At one point in PC time, liquid cooling was considered pure folly. Few enthusiasts could afford to take their chances with liquid-cooling hardware or components that weren’t necessarily compatible with a silicon environment. Original liquid-cooling hardware consisted of plumbing fixtures and hand-milled water blocks, all made in the hope of creating a watertight system that never leaked and could efficiently transfer heat away from core components. Back then, the average PC enthusiast wasn’t very concerned with how a PC looked. Today, liquid cooling has become a bonafide trend in custom builds. In this guide, we dive into the perks, aesthetics, and necessary components of water cooling, so you can decide whether your custom PC can benefit from the little law of thermal and fluid mechanics.
Air Cooling vs. Water Cooling
Most modern central processing units come with stock air cooling solutions, but hardcore gamers look to aftermarket air cooling solutions for superior heat dissipation. Aftermarket air coolers employ copper base plates to dissipate heat through pipes. With the help of high-performance fans, these air coolers keep CPUs running at optimal temperatures. However, many of the aftermarket air coolers on the market are quite large and loud. Water cooling solutions are able to transfer heat much more efficiently than air, and they also allow your PC to run quietly. Fan control correlates with noise control and reduction.
Aesthetics of Liquid Cooling
PC enthusiasts pay much more attention to the look of their custom builds than ever before. Water cooling allows you to enhance the look of your build with braided cables, windowed side panels, LED lighting, and other features. With an all-in-one water cooler, you can save time and energy, as well as the peace of mind a warranty provides. Another option includes soft tubing loop made of neoprene, rubber, silicone, PVC or some other special compound. Tubing for liquid cooling is designed to withstand long periods of time without any deformation, degradation, or discoloration.
One of the most popular alternatives to soft tubing is hard tubing. Made from either acrylic plexiglass or polyethylene terephthalate (PETG), this kind of tubing can create an entirely different look by utilizing straight lines and angles. If you’re looking for a clean and organized look, look no further than copper tubing. Copper tubes can be plated with nickel to achieve a more sophisticated look.
Now that you have a basic understanding of tubing requirements, you must also consider investing in a quality case, radiator, CPU block, GPU block, GPU backplate, memory block, reservoir, pump, compression fittings, angled fittings, bulkhead fittings, stop valves, coolant, and fans. Your CPU block must be compatible with the chip you want to cool. The fittings you choose will depend on the type of tubing you decide to use. Last but not least, you need to consider how you plan to output all that heat. Radiators are the ultimate solution, and you will need to take a closer look at fins per inch (FPI) to determine how much static pressure you will need to effectively move cool air through the radiator.
Finding the components you need is easy, and then you can plan your loop to keep hardware cool to your heart’s content. We recommend planning your loop visually to save time in the long run. After choosing the chassis, fittings, and loops, you should organize your cables and prime your loop for operation. Water cooling is an excellent choice for PC gamers that want to build a beautiful but quiet workstation.
Runs insanely good. I get no lag and can cap my games at 600 fps and my frames don’t drop.
This is my first gaming specific PC and its awesome. Performance is superb.
I'm very happy with my new laptop. I had issues in the past with my system overheating and I included heat control options and I'm pleased to report that it's working. The system can also process more complex items, without showing signs of lagging. The timing was build was good, I followed the tracking and it was nice to know where the device was in the process.
The hardware is perfectly fine, but the overstock software used causes issues with windows 11 and causes blue screen(mini dump - driver issue) the exact file is ntoskrnl.exe DIRVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE.
When I contacted for help to resolve the problem, they just kept wanting me to download more and more diagnostic software and never solved the problem because their office was closing and I had Graduate School classes the next morning at 8am. So don't rely on their customer service...they talk big but don't live up to their own hype. I ultimately had to call a couple of IT friends I have and they helped me fix the issue that evening (starting with Uninstalling the overstock software) and then had me up and running in time for class. So unless you have IT friends, don't trust XOTIC PC on the software side of things. They can clearly physically build a good computer, but they don't know what they are doing when it comes to software, and you'll need a specialist to fix any issues. Next computer i order, I will get the hardware and assembly from XOTIC but I will definitely NOT get any software from them. I will handle my own software and consult a specialist. Just be aware that you wont get the software help you need when you need it from XOTIC PC.