PC Replacing CPU Watercooler - Advice needed

[vindaloo79]

Hi,

I have a gaming PC from 2016.

The vital stats are:

Asus Intel Z170 Maximus 8 Formula 3-way RGB ATX Motherboard
Intel® Core™ i7-6700K Quad Core Processor (Skylake,4.0GHz-4.2GHz Turbo, 8MB Cache)
[b]Raijintek Triton 240mm High Performance AIO Water Cooling Solution - RED Coolant
Overclock Configuration - (professionally overclocked by our engineers)[/b]
32GB 3000MHz DDR4 Memory (4x8GB) Memory Kit - Corsair [upg £ 132.50]
6GB ASUS POSEIDON Platinum -GTX980TI Gaming Graphics Card, delivers 9.6% faster game performance than reference design [upg £ 42.50]
500GB M.2 SATA SSD - Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive [upg £ 55.00]
2TB Seagate Barracuda SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms NCQ [upg £ 15.00]

The Watercooler has now Kaput. Which is this one: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/raijintek-triton-24...

After not using it since a house move last year, when I turned on the PC and did software updates after 30 mins it overheated and either shutdown or told me to. The Pump in the water cooler (I'm guessing) sounded like a vacuum cleaner.

I am wondering whether to replace this with something similar or move to as quiet a fan as I can find. Budget is whatever (£50-120 seems comfortable). I am mostly working on multiple VM's at same time and may occasionally play something. Haven't been pushing the GPU at all since purchase, haven't managed to find the time or games addictive enough when i did have the time. Though I haven't tried Fortnite etc.

Could anyone who knows what they are doing proffer any advice: I'm looking for simplest way to get this from overheating when I turn it on. And want it silent.

Many thanks

[JaredVannett]

Dark Rock Pro 4

https://www.bequiet.com/en/cpucooler/1378

I have installed once recently, it's an exceptional cooler - very quiet too.

I have used AIO liquid coolers before, they are very good with regards to performance as long as the radiator is 240mm or greater. Some of them do require maintenance and can produce noise if mounted incorrectly (air bubbles).

The Dark Rock Pro is a fan based cooler (2 fans), and it's made by "be-quiet", so there is an emphasis on low noise.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/QUIET-Dark-Silent-Wings-C...


Lots of reviews on the web, good luck

[vindaloo79]

Thanks for that reply. The sizes of those look to wide for the space i have available and appear it would be touching the RAM.

I have phoned the supplier (MESH PC's) up on off chance they will be helpful out of warranty and after a brief discussion they have suggested this will give me a plug and play replacement;

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/corsair-hydro-serie...

The pricing they are offering is competitive and willing to advise me of any tedious bios/device manager settings I need to configure which is nice. I guess This is going to be the simplest way forwards, maybe not cheapest but I haven't the appetite for researching this to death.

[smithyithy]

I'd probably switch to air cooling if I was in your position, unless you're doing any serious amounts of CPU-intensive gaming or modelling etc a good quality air cooler (Cooler Master's Hyper 212 EVO has been the go-to blower for years in the gaming PC community it seems) then it's probably better to do without the AIO.

If you do decide to get one though, can I advise against NZXT. I have their Kraken X61 and although the hardware has been relatively trouble-free (touch wood), their CAM software is an absolute pile of hot garbage.

[Lazadude]

You don't mention what case you have. As previously mentioned by others, anything smaller than a decent 240mm Rad, then you are better off with a decent air cooler.

Hyper 212's are sub £20 and are on par with a decent 360mm Rad if you have the space.

[julian64]

I had almost the opposite experience unhelpfully.

Not used a fan cooler for years. Currently building up a 5gh overclocked 9900K. Even when I was running much less ambitious than that I found even the most expensive fan coolers much less effective than even a 120mm radiator.

The last few years have been AIO 240mm with no maintenance and no problems. Only one attempt at a custom water cooler build but it was such a faf and when it was going it was pretty, but less effective than the AIO.

I've not managed to see much difference between 240 and 360 AIOs for the sort of overclocks I've had. So I've never seen the need to stray far from a good 240 AIO.

I think its because a fan cooler is very dependant on the temperature of the air around the motherboard and inside the case cos that's all it has to suck from, and then you have to keep messing with case fans to get cool air within range for the cpu cooler

radiator coolers however are plonked on the outside of the case and therefore always get the benefit of cooler air.

Your choice but all my hard earned goes on watercoolers. I have a big box in my loft of fan coolers collecting dust.

[130R]

Air coolers have really nothing to go wrong and comparable performance, but you do end up with a massive lump of metal hanging off the motherboard and the bigger ones can interfere with RAM.

AIO can/will fail (this has happened to me twice, including a EKWB one that leaked) but you usually get at least a 3-year warranty (Corsair will give you 5 years and NZXT 6 Years). Something like the be quiet! 240mm Silent Loop should be a plug and play replacement. You just need to fit the relevant backplate and then plug/screw it in. They usually come with thermal paste already applied or a small tube of something decent.

[julian64]

Actually just to say I currently have a 6700K running at 4600 for a number of years on a simple AIO 240mm cooler on a maximus board. So very close if not identical to your setup. Its got a 980ti graphic and 16gh and to be honest there isn't a single game which it cant do well.

[vindaloo79]

Many thanks for everyones input. Company funds are paying for it so I don't feel the need to penny pinch. But appreciate water-cooled is probably overkill for my current usage.

I''ll have a think on it and order tomorrow for now.

Fortunately I still have a MacBook Pro for mobile usage which feels so hot you could cook an egg on the where a touch bar would be if it had one when running two external monitors when opened.

[vindaloo79]

julian64 said:

Actually just to say I currently have a 6700K running at 4600 for a number of years on a simple AIO 240mm cooler on a maximus board. So very close if not identical to your setup. Its got a 980ti graphic and 16gh and to be honest there isn't a single game which it cant do well.

I will have to find some games which will stretch the system in this case. Maybe I shall have to try Fortnite eventually after all...