In this article I aim to see if water cooling is worth the extra money over air cooling.

With components getting hotter and hotter we have seen air coolers get really big, to big in fact, just look at Coolermaster’s V10 cooler, but because of this people are looking to water-cooling more and more which is bringing the price down slightly, but not enough I think. With the cheapest water cooling costing around 100 quid it does seem to be for those who really want it or for the mad overclockers among us. I recently looked into water cooling and found that spending 150 quid on water cooling would only get me 200Mhz more on a Phenom X4 955 over a 35 quid air cooler, and it just didn’t seem worth it. People sometimes argue that it’s quieter than air cooling, if you think about it logically you need more fans and a pump with water cooling which causes more noise so it’s the complete opposite if you intend to overclock. Also proper water-cooling kits take up a lot of space, over even some of the biggest of air coolers which defeats the object most people go for. 0 

One thing good to come out of the rise in interest is AIO (All in One) water-cooling kits like NorthQ’s Siberian tiger, Coolit Domino and the new Corsair H50, at around 50 quid it’s the cheapest way to watercool your CPU but the big problem is they only perform the same as mid-range coolers so your paying more when you could be paying the same and getting the best air cooling around. But the one main advantage AIO’s have over air is space, AIO’s take up a lot less space which can make it good for smaller cases or HTPC’s, but in large tower cases I can’t seem to justify it I would rather have a TRUE Black (Thermalright Ultra Extreme Black) 0 

There is one cooler which I really would like to see, the Danamics LM10, its a cooler that uses a magnetic pump and liquid metal in the heat pipes instead of water. It’s a fantastic innovation and I hope it does well, specially since it took them 2 years to get the EU to agree to retail it. Have a look here, bigger image here.

I went around asking my friends if their water-cooling was worth it, here is what they said.

“Well the choice of water over air is not one to be taken lightly. You have to consider what you are trying to achieve. Do you want quiet? Do you want lower temps? One has its advantages over the other, depending on the end goal. Personally, I wanted to lower temps of my Q6600, my watercooling setup does it perfectly. It is by no means quiet, but it does the job I intended. Therefore it is worth the extra cost and loss of interior case space. Again, I can justify it, if I had done it for a quiet rig – I would have failed”

“If you want to overclock hot CPU’s like i7 then it’s essential otherwise if your not overclocking then it’s not worth the extra cost. Although for a stock system it can be quieter because you don’t need as many fans and only a small pump. Generally if you want to overclock and keep a hot system cool then water-cooling is the way to go.”

After all of that the conclusion on water-cooling is a mixed one, if you have the money then it’s good but for people looking to make a silent or overclocking on a budget then it’s really not worth it. Where as if you want to overclock some of today’s new CPU’s you’ll need it and will have to sacrifice quietness and sometimes space for it. One thing I will say is if your going to overclock  i7 then it will most likely need water-cooling for it to stay cool, but if you can afford an i7 rig then it wont be a problem splashing out on water-cooling. 0 

Tags: amd, Corsair, Danamics, H50, i7, intel, LM10, NorthQ, Overclocking, Phenom 2, Siberian Tiger, Thermalright, Watercooling