I never thought I would be a fan of Water cooling

[kapone32]

I had zero interest in water cooling until AIOs came out. My favourite AIO was the Cooler Master Nepton 280 but I had to change the fans to some Phanteks radiator fans because of noise. A few years later I happen to get the Thermaltake Core X9 case and as such look for an AIO that is worthy of the case. I find the Alphacool Eisbear 420 AIO for $134.99 Canadian and absolutely loved the design and performance (once I changed the fans to some Noctua Redux). I made a bone head move and broke one of the quick connect connectors so I had to order another one. I went on AquaTuning and found a B grade 420 AIO for $85 US there were some parts missing but it did what I wanted.

I bought the Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro card but there was an issue. The fans would not spin up and there was no software that would control the fans. I was not a fan of that because the heat coming from the PC would make the fans spin at 80 to 90 percent to try to keep the card under 75C and turn off when the GPU (alone) went to 55 C. Needless to say it was not conducive to Gaming while the wife was trying to sleep on a Friday night. I had a 420MM rad sitting around, so I bought a block (Byiski)and 2 quick connect cables and watercooled my GPU. I added a reference Vega 64 and used the Alpahcool Eiswolf with the Eisstation to cool 2 GPUS. I recently added this unit to act as a reservoir and extra pump

Alphacool 13297 Eisstation DC-Ultra incl. Alphacool DC-LT 2600 Ultra Pump Water Cooling Reservoirs : Amazon.ca: Electronics

Alphacool 13297 Eisstation DC-Ultra incl. Alphacool DC-LT 2600 Ultra Pump Water Cooling Reservoirs : Amazon.ca: Electronics

www.amazon.ca

I upgraded to X399 a couple years ago and thought that the block on the Eisbear would cover the IHS and it does but not 100%. I ended up getting the Noctua TR14 DH14 (I think) and that is a great cooler but the RAM clearance issues on some Air coolers is something I forgot about. RAM has fallen quite nicely in price so I wanted to upgrade to some faster RAM. I could only add 1 stick to each DIMM bank. I mentioned in a thread that I was looking for a block and someone recommended against using acrylic. I was intrigued so I did some research but I settled on.

Alphacool

Alphacool Eisblock XPX Pro U1 für LGA 3647, 2066 und TR4 optimierter CPU Wasserkühler. Ideal für 1HE, 2HE und 3HE Server Racks.

www.alphacool.com

Alphacool Eisbaer GPX Extension Set (Schlauch und Anschlüsse)

Mit dem Eisbaer Quick-Connect Extension Set lässt sich der Kreislauf eines Eisbaer oder Eiswolf GPX-Pro Kühlers spielend leicht um weitere Komponenten erweitern. Zum Beispiel mit einem weiteren Radiator, einem weiteren Kühler oder...

www.alphacool.com

I will probably for now just create the loop with the CPU block, another Eistation and 420MM rad. I am using the Corsair XL5 coolant (It was the only one at the computer store close to me).

Everything should arrive by Friday. We are supposed to get a huge snow storm on Saturday so I think I already know what I will be doing.

 

[EarthDog]

Modular AIOs, the rookie's way into 'custom' watercooling, lol!

Enjoy your Eisxxxx things! Water over air FTW!!!

 

[kapone32]

Modular AIOs, the rookie's way into 'custom' watercooling, lol!

Enjoy your Eisxxxx things! Water over air FTW!!!
[/QUOTE

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to know it's true for all of the variables that exist for every facet of computing.

 

[dgianstefani]

It's a fun hobby. Don't expect value for money though, or performance gains in line with your expenditure.

If all you needed was a quiet pc with some performance gains in line with what your hardware is capable of, I hate to tell you, but replacing your case fans and maybe your Psu fan, plus installing an Aftermarket air cooler like the Morpheus II for your GPU and a cpu cooler like the U12A would have been the trick.

AIOs are trash, the sooner you realise this, the better your experience will be. If you're committed to water, do it custom or don't do it at all. Pumps, material choice, performance etc. All suck on AIOs, and are comparable to high end air.

 

[kapone32]

It's a fun hobby. Don't expect value for money though, or performance gains in line with your expenditure.

If all you needed was a quiet pc with some performance gains in line with what your hardware is capable of, I hate to tell you, but replacing your case fans and maybe your Psu fan, plus installing an Aftermarket air cooler like the Morpheus II for your GPU and a cpu cooler like the U12A would have been the trick.

