These deal make me want to switch back to water cooling

[SeanBond]

Corsair h90 is $50 after MIR. Nzxt kraken x31 will be 60 on black friday the corsair h80i is 75 dollars on newegg. I can't seem to 2 reviews for cooling that remotely falls in line with each other. Every review has one cooler better than the other. So how am I supposed to figure out which one is best? I am leaning towards the h90 because I can get it for 50 NOW but If the x31 is better than I can wait and spend a bit more. What shall I do? Where can I find reviews to trust when all the trusty sites have different results?

[mooseducks86]

Heres the google doc linus keeps whenever he tests a cooler. I have the corsair h110 with stock fans but replaced the thermal compound last month - Im getting much cooler temps than I did when I first installed  it a year ago.

 

http://tinyurl.com/bagtchs

 

PS trust no one.

[ologiic]

Eh can't judge everything off of reviews. Firstly  half the people that have a positive experience won't leave a review where as the people that had  negative review will. Both those coolers look the same physically but the Corsair has 100+ reviews on newegg with 5 star rating where as the kraken has like 5 reviews with three stars. I'd go with corsair, i have had my h100i for over a year with no issues.

[ImBleu]

I'd never switch back to air.

[SeanBond]

Heres the google doc linus keeps whenever he tests a cooler. I have the corsair h110 with stock fans but replaced the thermal compound last month - Im getting much cooler temps than I did when I first installed  it a year ago.

 

http://tinyurl.com/bagtchs

 

PS trust no one.

I was going to use my artic silver 5. But I am thinking for $50 and linus' review seeing a 1.35V 3930k having load temps at 75c is awesome. I probably won't go past 1.33V with a 4790k which I would hope get me even better temps than that.

 

Eh can't judge everything off of reviews. Firstly  half the people that have a positive experience won't leave a review where as the people that had  negative review will. Both those coolers look the same physically but the Corsair has 100+ reviews on newegg with 5 star rating where as the kraken has like 5 reviews with three stars. I'd go with corsair, i have had my h100i for over a year with no issues.

When I say reviews I don't mean customer reviews. I will look at the star rating ratio and that's as far as I take that. lol

[SeanBond]

I'd never switch back to air.

On a week not like black friday...AIO look like crap to me. I have an h110. It died and then I manage the same OC with a evo 212 as I did that h110. The 4790k runs a bit warmer though so I want some 4.7ghz in my life and less noise from my cooler. Maybe not both, I will be satisfied with silence and 4.6ghz. oh and I dont want to use the h110 because I don't want an intake cooler as it will warm my reference gpu. 

[mooseducks86]

I was going to use my artic silver 5. But I am thinking for $50 and linus' review seeing a 1.35V 3930k having load temps at 75c is awesome. I probably won't go past 1.33V with a 4790k which I would hope get me even better temps than that.

I'm getting 30C under load (gaming) and I think 65C in a mentalray render with the h110 and a 4770k (stock speed). It was around 50 and 80 before changing thermal compound. (also arctic silver 5 - local place doesnt carry ic diamond - and im all about the hype) and I am using push fan config - mounted in the front intake of a 760t - much more airflow room than most cases but I also have dual gtx780tis and only other fan in the case is the exhaust. In my old 330R i had push/pull on the top mounted rad, 2 front intakes and an exhaust - when I just had a 770 i didnt need the push pull but with dual gpus there was nooooo room in that case.

 

I set the pump to run at 100% in bios - I had read varying things but I couldnt hear the pump even at 100% and the difference in running it at 75% was something like 8 degrees higher. (this was in the cramped 330R)

[SeanBond]

I'm getting 30C under load (gaming) and I think 65C in a mentalray render with the h110 and a 4770k (stock speed). It was around 50 and 80 before changing thermal compound. (also arctic silver 5 - local place doesnt carry ic diamond - and im all about the hype) and I am using push fan config - mounted in the front intake of a 760t - much more airflow room than most cases but I also have dual gtx780tis and only other fan in the case is the exhaust. In my old 330R i had push/pull on the top mounted rad, 2 front intakes and an exhaust - when I just had a 770 i didnt need the push pull but with dual gpus there was nooooo room in that case.

