PC Gamers Thread

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by brzr

lol
my husband had this crazy set up he did too with the watercooling..but he ran it outside of the case, and the whole computer looked like some weird contraption

this was years ago though....possibly a decade ago

Those were the fun days of watercooling when people would still make stuff by themselves. I'd say it died around 2004-2005ish, people with tons of money started coming in and buying up really expensive waterblocks, I think full cover graphics blocks became the norm by 2008 and I hate them since they are a huge waste (not reusable, that much cooling on MOSFETs and RAM? come on...). The DIY scene was really really cool, though it's obviously difficult to machine an ultra-high-surface-area block like the commercially sold ones today, though I think back then the community also didn't really think about the design as carefully. For example the Swiftech Storm or whatever was the performance king for a while, but the surface area exposed to coolant back then was so pathetic that there was improvement to be had from more effectively using it.

Originally Posted by Conundrum

Sweet rig, I want to try water cooling so bad but I always picture things going incredibly wrong with water all over the place. Don't have the guts lol.

Honestly, there's nothing to worry about with off the shelf components if you have it done right. I destroyed a 7900GS with water but it got wet a lot of times before it actually went dead...lol I sound pretty stupid right now.

Originally Posted by n2oinferno

Get an AIO cooler. I've done a custom loop before with a Koolance Exos and while it was neat, the extra money spent didn't make a huge difference at the time. Granted this was back in '04 and things have advanced a bit, but I find the AIO offerings awesome if you just want water on your devices. NZXT and maybe another company are making brackets as well to adapt the coolers to your GPUs as well. And I can't remember who, but there's at least one company that offers an AIO solution that's modular so you can add tubing, extra waterblocks, etc.

Since everyone else is posting, might as well share my ancient rig that's still proudly chugging along.

Cooler Master 690
Corsair TX650
ASUS P8P67
Intel i5 2500K @4.5 on AIO water - Antec Kuhler 620 push/pull config
8GB G.Skill Sniper RAM
Creative Sound Blaster Z
PowerColor 2GB HD6950 flashed to 6970
WD Black 1TB drive
Crucial 60GB SSC

No pictures though.. Really want to do a rebuild at some point, maybe next year. It's hard to justify now when what I have is running so well. 750GB or 1TB SSD will definitely be the next upgrade though. The CM690 is a beast and has held up for a long, LONG time, but I find myself wanting something smaller. I've always aimed at midrange bang for the buck stuff, and I'm considering doing a mid-high build in a Micro-ITX case. If need be I can go to mATX.

That's not ancient haha, I'm on a laptop with a Core i5-2430 or something, which is slow as balls in this day and age. You had a Koolance setup back then? Back then I recall, Koolance was like the devil, everyone using it would get bashed to hell on Xtremesystems. I stopped caring about PC components right before the integrated watercooling solutions became common, it's weird to see all these plug and play units.

[n2oinferno]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

That's not ancient haha, I'm on a laptop with a Core i5-2430 or something, which is slow as balls in this day and age. You had a Koolance setup back then? Back then I recall, Koolance was like the devil, everyone using it would get bashed to hell on Xtremesystems. I stopped caring about PC components right before the integrated watercooling solutions became common, it's weird to see all these plug and play units.

Hah, in computers terms anything more than a couple years old is ancient.

Yeah I loved my Koolance setup. It was on an old AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton CPU, back when AMD processors used to kick all sorts of ass. It did its job well, and I would've recommended it to anyone. When I switched to an E6600 Conroe build I sold the Exos on eBay and really didn't lose a whole lot of money from what I originally paid for it. I spend way more time at [H] though than Xtremesystems, so that's probably why I never caught wind of all of the hate.

AIO solutions are one of the best things that have come along for the DIY builder though, IMO.

edit: I get what you're saying about not caring. When I'm prepping a build I do a ton of research and see what's come out, what is the best, what does and doesn't work. I used to do this constantly though. Now it's like, ok, I got my shit, it runs awesome. Time to forget about it for a few years. I'm trying to keep up with it at least a little better than I have for the past several years though, since it tends to catch me by surprise when there's a new change.

[Cades]

meh, imo air cooling (with a good one that is) is more than enough in most if not all situations, although the corsair hydro, looks like a fine easy to install option

[utekineir]

I dabbled with water-cooling back in the early 2000s on old athlon xp and p4 systems, remember dremeling out cases to fit radiators. Was great at the time the noise reduction and whatnot, while still being able to overclock, but so overkill. Pretty sure my pump and radiators are still in a box somewhere. (swiftech pump??, couple of the thicker 120mm fan sized black ice radiators)

Still makes me giggle seeing the pre made kits,

would have killed for one of those cases made for a setup rather than having to chop up one to adapt into fitting radiator, res, pump.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the improvements in oem coolers when building a system for the first time in a while a few years ago.