AIOs are trash, the sooner you realise this, the better your experience will be. If you're committed to water, do it custom or don't do it at all. Pumps, material choice, performance etc. All suck on AIOs, and are comparable to high end air.

Replace my case fans? So 3x200MM CM intake fans are not good? I guess we could say the same about 6 140MM Arctic F14s for exhaust? Replacing the fan on the Corsair HX1200I makes no common sense.

While the Morpheus 2 is a great aftermarket GPU cooler it is not in my opinion as good as my Alphacool GPU block that comes with it's own backplate and pump too, nor is it as good as the heatsink that came with the Sapphire Nitro 64. The other thing is why would I replace a 2 slot heatsink with another.

You are suggesting that Alphacool products are sub par? Other than user error I have never had anything from Alphacool fail on me.

I no longer use an AIO and the Eisbaer was the first "AIO" I have seen with a fill port (Actually the Deepcool Captain had one on the rad) . Let me see a CPU block (on the way), 2 res and pump units, 2 420MM copper rads, 2 GPU blocks and quick connect tubing sure sounds like a custom loop to me (admittedly modular as per Earth Dog). I get it though no fittings or hard or soft tube means no custom loop.....

In my original post I clearly stated that I got the block so I can utilize more of my DIMM slots. That is the mitigating factor in creating the loop. It has nothing to do with performance or noise. Those were already mitigated by the very things you are suggesting.

 

[JackCarver]

AIOs are trash, the sooner you realise this, the better your experience will be. If you're committed to water, do it custom or don't do it at all. Pumps, material choice, performance etc. All suck on AIOs, and are comparable to high end air.

That‘s not true...latest AiOs outperform air coolers and are very quiet.
But they are more expensive than air coolers, so you can say the performance of high end air coolers is enough, but performancewise the AiO is better.

 

[matthewmatics]

I have wanted to go water on my own machine forever but just never got around to it!! Ahg! I have set them up for others and love them but then I just look at mine and say ahg screw it.

It is easier when building new for others -vs- me finding stuff for my old AM3 AMD 8120 and my MSI RX580 OC....so I just live with loud arse fans as usual!

Maybe next build!

 

[Deleted member 185158]

That‘s not true...latest AiOs outperform air coolers and are very quiet.
But they are more expensive than air coolers, so you can say the performance of high end air coolers is enough, but performancewise the AiO is better.

I really beg to differ.
We can say that performance of high end AIO is enough.

Whoa! you got a 360 rad on that AIO??
With a crappy little thin cold plate, marginal in quality pumps (gotten better through the years) and most not expandable.

Then you want to drop this bad boi AIO onto a chip that actually gets hot and gets yields from overclocking with cooler temps (Intel) and then want to try and say that on average AIO is better than air cooling? Not really.

Through the years I've seen 100x no no,, 1000x more AIO failures than any air cooler ever anywhere. Failure after failure.

AIO is not "better" for a large fist full of reasons.

The better AIOs get expensive, expandable, dare I say decent pumps...... And then spent all that money, get a sub par waterblock.

Serious water cooling is always going to be the best. AIO can't shake a stick at 99% of the custom loops out there. Even the failure rate is much much lower than AIO.

If I gotta type AIO one more time, I'm smashing my keyboard in.

 

[kapone32]

Well the Eisstation arrived same day from Amazon yesterday!!!!! The CPU block will be shipping from Germany today for Friday delivery. I can't wait to see how my Noctua cooler's fans work as radiator fans. My biggest worry right now is will I play Jedi FO or Control whilt the snow falls on Saturday?

 

[JackCarver]

Performance of high end AiO is better, performance of high end air is enough, that’s a fact. Read this article from 2017 and you see a comparison between Enermax Liqtech TR4 240 and Noctua NH U14. Both tested on Threadripper 1950X.

Noctua NH-U14S Air vs. Enermax Liqtech 240 Liquid Cooler for Threadripper | GamersNexus

stub This testing kicked-off because we questioned the validity of some cooler testing results that we saw online. We previously tested two mostly identical Noctua air coolers against one another on Threadripper – one cooler had a TR4-sized plate, the other had an AM-sized plate – and saw...

www.gamersnexus.net

The AiO performs better even if noise is reduced to 40dB.
In the conclusion the statement of Steve is the following:

As for the three measurements of “better” (price/performance, flat-out performance, noise-normalized performance), it breaks down like this: Air is cheaper and sufficient for performance when using the NH-U14S.

