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Forums - PC Discussion - Air vs Liquid cooling: For PC enthusiasts specifically

Mazty on 12 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:
Mazty said:

Metro settings? Certainly doesn't sound like they were maxed out....And Metro is more demanding then Crysis...

AMD as in AMD CPU. Far better value for media processing. 

Just sounds like you're wasting money on status components a fair bit.

Read the edit for CPUs.

As for Metro, yes, everything juiced all the way up (very much how it would be with 680 SLI - which a 690 is within 90% of for Metro). I only play with everything on max. I averaged 80-90fps with Crysis maxed, modded, and FXAA injected. In fact, it becomes nearly as resourceful as Metro. I've only ever had issues with Far Cry 3, and that's only because it wasn't properly scaled for SLI at launch.

With Metro, there was some micro-stutter from time-to-time and it dipped below 50fps, as I said, once, but nothing remarkable. Really performed better than I epxected, given how many people sound like you.

And I've done all the research I need for parts, particularly for what I'm doing and how infrequent I plan to change builds after this one. Much of my work will require intensive rendering, serious multitasking, hyperthreading, and processing. The 690, however, is mainly for gaming. The specs are not just for "bragging rights", but that's moot anyway. :)

What's your current set up considering GTX680's sli'd avg 66/48...?

You may want to hold out for the Titan as that could easily surpass the 690 in SLI. Plus is the rendering you're doing CUDA supported? If so the Titan would an even better choice. 

 

  • GTX 690
  • i7 3770K
  • 32GB DDR3

 

As for GPUs, I don't want/need two of them (that's $2,000 on cards alone - which makes no sense for my build). I can't stress enough that this isn't a solitary gaming build.


When you render I'm presumming that'll take 100% CPU to do? Or will you micro-manage load?



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Mazty on 12 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:
Mazty said:

What's your current set up considering GTX680's sli'd avg 66/48...?

You may want to hold out for the Titan as that could easily surpass the 690 in SLI. Plus is the rendering you're doing CUDA supported? If so the Titan would an even better choice. 

 

  • GTX 690
  • i7 3770K
  • 32GB DDR3

As for GPUs, I don't want/need two of them (that's $2,000 on cards alone - which makes no sense for my build). I can't stress enough that this isn't a solitary gaming build.


When you render I'm presumming that'll take 100% CPU to do? Or will you micro-manage load?

85-90% CPU load. If I wasn't building next week, I'd wait for the newer Intel CPUs, but the 3970X will suffice either way, because it has the speed and cores.


True but if you're doing large renders that take 10's of hours, you're locking yourself out of your gaming machine, hence why an eight-core AMD PC would be a good idea as you could just leave that running 24/7 and it'd never interfere with your gaming. Just a thought.



Viper1 on 12 February 2013
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:

85-90% CPU load. If I wasn't building next week, I'd wait for the newer Intel CPUs, but the 3970X will suffice either way, because it has the speed and cores.


True but if you're doing large renders that take 10's of hours, you're locking yourself out of your gaming machine, hence why an eight-core AMD PC would be a good idea as you could just leave that running 24/7 and it'd never interfere with your gaming. Just a thought.

Would you mind elaborating on exactly how that works?



The rEVOLution is not being televised

Mazty on 12 February 2013
Viper1 said:
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:

85-90% CPU load. If I wasn't building next week, I'd wait for the newer Intel CPUs, but the 3970X will suffice either way, because it has the speed and cores.


True but if you're doing large renders that take 10's of hours, you're locking yourself out of your gaming machine, hence why an eight-core AMD PC would be a good idea as you could just leave that running 24/7 and it'd never interfere with your gaming. Just a thought.

Would you mind elaborating on exactly how that works?


If I want to render something, depending on the size, it can take 20+ hours.  Due to the load on the CPU it takes, there's no way the PC can do anything but render, therefore preventing me from playing games on it. 

If he gets a cheaper CPU, the extra cash could make a small 8 core AMD PC that could be used as a 24/7 render station. When the time comes to render, transfer the file across from the main PC to the render station, hit go and you still have access to the gaming PC. It'll be slower, but leaving it on 24/7 isn't an issue. I just put it forward as a suggestion in case his PC is his main source of gaming.



Viper1 on 12 February 2013
Mazty said:
Viper1 said:
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:

85-90% CPU load. If I wasn't building next week, I'd wait for the newer Intel CPUs, but the 3970X will suffice either way, because it has the speed and cores.


True but if you're doing large renders that take 10's of hours, you're locking yourself out of your gaming machine, hence why an eight-core AMD PC would be a good idea as you could just leave that running 24/7 and it'd never interfere with your gaming. Just a thought.

Would you mind elaborating on exactly how that works?


