OT: Building a new computer...

[Atrocities]

Again, water cooling the cpu or more case fans? Which do you think or know, is better?

[Ragnarok]

Atrocities said:
Again, water cooling the cpu or more case fans? Which do you think or know, is better?

Unless you have an extreme gaming/performance machine that rivals anything near supercomputer power, I'd go with case fans.

Water cooling is neat and all, but I am not comfortable with water running through my computer.

Oh, and for all of you who helped me when I created this thread, thanks again! I have my new computer and it has been running smoothly for several weeks now. Grand total for just the PC was $735. I'll post specs later on.

[AstralWanderer]

Atrocities said:
Again, water cooling the cpu or more case fans? Which do you think or know, is better?

Water cooling should be more effective and (almost surely, depends on exact setup) quieter than case fans - but it does have complications...

1). You have to make sure that your setup is totally leak-proof (conventional wisdom is to run the cooling for 24 hours without the PC switched on, in order to check for leaks). If you are chilling the water to below-ambient temperatures (e.g. by using a phase change or thermo-electric cooler on the water) then you may also need to lag everything to prevent condensation from causing similar problems (depending on the chiller temperature and the dew point of your PC's surroundings).

2). You will need to use distilled water with additives to avoid algae buildup (not harmful but looks bad) and galvanic corrision. These additives will need topping up every year or so.

3). Hardware changes (new graphics card, extra RAM) are harder to do with water-cooling pipework in the way. You may also need to drain the system to swap out a water-cooled item (CPU, GPU).

There are a number of forums with more information on the more "esoteric" forms of cooling - Xtreme Systems being one of the largest and worth checking out for those interested.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

'then you may also need to lag everything to prevent condensation from causing similar problems'

- I'm not familar with that use of the word lag and others may not be, either.

[Slick]

In most mechanical lingo: lag = thermally insulate

[AstralWanderer]

Lag = slang for insulate.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Thanks.

My Dad's found eight or nine definitions for 'Slew' and it's various...Word-alike-thingees.

[Randallw]

As far as I know slew means when a car pivots horizontally on a road. What might be called jack-knifing for trucks. Granted that involves pivotting at the join between trailers but hopefully you get the idea.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

It also applies to boats.

Another definition is the past form of slay.

That's all I can remember.

[capnq]

narf poit chez BOOM said:My Dad's found eight or nine definitions for 'Slew' and it's various...Word-alike-thingees.

Synonyms, if you mean "means the same"; homonyms or homophones, if you mean "sounds the same".