Priced about the same, who wins in terms of price/performance? Air cooling or Water?

The AMD Asetek liquid cooler for the FX-8150 is decent but the fans are really (really) really noisy when at max. i am going to substitute Noctua fans for my sanity but that would raise the price by $60. i wrote about it a little in my Chaser MK-I review and more on the topic

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24275

i gather there is no advantage in noise for water vs air cooling. And only the really expensive watercoolers beat even the really expensive air cooling.

Anyway, i am going to test the Frio and FrioOCK against the AMD liquid cooler .... expect an article or two this week. i got the FX-8150 to 4.8GHz and i will retest against my i7-920 (over 4.0GHz, i hope) - in my earlier article i could only get 4.4GHz stable (and later 4.6GHZ with my Thermalright UltraExtreme120).
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/amds-fx- ... er-arrives

I'm not a fan of watercooling at all. I think air cooling is the best bet. You can get an excellent HSF for $20 these days that will be only marginally worse than a cheap watercooling setup.

If they are priced the same and perform the same, the air cooler is better because you don't have to worry about leaks and maintenance.

i cant wait to see whatya gets

Water cooling is a gimmick in the consumer market. It may have some application in the nutter end of the enthusiast market if you know what you are doing and purchase a proper, out out case water cooling setup, but, these mini water coolers are nothing but a gimmick designed to separate gullible fools and their money.

It it works, why is it a gimmick?

i just set up my first one and i don't see anything wrong with it except for the fans which are Evercool and particularly noisy at high rpm. However, i got a pretty good OC that i am unsure that i will match on air


What maintenance? They are sealed. And leaks are pretty unlikely.

I always thought that you had to flush out the system periodically.

That's decent if they don't leak and you don't have to do anything to them.

More expensive, noisier, more complex and less reliable than competing cooling solutions, and guaranteed to leak and possibly destroy your system at some point.

http://www.asetek.com/partner-products/ ... oling.html


interestingly it says - • Supports Overclocking to 4.8GHz1
- which is what i got


http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1743/1/
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1743/8/

Wow! What a DIFFERENCE with real cooling fans!!

The Same AMD-branded Asetek cooler (formerly with noisy as hell Everflow - not Evercool- fans) but now substituted with a pair of Noctua NF-F12 PWM fans .. the highest temp at 4.8GHz now is 68C - down from 71C with the stock fans.

Best of all, my OC now appears to be stable at 4.8GHz AND ... the system is reasonably quiet even with the Noctua fans even on HIGH; at low, you cannot hear them at all (unlike with the Everflow fans on low which don't cool well)


This is my next short "article" - up tomorrow.

... but not with stability unless you spend $60 on replacement fans apparently.