Tuesday, October 19th 2021

TechPowerUp Custom Water Cooling Survey and $1000 CORSAIR Giveaway

TechPowerUp loves cooling. We pride ourselves with bringing you hundreds of reviews, and thousands of news articles, covering PC cooling components of all shapes and sizes. With ever more powerful hardware comes the need to keep them cool and quiet. There are plenty of air coolers and pre-built AIO liquid cooling solutions available that you can install and forget about. If you still want to +1 that, then DIY custom liquid cooling exists as higher performing (and potentially quieter) option to pre-built AIO coolers, but it's also more expensive and complex. We are eager to know how you're cooling your PC, how you'd like to cool it in the future, and what your thoughts are on custom watercooling tech, so we've put together a survey to learn more.

The survey is for you, regardless of whether you've even used custom liquid-cooling before. We hope to better understand the custom watercooling market—people who never used it, veterans who've done it for years as well as recent members of the club. We also want to learn why you're not using watercooling, or why you are considering it for a future build. It will only take a few minutes of your time. Once data collection is completed on November 2nd, we'll put together an article summarizing the findings, with charts and everything. As a token of thanks, taking the survey also adds you to our Global Sweepstakes in association with CORSAIR, a leading brand for gaming peripherals and PC components. One lucky winner stands to win a Care Package worth $1000 from CORSAIR, which includes a K100 premium mechanical keyboard, a Virtuoso XT headset, a Sabre RGB Wireless mouse, an MM300 mousepad, an ST100 headset stand and two LT100 desktop ambient lighting towers; in a winner-takes-all prize. The survey and giveaway is open worldwide. In return for their support, Corsair gets access to the anonymized raw data. Please don't answer "Corsair is best" everywhere, just because they provide prizes, we're looking for honest opinions.

To participate in the Survey, please Visit This Page.

Update Oct 19th: Corsair saw your comments "why not watercooling prizes?"—the winner can now substitute the prizes for Corsair Hydro X components.
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62 Comments on TechPowerUp Custom Water Cooling Survey and $1000 CORSAIR Giveaway

#1
Bjørgersson
Thank you for the opportunity. I've filled the survey, good luck everybody. :)

@btarunr @W1zzard I'm not sure who I should tag. I just want to let you know that I work in market research, so if you're planning on doing more surveys in the future, I might be able to give you a few advice. Just send me a message if you think I can be of your help. :)
Posted on Reply
#2
looniam
good luck to the winners. :D
Posted on Reply
#3
zlobby
So, Corsair are running with the big guns now?
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#4
maxfly
Cool idea. Good luck wcers!
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#6
seth1911
Yeah ill push my 7870K to its Max,
5,1 GHz Allcore
1,28 GHz IGP
2766 MHz DDR3 (Take that poor 2400G of my Firend with DDR4 2666, no chance to go over 2666)
:peace:
Posted on Reply
#7
bonehead123
Oh yea, moar freebies, bring it TPU :D
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#8
DeathtoGnomes
I won, you all can stop entering and go home!
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#9
ThrashZone
DeathtoGnomesI won, you all can stop entering and go home!
Hi,
That's not the message corsair sent me :p

A lot of custom water cooling questions eat your heart out air coolers :D
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#10
MIRTAZAPINE
I never custom cooled before as I don't know how to do it. I would love to give it a try for the increase performance and looks especially
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#11
sparkyar
survey completed :)
I usually never go for ultra high end processors, so I always aim to build mid-high end systems and try to keep the TDP in check, so no need for something bigger than a decent air cooler or a 240 AIO at most
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#12
timta2
It's kind of weird that they left some major names in water cooling out of their survey.
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#13
GoldenX
Thanks for the opportunity. I've always looked at custom loops as something very fun and interesting to do, but local prices and the usual terrible economy are a massive block to do it. So, YouTube videos it is...

Good luck to all participants!
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#14
KrazedOmega
Survey done. It's a bit odd that a survey and giveaway about water cooling has no water cooling products offered. Missed opportunity?

Thanks.
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#16
N3utro
There is an important question missing in the survey: "what is your current view on watercooling?"

After i've made my first custom built loop i've came to realize that the performance gain from it was too small compared to the loop price (and i had a huge 1080 radiator so cooling performance was pretty good).

I've switched back to aircooling and never been happier. The good old days of overclocking are gone, CPU and GPU are now designed to be close to their maximum potential from start and you can't get as much from overclocking that you could 10 years ago.

Now i buy the biggest CPU cooler that can fit, and for the GPU (when there are no shortage) a model with good cooling as well: 3 fans, good cooler...

Only use of a watercooling now imo is to impress others. When people that don't know much about IT see a good looking custom built watercooling PC for the first time, you become an IT god in their eyes (if you were not already :D).

So if i had an activity were impressing others would benefit (local IT shop, streaming online...) because impressing customers/users would make them more attracted to you (and so you win more money in the end) i would definitively go for a "pimp my computer" watercooling build then.

Otherwise, meh.
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#17
KarymidoN
love watercooling, can't afford it tho, its so expensive in my region :( (had to buy my current parts from aliexpress and got taxed + non reputable parts/brands)
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#18
Basard
timta2It's kind of weird that they left some major names in water cooling out of their survey.
I didn't even bother finishing because of it....
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#19
caroline!
I don't believe in giveaways but completed it just for the sake of it, but there's a thing, where it said "Which GPU block are you using" the option "None" wasn't there, I don't have a GPU block as they're impossible to get in my country -most watercooling parts honestly- and don't need it at all since air cooling is enough for what I have, it's a sort of custom air cooling though, stock plastics and fans were terrible so I've replaced them.

Other than that my CPU "loop" was simply a makeshift contraption made out of scrap parts, block belonged to an old Corsair AIO (dead electronics so I got rid of them, and the impeller) that's surely seen better days, tubes are regular industrial grade, my first pump+res combo was a tiny aquarium pump inside a bucket, I later replaced it with a square container with proper fittings, rad was aluminum 240mm. Coolant was distilled water of course, couldn't afford anything else and it simply worked.
Unfortunately I've replaced it for an air cooler and gifted it to a friend about 3 years ago, last time I've went to his place he still had it cooling his OC'd 2500K.
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#20
Crackong
Being a Survey on custom watercooling why not just give away water cooling components ?
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#21
ppn
I only want to build water cooling virtually, in a pc game. Cheaper experimenting that way.
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#22
maxfly
CrackongBeing a Survey on custom watercooling why not just give away water cooling components ?
I thought the same. -shrug- I've no idea.
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#24
C1ff0
I got only a watercooled loop for the CPU. In the survey i can't skip the GPU section. So.... do i need to lie to finish the survey or there is an hidden option to skip things?
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#25
ppn
Well, are you familiar. of course you are, at least a little. Been there done that kind of thing. I didn't even like their designs. So they must be pissed now.

Why would you only wc the CPU. it bothers me.

The first photo in this thread bothers me, I would never do it like that, is it really the best way.

Eeh Is there supposed to be a comfirming email for the entry/ oh well i never win anything.
Posted on Reply
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