Distilled Water vs Pre-mixed Coolant

[Ghost]

Pre mixed is better.

Distilled water is just too much hassle due to biocides and such.

I personally recommend from experience EKoolant. No issues with anything and I've been running it for a straight 18 months in my loop with only one change of coolant 6 months ago. Which was just to add more radiators into the loop.

Maybe its different in America but they don't sell distilled water in shops here. (UK)

[Gmac]

Pre mixed is better.

Distilled water is just too much hassle due to biocides and such.

I personally recommend from experience EKoolant. No issues with anything and I've been running it for a straight 18 months in my loop with only one change of coolant 6 months ago. Which was just to add more radiators into the loop.

Haha fair enough. I forget I'm a dumb american sometimes and there are other people in this world. If they were priced the same i would probably go with a coolant to. Just for the looks of it.

[Whaler_99]

if you can get good distilled water go with that. there are different grades of distilled waters and if you have access to good medical grade distilled water id use that but its hard to get your hands on

And as soon as you crack open your bottle of de-ionised it starts collecting ions. Once in a loop and flowing through all those electrical parts... no longer de-ionized. :)

[Whaler_99]

Honestly - for the simplest route - distilled water and a kill coil. Easy peasy. Maybe add some anti corrosive?

Next up, your pre-mix. Easy as well, but more expensive... most (make sure you check) come with a biocide and anti corrosive added already. There are a few odd ones that don't play well with some brands of tubing, like Mayhems... You can get some really nice colored coolant and UV reactive coolant.

Do not use tap water though - all the additives that public utilities can add to them can really mess up your gear and get some funky stuff growing in there. :)

[BCMods]

Pre mixed is better.

Distilled water is just too much hassle due to biocides and such.

I personally recommend from experience EKoolant. No issues with anything and I've been running it for a straight 18 months in my loop with only one change of coolant 6 months ago. Which was just to add more radiators into the loop.

Ghost, use DI water if you're in the UK. It's the same as distilled in terms of what its uses are inside a loop.

[Ghost]

Pre mixed is better.

Distilled water is just too much hassle due to biocides and such.

I personally recommend from experience EKoolant. No issues with anything and I've been running it for a straight 18 months in my loop with only one change of coolant 6 months ago. Which was just to add more radiators into the loop.

I prefer coolant over distilled water any day. But that's just my opinion.

[Ejimo]

Distilled and silver kill coil. I've had no issues. And the water is cheap.

[Fordox]

if you can get good distilled water go with that. there are different grades of distilled waters and if you have access to good medical grade distilled water id use that but its hard to get your hands on

same as distilled water. this is only used to flush out systems, or be mixed with a concentrate.

and it is not the minute after you open the bottle that it will conduct, it takes about 3 days. depends if you use kill coils or not.

[Whaler_99]

I think we are lucky here, at least in Canada - walk into Shoppers Drug Mart, 4L bottle of distilled, two bucks. :) I buy it even just for rinsing and flushing parts at that price.

[Fordox]

kill coils can destroy nickel plating over time. so don't use that unless you have full copper blocks.

[JordanMac]

I think we are lucky here, at least in Canada - walk into Shoppers Drug Mart, 4L bottle of distilled, two bucks. :) I buy it even just for rinsing and flushing parts at that price.

yeah i dont know why you can't get distilled where i live (UK) very cheaply. For 4L its about £8 ($13 canadian)

[Oisin Maguire]

Id go with pre-mixed, yeah you can get junk build up in some of the bad premixed solutions, but at least you don't have to worry about biological build up and corrosion

[Oisin Maguire]

if you can get good distilled water go with that. there are different grades of distilled waters and if you have access to good medical grade distilled water id use that but its hard to get your hands on

Distilled water will rip ions from any metal it touches over a very short time frame, its not going to be nicely distilled for long

[Fordox]

Id go with pre-mixed, yeah you can get junk build up in some of the bad premixed solutions, but at least you don't have to worry about biological build up and corrosion

gunking won't happen. only with thick died coolants and with mayhems aurora.

[Gmac]

A lot of good, and bad, information in here. I'm going to put a lot of this in the sticky.

Good discussion.

[Dark_Nemesis]

I use pre-mixed for rwo reasons mainly. firstly, the anti corrosive agents, secondly the anti bacterial agents that keep the algy away. I'm running a custom loop with uncolored thermochill, running over a year, and coolant still perfectly clear. Bought a second hand cooling kit that had been run with destilled water and the spent half an hour cleaning the cpu block before installing in my system. So no water for me, but that's just my personal experiance.

