Air or AIO closed loop for i7 6700K in a Corsair 650D?

[Hybrid Divide]

Hi.  I'm doing a new build with an i7 6700K CPU in a Corsair Obsidian 650D enclosure.

 

How should I cool my new CPU?

 

Air cooling is certainly cheaper, and from what I've read, the performance gap between air and liquid isn't very big.  I'm not planning on doing extreme overclocking, so I've been initially leading towards air cooling.  But I've also heard of air coolers breaking the new Skylake chips.

 

AIO closed loop cooling is more expensive, but the final setup certainly looks a lot cleaner.  Makes it easier to work around in my case.  And they do offer some performance enhancements.  But liquid cooling of any sort does bring a new point of failure into the build.  Even in an AIO closed loop, I've read that liquid can evaporate.  And of course, pumps can give out.

 

So, which way should I go?  I'd prefer to spend less than a hundred, but I'd like to hear all options. 

Apologies if I should have posted this in a different spot, I just posted it here, as I do lean towards air cooling initially.

Thank you in advance!

 

EDIT: Also need to make sure whatever I go with will work in that Corsair 650D enclosure.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Hybrid Divide
Added a small bit.

[suchamoneypit]

a 212 evo for $35 will probably suit your needs but a dual rad AIO does look and run cooler, especially if you were going to dabble in overclocking (you should with a 6700k!)

[ryanmmax]

Water is not about performance its about novelty.  Unless your doing it because you can IE: a hobby go air cool.  get a good aircooler, Set a reasonable overclock and dont think twice about it for years!  

 

Ask yourself why your wanting to water cool.

 

Performance- then get a noctua d14 or d15, they will match most decent->good AIO with a fraction the noise.  

Aesthetics- Im partial to the dark rock 3 or pro 3...  but Cryorg makes some good looking coolers too. 

Noise-A good air-cooler will beat mos AIO...  you need a good pump to see the silence benefits and not many AIO would fit that.

Cost-  Air coolers win again!

Cool factor-  Yes its noval and people may remember that you water cooled, but unless they are enthusiasts themselves they will not appreciate it.

Maintenance- Air-cooler set and forget VS AIO always wondering if it will leak, and more points of failure

Repair- Fan on Aircooler breaks get a new fan.....  Pump on AIO breaks get new AIO

 

Unless your looking at a dual 140mm rad AIO I wouldnt go AIO

[drewjn]

@Hybrid DivideIf you are spending less than a hundred, that already removes most AIO water coolers from the table. The Noctua air coolers have always been good, but I haven't heard anything about the breaking of skylake chips (mostly my fault, as I haven't kept up on that).

 

Best rule of thumb, unless you plan to spend over 125usd, don't go water cooling. Cheap water cooling loops are absolute crap and fair worse than a 212 evo at half the cost.

[Hybrid Divide]

1 minute ago, ryanmmax said:

Water is not about performance its about novelty.  Unless your doing it because you can IE: a hobby go air cool.  get a good aircooler, Set a reasonable overclock and dont think twice about it for years!  

Thanks for the replies, everyone.  The $100 wasn't a hard line.  What would you all recommend for air coolers and aio loops?

 

I know about the Hyper 212 Evo, I'm just trying to have more options.

[drewjn]

If you want premium air cooling, Noctua NH-D15 (Should be able to mount that chipset).

 

Will be probably one of the best options you have for sound and temps together.

 

 

Edit: forgot to add the aio options. I'd suggest swifttech or the NZXT Kraken. Both run around 140usd

[TidaLWaveZ]

5 minutes ago, ryanmmax said:

Water is not about performance its about novelty.  Unless your doing it because you can IE: a hobby go air cool.  get a good aircooler, Set a reasonable overclock and dont think twice about it for years!  

 

Ask yourself why your wanting to water cool.

 

Performance- then get a noctua d14 or d15, they will match most decent->good AIO with a fraction the noise.  

Aesthetics- Im partial to the dark rock 3 or pro 3...  but Cryorg makes some good looking coolers too. 

Noise-A good air-cooler will beat mos AIO...  you need a good pump to see the silence benefits and not many AIO would fit that.

Cost-  Air coolers win again!

Cool factor-  Yes its noval and people may remember that you water cooled, but unless they are enthusiasts themselves they will not appreciate it.

Maintenance- Air-cooler set and forget VS AIO always wondering if it will leak, and more points of failure

Repair- Fan on Aircooler breaks get a new fan.....  Pump on AIO breaks get new AIO

 

Unless your looking at a dual 140mm rad AIO I wouldnt go AIO

 

Water is not about performance its about novelty.

