Water cooling input

[.44 caliber]

So I am thinking of water cooling my bloomfield i7 960 @4.0ghz to get a higher overclock and lower temps.

Anyone had experience with water cooling? Are the results noticeable i.e. framerate increase in-game?

The corsair h80 cooler kit seems the best to me so far. $93-$99 depending where I get it. I guess I feel that if I can boost my cpu performance then maybe I can get more out of this chip and therefor go longer before upgrading.

__OR___


upgrade my hdd which holds my games for an ssd. I already have windows on an 64gb ssd which makes booting a snap. worth it for games?

 

[TurboTaco]

ssd > liquid/gel cooling imo

you can run programs so much faster and while im not sure bout getting an FPS boost via SSD, you for sure get insta-loads for games

 

[DrUgZ]

SSD will lower load times, probably wont boost FPS as most of the game is running in your RAM, also with that processor, overclocking probably wont get you much of an increase either, but I had my 930 on Air cooling overclocked to the tits, and I barely noticed a difference when i liquid cooled it (i had a beast air cooler tho). I am told that the single rad liquid setups aren't THAT much of an improvement over most decent 120mm air coolers, but they are nice and quiet.
games like BF3 are all GPU. I run BF3 on max settings, and my GPU usage is around 90%, my CPU usage is maybe 40%.
also, if you want to overclock that i7 you need the proper RAM, at least 1600mhz. if you cheaped out it will be very unstable when you start pushing that thing.
just something to consider.

 

[.44 caliber]

Yea, maybe I will go with an ssd instead. Gonna have to wait till the price is right tho. Fuck me those cunts are expensive!

 

[47]

if u get water cooling, u need a real water setup, not that bullshit water loop. that way u can water cool the gpu, thats where u gonna get the most gains.

 

[.44 caliber]

whats a real water setup? thought that was.

it gets 5 star reviews on just about every oc forum i search

 

[Brains]

BJ " forget about water cooling, just put like 8 fans in it" <3

 

[47]

whats a real water setup? thought that was.

the H80 (sick cpu cooler) is a closed water loop for the cpu ONLY . in a "real" water setup u buy all the parts separately: rad, water blocks, hose, fluid, etc., which will run u $400+ . in a real water setup u can add as much shit as u want into the loop, just get the water blocks. so u can water cool the NB, CPU, GPU, like a bauce.

 

[$alvador]

So I am thinking of water cooling my bloomfield i7 960 @4.0ghz to get a higher overclock and lower temps.

Anyone had experience with water cooling? Are the results noticeable i.e. framerate increase in-game?

The corsair h80 cooler kit seems the best to me so far. $93-$99 depending where I get it. I guess I feel that if I can boost my cpu performance then maybe I can get more out of this chip and therefor go longer before upgrading.

__OR___


upgrade my hdd which holds my games for an ssd. I already have windows on an 64gb ssd which makes booting a snap. worth it for games?

I swapped my Steam folder back to HDD after having it on SSD for a while and honestly I don't notice all that much difference. The load difference is surprisingly negligible, and my Steam folder is on a 1TB storage drive now. Another thing you can do with an HDD to speed up load times is "short stroke" it, limiting the size used on the disc platter to a smaller sector so it can be read faster and that could be a free solution if you have any extra HDDs to format. I don't recommend buying a new one at this time though since prices are now a retarded 300% their value before the Thai flooding.

You can WC the CPU with the H80 but an i7 at 4GHz shouldn't have any framerate problems to begin with. Other components can be bottlenecking performance, and games that are more graphics-intensive will only bring you more FPS from gfx card OCing. IME, the best overall performance gain comes from RAM overclocking. If your RAM isn't the best, consider switching to the best before revisiting the idea of WCing because.. well, frankly, WCing gets addictive.

btw is your BCLK at 166?

also...

WC for lower temps = yes
WC for more extreme OC = not with an H80

 

[.44 caliber]

cool, yea im thinking a quality RAM upgrade might be the best option for now

 

[DrUgZ]

44, can you post your system specs? just wanna see if thats needed.
let us know what y'all got. we can go from there determining what is the weakest link.

 

[Fork Included]

cpu water coolers are good if you're cramped on space, they run quiet and do their job

to get the same level of efficiency (both in terms of cooling and sound) from an air cooler you'd need it to be large (so the fan can spin at a lower speed and cool a larger surface area)

these are recomendations from a buddy of mine that over clocked his CPU and runs a CPU water cooler.


my own personal experience is that i currently have a case with two speed-variable case fans, whenever i play games i crank those suckers up to full speed and have no cooling issues, but it's loud as a mother fucker and is only good if you play with a headset...

so, if you want to save cash and have a large case, go with air cooling and just bulk up, otherwise get a cpu water cooler and you should be golden.

47 is right that you can get a full system to water cool all your components but that's pretty hard core

 

[r3volution]

CPU-only water loops don't cool any better than a good fan. They aren't much quieter either since you need to attach a fan to the rad anyway. Like other people said, your CPU probably isn't the bottleneck and SSDs only increase load times (negligible for games like CSS). Getting better RAM might help, but anything over 6 GB isn't going to help much for games. What GPU are you using?

 

[dead mike]

i would say overall forget the ram if u got 8gb in there, i dont think it matters about cooling, there is only so much i think u can OC any particular chip and you are probably up near its limit already as is. spend some money and go for SSD and probably if thats not enough, get 2 and RAID0 them together.

 

[Brains]

_

 

[OG buckshot jr]

BJ " forget about water cooling, just put like 8 fans in it" <3

hahahahaha <3

 

[47]

i would say overall forget the ram if u got 8gb in there

he needs faster ram, not more of it.

 

[OG buckshot jr]

Either or .44, to be honest. If you get an air-cooler, get a good one (at least 4-6 heat pipes with lots of surface area/fins). If you go water cooling, and are looking into the Corsair H80, look into the H100 - there's a TON of improvements, and it's the best closed-loop all-in-one liquid cooling solution to date (at least this CPU magazine from last month told me so, they ran a trial of all kinds).

Also, if you are in fact going to buy the Corsair H80, I'll tell SonDooby to sell you his. I installed it for him but he's upgraded to something else (can't remember what), it's still brand new (few months old) and he treats his shit well. Let me know.

 

[.44 caliber]

I have:

i7 960 oc'd @4ghz with a thermaltake frio cooler (gonna forget about upgrading b/c I'm happy with this air cooler. It does the job with little noise)

powercolor hd6870

antec 300 case (small case but good quality)

3x2gb kingston triple channel memory (nothing fancy, def not performance stuff)

650 watt thermaltake psu (6870s are a pretty good price nowadays and was thinking xfire; however, I have heard mixed things about whether or not my psu could handle it.)


I guess I was just curious if the corsair H80 would actually be a big upgrade from my air cooler. I can't justify spending the money after all seeing as it would even allow me to oc higher without better RAM. So far I am still leaning toward a RAM upgrade

@ DMike: Better Ram

 

[dead mike]

yea i dunno about ram too much 1333 1600 2000 somthing, still doesn't do it for me like a couple ssds