Air Cooled? Water Cooled? Can't Decide?

[Cricket]

Evercool Silver Knight: Air/Water Combo Cooler.

Cricket

[Mr.Ferrari]

Ewwww nasty. =/

First sunon and now evercool? These stupid water/air cooling concoctions are worse then the low quality water kits that thermaltake offers.

I'd personnally stick to a decent aircooler, or if one is going to do water, do it right..

Thanks for the heads-up.

[David M]

Interesting Cricket.

A company was manufacturing a boat a while back that planned like a powerboat and sailed like a sailboat. It did neither very well. That heatsink seems to be in the same boat. (pardon the pun).

So water or air?.....

For those considering water cooling...don't even bother unless you plan on doing some serious overclocking. If you plan on doing water cooling then do it right, as Mr Ferrari correctly recommends, Take into consideration that you are going to have to spend close to or more than $300 to water cool correctly. Given that, then you have to ask yourself if is it better to water cool or to sink the same amount of money into a faster CPU? It may end up that it is cheaper to buy a faster CPU for the same money than it is to water cool.

Water cooling does have bragging rights if you are into that. But it may make no economic sense if you are trying to maximize your CPU processing power for the same money.

Would I water cool again? No. Not with the monster air cooling heatsinks that are available now. Yes, the best water cooling removes heat faster than the best air heat sinks, but does it make economic sense? On one hand there is the time, hassle and potential damage caused by using a liquid inside your computer with watercooling. By comparison a heatsink fan can be installed in 10 minutes if you have done it before.

Water cooling is not necessarily the panacea that it is sometimes being promoted as. Be sure to research the pros and cons for yourself before deciding.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Zalma...ler,__28387737

[Stuey]

EEW, eew eew eew.

Hmm. Well, water cooling is not TOO cost prohibitive in some cases, but you're right it's not for everyone.

There are some Asetek CPU coolers which are self-contained units. I think they're phase change or something similar.

Newer heatsinks are impressive, especailly Zalman VGA coolers which have dual heatpipes slapped into right into the heatsink.

What I love is how on several forums, you'll have people saying "I have this this and this, how do I OC it). Those are the types of people who complain and blame manufacturers when they fry their ram, or system board somehow.

Such an air-H2O cooler is an abomination. I mean, look at that thing! Well, it could allow people who don't want to tamper too much to watercool. It can't be too easy to botch up a self-contained WCing unit, can it? Actually, this may be perfect for those that want to know the quick road to OCing their unit. There's no need to learn about hose diameters, optimal radiator placement, flow direction, etc etc. The ease of a traditional heat sink with the ability for a pre-pubescent 12 year old to brag to his friends.

I just checked out a review, and supposedly it provides decent performance. It's not a new release, it's been out for quite a while. I guess the Inquirer staff ran out of rumers to spread that day.