Show Us Your Rig

Not bragging by any means, but I get identical temps with air. I have no experience with water cooling but am curious, is it possible to get temps in the mid 20's (idle) and high 30's (load) with liquid?

This may take some explaining:

#1: 22" Acer mounted on an Ergotron Neo-Flex, OEM Keyboard & Mouse, X-540 Speakers

#2: Macbook Pro Unibody 17", 3 x External HD

#3: Logitch G-15, Logitech G-9, SB X-FI 5.1 USB

The long and short of it is this: I swing my monitor back and forth when I want to lay down to watch movies and such and when I want to play games/work. Yes, I know I have a laptop, but I enjoy the larger monitor for when I'm at home.

oidicle said:

Just upgraded my CPU cooler to the Corsair Hydro Series H50 Water Cooling Kit

Good temps

Is that the whole setup? No big tank hiding behind your case...? Wow... I've always avoided water cooling because it makes a computer a mission to move around, and I like going off to a good LAN session every now and then.. If I may ask, what did that cooler set you back?

notsograymatter said:

This may take some explaining:

#1: 22" Acer mounted on an Ergotron Neo-Flex, OEM Keyboard & Mouse, X-540 Speakers

#2: Macbook Pro Unibody 17", 3 x External HD

#3: Logitch G-15, Logitech G-9, SB X-FI 5.1 USB

The long and short of it is this: I swing my monitor back and forth when I want to lay down to watch movies and such and when I want to play games/work. Yes, I know I have a laptop, but I enjoy the larger monitor for when I'm at home.

Very nice setup there! I'm especially jealous of the X-540 and G-15..

oidicle said:

ZaLiTH said:

Is that the whole setup? No big tank hiding behind your case...? Wow... I've always avoided water cooling because it makes a computer a mission to move around, and I like going off to a good LAN session every now and then.. If I may ask, what did that cooler set you back?

Hey Zalith, I actually ordered it from SA, the guys from ikonic iT have one for a bargain.

Awesome.. Thanks for the link. I didn't actually know about that website until now.

tw33k said:

A320 said:

Not bragging by any means, but I get identical temps with air....

Me too..

Without getting too technical, there are various advantages using water cooling instead of air. The most notible is that instead of having air blown over a heatsink directly over the CPU and then distributed around inside the case, the heat is drawn away from the CPU through the water and straight out the case.

So your CPU may be the same temp, but the ambient case temperature will be lower with water cooling, which means less strain on GPU and / or Northbridge coolers.

Edit: At the same time though, I must admit that with a decent case design and fan layout, this isn't really a problem these days... But the end result with water cooling is that you don't need as many fans to get the same temps.