Air is cheaper and sufficient, like I said before.
I don‘t say that an AiO can be compared to a custom loop. I use a custom loop for myself, but started with air, then AiO, then custom loop but if I had to choose between air and AiO, I would choose AiO

 

[Vayra86]

I really beg to differ.
We can say that performance of high end AIO is enough.

Whoa! you got a 360 rad on that AIO??
With a crappy little thin cold plate, marginal in quality pumps (gotten better through the years) and most not expandable.

Then you want to drop this bad boi AIO onto a chip that actually gets hot and gets yields from overclocking with cooler temps (Intel) and then want to try and say that on average AIO is better than air cooling? Not really.

Through the years I've seen 100x no no,, 1000x more AIO failures than any air cooler ever anywhere. Failure after failure.

AIO is not "better" for a large fist full of reasons.

The better AIOs get expensive, expandable, dare I say decent pumps...... And then spent all that money, get a sub par waterblock.

Serious water cooling is always going to be the best. AIO can't shake a stick at 99% of the custom loops out there. Even the failure rate is much much lower than AIO.

If I gotta type AIO one more time, I'm smashing my keyboard in.

My 1,5 year old daughter says AIO! a lot these days. Its great fun And I approve of that post 100%

 

[JackCarver]

Well the Eisstation arrived same day from Amazon yesterday!!!!! The CPU block will be shipping from Germany today for Friday delivery. I can't wait to see how my Noctua cooler's fans work as radiator fans. My biggest worry right now is will I play Jedi FO or Control whilt the snow falls on Saturday?

Important for radiator fans is static pressure. The thicker your radiator is the more important is static pressure of your radiator fans to push or pull the air through the radiator. If you use a slim rad then it‘s not that important.

 

[kapone32]

Important for radiator fans is static pressure. The thicker your radiator is the more important is static pressure of your radiator fans to push or pull the air through the radiator. If you use a slim rad then it‘s not that important.

I know exactly what you mean. I want to see how the Noctua fans from my Cooler works against Arctic F14s and Noctua Redux. I don't anticipate any issues.

 

[freeagent]

Performance of high end AiO is better, performance of high end air is enough, that’s a fact. Read this article from 2017 and you see a comparison between Enermax Liqtech TR4 240 and Noctua NH U14. Both tested on Threadripper 1950X.

Noctua NH-U14S Air vs. Enermax Liqtech 240 Liquid Cooler for Threadripper | GamersNexus

stub This testing kicked-off because we questioned the validity of some cooler testing results that we saw online. We previously tested two mostly identical Noctua air coolers against one another on Threadripper – one cooler had a TR4-sized plate, the other had an AM-sized plate – and saw...

www.gamersnexus.net

The AiO performs better even if noise is reduced to 40dB.
In the conclusion the statement of Steve is the following:



Air is cheaper and sufficient, like I said before.
I don‘t say that an AiO can be compared to a custom loop. I use a custom loop for myself, but started with air, then AiO, then custom loop but if I had to choose between air and AiO, I would choose AiO

You didnt finish quoting Steve. He said, and I quote:

As for the three measurements of “better” (price/performance, flat-out performance, noise-normalized performance), it breaks down like this: Air is cheaper and sufficient for performance when using the NH-U14S.

There are better air coolers than then NH-U14S.

 

[kapone32]

You didnt finish quoting Steve. He said, and I quote:



There are better air coolers than then NH-U14S.

Of the 3 I know of the Noctua is best for TR4. Only Deep Cool and Cooler Master have TR4 Air coolers as I remember.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Important for radiator fans is static pressure. The thicker your radiator is the more important is static pressure of your radiator fans to push or pull the air through the radiator. If you use a slim rad then it‘s not that important.

Push pull and nobody ever takes in account the dead spot at the center of the fans......

 

[kapone32]

Push pull and nobody ever takes in account the dead spot at the center of the fans......

Or the dust that builds up on the radiator when running a push/pull.

 

[JackCarver]

You didnt finish quoting Steve. He said, and I quote:



There are better air coolers than then NH-U14S.

Yes and there are better AiO's than the Enermax...

Push pull and nobody ever takes in account the dead spot at the center of the fans......

