I cant decide

[speighty]

At the moment i am using intel air cooling but i want to go for water cooling but i cant decide what kit, i have about £130 to spend.

I have been looking at the swiftech h20 120 premium.

Or the thermaltake bigwater 735 and the aquabay m1.

If anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

 

[Yeungster]

If you've got your heart set on watercooling, then out of the above kits, I'd say swiftech.

You thought about a good air cooling solution? Will be much cheaper, and provide very good results if you select a good one. Just not quite as good as W/C

 

[FarFarAway]

Has to be the swifttech - the TT kit is pure cr@p

 

[weihk]

might be better to pick your kit up piece by piece........130quid is more than enough for just CPU cooling.....IMO.....

 

[llwyd]

My suggestion would be, take the rig as far as possible on air cooling, with a decent cooler and some quality TIM and then if you're confident that there is more to be had out of your chip then move to a basic CPU watercooling setup. You may be able to max out your chip on air and just don't know it, in which case it would be a shame to blow 130 on unnecessary gear

 

[FarFarAway]

Ye Llwyd's got a good point. Spend your cash on a very nice air cooler that's 100% less effort and you're set

 

[speighty]

Ok then what is a good air cooler that will allow me to overclock a e6600 without going high in tempertures.

 

[Yeungster]

Look at coolers such as scythe ninja rev B, Tuniq Tower, Noctua NH-U12 & Thermalright Ultra120

 

[speighty]

What do most of you guys use.

I do have my heart set on water cooling but for a noob i dont no how hard it will be.

If i can more or less get the same results from air cooling i may aswell go with that. I think i would go with the scythe ninja rev B.

I have the thermaltake shark case with the 120mm fan at the back and intel stock cooling on the cpu.

What is a good 120mm fan for the back of the case.

 

[Yeungster]

What temperatures are you getting at the moment?

CPU (idle & load), ambient etc?

 

[speighty]

Im getting about 41-42 idle and 45-46 under load.

 

[Yeungster]

Is that on standard clocks or overclocked? If it's been overclocked, what speed is it running at?

a 4c rise in temp between idle and fully loaded temps is incredible!

 

[speighty]

Thst is on standard clock, the lowest temp i have had is 39 and the highest is 47 but generally they are between what i posted before.

I did try overclocking and got it to 3.2 on both cores and the temp was about 55, if i can overclock like that and get the temps i am getting with standard i will be happy.

 

[Yeungster]

If you can get 3.2ghz at 55c on the standard cooler, the scythe cooler you've chosen will keep it much cooler. Infact, there's a good chance that the idle temp at 3.2ghz will be lower than the standard clock idle temp with the intel cooler

 

[speighty]

If i do decide to go for the water cooling option are they difficult to install for a first timer.

 

[Yeungster]

There's a fantastic guide in the watercooling section of the forum.

All depends on how comfortable you are with each step. Have a read through and see for yourself

 

[speighty]

Whats your experience with water cooling.

I do have my heart set on it, but if all i want to cool is my cpu it just seems alot compared to £35 for a new heatsink and fan.

 

[Pyr0]

the swiftech kits are really easy to install as they come with all the parts needed (except the distilled water) and printed instructions

but as mentioned, there is an added cost to go water, and a top-end heatsink such as the thermalright ultra 120 extreme (coupled with a decent fan), would probably get similar temps give or take a few degrees

http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_product_ultra120_extreme.htm

i went with water to ensure i would be able to keep noise levels down as low as possible - d-tek fuzion cpu block, and thermochill rad with yate loon fans

but again, custom parts will cost more than a kit

 

[Toxcity]

I have to say swiftech too!

My first insight into water cooling was a Swiftech kit (thanks to OC3D and SpecialTech)

 

[llwyd]

The thing is with water cooling, the first time you spend 2 hrs installing it, you think 'yay, im running on water, temps are low and noise is lower'. Then come the next upgrade, you think 'oh dear, im going to have to take all this out without spilling a drop, and then put it all back in every time i do this', then come the 20th upgrade, i promise you, you will be thinking 'where the hell did i put that damn Arctic Freezer'

Installation is pretty simple if you just take your time and pay attention to detail. Make sure you do everything to the letter. Even the slightest 'I cba' attitude could cost you a good few hundred pound, which does not feel nice I assure you.