 

I set the pump to run at 100% in bios - I had read varying things but I couldnt hear the pump even at 100% and the difference in running it at 75% was something like 8 degrees higher. (this was in the cramped 330R)

I love you right now. And I love you because you are qualified to answer this question, or two rather. Are you cards of reference design and the second question is by how much does having the corsair h110 as an intake increase gpu temps. Blowing hot air into my case never sounded like a good idea. I am afraid of raising temps for my gpu. If it's 1 or 2 degrees I can manage but if it's like 5 or 6c I would rather get an exhaust AIO. Keep in mind I plan on doing a heavy overclock on the cpu. I am talking at least 1.28V

[mooseducks86]

I love you right now. And I love you because you are qualified to answer this question, or two rather. Are you cards of reference design and the second question is by how much does having the corsair h110 as an intake increase gpu temps. Blowing hot air into my case never sounded like a good idea. I am afraid of raising temps for my gpu. If it's 1 or 2 degrees I can manage but if it's like 5 or 6c I would rather get an exhaust AIO. Keep in mind I plan on doing a heavy overclock on the cpu. I am talking at least 1.28V

No - they're EVGA dual acx. But they don't really exhaust air out the back of the PC - if thats what they're meant to do. I had a reference gtx 770, and I could feel the hot air coming out the rear vent of the card. The primary card hinders airflow on the secondary card - so even if the secondary card is not in use (I sometimes turn off SLI for certain applications) its temp is warmer than the primary.

 

 

In short - they're little space heaters for your case!

[SeanBond]

No - they're EVGA dual acx. But they don't really exhaust air out the back of the PC - if thats what they're meant to do. I had a reference gtx 770, and I could feel the hot air coming out the rear vent of the card. The primary card hinders airflow on the secondary card - so even if the secondary card is not in use (I sometimes turn off SLI for certain applications) its temp is warmer than the primary.

 

 

In short - they're little space heaters for your case!

That is unfortunate. But the real important question was do you know the impact on temps by using an h110 as intake. I understand the acx is not a blow and it was kind of an awful idea to get two of them but did you have different cooling at some point for reference before the h110 was installed as intake?

[mooseducks86]

That is unfortunate. But the real important question was do you know the impact on temps by using an h110 as intake. I understand the acx is not a blow and it was kind of an awful idea to get two of them but did you have different cooling at some point for reference before the h110 was installed as intake?

I always had the h110 in this particular system - the temps were decent when I was just using the onboard video - a month later I got the gtx 770 reference card - the temps went up a bit but not that much - it was when I added the two cards that the temperatures got extreme - the system would shut down during a single scene render - either gpu or cpu rendering - didn't matter. I tried all sorts of fan configs - push, pull, push/pull, I even mounted an external exhaust fan to boost the exhaust fan output. The rad was always at the top of the case - there was no other mounting point for a rad in the 330R. I also moved my case from under a desk to on top of the desk. This was in the 330R case though - I couldn't even take out the memory or access a sata cable without removing the gpus - it was cramped as heck.  There are 3 factors that I believe were hindering my CPU temps:

 

1) The thermal compound that came with the h110 - it looked pretty stiff but I decided to trust it... I think it was Linus that said it was really good compound - but it looked dry.

2) The case was just way too cramped - I didn't plan on getting a gtx770 nevermind 2 780tis (they were bstock - and 2 cost a little more than one brand new one at my local dealer)

3) overkill fans. at one point I had 8 in this tiny 330R case - and I'm absolutely sure they were all working against each other. Now I have 3 fans (two on the rad 1 exhaust) and lots and lots of breathing room for components in the 760T - and temps have never been lower.

 

It was a lot of trial and error - I kept thinking it was the H110 - but I kept reading other peoples great experiences with it - so I knew it was something I was doing.

[SeanBond]

I always had the h110 in this particular system - the temps were decent when I was just using the inboard video - a month later I got the gtx 770 reference card - the temps went up a bit but not that much - it was when I added the two cards that the temperatures got extreme - the system would shut down during a single scene render - either gpu or cpu rendering - didn't matter. I tried all sorts of fan configs - push, pull, push/pull, I even mounted an external exhaust fan to boost the exhaust fan output. I also moved my case from under a desk to on top of the desk. This was in the 330R case though - I couldn't even take out the memory or access a sata cable without removing the gpus - it was cramped. There are 3 factors that I believe were hindering my CPU temps:

 

So what were you temps roughly with your single reference 770 and at what fan speeds?

[SeanBond]

 

I am trying my best to decide if I should save some money and just open the damn thing and install it tonight

[mooseducks86]

So what were you temps roughly with your single reference 770 and at what fan speeds?

They were high - like 80C - I felt I would get better temps with air cooling - and that was with fans and pump @ 100%.

Again - I'm pretty sure it was the thermal compound at that point. The 330R is a silent case - so it also has limited airflow. I truly believe that even with a 120mm rad - an AIO should outperform most air coolers (maybe not some of the monster ones) but definitely the stock intel cooler.