me a replacement fan.
About the air vs aio argument, I don't really see any point in that. aio is much more efficient there is little to add to that. liquid>aio>air, this until some new gen cooling tech comes out (phase change coolers have been produced already but still cost 1300$ apiece, while peltier units have been assembled by some enthusiast, but not by industry)

 

[RejZoR]

6700K doesn't come with cooler?

Nope, 6700K is a rare exception where box CPU doesn't come with a cooler.