CPU-cooling assistance

[Gorion]

Well, it's priced around the 690 price point when they were released; which had the "unique" titanium look heatsink.

Fast forward to the 700 series, and the "unique" heatsink is now standard.  So you never really know.

[Chaosphere]

Full custom loop, more headroom for overclocking and you can tie in your GPU. And pretty colours if you want

This is changing though, and will continue to do so as all chips get more power efficient and produce less heat.

For example, with my delidded haswell running under a h100i, the limiting factor with overclocking is not temperature - its the voltage and the damage high voltages will do to the chip 24/7 (extreme volts are fine for benchmarks, when heat is controlled, but 24/7 you will degrade the chip fast if you're pumping ridiculous volts through it, no matter how cold it is kept).

When I OCd it, I hit the voltage ceiling where more volts would seriously have damaged / reduced the lifespan way before temperatures (which max'd out around the 80 mark, 20 or so degrees away from throttling) became a problem.

I honestly don't think there is any modern chip you 'need' a custom loop to get the most out of. Perhaps some of the horrendous AMD GPUs that ran hotter than the sun benefit from it, but most CPUs and GPUs now simply run into other issues before temperature becomes a problem, as long as they are under a good 'enough' heatsink.


This trend will only grow and grow, and soon enough we will be running BF4 on 4k monitors from PCs the size of phones with no watercooling or hefty heatsinks in sight. Its the inevitable progression of the tech.


Despite all of this, watercooling is great fun and I did love building my PC when I tried it, it just isn't a long-term solution (pardon the pun) for me. Too much expense for little to no point.

[Vargen]

This is changing though, and will continue to do so as all chips get more power efficient and produce less heat.

For example, with my delidded haswell running under a h100i, the limiting factor with overclocking is not temperature - its the voltage and the damage high voltages will do to the chip 24/7 (extreme volts are fine for benchmarks, when heat is controlled, but 24/7 you will degrade the chip fast if you're pumping ridiculous volts through it, no matter how cold it is kept).

When I OCd it, I hit the voltage ceiling where more volts would seriously have damaged / reduced the lifespan way before temperatures (which max'd out around the 80 mark, 20 or so degrees away from throttling) became a problem.

I honestly don't think there is any modern chip you 'need' a custom loop to get the most out of. Perhaps some of the horrendous AMD GPUs that ran hotter than the sun benefit from it, but most CPUs and GPUs now simply run into other issues before temperature becomes a problem, as long as they are under a good 'enough' heatsink.


This trend will only grow and grow, and soon enough we will be running BF4 on 4k monitors from PCs the size of phones with no watercooling or hefty heatsinks in sight. Its the inevitable progression of the tech.


Despite all of this, watercooling is great fun and I did love building my PC when I tried it, it just isn't a long-term solution (pardon the pun) for me. Too much expense for little to no point.

Hmmm, suddenly I get the urge to buy a huge 4k monitor, remove the back-cover and make a new back-cover with a built-in m-itx pc inside it. Some PCI-e extenders to angle the GFX card an it should be possible :g:

[Chaosphere]

http://www.pcgamer.com/gigabyte-introduces-the-first-mini-itx-gtx-970/

Perfect GPU for your adventures