Cooling questions

[thegoatman]

Hey all, I'm planning to build either a 2500K or an equivalent Ivy Bridge based system within a couple of months. I see technology has come a long way since I last did this, and I was hoping somebody could impart me with some expertise.

So I see some companies are now making a sealed, self-contained, no-maintanance liquid cooling system. Are these any good? They seem to be simply a water block and radiator. Are they effective? Will they last 6 years or more?

Arre non-conductive alternative fluids effective in a standard watercooling system?

How much maintanance does a traditional watercooling system need?

What are some of the best-value air coolers on the market? What kind of gains can I expect today on liquid over air? And what would be good for a system that I move around a fair bit?

[BeepBeep2]

The sealed no-maintenance liquid cooling systems are okay, a little better than air coolers for the most part. The pump is integrated into the housing holding the waterblock. They aren't nearly as good as true custom water cooling and large radiators. I don't think they will last 6 years...and some have issues. For example right now my Corsair H70 pump is failing after less than 50 hours of use...just my luck I guess.

The non-conductive/non-corrosive fluids work okay. They aren't as good as distilled in performance but if you want a low maintenance loop go for a non-corrorosive fluid containing propylene glycol (avoid anything with ethylene glycol) is a good choice.

Traditional water cooling loops need to be checked/cleaned out once every 6 months to a year or so and run a biocide if you use distilled water and not a propylene glycol based fluid.

There are a crap ton of air coolers on the market now with no true standout like there used to be...(like the Thermalright TRUE used to be back in the day) but it depends if you want to go for best air performance or best perf/$$ ratio.

[thegoatman]

Can you give an example of a cooler with good price/perf ratio with decent performance?

And what gains on the lifespan would better cooling provide? What does overclocking take away? Excluding meltdown and other catastrophic failures, of course. Why does OC'ing take away from processor lifespan? It's gotta be more than just because of heat...

Has anyone ever llost a chip purely to age/overclocking? What happens over time? Does it lose stability? Does it slow down? Or does it just crap out one day?

[LagunaX]

Can you give an example of a cooler with good price/perf ratio?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103099

[thegoatman]

Do heat pipes have to sit vertically to work right? I don't plan on laying my computer on its side 24/7...

Something else I thought of. Full tower or mid-tower?

[BeepBeep2]

Can you give an example of a cooler with good price/perf ratio with decent performance?

And what gains on the lifespan would better cooling provide? What does overclocking take away? Excluding meltdown and other catastrophic failures, of course. Why does OC'ing take away from processor lifespan? It's gotta be more than just because of heat...

Has anyone ever llost a chip purely to age/overclocking? What happens over time? Does it lose stability? Does it slow down? Or does it just crap out one day?

I don't keep up on new price/perf air coolers as I run water 24/7.

Lifespan gains are minimal with water cooling or better cooling in general. Overclocking is generally safe unless you are really trying to push the performance. It is a combination of voltage and heat, but in most cases your cooler is not going to fall off and your fan will not just refuse to spin up one day so voltage is the killer. Usually it goes one of two ways, you either run too high a voltage on the processor over time and it degrades or you kill it instantly with a voltage you probably already knew was too high.

No, the heatpipes work no matter which orientation the cooler is in.

For air - mid tower for sure. If you are going to go all out with custom water cooling I'd suggest full tower, and specific cases at that. Of course, there are mid tower cases and radboxes that allow you to set up a 2x120/3x120 rad say in the back of your mid tower case externally.

[Church]

Try this pic as somewhat illustrating, what you can get from normal LC components sys (Edge HD 320 kit comes close to typical, except maybe fan choice might be improved), from integrated LC one (Intel's kit as close to most of Asetek integrated kits including Corsair's) and top air coolers (Archon/Phantex and alikes).
Typically those integrated kits are a bit worse then top air coolers, as they are somewhat limited with small single 120mm section rads they are shipped with (getting upper hand in tests usually with somewhat "cheating", eg. by using much more powerful (and noisy) stock fans, or by using cooler outside air (but in turn dumping heat inside case worsening cooling of other components).
They have their merits though, as they are better then stock box coolers, yet are compact enough and with more flexible mounting options, thus maybe fitting/working better in some limited cases where big air cooling options won't fit. But they are definitely NOT more effective then top air coolers.

[BeepBeep2]

I disagree with churchy as far as integrated kits being a bit worse than top air coolers...not that I'm trying to get him to buy one, they won't be nearly as reliable as standard air cooling.

