I was thinking about watercooling my computer; however, I'm not sure it is worth it. The components aren't too spectacular and are aging. They still work for what I need them to do and I think I have been taking pretty good care of them. Do you think that it would be worth watercooling this?
CPU: i7-2600 @ 3.5GHz
MOBO: ASROCK Z77 Extreme 4
GPU: MSI TwinFrozr III Radeon HD 7950 x2 OC@1000/1250
RAM: 1x8 GB DDR3 800MHz
HDD: 1TB Western Digital
PSU: Antec HCG-750 750W
CASE: Define Fractal R4 Titanium Window
OS: Windows 7 x64
It's just the graphics cards are horrifically loud when playing games. I can almost hear them through my headphones.
I recently did it with an almost identical setup (same cpu, same graphics cards) in a Corsair 600T case. The only thing I didn't like about it was the cost of everything (rads, pump, waterblocks, etc.), but it sure is quiet now! Just make sure you have room to fit one of those tube reservoirs with the pump underneath, because you can mount them on vibration absorbing foam. I got one of those res/pump combo's that fit in the optical bay slots and it sometimes makes the inside of my case rattle and that's pretty annoying when you go for a quiet system. I'm really going to swap mine at one point.
Personally, I think water cooling might be worth considering if you can use an active toilet in the process. No seriously! Someone actually did this (Hack-a-day as I recall). But to pay outrageous sums of money to do what cheaper conventional air components do does seem like a bit of a waste.
Naturally, there are exceptions. But just about every serious technology person who has ever looked at water cooling has concluded that there's no real advantage to it. That is, until you consider how water cooling components like pumps and fans can can be placed in other rooms. And that's why I said you might want to use water cooling if you can somehow incorporate the always cold toilet water in the process. Otherwise, I say don't bother.
Edit: IMO, electricity and liquids is just bad juju.
It's a pain in the ass and if you're not instructed properly you'll wreck your computer if you do your own loop - then buying a kit may be an option, but what's the point when it's as good but as expensive and no quieter than a noctua dh-14.
I'm a bit biased but I say do it, but go with a custom loop, yes it CAN be a bit more expensive but when you first turn on your rig, sit back and feel the sense of accomplishment at seeing YOUR own custom creation quietly humming away, nothing compares to it.
I agree with p5ych00ns. Hell, my rig doesn't even look half as good as the ones in the links, but I still feel the satisfaction when I see my little loop :P
I think you would be better off just taking your rig apart, and cleaning everything, and redoing thermal paste. Much cheaper, and will bring it back to life like it was when you first built it. If you want to go watercooling, you would be better off with doing that on your next build.
I water cooled because mine were horrifically loud, but I also had 3 reference R9 290s which literally shook the room when you ran them at %100 fan speed. You really have to decide whether or not the noise deduction warrants the $400-500+ dollars you would have to spend on water cooling. You can also go into Msi afterburner and set a curve for the fan speed to reduce noise.
Honestly, for the price I would probably just sell the 7950s and upgrade to something with a better cooler like an Msi Gaming R9 290 or an Evga ACX 780 (even 780ti if you can afford it), which should be much quieter than your 7950s.
Watercooling in your case, no. Your case has very limited options. Your cpu is a non-k so decent oc's are out of the question. Only saving grace is Im pretty sure your cards are reference design pcbs so fullcover blocks are easy to come by.
Also +1 for good clean and perhaps even some fresh TIM.
My suggestion is invest in some good intake fans - 1 for the bottom in front of the psu & 2 good ones for the front. Also move your hdd to that lower hdd cage and remove the large hdd completely to decrease airflow resistance. You may even want to look into adding 2 exhaust fans to the roof.
There is even the option of 2 cheap AIO coolers with 2x nzxt g10 brackets. You could have one rad at the back and one at the front (section where larger hdd cage's fan intake area is).
So, I think that everyone gave me good advice. The two factors for me was noise vs. price. I looked at the prices for water cooling and it was just too steep. $400 is just too much for me to spend on my PC just so that it can be quiet.
I spent $12 at Radio Shack to get some Arctic Silver 5. It worked wonders on my GPU. It's interesting, because they run about the same under load, but are much cooler at idle. the run at 33-38C idle and 68-73C on load. (It depends on the time of day and the benchmark I guess.) Though, what's even more interesting is that my GPUs run much much quieter. I haven't even had time to break in the thermal paste yet. From what I have read it takes between 50-200 hours for it to settle.
I also realized that it would have been a pain to install a custom loop. I have enough room and my cable management is godly, but my case just isn't big enough.
However, my CPU fan is now the loudest thing in my case. I'm wondering if I could get an all in one loop for that. I've seen some for $70-$99. That's a bit more reasonable for. I also think that I would have enough room in my case. I'm also just considering getting a different fan for it.
I would just get a NF-F12 for your hyper 212. I have one on my hyper 212 and its great. With the Low noise adapter on the fan the it is practically silent. (Due to all the Coolermaster fans in my case being louder)
I agree, coolermaster fans are very ordinary. You cant go wrong with noctua fans or any quality high static pressure fan really - bitfenix spectre pro's, noiseblockers, corsair sp's, so forth and so on.
