Hard or Soft?

[TahoeDust]

What are the pros and cons of each?

[Stevoisboss]

I prefer to sit on the hard ones myself. 

[Guest]

I have never watercooled before but I know the biggest differences are:

Hard is harder to work with (Main difference)

Hard is more expensive (I think)

Hard looks nicer(IMO)

[Shreyas1]

Hard looks nicer but is harder to set up and upgrade hardware . Soft doesn't look as good but is easy to setup and upgrade parts such as cpu.

[Guest lilbman]

Hard

PROS

-Looks nicer

-Works better I believe(could be wrong)

 

CONS

-More expensive

-If something goes wrong, its a pain to disassemble

 

Soft

PROS

-Cheaper

-Easier to work with

-easy to disassemble if something goes wrong

 

CONS

-Doesn't look as good

 

I recommend soft for your first time water cooling.

[VolkA]

9 minutes ago, TahoeDust said:

What are the pros and cons of each?

Like they always say, once you go hard, you never go back.

[Ninja_Commander]

Hardline can be difficult to  mold and you need to have enough tubing in case of mistakes. They are not great to have when you have a mistake in your loop or need to check on your parts under the tubing.  So you have to drain it every time you have to work on your board, CPU, GPU, memory, etc.  But it looks great cause of how clean it make you loop look. Plus they don't leech alot like soft tubing.  

 

Soft tubing can be easier to use since you just need to see if you have enough length to the fittings.  They can also be great if you have to get to your CPU and/or GPU blocks for new paste or anything that needs to be done.  Which is also why those with test benches, like JayzTwoCents, uses on the cpu block for testing CPUs and swap out motherboards.  However they have the biggest issues which is leeching, even with the Primochill Advanced LTR tubing.  They can somehow cost more to get then hardline tubing.   Plus they dont look as clean as hardline cause the tubing can sag over time or get hard as well.

 

Now this is for both hard and soft, you need to get the right fittings based on what tubing you are using.  So make sure you check on your fittings and tubbing before you purchase them.  If its your first time going water cooling, go with soft for a few times, then once you feel , DARING, go hard line and hope you don't get a leak.

[YedZed]

Hard is easier to insert... Wait we are talking about tubing?

My point still stands...

[TahoeDust]

2 minutes ago, Ninja_Commander said:

Hardline can be difficult to  mold and you need to have enough tubing in case of mistakes. They are not great to have when you have a mistake in your loop or need to check on your parts under the tubing.  So you have to drain it every time you have to work on your board, CPU, GPU, memory, etc.  But it looks great cause of how clean it make you loop look. Plus they don't leech alot like soft tubing.  

 

Soft tubing can be easier to use since you just need to see if you have enough length to the fittings.  They can also be great if you have to get to your CPU and/or GPU blocks for new paste or anything that needs to be done.  Which is also why those with test benches, like JayzTwoCents, uses on the cpu block for testing CPUs and swap out motherboards.  However they have the biggest issues which is leeching, even with the Primochill Advanced LTR tubing.  They can somehow cost more to get then hardline tubing.   

 

Now this is for both hard and soft, you need to get the right fittings based on what tubing you are using.  So make sure you check on your fittings and tubbing before you purchase them.

Thanks can you explain what leaching is?  I don't mind the extra work and expense of going hard lines, but I do change hardware pretty often so soft lines may be better for me.

[Ninja_Commander]

Just now, TahoeDust said:

Thanks can you explain what leaching is?  I don't mind the extra work and expense of going hard lines, but I do change hardware pretty often so soft lines may be better for me.

Leeching is when the plastic in the tubing can get into the fluid, it'll mostly cause hardening, discoloration for both the tube and fluid, can get into your blocks causing restriction, and lastly it can cause a leak since it also has a rare chance of shrinking the tubing.

[For Science!]

Hard line can also be better of you need lots of tight bends that may be more likely to kink of you were using soft.

 

As counter intuitive as it may be, in a compact case, hard lining may be the only way to go.

[AnonymousGuy]

12 hours ago, For Science! said:

As counter intuitive as it may be, in a compact case, hard lining may be the only way to go.

Nah, you can treat soft tubing like hard tubing and use 90 degree plastic elbows for tight bends.  I have some in my avatar.

[PrimeSonic]

You can make soft tubing look good if you limit yourself to just short and straight runs.

 

 

[For Science!]

1 hour ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Nah, you can treat soft tubing like hard tubing and use 90 degree plastic elbows for tight bends.  I have some in my avatar.

I suppose when there is a will, there is a way =). Good job on all the plastic elbows, a lot of time must have gone into clamping down on all the barbs!