How much of a pain is it to set up watercooling? And related questions.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been getting close to building my new gaming (+ some work) desktop. I’ve been going through stuff and I like the idea of watercooling, and people say it’s good, online at least. However, my real life friend says it’s way too much of a pain to set up and maintain for it to really be worth it.

I know how to build a computer, in theory at least (I’ve never physically done it, but I understand the relation of what parts go where etc and have even successfully helped other people that were confused based on my abstract knowledge). But even if I’m having trouble I know people personally and, obviously, here that can help me. I’m fairly set on it, so unless it’s needlessly complicated or labor intensive (i.e. has to be rigorously and time-consumingly maintained every week, which I doubt) I think I’ll go with it, but I thought I’d ask.

Also, just some clarifications from the knowledge I’ve gathered:
Do I really need anything other than the seemingly “typical” water block/pump/heat exchanger set up, or is it worth it to set up vapor-compression refrigeration or thermoelectric cooler stuff, I’ll probably be doing a fair bit of overclocking so the latter seem pretty good in that respect, but is setting that up (which is bound to be even more complicated, not that I care) worth it in comparison? Because I’ve heard mixed reviews on the former set up not being worth it compared to air cooling for the higher maintenance requirements and that you may as well use a fan then.

Also, I’m a little confused, do you have to set up watercooling for each component? Just the CPU and air cool the rest? Can you monkey with it to work the whole machine?

I’d appreciate the help, I know computers a fair bit, but I haven’t so much as looked at watercooling until now so I’m having a bit of trouble processing all the information at once, leading to some hefty confusion.

Edit: Most “I’m building a PC” threads go in MPSIMS, that I’ve seen at least, but this one may be more GQish, or even IMHOish since I’m asking for opinions, at least on some level. Whatever, mods bounce where you will.

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While I scrape my jaw off the floor…

I have built over a dozen machines.

Never, in my wildest nightmares, has the concept of DELIBERATELY PUMPING WATER into them come along.

This has to be the lastest version of speaker cables costing $50+ - a huge con.

If the thing overheats, buy a mini fridge and put it inside (you might have to use real wires for i/o - and don’t pay $50 for them).

Water cooling a PC. Bizarre. Don’t introduce water inside the case - it’s really bad for things electronic…

3

Eh, watercooling is probably not worth the trouble, especially if you haven’t built machines before. It’s expensive, harder to install, much harder to clean and maintain, more likely to cause trouble, and not anywhere near necessary unless you want to really push your overclocking into “extreme territory.” (Which, IMHO, isn’t worth the trouble either.)

For typical overclocking, a good air cooler and a case with intelligently directed airflow is more than enough. I’m running a Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 4.05GHz (from its stock speed of 3.0GHz) on an air cooler with temperatures well within a comfortably safe operating level. Of course, the E8400 has a reputation for being an incredible overclocker, but the point is that a good air cooling solution will generally get you where you want to be, for much less money and effort than you’d sink into a liquid cooling setup.

To answer some of your questions, though, often a liquid cooling rig is installed so that the coolant is pumped across all the major heat-generating components: at least the CPU and the GPU(s), and often the northbridge chipset on the motherboard as well. You can basically set it up however you want, provided you have the right water blocks, clamps, enough flexible hose, and a good pump and radiator. I wouldn’t know much about any more specific details, since I’ve never felt the need to go liquid-cooled myself.

usedtobe: I wouldn’t say liquid cooling is on the same level as expensive audiophile crap. It’s much more expensive than air cooling, but some enthusiasts do get tangible benefits from it - it can be quieter than air cooling, and if done right it’s much better at removing heat, allowing those living on the bleeding edge to squeeze that last bit of performance out of their heavily overclocked components. Definitely not worth it for most people, but there is that small group of folks who seem to measure their self-worth based on how far they can overclock their CPUs – just look at the various people who’ve tried cooling their chips with liquid nitrogen! :smiley:

4

Watercooling does provide the best performance (besides phase-change) but you can pay a lot in time, money, and complexity to gain a fairly small increase in performance. It’s kind of like paying an extra $40,000 for a sports car that goes 165 mph instead of one that goes 160 mph, say.

But, do you like to tinker? Do you absolutely need mind blowing performance? Do you mind the rapid depreciation in relative performance you will experience as your hardware ages? Things to think about.

Keep in mind that water-cooling is not entirely straight forward. The science and logistics can be quite complex. Do your research and learn from other people’s mistakes. It is possible to set up a water cooling system that performs quite poorly…