I'm curious what kind of air cooler they expect to work on a 550W GPU. Or a 270W CPU. Put them together in a smaller case and you have an oven sitting there.
Yeah, for every generation since Maxwell I've tossed the idea around of making a custom loop for the improved acoustics and overclocks. However, since I ususally get AIB cards, there ends up being a waiting game for someone to make a custom block for one. By the time it comes out, and I do the math for all the parts, I'm usually looking at another grand on top of the ridiculous amounts I've already spent on the cards themselves. Meanwhile, as you've said, the gains are getting smaller and smaller.Wow. And there I was thinking that water cooling may no longer be necessary...
Thought process:
I got into water cooling because I wanted to get the most out of my overclocks, and also didn't want to listen to loud fans.
The thing is, overclocking gets more and more difficult every generation due to how smaller process nodes tend to scale less well with voltage, and due to how manufacturers are much better at binning these days than back in the day.
Also, air cooling solutions are much more effective these days.
I remember back when I randomly won the silicone lottery with a GTX470. I had it running at above 480 performance levels, but the stock blower cooler sounded like an absolute hair dryer.
Fast forward to last night. I repasted and reinstalled the air cooler on my old Pascal Titan X because it might be easier to sell that way (water loops are common on latest gen hardware, but who wants to run a water loop on older stuff?) I was impressed at how civilized the air cooler on that thing was both at stock speeds, and even if manipulated to run at 100%.
I was thinking to myself, with perf per watt increasing with every node, and overclocking becoming less and less of a thing, and air coolers being so much more civilized than they used to, maybe water cooling is slowly just becoming more trouble than it is worth?
Yeah, for every generation since Maxwell I've tossed the idea around of making a custom loop for the improved acoustics and overclocks. However, since I ususally get AIB cards, there ends up being a waiting game for someone to make a custom block for one. By the time it comes out, and I do the math for all the parts, I'm usually looking at another grand on top of the ridiculous amounts I've already spent on the cards themselves. Meanwhile, as you've said, the gains are getting smaller and smaller.
The real $$$backwards part of it all is that most AIBs do not have a liquid-cooled card that uses their custom PCBs with the increased clocks. It's almost always a reference or similar, design that they've slapped a block on. I think the EVGA Kingpin is one of the few but getting ahold of one of those is even harder than anything else so they might as well not even exist.
I'm curious what kind of air cooler they expect to work on a 550W GPU. Or a 270W CPU. Put them together in a smaller case and you have an oven sitting there.
Very true, I still have my custom loop stuff that's 15+ years old, would still work fine if I dusted it off.Yeah, the only thing I'll say in defense of water cooling is that the big bucks are a one time cost. (and be sure to budget for fittings and bends as they add up)
I still do it for performance and noise levels, but I've had to go big in order to keep the noise down, which is why I have a 1000D case.Very true, I still have my custom loop stuff that's 15+ years old, would still work fine if I dusted it off.
That said, it was a very fun hobby, but now I don't fool with it any more. Chips have much better thermal management. AIOs and Air coolers are much less expensive and nearly as effective -- and much easier to work around than needing to drain/refill/bleed every time I want to swap a component.
But man, when they are done right, nothing beats the look of a slick custom loop.
That's a big one for me too. There's always so many projects and after the time I spend on computers for work, or tweaking any of the 3 rigs in the house, I want what little time is left for play. The budget isn't a major concern as I try to keep other expenses down so I can play, but time is crucial.i just don't have the time!