I have a liquid cooled computer at home that I built myself (does not use water but some blue stuff).
I have a few particular issues that led me to do it.
- The room is small(ish) where my computer is.
- I am a power gamer so use high-performance stuff that tends to throw a lot of heat.
As a result my PC will literally heat my room. Sufficient that in the dead of winter I need not have any other heat supplying the room to keep it warm. As the air warms up the ability for air cooling to do the job diminishes. In my previous PC fighting the heat was an ongoing problem and I had enough fans that my PC sounded like a jet engine warming up. This despite a very concerted effort to get quiet fans (quiet and still moved a lot of air at the same time).
Putting it together was a little scary. I had to tear off the heatsink on my video card which for a bit seemed likely to tear out chips or snap the card. Once off it was a pain to clean all the chips of the heatpads they used glued to the chips so I could apply thermal grease.
As it happened I just barely had enough tubing on hand to complete the job. Was scared I was going to run out. I could of course buy more but when in the task of building it at 11p I did not want to wait and make a trip somewhere for the stuff the next day.
The first time you run the system you actually have to hot-wire the power so the computer itself does not turn on but powers the pumps and what not to prime the system and get fluid in there before the system itself can heat up. I had a little wire provided to do the hot wiring but it was likewise a little scary since I had never done it before.
On my first power of the pumps I sprung a leak. Was not bad but was dripping pretty good in my case. Since nothing else was under power there was no danger of a short but, again, scary to see liquid squirting around inside the case. A quick tightening of the connection and a thorough drying of the system and all went as planned and worked fine.
It has been banging along like a champ for the last two years without a hitch. I need to add a little more fluid (not much) maybe once every three months or so…that is easily accomplished.
My system uses an active radiator with fans so it is not silent but pretty quiet. Only one game when I run multiple instances and Excel and browser and music and what not really cranks the heat on the system sufficient to make the fans go into a higher powered mode which is louder. This is rare though and only when seriously stressing my system. There are passive radiators that can be had too.
Average temps of my CPU/GPU stay around 40C (give or take). Under heavy load maybe up to 50C once in awhile (which is well under tolerance of the chips).
Would I do it again?
I dunno. It is expensive…particularly the water block for the GPU. Putting it together was dicey but with care and attention not impossibly hard. It definitely keeps my PC zooming no matter what I am doing.
Close call for me but unless you have a specific need to have this level of cooling I suggest sticking with fans.