Move AIO Questions out of Liquid & Exotic Cooling Section

[PineyCreek]

I kind of agree...make an AIO and non-AIO liquid cooling sub-forum...Air, Liquid (AIO), Liquid (non-AIO), Exotic.

[LogicalDrm]

7 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

While I understand the positions given, I do think there is a huge difference in function and market between off-the-shelf and custom cooling systems, and confusing the two (how they work, what performance they have, when they make sense) is a serious issue. High end AIOs are ludicrously closer in limitations/functionality to high end air coolers than fully custom solutions. They also generally attract a large number of the same people and are almost always worth discussing together. Hell, they even offer generally similar warranties. 

 

You have a point there. Though on the top-most end AIOs start to move towards custom loop range with customization features.

 

 

7 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

By contrast... to me 34 dBA air coolers/aios is not silent.

 

I touch this only slightly. What people pick and why varies also a lot. Like for me it seems like main reason to go for custom loop is better looks and better performance, not noise issues. Unless you go passive, custom loops still have more factors making noise than air cooling solution. But also with better performance, need to crank up fan/pump speeds keeps the load noises down.

 

18 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

I kind of agree...make an AIO and non-AIO liquid cooling sub-forum...Air, Liquid (AIO), Liquid (non-AIO), Exotic.

Exotic would die really quickly. You have to look how many new and active threads each subject gets daily/weekly when thinking about if they need new deal or own section. Exotic coolers in these forums are almost non-existent. If you are fan  of such, there are other, more into modding forums to go. This forum gathers very wide and mostly very shallow userbase. By shallow I mean how deep their tech knowledge is in any special section.

[PineyCreek]

Just now, LogicalDrm said:

 

Exotic would die really quickly. You have to look how many new and active threads each subject gets daily/weekly when thinking about if they need new deal or own section. Exotic coolers in these forums are almost non-existent. If you are fan  of such, there are other, more into modding forums to go. This forum gathers very wide and mostly very shallow userbase. By shallow I mean how deep their tech knowledge is in any special section.

Yeah, you're probably right. So Air, Liquid (AIO), Liquid and Exotic (non-AIO)...as no one using exotic cooling would be using an AIO to do it I wouldn't think...

[Spotty]

My opinion is I think it should all just be in the one section for Cooling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

They all serve the same purpose and there's a lot of overlap between the topics. I don't think separating them further is the right approach.

 

You have CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory all in the same forum yet I would argue that those components are more different than an AIO is to a custom loop. Laptops and Pre builts are completely different and someone looking for advice on a laptop isn't going to be interested in topics on a Cyberpower desktop. Same with the Cases & Power Supply forum, I spend a bit of time checking the PSU threads but if you asked me a question about a case I'd have no idea.

 

50 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

make an AIO and non-AIO liquid cooling sub-forum...Air, Liquid (AIO), Liquid (non-AIO), Exotic.

If you have 4 sections for cooling then the people in the Audio forums would want one forum for Microphones, one forum for DACs/AMPs, one forum for speakers, one forum for headphones...
Peripheral forum would need to be split up in to one section for Keyboards, one section for Mice, one section for Webcams, one for gaming chairs...

There is a point where you just need to group things together, even if they might have some differences that set them apart.

[PineyCreek]

17 minutes ago, Spotty said:

My opinion is I think it should all just be in the one section for Cooling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

They all serve the same purpose and there's a lot of overlap between the topics. I don't think separating them further is the right approach.

 

You have CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory all in the same forum yet I would argue that those components are more different than an AIO is to a custom loop. Laptops and Pre builts are completely different and someone looking for advice on a laptop isn't going to be interested in topics on a Cyberpower desktop. Same with the Cases & Power Supply forum, I spend a bit of time checking the PSU threads but if you asked me a question about a case I'd have no idea.

 

If you have 4 sections for cooling then the people in the Audio forums would want one forum for Microphones, one forum for DACs/AMPs, one forum for speakers, one forum for headphones...
Peripheral forum would need to be split up in to one section for Keyboards, one section for Mice, one section for Webcams, one for gaming chairs...

There is a point where you just need to group things together, even if they might have some differences that set them apart.

Pfft, only ONE forum for headphones? Nah, one for earbuds, one for regular headphones, one for earbuds, one for closed back, one for open back, one for electrostatic, and then double that for all the wireless variants.

