Legit Reviews

Hello, all,

I have recently upgraded my rig to core i7 920, and have a few about water cooling the thing, mainly because the temperatures for the cpu are really high.

Essentially, I'm looking for something that wont break the bank, maybe around 100 US. I have the CM HAF932 case, so something that would fit that would be nice. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Tekgek

You are better off with a new air cooling, for 100$ its not worth it for watercooling. What are you're system specs, its not showing below.

Sorry, I keep forgot to change my sig. I have:

Core i7-920 @ 2.75 ghz
Evga x58 LE
2 geforce 9600 gtx in sli
4 gb corsair ddr3 1666 mhz RAM

I'll try to get a new sig up by this afternoon. Hope this helps.

Tekgek

What aircooler are you currently using?

If you're gonna go the air cooling route and still stuck on the stock cooler, I suggest a Cooler Master V8 to take its place. Awesome performance and can overclock the cpu a great deal too with it if you want. I was going to suggest the V10 since it was around $100 when I last looked, but I looked again when posting this and saw newegg put it back up to $130 ...There are other decent coolers but I haven't paid much attention to them.

If you have the $100 budget then the Thermalright Venomous X or the Noctua NH-D14.

If you have the space the D14 is my pick, if not go with the Venomous X and a pair of good 120mm fans. You will not be disappointed with either one.



To go water, and do it right, your looking at the area of $300 for a good pump, rad, block, and fittings.

Okay, based on bubba's chart, I have decided on the Noctua NH-14. Thanks for the help guys!

Tekgek

One more quick question: how quiet is the NH-D14?

tekgek wrote:One more quick question: how quiet is the NH-D14?

Quiet.

Dan

tekgek wrote:One more quick question: how quiet is the NH-D14?

A whisper is louder.

tekgek wrote:One more quick question: how quiet is the NH-D14?

Let me add something here..

how quiet is the NH-D14 when wanting to overclock the i7-920 to 4ghz+ per core?

all coolers can be quiet until you need them to run 100% ;) Hell my water coolers are louder than I like!

Mike

KnightRid wrote:

tekgek wrote:One more quick question: how quiet is the NH-D14?

Let me add something here..

how quiet is the NH-D14 when wanting to overclock the i7-920 to 4ghz+ per core?

all coolers can be quiet until you need them to run 100% ;) Hell my water coolers are louder than I like!

Mike

Even on 100% the Noctua is pretty quiet.

Dan

I run my Noctua fans on 3-4pin molex converters. Humming away at 100% at a very nice 19dBa. If that's to loud for you then there are inline resisters that will knock that down to 17dBa.

The only way you will get quieter is to run passive.

What makes your water loud, is it the pump or the fans? I run NF-P12's on my water loop and my pump is a Swiftec MCP655. My vid card and hard drive spin up is louder then the cooling loop running at 100%.

I'm using a CoolIt Domino, which is about a 60 dollar self contained water system, on my 920 and it works like a champ. Super quiet and idles around 36-38C. I've stressed it pretty hard with video rendering and it hasn't gone much higher than 60.

Hmmm, maybe I made my decision too quickly I'm reconsidering water cooling. Does anyone know anything about the Apex Ultima H2O-220?

bubba wrote:I run my Noctua fans on 3-4pin molex converters. Humming away at 100% at a very nice 19dBa. If that's to loud for you then there are inline resisters that will knock that down to 17dBa.

The only way you will get quieter is to run passive.

What makes your water loud, is it the pump or the fans? I run NF-P12's on my water loop and my pump is a Swiftec MCP655. My vid card and hard drive spin up is louder then the cooling loop running at 100%.

Fans - always the fans - now if I run it at low speed on the Domino ALC, then it isnt bad at all, but crank that puppy up and it sounds like a tornado coming through

Sowser wrote:I'm using a CoolIt Domino, which is about a 60 dollar self contained water system, on my 920 and it works like a champ. Super quiet and idles around 36-38C. I've stressed it pretty hard with video rendering and it hasn't gone much higher than 60.

Me too! I have mine overclocked to 4ghz per core. With the temperatures coming up with spring coming into play, it has started to run a bit warmer. I actually set it to high speed and the temps never went above 48C though. Trying it on low now to see if I get above 60C or not.

Mike

If you are adamant about using water why not the Corsair H50? Might be better off swapping out the fans but it's water and it's under $100.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1025/1/

Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... pk=corsair
Zipzoomfly
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ist=search

Major_A wrote:If you are adamant about using water why not the Corsair H50? Might be better off swapping out the fans but it's water and it's under $100.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1025/1/

Newegg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... pk=corsair
Zipzoomfly
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ist=search

+1...I run the Corsair H50 and it does a good job cooling my 955...Underload gaming I hit about 50-51c with my room temp at 76-77f...When I get my room to

about 70f it idles around 32c and while gaming it never climbs over 47c....I have it setup as a push-pull exhausting out the rear with 2 120mm fans..You will need 4 fine threaded bolts

to attach the second fan to the rad....Its not very loud at all with the second fan installed...(Scythe S-Flex)....Newegg still has the H50 listed at 80.00 bux w/free shipping.....

Scott

Okay, I'm probably going to go with water (I live in a fairly warm area), so for the i7, I need REALLY good cooling, methinks. As for the noctua cooler that we were talking about earlier, I think someone I know would benefit from that. Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it

Tekgek

The H50 is a great water cooler for the price and I'd suggest it over the Coolit Domino any day.

The Noctua NH-D14 cooler is amazing though... you should try it before jumping into water.