And to you guys saying that you use destilled water insted of prefilled, becuse it's cheaper, how much did you spend on your custom cooling loop? Anyone can ofcousre use whatever they like,but if you spend hundreds of dollars on a custom cooling loop, and then get destilled water only reson being becuse it's cheaper, then you are not preorotising correctly. =)

[Gmac]

kill coils can destroy nickel plating over time. so don't use that unless you have full copper blocks.

Do you have an support on this like an article? I would love to read something on this topic.

[Gmac]

I use pre-mixed for rwo reasons mainly. firstly, the anti corrosive agents, secondly the anti bacterial agents that keep the algy away. I'm running a custom loop with uncolored thermochill, running over a year, and coolant still perfectly clear. Bought a second hand cooling kit that had been run with destilled water and the spent half an hour cleaning the cpu block before installing in my system. So no water for me, but that's just my personal experiance.

And to you guys saying that you use destilled water insted of prefilled, becuse it's cheaper, how much did you spend on your custom cooling loop? Anyone can ofcousre use whatever they like,but if you spend hundreds of dollars on a custom cooling loop, and then get destilled water only reson being becuse it's cheaper, then you are not preorotising correctly. =)

Just like to point out that. When it comes to performance water should give you better performance but the difference between most coolants and water is pretty small. The price isnt. Coolants in the US cost anywhere from 50-100 times more. However the performance difference from water and air cooling is huge. Also note water cooling system shouldn't cost more then 10 times as much as a top of the line air cooling system.

[MoeBrowne]

kill coils can destroy nickel plating over time. so don't use that unless you have full copper blocks.

I would assume it is because of their electrode potentials

Silver + Nickle = 1.04v but Silver + Copper 0.46v so will exchange electrons far less readily.

[Fordox]

kill coils can destroy nickel plating over time. so don't use that unless you have full copper blocks.

it was on one of singularity computers video's. because the vids are sooooo long and he has loads of them, i can't recall what video it was mentioned in.

[Gmac]

kill coils can destroy nickel plating over time. so don't use that unless you have full copper blocks.

Cool. If i find it i will post it.

[Dark_Nemesis]

I use pre-mixed for rwo reasons mainly. firstly, the anti corrosive agents, secondly the anti bacterial agents that keep the algy away. I'm running a custom loop with uncolored thermochill, running over a year, and coolant still perfectly clear. Bought a second hand cooling kit that had been run with destilled water and the spent half an hour cleaning the cpu block before installing in my system. So no water for me, but that's just my personal experiance.

And to you guys saying that you use destilled water insted of prefilled, becuse it's cheaper, how much did you spend on your custom cooling loop? Anyone can ofcousre use whatever they like,but if you spend hundreds of dollars on a custom cooling loop, and then get destilled water only reson being becuse it's cheaper, then you are not preorotising correctly. =)

Yes, same goes for pricing of coolant here in europe, my point is that a custom cooling loop (at least in europe costs anything from 400 euros and up), by which i mean that if you can afford a 400+ euro watercooling loop, you sholuld be able to afford a can or two, 10euro pre-mixed coolant a year =) Yep, agree on the 'water is more efficint cooling media' so if that's the reason for running destilled, then by all means :)

[Over here alteast a top of the line air cooler, like the NH-D14 costs around 80€, ten times that is a lot of money by my standards atleast] Just my perspective, I know a lot of things are a lot cheaper i the states...

[BCMods]

Id go with pre-mixed, yeah you can get junk build up in some of the bad premixed solutions, but at least you don't have to worry about biological build up and corrosion

Aurora doesn't gunk, ever. Get your facts right.

[Ghost]

We have a sticky for a reason.

You can use what ever you want. But pure water is the cheapest, easiest, most effective way you can go.

Coolants look cool but give you lower performance. Try colored tubing if that is what you are interested in.

True but mayhems XT-1 coolant. http://www.mayhems.co.uk/front/xt-1.html#.UP3DEmc3mJo performs extremely well. Almost as good if not better than water in some tests.

[Ghost]

To keep people from arguing the data is all here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2012/03/26/what-is-the-best-water-cooling-coolant/2

As you can see de-ionised water performs worst out of these premium coolants.

Although if you look at the numbers there only a delta of 2 C so it REALLY doesn't matter what you use.

Please remember thats de-ionised, not distilled water.