Antec Kuhler 920/Corsair H70/and H80/other variants on the market IMO are the best. My H70 with 2x2000RPM fans in push/pull beats out my Sunbeam CCF and a 2600 RPM push/pull substantially Of course, that cooler is no longer near the top but darn close. (Especially in relation to other Heatpipe Direct-Touch coolers)

[Church]

BeepBeep: those 2K rpm fans definitely can push more air then 1.3K rpm fans of those top air coolers .. at a price. Price of being much noisier. You can put more powerful fans on air coolers aswell to increase their max performance, they would benefit from those too. If you judge cooling solutions by _ratio_ of noise/effectiveness and especially at noise range that is acceptable for most, not by max cooling stock set can provide, they lag behind. I've seen several times in forums of users replacing stock fans in those integrated kits with quieter ones .. limiting max cooling as well.
Unfortunately you have to choose any two between flexibility of mount/size/compactness, cooling effectiveness, acceptable noise. "Normal" LC sys chooses last two, integrated kits first two. Top air coolers - somewhat in between, not excelling in everything, but providing good set/compromise between all at more reasonable pricing. First thought to increase effectiveness at lesser noise of integrated kits would be to supply with bigger rads like grown up LC systems, but with that you loose flexibility of mounting, small size and reasonable price, making it more reasonable to get normal LC since the beginning with few extra gains compared to integrated ones (eg. ease of adding cooling for other components and sufficient LC component parameters for that (normal G1/4 fitting usage/adequate pumping power for several blocks and so on)).

[thegoatman]

Which raises another question in my head:

What is a good max temp, idle temp,and normal daily use 24/7 temp for a Santy Bridge or Ivy Bridge chip? Looking at that graph you linked, I haven't seen chips run that hot acceptably since Socket 478, and that was on air, not on liquid...

[BeepBeep2]

BeepBeep: those 2K rpm fans definitely can push more air then 1.3K rpm fans of those top air coolers .. at a price. Price of being much noisier. You can put more powerful fans on air coolers aswell to increase their max performance, they would benefit from those too. If you judge cooling solutions by _ratio_ of noise/effectiveness and especially at noise range that is acceptable for most, not by max cooling stock set can provide, they lag behind. I've seen several times in forums of users replacing stock fans in those integrated kits with quieter ones .. limiting max cooling as well.
Unfortunately you have to choose any two between flexibility of mount/size/compactness, cooling effectiveness, acceptable noise. "Normal" LC sys chooses last two, integrated kits first two. Top air coolers - somewhat in between, not excelling in everything, but providing good set/compromise between all at more reasonable pricing. First thought to increase effectiveness at lesser noise of integrated kits would be to supply with bigger rads like grown up LC systems, but with that you loose flexibility of mounting, small size and reasonable price, making it more reasonable to get normal LC since the beginning with few extra gains compared to integrated ones (eg. ease of adding cooling for other components and sufficient LC component parameters for that (normal G1/4 fitting usage/adequate pumping power for several blocks and so on)).

Uhh, not all of those top coolers come with 1.3K RPM fans. Noctua really pushed noise level / performance onto the market but many air coolers have 2K-2.2K RPM fans too. Like I said, my CCF with 2.6K RPM fans didn't hold a match to my H70, even with these fans around 1600 RPM.


@thegoatman
IB runs a bit hotter than SB, but about 75c on air I think is reasonable, under full load. My niche is AMD but I look over that way sometimes...churchy can probably answer that one for you a lot better than I can

[Church]

Acceptable temps seems very subjective matter with own different answer for different people . Some would swear by not more then 60C, for others acceptable might be 90-100. My answer - at whatever temps my chosen clocks/voltage cooled hw runs stable. Depending on different HW - different temps.
As for particular mentioned SB or IB cpus .. i'd wish for as effective cooling as possible for IB, as from rumours first retail stepping cpus run unreasonably hot with more voltage fed to reach higher clocks. SBs seem better overclockers even with worse cooling (at a bit worse performance per clock though so resulting max performance being somewhat same).

[thegoatman]

So if I stick with Sandy, I could save a few bucks by getting a mediocre cooler, since none of them jump out and scream "I'm the best by far." But if I go with Ivy, I should shell out for the best cooler out there, since it typically runs hot.

Assuming I go for a substantial (though by no means record-breaking) overclock.

[thegoatman]

Are there any coolers I should watch out for when working with an ASUS Z77 Sabertooth board and its Thermal Armor?

[Church]

Yeah, until i hear those rumours denied or if proven - until next stepping of IB, that fixes issues, comes out, i'd get SB 2600K/2700K (which also should drop the price on IB release), and good air cooler (eg. mentioned thermalright archon).

You probably should rather check your case, not motherboard, for max cooler height. Often seen in forums questions like "will cooler XX fit in case YY". Another problem with some of top air coolers or fans on those might be interfering with some fins/rads on RAM.