Cooling AIO water coolers

Hi all,

I'm in the process of speccing up a new build to replace my ageing S775 machine, and have realised that a lot of my knowledge of PC kit is a bit out of date

What are AIO water coolers (such as the Corsair H series) like these days? Are they reliable? I was always brought up to believe that water and electrical equipment don't mix, so the idea of sticking a potentially leaky AIO cooler into a brand new machine fills me with a certain degree of trepidation. I'm assuming that they're basically extremely safe, but what do you guys think?

Also, how do they compare against normal HSF metal lump coolers in terms of noise and cooling power? Obviously this is a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question, but if it helps then I'm almost certainly going to be going mITX for my new build, so will be limited in terms of what size of cooler I can employ - am I right in thinking that an AIO will give me the best noise/efficiency performance in an mITX case?

Does anyone have any recommendations for an AIO? Given that I'm leaning towards mITX, I'd imagine that a 120mm single radiator jobbie is going to be the limit, but there appear to be a wide range of options.

Cheers all
Bawjaws

 

The biggest advantage of AIO in a tiny case is that it will completely remove all CPU heat from the case without the need for an additional exhaust fan.

Temp wise, anything on a 120mm rad will give you performance comparable to a high end air cooler, though possibly a bit quieter. Any larger than 120mm probably won't fit in an ITX case.

 

Thanks for the response Shirty. I'd reckoned that 120mm was going to be the upper limit for mITX.

One thing regarding noise: given that an AIO has a fan (or two) plus a pump, does the fan spinning more slowly offset the additional noise from the pump, relative to an air cooler?

 

Ive used a couple and on a corsair h80i and does a decent job of cooling, but be warned i hsd a h80i where one of the tubes came loose dripping fluid and took out a 290x gpu but corsair replaced the h80i and gave me $420 towards a new gpu

 

The H80i and the H100i are both excellent coolers, but the standard fans are too loud.

It's definitely worth investing in the quiet edition fans - they're much quieter and within a degree or two of the standard 2700rpm models.

 

The Enermax Liqtech 120X I'm using has a pair of speed adjustable fans and a thicker rad, so whilst its a tight fit in a dinky case it provides excellent cooling and the price was right too.

I can't personally hear the pump and its a quiet machine, although I can't vouch for other brands.

 

Thought i'd jump on this thread since it's here.

I'm going to start building a budget build for my mrs' cousin, based around a GTX 760 and a G3258, I wasn't going to spend more than about £45-£50 on a cooler (it's a Pentium K, why wouldn't I?) but i've personally never used any AIO except for a corsair model. Are there any good, reliable AIO coolers in my range?

 

am using an MSI dragon , heatplate gets hot but it does a good enough job at keeping my i7 2600k cool , IIRC its a corsair H50 rebranded (and scan have it for about £30, new not a refurb)

 

You can definitely get an H100i (240mm AIO) to fit in a mini ITX case. Off the top of my head, the H100i will fit inside a Bit Fenix Prodigy and a Corsair Obsidian 250D. I have used an H100i in both of those cases. In fact, the Corsair 250D is specifically designed to fit one.

Oh and to echo what someone else said, you'll definitely want to replace the stock fans that come with the H100i. I use the Corsair SP120 Quiet Editions. Very nice fans!

 

True say, Crappy. It's a great cooler!

 

I did want to make his build look a bit more fancy than it was. The Gelid Tranquillo is my go to as well, I still use it in my own rig for my i3.

 

Is it worth bothering with an AIO for a non-overclocked Haswell i5? I prefer silence to super low temperatures if that helps

 

Not really. If you have the option of overclocking it eventually, then maybe you should get a high end air or AIO hydro cooler. If it's a non-K part that you can't overclock, then a mid-range air cooler is fine. Air coolers are normally less noisy, especially with something like a Hyper 212 or Gelid Tranquillo. If you have the cash for an AIO anyway, then a Noctua cooler is a must; they're extraordinarily effective at cooling with almost silent operation.

 

Interesting that a couple of us were just discussing this. I compiled some data on top AIO, CLC and air coolers.

H100i is 10c hotter at 39dBA (6dBA louder than NH-D15) It's only 1c hotter than NH-D15 when at full speed, but 8 times as loud.

Swiftech H220-X is 1c cooler and only twice as loud as NH-D15.

For me air cooling is still the best way to go for price, performance, noise and dependability.

 

Cheers for the info, doyll, that's really interesting stuff.

 

No problem. I am pretty up to date on air cooling as I have used and tested several like Cryoring, Thermalrgiht, Noctua, be quiet!, Phanteks, etc. and have some charts showing size and with RAM and PCIe socket clearances. Also have a guide to optimizing case airflow. Can supply links to them if you want.

 

That would be very useful, thanks.

 

Coolers sizes and clearances
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3501347&postcount=17

Optimizing case airflow
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3694292&postcount=12

Using motherboard and/or graphics card PWM signal for case fan control
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=3559651&postcount=13

 

Sweet, thanks doyll.