Is a Water-Cooling System Necessary?

[CodeRed]

I was looking around the net for the coolest looking, tricked out computers and saw that very few of them had a water-cooling system. Are these cooling systems even necessary, unless you're planning on leaving your computer on for....months? I accidentally left my computer on for four weeks when I went on vacation a few years ago, and when I returned my computer was running fine. Even being on for such a long period of time, it could open up programs as quickly as it could when I first boot it up. In my opinion, I think a water-cooling system is just for show. I mean seriously, what could be cooler than having glowing water pipes meandering throughout in the inside of your computer? Now, I am not saying that a water-coolant are a bad source of lowering the temperature of your computer. Of course, in the near future, when computers become more powerful and give off a tremendous amount of heat, we will need to rely 100% on water-cooling systems. But until that day comes, I'm going to stick with my trusty fans, which are kinda jammed up with dust somehow...I gonna get that checked out.

[polobunny]

My computer runs 24/7, overclocked. No water cooling.
I don't think water cooling is needed. It's a little boy thing, you try it, you like it, but it's a bit foolish to stick with it for every rig you build. :P
There's plenty of things cooler. LN2 (liquid nitrogen) cooled computers, TEC cooled computers and phase change cooling to name a few. Sub zero temperatures can be obtained with those methods.

[stinger608]

It really is kind of a show thingy, and for those that do some serious overclocking that will heat up things like CPU, video card, chip set, etc...

for the normal user, no, don't go watercooling!!!! Whats the point, unless, like you said, for show!!!

[Tyreal]

It's cool and nice to have but certainly not necessary. I have one on my main rig but I don't think I would use it on the others in the house. It's fun to tinker with and I get great temperatures no matter what.

[stinger608]

Oh yea, and to add to my above post, I have left my system on for months at a time, and everything works just fine!!!

Hell, this system has been on since about the 2nd or 3rd of May!!!! No probs what so ever!!!!

[Tyreal]

I don't do it for show. I do it for temps. If you look at my techbench in the gallery, it's ugly as hell. But I get 36c load in a warm room.

As for those other components.... sink em!

[screwballl]

I have 6 PCs here that stay on 24/7 folding so they are all running at 100% cpu speed 24/7 (I will restart the windows based ones at least once a week but they go right back to 100%). Never had one yet that has died from doing this and not a 1 has WC.

[gvblake22]

I've never had a need for watercooling. I would only try it for the curiosity and experience of setting up such a system, but other than that I think it's a little too much money for not enough return...

[Hitman]

I have never used watercooling. I just can't justify the price for the little temp drop.

[simple_inhibition]

i went with watercooling so i could tinker with it and not worry about temps being an issue when overclocking. now heres the thing about it. its a pain in the butt to set up, takes up a lot of room and is expensive. but with a good watercooling setup your overclocks wont be limited by temps anymore. plus you can use the system in multiple computers for years. instead of having to buy a new aftermarket heatsink when a new socket or processor comes out you can pretty much use the same parts these days. at worst you may have to buy a new mounting bracket but those are usually only a few bucks. the biggest threat to current waterblocks (except the D-Tek Fuzion) is multicore processors.. im talking quadcore and above. in that case then a new block will more than likely be needed.

the trick to getting the most life out of your watercooling setup is to get the best radiator and pump you can afford at the time. thats why i went with a triple 120mm radiator even though all its cooling is my cpu.