 

[kapone32]

Ok here is my thought process on AIOs. AIOs do have higher failure rates than Air coolers due to the simple fact that the only thing to fail on those are the fans. With an AIO the pump is the most likely component to fail and unfortunately there is almost nothing you can do to fix it (in some cases even of you know how to). The stupid Asetek lawsuit basically ruined innovation on AIOs in a lot of cases. As I have stated before the Cooler Master Nepton 280 was an AIO worth it's salt. A good AIO should give you 2-3 degree lower temps at idle but 10 to 15 under load. Where AIOs shine like any other Water solution is how quickly the temps fall back to near ambient once the load has been removed. Some people think that AIOs are just garbage but no one can deny that at least you don't have to worry about RAM clearance or for that matter putting a GPU in the first x16 slot, a reality with a ton of Air coolers on the market (Especially the expensive ones).

If you look at an AIO vs a custom loop the main differences I have seen are the thickness of the rad is usually no more than 27mm on an AIO while you can get up to 60mm and up with a custom loop and copper is instead of aluminum.

This is why the Alphacool Eisbaer is my go to cooler for non budget builds. I do not believe there is a real AIO with a 30mm Copper rad. Every single component on the Eisbaer can be bought individually for a custom loop so calling it an AIO because Alphacool assembled the components to me is wack. EK had a similar concept but made the mistake of using an aluminum rad with a copper base plate.

 

[EarthDog]

Important for radiator fans is static pressure. The thicker your radiator is the more important is static pressure of your radiator fans to push or pull the air through the radiator. If you use a slim rad then it‘s not that important.

thickness plays a role as well as the FPI (Fins Per Inch). The higher the FPI, the more static pressure you want on the fans to 'push' (or pull - or both!) through the radiator.

Push pull and nobody ever takes in account the dead spot at the center of the fans......

Truth. Shrouds FTW (on any rad with any fan config).

but 10 to 15 under load.

Over what though? High-end to upper mid-range air? Negative - a couple of C (look at a few reviews). Intel/AMD stock and potatos, absolutely.

 

[kapone32]

Over what though? High-end to upper mid-range air? Negative - a couple of C (look at a few reviews). Intel/AMD stock and potatos, absolutely.
[/QUOTE]

I should have said stock cooler. If you are looking at high end (and I should have specified this) it becomes a moot point unless you are worried about RAM placement or GPU install problems.

 

[Dinnercore]

Or the dust that builds up on the radiator when running a push/pull.

Its not any worse compared to single sided use or an air-cooler. This is my push-pull setup after 15 months without cleaning:


45mm thick Radiators on the top as exhaust, each with push pull 140mm fans. Intake to the case was a 200mm front fan and unfiltered 3x 140mm side intake.

Yeah it looks dirty, you can even see the imprints of the fans. Did the performance drop? Not in a measurable way. Still had good airflow out the top. As you can see the dust builds up only on the very edges of the fins, the flat area behind where the thermal transfer occurs is still clean.

 

[kapone32]

Its not any worse compared to single sided use or an air-cooler. This is my push-pull setup after 15 months without cleaning:


45mm thick Radiators on the top as exhaust, each with push pull 140mm fans. Intake to the case was a 200mm front fan and unfiltered 3x 140mm side intake.

Yeah it looks dirty, you can even see the imprints of the fans. Did the performance drop? Not in a measurable way. Still had good airflow out the top. As you can see the dust builds up only on the very edges of the fins, the flat area behind where the thermal transfer occurs is still clean.

It depends on your case. The case you have listed does not seem to have many air vents and it looks like it is padded as well. I have a Thermaltake Core X9 and I guess I can attribute the fact that I saw some major dust bunnies on my rads after about 6 months of use due to the fact that the case is fully vented all over.

 

[Dinnercore]

It depends on your case. The case you have listed does not seem to have many air vents and it looks like it is padded as well. I have a Thermaltake Core X9 and I guess I can attribute the fact that I saw some major dust bunnies on my rads after about 6 months of use due to the fact that the case is fully vented all over.

Oh no the case I listed is not the one I used here. It doesnt even fit 420mm radiators. I used the Core X9 as well! It was my TR4 build that I sold in parts recently.
And like I said I took the side filters out to increase airflow.

 

[kapone32]

Oh no the case I listed is not the one I used here. It doesnt even fit 420mm radiators. I used the Core X9 as well! It was my TR4 build that I sold in parts recently.
And like I said I took the side filters out to increase airflow.

Thanks for that clearance. I guess I should have said that I have a cat and pure wooden floors so that could be the culprit for me.