 

I can only assume you're talking about this situation, because that is a serious generalization.

[TidaLWaveZ]

Also those Noctua's are almost as expensive as the best AIO's and they look like trash.  The only reason I wouldn't get a top AIO in this situation is if I were trying to get a cheap alternative like the 212.

 

 

[ryanmmax]

41 minutes ago, TidaLWaveZ said:

 

Water is not about performance its about novelty.

 

I can only assume you're talking about this situation, because that is a serious generalization.

Not that serious....  Name an industrial application that uses water to cool electronics?  It is not worth the cost.  That is not to say there are no benefits, but a legit water cooled setup can cost 150-500+ for that price you could upgrade your CPU to 5820k, 5830k, or even a 5860K....

 

Further more unless you win the silicon Lotto, those small benefits are worthless.  EX. myself I cannot get 4.7 stable regardless of temp with sub 70c it still crashes...  Why would I pay more for the same?

 

BUT we all need hobbys and passions, so if water cooling is yours great!  

 

Hey Look at LTT they used to have watercooled stuff when they were small and could afford the time and effort but now they dont bother it is all aircooled.  Unless you count 7 gamers 1 pc or Linus personal rig, which would be silly because linus keeps his rig in a closet and put Noctua fans on it! (in a closet he could have put some DELTA fans on it if he wanted)

 

 

[TidaLWaveZ]

6 minutes ago, ryanmmax said:

Not that serious....  Name an industrial application that uses water to cool electronics?  It is not worth the cost.  That is not to say there are no benefits, but a legit water cooled setup can cost 150-500+ for that price you could upgrade your CPU to 5820k, 5830k, or even a 5860K....

 

Further more unless you win the silicon Lotto, those small benefits are worthless.  EX. myself I cannot get 4.7 stable regardless of temp with sub 70c it still crashes...  Why would I pay more for the same?

 

BUT we all need hobbys and passions, so if water cooling is yours great!  

 

Hey Look at LTT they used to have watercooled stuff when they were small and could afford the time and effort but now they dont bother it is all aircooled.  Unless you count 7 gamers 1 pc or Linus personal rig, which would be silly because linus keeps his rig in a closet and put Noctua fans on it! (in a closet he could have put some DELTA fans on it if he wanted)

 

 

 

Saying watercooling is for novelty not for performance is a serious generalization.

 

That statement makes no mention of money, so we're not talking about price for performance, we're talking about straight performance.

 

I agree that it's absolutely a novelty thing when looking at it from a budgeted standpoint, but in terms of straight performance regardless of price a serious custom loop will destroy the best air cooler as it pulls the heat away much better.

 

 

[drewjn]

26 minutes ago, TidaLWaveZ said:

 

Saying watercooling is for novelty not for performance is a serious generalization.

 

That statement makes no mention of money, so we're not talking about price for performance, we're talking about straight performance.

 

I agree that it's absolutely a novelty thing when looking at it from a budgeted standpoint, but in terms of straight performance regardless of price a serious custom loop will destroy the best air cooler as it pulls the heat away much better.

 

 

True, but once you get to that point, you might as well just go with a submerged pc in mineral oil, or hand it over to the extreme oc people that play with liquid nitrogen.

 

You go with the water cooling for looks or if you need more space around the cpu, as the performance can be matched by some of the better air cooling systems, or some of the whacky heat sink variants that companies come up with. When you get to extreme costs of full custom loop, they do win out, but then you have to question if it was even worth it, or needed.

 

Though what the other person said is a big generalization, it isn't entirely incorrect, considering the pricepoint we were talking of. Let's just all agree that we are all on the same page and move on, no need for anyone to be salty about it.

[ryanmmax]

1 hour ago, TidaLWaveZ said:

 

Saying watercooling is for novelty not for performance is a serious generalization.

 

That statement makes no mention of money, so we're not talking about price for performance, we're talking about straight performance.

 

I agree that it's absolutely a novelty thing when looking at it from a budgeted standpoint, but in terms of straight performance regardless of price a serious custom loop will destroy the best air cooler as it pulls the heat away much better.

 

 

 

Want to argue...  Cant stop!!! Aahahha....

 

"regardless of price"  Wow I if you live in a world regardless of price why are you on LTT?