[Frost]

The problem I have with watercooling is that it makes upgrading the rigs way too much of a hassle. Say I upgrade GFX cards every two-three years, that will involve a lot of work undoing all the connections, the heat sinks and essentially introducing error and risk that can kill the entire PC.

I seriously contemplated the idea but then killed it primarily for that reason.

Plus I just wound up getting the Antec 1200 full tower case that has way more fans than I will ever need.

[Eurasianman]

Noctua CPU coolers FTW!

[brzr]

Originally Posted by DylanFRS

That's too bad about ESO. It didn't really pick up for me until lvl 10 or so. I loved EQ and never really like WoW so I am surprised you didn't like ESO since I thought it was a bit closer to EQ than any other recent MMO.

it was the gameplay that i didn't like about eso......i found myself running from one quest to another......like a chicken without a head
couldn't get into zones because they were quest unlocked

vanguard was the closest to the old eq but the opening flopped and the game never recovered from that

i remember when i died first time in eq and lost my corpse somewhere in felwithe wood..........had to pay a bard to find my body lol

the times when maps were non existent and i had a book with hand drawn maps because i kept getting lost
and zonning into dl as level 10 trying to run through it and pray to god you won't get killed

the only thing i don't miss about the old eq is camping

[brzr]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

Those were the fun days of watercooling when people would still make stuff by themselves. I'd say it died around 2004-2005ish, people with tons of money started coming in and buying up really expensive waterblocks, I think full cover graphics blocks became the norm by 2008 and I hate them since they are a huge waste (not reusable, that much cooling on MOSFETs and RAM? come on...). The DIY scene was really really cool, though it's obviously difficult to machine an ultra-high-surface-area block like the commercially sold ones today, though I think back then the community also didn't really think about the design as carefully. For example the Swiftech Storm or whatever was the performance king for a while, but the surface area exposed to coolant back then was so pathetic that there was improvement to be had from more effectively using it.

this is how it started......he built a computer using parts he had and added a jug of water to cool it.......the jug was later upgraded to the copper tube, and the parts finally got a case but not after i used it like this for a couple of months

this was my gaming computer lol

[Frost]

Originally Posted by brzr

this is how it started......he built a computer using parts he had and added a jug of water to cool it.......the jug was later upgraded to the copper tube, and the parts finally got a case but not after i used it like this for a couple of months

this was my gaming computer lol

Ballsy but uber functional. Would also mitigate damage done if there is a leak (to some degree).

Like!

[utekineir]

Originally Posted by Frost

The problem I have with watercooling is that it makes upgrading the rigs way too much of a hassle. Say I upgrade GFX cards every two-three years, that will involve a lot of work undoing all the connections, the heat sinks and essentially introducing error and risk that can kill the entire PC.

I seriously contemplated the idea but then killed it primarily for that reason.

Plus I just wound up getting the Antec 1200 full tower case that has way more fans than I will ever need.

The money wasted on water blocks every upgrade cycle was what I hated

[Frost]

Originally Posted by utekineir

The money wasted on water blocks every upgrade cycle was what I hated

That too but the money for the water blocks is nothing compared to a leak inside my case. I would freak out over that one since I don't have a replacement rig or an experimental gaming rig.

The gains and risk I could get from water cooling simply wasn't worth the $$$ and time investment.

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Frost

The problem I have with watercooling is that it makes upgrading the rigs way too much of a hassle. Say I upgrade GFX cards every two-three years, that will involve a lot of work undoing all the connections, the heat sinks and essentially introducing error and risk that can kill the entire PC.

I seriously contemplated the idea but then killed it primarily for that reason.

Plus I just wound up getting the Antec 1200 full tower case that has way more fans than I will ever need.

That's why I have quick disconnects

[utekineir]

Originally Posted by Frost

That too but the money for the water blocks is nothing compared to a leak inside my case. I would freak out over that one since I don't have a replacement rig or an experimental gaming rig.

The gains and risk I could get from water cooling simply wasn't worth the $$$ and time investment.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but iirc distilled water was supposed to be used because of its lack of conductivity.

Agree fully on the gains for the $$. Back when i did it it allowed you to oc quietly. Nowdays with the advancements in hardware, moderate ocing is manufacturer supported and far less beneficial than it used to be, and also with throttling and all that a system can be quiet when at idle and loud when needed.

[Luis_GT]

Originally Posted by Frost

Ballsy but uber functional. Would also mitigate damage done if there is a leak (to some degree).

Like!

Distilled water is non-conductive, I've had leaks before, and even condensation form on an old AMD 939 when I once messed with a water chiller, nover killed a piece of hardware.

Even my 8800GTX had so much water drip onto it, that the sticker discolored... I only managed to kill it by volt modding it and ripping off a resistor...

I RMA'ed it and got a 550ti back