Hey people...
Well, the title says it all... My goal at the moment is not temperatures. It's pure looks...
My idea is to get rid of my D14, that hides half my mobo and all my ram and go with DeepCool Maelstrom 240. Will replace the fans with Arctic F12, to have entirely black and white looks, as the CPU block have white LED logo. Also planning to finally paint my GPU plastic shroud from Orange to white and finally have entirely black and white system, as I planned it when I started building it. And it ended up mix and match for financial reasons...
Now, what's stopping me at the moment are similar but less restrictive financial reasons and the horror stories of AIO coolers dying and destroying mobos and GPUs and PSUs, etc...
Especially keeping in mind, that I go out and leave the PC running... For ages... Last I restarted it a week or so ago to benchmark my GPU for the GPU benchmark topic...
Now my question is, should I go for AIO, or look for air cooler that will fit my black and white theme without allowing my CPU to heat up much...
Basically I am asking you, what would you do in my situation and why you choose that solution to the issue at hand.
Thanks in advance.
I had a couple of Corsair AIOs, one started to be less and less efficient after the first year of service, and the other one, the pump died. Fortunately no spillage, I used to inspect it visually very often. So no more AIOs for me, the only one exception would be EK PREDATOR. But that one is quite expensive.
What I did in the past to integrate plain aluminium tower coolers into the design of a build was to mask off all of the cooler except the topmost aluminium sheet and paint that. I went with the masking tape inside the cooler between the first two sheets, almost to the middle or where the heatpipes are. Over spray won't be an issue. You need to use paint that will hold up to at least 100C-120C. Most will, but there are some that might not. Then you could replace or paint the frame of the fan.
So you go from this:
To something like this this:
When you look at your build, you usually see just the top part of the cooler anyway. Of course, the size is still an issue, although two identical coolers, if one is black and the other one is a lighter color, the black one will seem smaller.
Another option is, if you have a 3D printer, to make a custom top plate for the cooler.
Forlooks I prefer large tower coolers or custom loop. The AIO ones just look cheap no matter the brand or style. Those long generic tubes that have to be longer than needed to fit all cases just end up hanging around, ugh.
For black and white. Cryorig R1 Ultimate. As good as the D14 and looks really nice. If it was out when I built mine I would have one, but I have a D14 as well.
just for looks?
well its a personal thing, but in my opinnion its not worth it.
Unless you prefer to stare more inside your case, then on your screen haha
Sorry for the bad quality...
This is my machine... I am ordering some white sleeved cables, mainly 24 pin and dual 6 pins...
My issue is, that this huge thing is just... idk... too huge...
I wanted to get Kingston Beast, i ended up with A-Data, just because it's both gray and low profile...
Still, if i put the front fan of the Noctua, gone is the ram...
I can easily paint this thing... Bit why should i... It will still hide my ram and half the mobo...
I wanted to use this thing...
One shop had it. The blue version...
I wanted to use this thing...
No shop in my country have this anymore...
I wanted to use this thing...
No store in my country have this...
My options are either keep the D14 (it's D14... Can't really get much better than that...) and be happy about it, and ignore the color coordination, or just get 240 AIO for the looks alone, because all air coolers i liked are unavailable...
Never reject performance per dollar or function over aesthetics.
It's not like you're really going to see the inside of your PC all that often
If you must do something then just paint what you already have
i am not, really... The deepcool is the price of new D14 and performs similarly...
I choose those 3 air coolers, because they perform well for the price... And they look good...
I got the D14 second hand for the price of new 212Evo... I never ignore performance... I got 270X on the price of 260, because of performance...
Now that i got the performance, i wanted to do something about the looks...
And from what i read here, i should just keep the D14...