If I want to render something, depending on the size, it can take 20+ hours.  Due to the load on the CPU it takes, there's no way the PC can do anything but render, therefore preventing me from playing games on it. 

If he gets a cheaper CPU, the extra cash could make a small 8 core AMD PC that could be used as a 24/7 render station. When the time comes to render, transfer the file across from the main PC to the render station, hit go and you still have access to the gaming PC. It'll be slower, but leaving it on 24/7 isn't an issue. I just put it forward as a suggestion in case his PC is his main source of gaming.

Ah.

I thought for a moment there you were trying to say that you could use an 8 core AMD CPU rather than the 6 core Intel chip which would leave you with 2 cores left over to still game with.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

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disolitude on 12 February 2013
Viper1 said:
Mazty said:
Viper1 said:
Mazty said:
CGI-Quality said:

85-90% CPU load. If I wasn't building next week, I'd wait for the newer Intel CPUs, but the 3970X will suffice either way, because it has the speed and cores.


True but if you're doing large renders that take 10's of hours, you're locking yourself out of your gaming machine, hence why an eight-core AMD PC would be a good idea as you could just leave that running 24/7 and it'd never interfere with your gaming. Just a thought.

Would you mind elaborating on exactly how that works?


If I want to render something, depending on the size, it can take 20+ hours.  Due to the load on the CPU it takes, there's no way the PC can do anything but render, therefore preventing me from playing games on it. 

If he gets a cheaper CPU, the extra cash could make a small 8 core AMD PC that could be used as a 24/7 render station. When the time comes to render, transfer the file across from the main PC to the render station, hit go and you still have access to the gaming PC. It'll be slower, but leaving it on 24/7 isn't an issue. I just put it forward as a suggestion in case his PC is his main source of gaming.

Ah.

I thought for a moment there you were trying to say that you could use an 8 core AMD CPU rather than the 6 core Intel chip which would leave you with 2 cores left over to still game with.

Wouldn't be the craziest thing I've seen people do with AMD CPUs.

Was reading on Toms hardware that some dude disabled 4 of the 8 cores on his 8350 which apparently reduced cache latency and allowed for a stable overclocking of 5.5 ghz on water. Gave a 4.5 overclocked 3570k a run for it's money in gaming. 



Mazty on 12 February 2013
disolitude said:
Viper1 said:

Ah.

I thought for a moment there you were trying to say that you could use an 8 core AMD CPU rather than the 6 core Intel chip which would leave you with 2 cores left over to still game with.

Wouldn't be the craziest thing I've seen people do with AMD CPUs.

Was reading on Toms hardware that some dude disabled 4 of the 8 cores on his 8350 which apparently reduced cache latency and allowed for a stable overclocking of 5.5 ghz on water. Gave a 4.5 overclocked 3570k a run for it's money in gaming. 

That's amazing and hilarious in equal parts xD



Pemalite on 12 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:

@ Matzy: When I was talking Crysis, I meant Crysis 2. I don't get much over 50fps for Crysis 1. Since Cryisis is VERY CPU heavy, it's crazy to think that a 3770K can barely get over 50fps.


Is that 3770K overclocked though? Last time I checked I was hitting the v-sync wall of 60fps at 1080P, then again I have a ton of memory bandwidth and a heavy overclock and lots of cache.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

SnesTea on 14 February 2013
CGI-Quality said:
ishiki said:

Essentially, this is just thermodynamics.

The "liquid" in the liquid cooling is just transfering the fluid to a radiator, which is like a heatsink only if you want it to be useful, it will be like 3 120mm fans long or something like that, which is bigger than any heatsink and has a higher cooling capacity.

It's a bit more complex because the airflow can be better, resistance etc.

Thus you're getting more surface area being cooled and lower temperatures as a result, with lower volume. Generally unless you want a super ultra fast computer it's not worth it, because it's better to invest in better components. As a 300+ dollars in watercooling would better be invested in a better GPU, another GPU etc.

However in your case, it might be worth it, and more importantly ) it's extremely fun to set up.

Pro's Water
1) Maximum Cooling Capacity (meaning everything will have a higher maximum speed)
2) Less Noise
3) A lot of fun to tinker with and looks bad ass.
4) Better temps, thus theoretically longer component life.


Con's
1) A lot of money
2) If you screw up, you can leak on your components and then bam! you're screwed. Also, if pump breaks you can be screwed too.
3) You might be dissapointed if you have something like the NHD14, you could be dissapointed.

Edit
If you want even better do liquid nitrogen, and get a personal assistant to por it onto your cpu while you're playing :P.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B46J1-e8Cqg

Yep, the cons are why I have avoided it in two builds thus far. Probably just gonna stick to the Corsair H100 for this build.

I have a Corsair H60. The super cheap nowhere near as good H100. I like it.