Your way of cooling your PC?

[Keullo-e]

I run with CPU + GPU in custom loop.

 

[Tomgang]

Everything in my dual system (two complete pc in 1 case) pc is aircooled.

 

[AVATARAT]

Custom loop on CPU, GPU on air.

 

[DaemonForce]

FX rack: Cute half height 70mm CPU fan on an otherwise OEM AMD box cooler, array of 4x Zalman fans for a cheap wind tunnel effect.
Ryzen tower: CPU on custom loop (Wraith Prism when testing/dry) with GPU on stock air cooling, maybe more fans for a wind tunnel. Some active cooling on chipset (stock).
Acer: 80mm CPU fan delete (120mm fan mounted to the side panel) and a USB powered 80mm fan blowing air from rear to front in a desk cubbyhole.
Surface: Haven't found any effective way to keep it cold outside of laying it FLAT against the desk or some sheet metal.

If I ever go back to doing stupid stuff with TECs, I'll make it a point to bring the iceberg to the Ryzen instead of an empty socket in the loop.

 

[gurusmi]

Aside GPU & CPU on water i have also RAM and 3 SSD on Water.

 

[GerKNG]

Air only.
I don't see a reason to pay huge sums of money for nothing in return.

 

[Shou Miko]

I tried dry ice in the past doing oc back in the P4 days it was a blast but, now a days after the whole AIO crazie and I gotten older I just use good old air cooling because I don't spend that much money anymore on computer parts other choices in life matters.

The last aio gfx I had was the GTX 1080 Ti FE card I brought and mounted EVGA's Hybrid cooling solution on really good cooling, worked great and was near silent, and my last cpu aio was Fractal Design's Celsius cooler where it got tried at the end and started being noisy.

So now I just stick with my trusty Noctua HN-D15 black.max and the dual cooler solution on my Asus RTX 4070 Dual OC.

 

[kapone32]

I run an AIO for my CPU in the Inwin SR36. My 7900XT has a Water block from Alphacool with a Corsair Pump Res on a 420mm Alphacool rad that was part of one of the Eisbear units I bought a few years ago. I use all quick connect tubing is used for pain free changing or equipment on a an individual basis.

12982 Alphacool Eisbaer TPV Extension kit (tube and fittings)

The Alphacool Eisbaer TPV Extension Set offers the easiest way to connect the expandable AIO systems from Alphacool with other components. The…

shop.alphacool.com

 

[P4-630]

AIR only! Everything, always, and that won't change for my upcoming new build....

 

[freeagent]

I normally run air everywhere, but right now I am running AIO on CPU, and air everywhere else.

 

[DaemonForce]

My 7900XT has a Water block from Alphacool

One of these?

I've always considered water cooling a modern GPU but held off of doing it to the 580 because water cooling a RX 580 Red Devil is actually stupid.
Sooooo 7900XT is a hard maybe.
What kind of idle and peak temps did you see before and after?

 

[#22]

Air-only thanks to reliability, low maintenance and more pleasant acoustics meaning mostly lack of pump noise. On the other hand I know that my build is power-hungry enough to result with both noticeably better temps and noise volume if watercooled, so it's all about calculation.

 

[AVATARAT]

For me, GPU water cooling is worth it only for top model cards, because for the price can get the next model card and undervolt/underclock it.

 

[Beginner Macro Device]

I keep it as simple and stupid as possible. CPU: box cooler. GPU: liquid metal, original heatsink, custom shroud, triple 92 mm case fans, one of them with FUBAR lighting.

The rest of my PC is cooled by airflow. Not sure if I'll ever need to go fancier than that in the foreseeable. My whole rig costs less than some AIOs lmao.

 

[Sithaer]

Air only since my level of hardware is easy to cool with air anyway. 'No OC and I undervolt both of my CPU and GPU'
That being said I did consider an AIO not because I need it but because I much prefer them aesthetically vs air tower coolers but thats something I'm yet to justify spending on.

 

[xtreemchaos]

heres mine for a laugh. i have 2 custom loops and a AIO with air cooled a770.
my cruncher 47

and my work riggs

 

[kapone32]

One of these?
View attachment 346586

I've always considered water cooling a modern GPU but held off of doing it to the 580 because water cooling a RX 580 Red Devil is actually stupid.
Sooooo 7900XT is a hard maybe.
What kind of idle and peak temps did you see before and after?

Yep. I am using the Sapphire Pulse 7900XT. The temps dropped by about 10-15 degrees in Gaming. The Hotspot is in the 70s but that does not bother me. The new design has way more liquid retention on the card vs he last generation. The fact that there is no fan noise is Golden. It also means all of my expansion slots are avialable.

