Water Cooling of CPU...Too Risky or just Paranoid?

With Noctua and other air coolers the weight and stress on the mobo's would give me pause when transporting anywhere but once set up and stable they can do very well.

Jeannie,
I looked at the temp in the bios and it is reading 40C and I installed Asus temperature thermal radar and the CPU temp was 40C. Core Temp is not reading the FX cpu correctly. I have indeed taken out the water cooler and popped in the Hyper 212 with the Corsair fans and stuck the Cooler Master fan in the rear of the case. All seems to be the same. Same idle temps.

The temps on CPUs are read from a few pins/contacts on them. The values read from there goes through an algorithm to arrive at a value, core temp. Intel has a TJmax temp which they compute by drilling a hole in the CPU lid and take a temp in its exact center.
AMD uses what they call Package temp, I don't know what it is other than the average temp across all cores.

If you are going to switch to air cooling you should try looking at the Thermaltake FrioOCK or a similar performance cooler with 2+ fans.. It could be a it overpowered but that is a good thing in case you want to overclock in the furture.

GeneO said:

Britton30 said:

The temps on CPUs are read from a few pins/contacts on them. The values read from there goes through an algorithm to arrive at a value, core temp. Intel has a TJmax temp which they compute by drilling a hole in the CPU lid and take a temp in its exact center.
AMD uses what they call Package temp, I don't know what it is other than the average temp across all cores.

The BIOS temps are not the core temps nor the Tcase (It is Tcase that hypothetically measures a spot within the heatspreader -not TjMax with a "hole drilled" . Nobody implements a Tcase probe). What the BIOS reports as CPU temperature is measured with a probe located near the CPU , most likely under it, by an onboard chip like the Nuvoton. The probe measures around 10C cooler than the core temperatures. The core and package temperatures that you can readout from the CPU chip are from Intel probes within the CPU die. It is these core temps that TJMax is measured against. Fans are controlled by the BIOS based on the Nuvoton Temp probe.

Yeah, I screwed up there, I meant Tcase instead. Intel does "drill" a hole in the IHS to make up their standards.

These terms are related to processor temperature for desktop and mobile systems based on Intel® Processors. To allow optimal system operation and long-term reliability, the processor must not exceed the maximum case temperature specifications as defined by the applicable thermal profile.
Tcase is the temperature measurement using a thermocouple embedded in the center of the heat spreader. This initial measurement is done at the factory. Post-manufacturing, Tcase is calibrated by the BIOS, through a reading delivered by a diode between and below the cores.
Tjunction is synonymous with core temperatures, and calculated based on the output from the Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) using the formula Tjunction = (Tjunction Max – DTS output).

Source

Lady Fitzgerald said:

kbrady1979 said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Something else is wacky, then. I also use CoreTemp (without the gadget; I have my temps posted in the system tray) and it does a reasonably accurate job of posting CPU temperatures (I've checked it against Speccy and Asus' AI Suite II). As I said before, there is no way any normal air or water cooler can cool a CPU down to, let alone below, the temperature of the air it is using.

This ^^

I built an Ivy Bridge system when it was first launched, in May of 2012, and paired the 3570K with the Intel All in One water cooler and it has been flawless. I left it at stock clock speeds for a month and then started OC'ing. Has been @ 4.4-4.6GHz since then.......working on 2 years now. I will never build another high performance rig without a closed loop system.

I will repeat what was said above......any component can fail, and will given half a chance, but the amount of people who have had a quality AIO unit spring a leak has to be a fraction of a percent. If it were common, it would be splashed across every forum on the internet. You also have the "idiot factor" to add in.......you know, those people who can't walk and breathe at the same time.....unfortunately, they can leave reviews as well.

What the cottonpickin' heck does that have to do with what I posted? I was talking about Tony's unrealistically low temps, not the merits of water cooling over air cooling.

For the record, I stipulate that water cooling is superior to air cooling and that water cooling is reasonably safe. However, water cooling does require more maintenance than air cooling and does have a slight chance of leakage. I feel that, as long as air cooling is capable of cooling adequately, why subject myself to the additional risk, no matter how slight, maintenance, and expense of water cooling?

By saying "This ^^" I meant I was in agreement with you on the point of not being able to get the temps below ambient air temperature.

The rest of the post was to try to give my opinion of water cooling to the OP since this is HIS thread and he seemed to want advice.

Clear enough??