[PineyCreek]

5 minutes ago, PineyCreek said:

Pfft, only ONE forum for headphones? Nah, one for earbuds, one for regular headphones, one for earbuds, one for closed back, one for open back, one for electrostatic, and then double that for all the wireless variants.

Actually if I could find a pair of wireless electrostatic headphones that would be impressive...they'd probably weigh a few kilos because of the necessary battery pack for high power delivery...

[Curufinwe_wins]

7 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

 

You have a point there. Though on the top-most end AIOs start to move towards custom loop range with customization features.

 

 

 

I touch this only slightly. What people pick and why varies also a lot. Like for me it seems like main reason to go for custom loop is better looks and better performance, not noise issues. Unless you go passive, custom loops still have more factors making noise than air cooling solution. But also with better performance, need to crank up fan/pump speeds keeps the load noises down.

More factors making noise, but much lower noise floor. Afterall running 7 fans down at 16-18 dBA produces much less noise than 1 fan at 35. But performance as well. It's more the combination flexibility, wow imagine that.

 

Regardless, if you make it really about custom solutions, you get all the passive stuff moving there instead of air cooling, and the then we dont have to constantly explain aluminum and glycols over and over again. Hehe. And likewise, then the air cooling fanatics get to actually try to convince the right kind of people not to buy aios. Win win for everyone.

 

I actually don't think it would be a bad thing for the custom/exotic section to be calmer than most either, but that's it's own thing.

 

(Again in summary, voting for two sections still. Just different arrangement of sections)

[AngryBeaver]

7 hours ago, Spotty said:

My opinion is I think it should all just be in the one section for Cooling. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

They all serve the same purpose and there's a lot of overlap between the topics. I don't think separating them further is the right approach.

 

You have CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory all in the same forum yet I would argue that those components are more different than an AIO is to a custom loop. Laptops and Pre builts are completely different and someone looking for advice on a laptop isn't going to be interested in topics on a Cyberpower desktop. Same with the Cases & Power Supply forum, I spend a bit of time checking the PSU threads but if you asked me a question about a case I'd have no idea.

 

If you have 4 sections for cooling then the people in the Audio forums would want one forum for Microphones, one forum for DACs/AMPs, one forum for speakers, one forum for headphones...
Peripheral forum would need to be split up in to one section for Keyboards, one section for Mice, one section for Webcams, one for gaming chairs...

There is a point where you just need to group things together, even if they might have some differences that set them apart.

So from your example on the sections. What is the real downside to that other than just being more targeted sub forums? I mean it isn't a cost thing since the hosting cost wouldn't change. You would still see the same amount of total activity, just some forums might feel a lot less active than others.

 

Now the plus side is you are going to have a better chance of your content reaching other people passionate about those same things and a much higher (hopefully) amount of usable input in those forums. As it stands now for example, if you were to post some pretty deep questions about custom loops you would also get input from people who base their entire opinion and experience from an AIO. Not that this couldn't happen with more sub forums, but it reduces the chance of it.

 

So I guess at this point my question is what are the ups and downs of either approach?

[colonel_mortis]

1 hour ago, AngryBeaver said:

So from your example on the sections. What is the real downside to that other than just being more targeted sub forums? I mean it isn't a cost thing since the hosting cost wouldn't change. You would still see the same amount of total activity, just some forums might feel a lot less active than others.

 

Now the plus side is you are going to have a better chance of your content reaching other people passionate about those same things and a much higher (hopefully) amount of usable input in those forums. As it stands now for example, if you were to post some pretty deep questions about custom loops you would also get input from people who base their entire opinion and experience from an AIO. Not that this couldn't happen with more sub forums, but it reduces the chance of it.

 

So I guess at this point my question is what are the ups and downs of either approach?

We already have a lot of subforums, and it already means that ones lower in the list are less likely to be noticed, so we don't want to add more without good reason. Also, the more specific we make each section, the less often a topic will cleanly fit into one of them, although looking at the topics in Liquid and Exotic Cooling at the moment I don't think that will be an issue in this case.

 

Another consideration is that when a section doesn't get much activity, it can start a downward spiral where people stop checking it, so fewer topics get answers, resulting in the section becoming even more dead. If the sections were split, there would still be a handful of topics per day in each, so I think it would be ok in that respect, but it is difficult to predict before any changes are made.