Cooling 101

[Space_Coyote]

I'm totally new to oc-ing and cooling and had a few basic questions.

When most people talk about cooling, are they talking air cooling with fans on heatsink and case? I suppose it depends how much you are going to OC.

What about water cooling, is that just for hardcore oc-ing? Do you need a special case? Do the water lines run around to the heatsinks or what?

When you OC do you have to tweak everything at once or can you just do video card, CPU?

I haven't built my new system yet but I was thinking:

6800GT (1 now and another in a 12-18 months)
Asus AN8-SLI board
AMD 64 3500+

Could someone put together a list? I hear Zalman heatsinks mentioned a lot. I'm pretty sure you need a fan controller/temp unit right?

 

[mayorredbeard]

you dont need watercooling to overclock. u can use fan cooling. unless u want to do some heavy overclocking, or like a dead silent computer, or just plain out have some money lieing around, then you can just use air/fan cooling. When your oc'ing you can just do your cpu, or video card, or whatever, u can do just one. you dont need to do them all.

 

[Space_Coyote]

So just a nice Zalman heatsink with fan and make sure the case fans are up to the task?

How much does a water system run?

 

[lurkswithin]

So just a nice Zalman heatsink with fan and make sure the case fans are up to the task?

How much does a water system run?

A typical water system will run you about $125.00 US. A better sytem will run 2 to 3 times that.

A warning*****
If you are thinking about a water cooling for show and tell over that for special need then bewarned that you are really putting your system at risk for a complete disaster. I would not recommend this to anyone but the most experienced builders. At no means for a novice... While it is a unique item for OEM builders, the risks are ....1 mistake ..you lose everything type of deal.

A small pin hole leak will spray coolant throughout your whole system before it could shut down causing masive shorts.

 

[Space_Coyote]

Yeah, I was just curious. I'm not planning to go with water cooling any time in the foreseeable future.

 

[lhuser]

Water cooling system sucks. it does damage. your Fan will work...or get an air conditioning machine

 

[BigLu]

I have a coolant tube running from my mini airconditioner to a grill in front of one of my intake fans, blows freezing cold air in it all the time. I had fun hooking that up. I also helped a friend hook up a central water pumping system that sends cold water to water cool 4 computers all over his house. Works great, the only problems with these mods is that you could easily ruin your stuff, which is no fun.

 

[Kage]

Yeah, though I might try it sometime though on my next system when I have enough money to build one.

I like what you have on your system though BigLu, so the fan is really cool, blowing this air into the system, I like that

 

[delusional]

the cooler master kit i have on my amd woirks fine, theres no way it can possibly leak unless something catches fire, which is very unlikely. i was also wondering about sli cooling, how exactly do you fit a zalman fatal1ty cooler in between 2 7800 gtx's and still have room to spare?

 

[Feircepc]

watercooling isnt really that silent if u want it to run at maxium. what happens is that there r fans pulling on the radiotor to cool the radiator. so its really not that silent.