liquid cooling vs air

Personally, no disrespect to The Smart Guys® that hang around here, I will never liquid cool any computer. I don't need overclocking, I don't do "min/max", and I'm not interested in squeezing every little ounce of performance out of a machine like this. People who designed these things are much, much smarter than me and so I'm going to run it within its original parameters. (Side note, no "aftermarket" products on my cars, either.)

I spent many years in the plumbing trade and have seen the corrosive effects of liquids getting into places where they shouldn't be.   

But then again, that's just my personal 2¢ on the matter.

With all due respect to Air Snaike...lol...fear is the mind-killer!

When you buy an Intel K or X Series processor for your build, you ARE already paying for a processor DESIGNED BY INTEL TO BE OVERCLOCKED.   

Unless you Overclock those excellent K & X Series CPU's, you are not unlocking the full performance they were designed by Intel to produce.   Liquid cooling is the way to get that performance and keep temps safe & chilly, and the better the cooling you can invest in...the better and more stable your Overclocks will be.   DS HydroLux Pro liquid coolers are excellent and dependable.
DS has a decade of solid experience building Overclocked liquid cooled systems... so my advice would be... if you are interested in liquid cooling and Overclocking...then choose HydroLux Pro cooling for the best performance and go for it!

DS will make sure it's done right.   

Edited by HockeyBuck - 02 Aug 2019 at 2:03am

A standard AIO Corsair cooler is plenty. Hydrolux is only for extra show, it provides no additional measurable value that any of you can actually measure and say, "I see the difference."

Hydrolux can have leaks, the pump can have issues and so on. You have to WANT to deal with it or it's going to cause issues. If you're not willing to change your oil in your own car then you will probably not want to manage Hydrolux.

And I'm not saying Hydrolux is bad at all. It's fantastic, it looks the best and cost the most.

My 2 cents on Liquid cooling.

My ODE Level 3 2600k i7 has a Single corsair AIO. I'm pretty sure it has no more liquid inside after 8 years of owning it. And my CPU is overclocked to 4.5 never had an issue with it.

Hockeybuck is correct. Intel does know their processors are easily and safely capable of speeds beyond what they ship at. However because of the number of variables, I.e everyone has a different setup at home, so they choose to ship at a lower speed instead of risking thousands of RMAs a day because of enduser mistakes.

To the OP, Thomas

I’ve been using water cooling for 17 years now, even on my non-clocked PCs. Why? Because of science. Heat destroys everything over time, lowers anything’s lifespan. Water cooling is superior to air cooling by a far enough margin that it begs the question, why isn’t everyone doing it by default.

I wish GPU manufactures would get on board with this so a simple solution for WC video cards could be the norm instead of a money investment. Even with air cooling I’ve burnt out a fair share of vid cards over the years. Alas every mfg makes their version different so it makes it to where only certain GPU’s can be water cooled.

There are plenty of cheap solutions for WC on the market or here at DS, that are also maintenance free. No hassles.

I’d say go for it if your budget has room when building a pc, even if it’s not OC. That’s my two pixels.

Edited to fix iPhone spelling

Edited by Dondomingo - 02 Aug 2019 at 9:38am

I differ on the Air vs Water.

I was running a corsair h115 aio for a few years (mild oc on a 7700k)and here is my experience

1. First year- all good
2. Second Year is when things started to get wonky- Excessive air bubbles or blockages beginning (about to tear apart the unit to see what the issue really was)

-Water / CPU Temps were creeping up beyond comfortability over extended usage.
- Tap Pump and jiggle hoses to get temps back to norm for a week or so.
- Rinse wash and repeat
- Constant worry if Pump will fail or temps will go on a runaway streak
-Constant checking on temps during gaming....darn my OCD

as for AIR
Bought a noctua dh15s and:
- temps running cooler than on AIO
- Zero Noise
-Not as sexy looking- but does the job very well

I bought my "cube" in 2011 from DS. And I have LQ just on the processor(i7 990X extreme OC to 3.9). Still running strong. I do have experience with Tygon tubing and liquid systems because I'm a ECMO Specialist. So draining and maintaining is all good for me. And I can change the cable zip ties and Tygon if I wanted to. Well I also have 11 fans on my system so I guess Im over cooling?   

It all depends on what your comfortable with. I'm more comfortable with the cooling because I deal with lots of tubing and water pumps in my job. I had more issues changing the video card to a Star Wars Titan XP.   

And once again I thank all the cool people on this forum for there help!!!!