 

[wNotyarD]

I'm currently running full air, but I want my next build to be full custom loop.

 

[kapone32]

I'm currently running full air, but I want my next build to be full custom loop.

One of the issues that exist today is how much power and heat modern Multi core CPUs consume. It is my theory but keeping the CPU on an AIO is less of a headache. I am not going to lie that the Alphacool C1 is calling me but if you know what you are doing the cost and ease of installation of AIOs is very compelling. I mean the Thermlaright (Sorry I love them) Aqua is always like $80 Canadian for the 360 version. The best though is that the pump speed of up to 3300 RPM means that even the 240mm can handle a 5950X.

 

[freeagent]

It’s a good cooler, pretty impressed I have to say..

 

[mxthunder]

My daily driver/main rig has custom loop for CPU + GPU.
I use an AIO on the CPU and air for GPU in my bedroom PC, since its only on a couple hours per day.
My test bench has a custom loop on the CPU since I dont change the CPU very often and I had spare parts laying around.
HTPC - all air since its on 24/7 and sits idle 99% of the time.
Just depends on the PC and its use case/purpose in life.

 

[Onasi]

Air only in any system I build. It’s the most robust, problem-less and easily fixable cooling solution. Heatsinks can’t break on their own, obviously, and any fan that fails is easily replaced. And there is absolutely no potential for failure to cause further damage to other components. Simplicity is key.
Now, I do enjoy looking through elaborate WC build-logs, but this for me is the same type of hobby as people building quad-turbo Miatas or whatever - undeniably cool, but also impractical.
Obviously, there IS a theoretical limit in hardware power consumption and heat output where air would become not feasible in a home PC context, but I find that more of a failure in terms of said hardware rather than an endorsement of WC. Maybe we just shouldn’t entertain the idea that a small 8-core CPU drawing, like, 350 watts is a sane product.

 

[cvaldes]

Like so many polls here, this should be multiple choice because many people (gasp) have more than one computer. Sadly this poll is not.

The two computers I use the most (gauged by minutes) are both air cooled: the Mac mini in my System Specs and a cheap $170 Wintel mini PC from Beelink. There's a similar Beelink in the bedroom as a HTPC running Kodi. My old Intel Mac mini runs Kodi on the living room AV system. There's also a rarely used notebook PC that is naturally air cooled.

All of my desktop Windows PCs currently have a CPU AIO and standard GPUs with factory air coolers including my primary gaming PC. I used to have two custom loops; I decommissioned the last one a month ago. Many years ago I had a GPU with an AIO via the Kraken G2 bracket.

There's a fanless RPi4 somewhere around.

But I don't have a choice with the air cooled PCs, they are all proprietary designs and too small/impractical for a liquid cooled radiator loop anyhow.

Right now air cooled has a 2:1 majority over the builds with a CPU AIO in my house with the current systems. So I voted air even though there are liquid-cooled systems under the same roof. Still, that's one vote cast to represent a bunch of PCs which doesn't accurately explain the actual situation.

And even a multiple choice option wouldn't properly capture that 2:1 ratio in my house.

One thing for sure: a decent full-length waterblock on a high-performance graphics card in a well designed custom cooling loop is WAY quieter than the stock air cooler. However today's factory air coolers on graphics cards are pretty good, better than those from just a few years ago. My Nvidia RTX 4080 Super FE is far quieter than the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super FE when both are running with their stock air coolers. Just not as quiet as the custom cooled ones. I loved the minimal acoustics of my custom cooled loop builds.

These polls can be fun to look at but they definitely cannot be used to deduced anything serious, neither TPU itself nor the greater DIY PC enthusiast audience.

Remember that most PCs sold are notebook models. Of desktop models, most are destined for enterprise use in standard configurations: Dell Precisions, Lenovo Thinkstations, HPs, etc. You can see a lot of the notebook skew in the regular Steam Hardware Surveys. The DIY desktop PC marketplace (people putting discrete graphics cards in PC cases) is less than 1% of the total PC unit shipments.

 

[Keullo-e]

I know my loop is ugly, I don't care :3

 

[Chrispy_]

I built a full Alphacool loop for my 2070S but waterblocks on GPUs are a pain in the ass and I have access to hardware from work so I've had a 3060Ti, 2080Ti, 3070, 3090, Quadro RTX 6000, 4060Ti, 4070, and 6800XT in there since.

NO way I was buying waterblocks, and most GPUs don't seem to need them, either.