 

Your choice

 $700 Water cooling

 $375 5820K

 $650 SLI 970

Alternative #1 Productivity

$1000 5960x

$650  SLI 970

Alternative #2 Gaming

 $375 5820x

 $1400 SLI 980Ti

 

Everything has to do with price...  the fact is that unless you have the BEST CPU and the BEST GPU's then your better off putting the money towards an upgrade.   And if your work load wouldn't benefit from having 2-4 extra threads/cores, then it wont benefit from 5% more OC...

 

 

 

[TidaLWaveZ]

2 hours ago, ryanmmax said:

 

Want to argue...  Cant stop!!! Aahahha....

 

"regardless of price"  Wow I if you live in a world regardless of price why are you on LTT?

 

Your choice

 $700 Water cooling

 $375 5820K

 $650 SLI 970

Alternative #1 Productivity

$1000 5960x

$650  SLI 970

Alternative #2 Gaming

 $375 5820x

 $1400 SLI 980Ti

 

Everything has to do with price...  the fact is that unless you have the BEST CPU and the BEST GPU's then your better off putting the money towards an upgrade.   And if your work load wouldn't benefit from having 2-4 extra threads/cores, then it wont benefit from 5% more OC...

 

 

 

I've agreed with absolutely everything you've said in regards to how poor of an economic decision it is to water cool vs air cool. I've purchased everything in my current PC piecewise over the course of 3 or so years, one or two pieces at a time when I win bids on eBay or when I travel to Ohio for work and pass a Microcenter(300$ 5820k).  I didn't build my loop until after I had been using air for years. I started with just a cpu block then and slowly built it into a cpu and dual gpu loop.  If I was going all out from the get go, I would've easily gotten a 5960x and a higher end GPU.

 

The only thing I've disagreed with from the start is that it's a generalization to say water cooling is specifically a novelty and not for performance. It's a generalization in the way that no aircooler unless it was about a 2ft radius could reach the level of cooling offered by GPU/GPUs+CPU(even mono/MOSFET/chipset loops. Though the performance increase isn't worth the money, it's still the best performance you can get out of what you have.

 

I also totally understand that any arguments for the sake of water cooling are way out of line for this specific thread, in which AIO watercooling the CPU only offers aesthetic appeal.

[Hybrid Divide]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I think I'll go with an air cooler.  Should I get a Hyper 212 Evo, a Noctua, or something else, like Cryorig?

[Heesleemer]

19 hours ago, Hybrid Divide said:

Thanks for the replies.

 

I think I'll go with an air cooler.  Should I get a Hyper 212 Evo, a Noctua, or something else, like Cryorig?

what is your budget

the hyper 212 is over hyped and frankly not that great of a cooler. it's good for the price but the internet has a hard on for it.

If you can afford it

Noctua

Cryorig

Bequiet 

[Hybrid Divide]

On 3/2/2016 at 5:41 AM, Heesleemer said:

what is your budget

the hyper 212 is over hyped and frankly not that great of a cooler. it's good for the price but the internet has a hard on for it.

If you can afford it

Noctua

Cryorig

Bequiet 

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the reply!

 

I was thinking of going with Bequiet or Cryorig.  My biggest concern is about all the reports of bent Skylake chips.  

 

Kinda makes me wish I could go with a low profile cooler, like AMD's Wraith, as I'm betting a shorter heatsink wouldn't put so much pressure on the cpu, but I fear it wouldn't do a good job of cooling it.  I heard MSI was releasing a plate to combat chip cracks "CPU Guard 1151", but it's not out yet.

 

As for budget, I'd like to spend less than $100, but am open to any suggestion that isn't insane.

 

Any thoughts on the whole chip breaking thing?

[Heesleemer]

5 hours ago, Hybrid Divide said:

EDIT: Oh, and thanks for the reply!

 

I was thinking of going with Bequiet or Cryorig.  My biggest concern is about all the reports of bent Skylake chips.  

 

Kinda makes me wish I could go with a low profile cooler, like AMD's Wraith, as I'm betting a shorter heatsink wouldn't put so much pressure on the cpu, but I fear it wouldn't do a good job of cooling it.  I heard MSI was releasing a plate to combat chip cracks "CPU Guard 1151", but it's not out yet.

 

As for budget, I'd like to spend less than $100, but am open to any suggestion that isn't insane.

 

Any thoughts on the whole chip breaking thing?

It won't break only issues that came up was when companies were shipping the computers. 

 

Cryorig r1 ultimate is on sale on eBay for 75 you should take a look