In the next 1-2 months I am hoping to buy my first liquid cooled PC. I have found that some people have had issues with the fragility of liquid cooled systems during shipping. For those who have had pre-assembled liquid cooled systems shipped to them...is this something I need to worry about?
Got my system from iBuyPower and it has liquid cooling for the CPU. From what I remember, iBuyPower had a rather large foam insert inside the PC case to keep everything in place during shipping. I just had to open the case and remove the insert and verify nothing had moved or gotten disconnected. PC fired up perfectly. No problems on arrival (Dec 2019) or since.
Mine is liquid-cooled but I bought it at Best Buy myself and then just brought it home. It is so much quieter than my old one with the fans running all the time. There were times I thought it was going to take flight.
^Yeah if I have one complaint about my older ASUS desktop it is the volume of the fans. It's a relief when they shut down, which is why I am interested in liquid cooling. Most likely I am going to get a pre-built from Amazon. But the odd reports I hear, here and there, about their fragility has given me pause.
Quote from: Sir Slash on October 03, 2020, 11:44:51 AM
Mine is liquid-cooled but I bought it at Best Buy myself and then just brought it home. It is so much quieter than my old one with the fans running all the time. There were times I thought it was going to take flight.
I agree. My last one that was not liquid cooled sounded like a WW2 prop plane revving up.
I've had two liquid cooled machines and they were shipped to me without incident. My old one was hauled several hundred miles in a car, without incident.
I'm getting a new liquid cooled one for our second home in the next two weeks (cross your fingers) and will be moving it several hundred miles to the new place.
One last thing. Falcon Northwest has been doing liquid cooled machines for more than a decade. If anyone has the bugs worked out, they do. But they are more expensive than other machines. My new rig (with monitor & mouse) ran $4,500.
Thanks AB. 4500 is too steep for me but I will check out Falcon NW to see if they have anything liquid cooled for between 3000 and 3500.
Why do you feel you need a liquid cooled machine ?
My PC (i7-9700k with Geforce RTX 2070 in an Antec case) is air cooled and is extremely quit.
It was custom made in my computer store and we never discussed the need for any other cooling system.
If your PC makes to much noise just play some Slayer and the sound will not bother you anymore :)).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol87N0nxfVs&list=PLAmczQUdwN1l5Ci-DkauXraAPDlHbtOT_
The noise my current rig makes irritates me now that I have noticed it. I guess I could get a standard machine cooled by fans but I would like to go in the liquid cooled direction.
Quote from: Gusington on October 03, 2020, 01:45:47 PM
The noise my current rig makes irritates me now that I have noticed it. I guess I could get a standard machine cooled by fans but I would like to go in the liquid cooled direction.
I have an ASUS desktop with fans. The fans were very loud to the point I sometimes had to turn up the volume on the TV etc. Then a fan started to make a vibration noise indicating something was wrong. I took the computer into the shop and they replaced one fan.
The guy told me the fan must have been really loud. He added that I would hardly hear a thing now with the exact same type of fan (same type & model just new). I was surprised to find out he was correct. Now I often can't tell when the fans kick in. I think the old fan probably started to go bad at least a year before I had it repaired. It got incrementally louder over many months so I didn't realize it was getting louder. I thought it was normal and it had always been loud (kind of embarrassed to admit that). Only when the vibration started did I finally understand something was wrong.
You might have a fan that is in the process of going out.
I'm not trying to talk you out of a liquid cooled machine. They have their advantages and I'm also interested in getting one someday. But you might be able to replace a fan on the ASUS and buy a liquid cooled machine. Then you would have two functional rigs. That would be .......... Cool. ;D :)
^HA definitely. But as is tradition here at home, my younger daughter will be getting the older machine, and will probably never notice the fan noise, even if it is an aging fan. I don't think it is because the noise has always been consistent. Not particularly loud but loud enough to irritate when noticed.
Which leaves me to decide whether liquid cooling is worth the possibility of something getting damaged in shipping.
Right now the little kid in me says 'yes of course it's worth it.' New gaming PCs are the one expensive extravagance I allow myself. I save tons of money for my daughters college funds and family in general, so...whenever I make a purchase like this I like to go all out :)
I'm with airboy for custom built rigs and Pete Dero for air cooling. Falcon NW rigs are superb! I'm on my 5th rig of theirs (over the last 20 yrs. or so) and it's 3 1/2 years old, air cooled and, now that I'm listening for it, I can barely here any fan noise at all. I paid $3157.29 for it. Check 'em out... you won't regret it.
Hmm 3157 is not bad at all.
Woops. Bad info... :-[
I dug out the spec sheet and was reminded that the reason it's so quiet is that it's primarily liquid cooled with an additional fan (Scythe 120MM - 500RPM)
other components
MOBO - ASUS - STRIX Z2703 GAMING
Processor - Intel Core I5 7600K - 4.2GHZ - 4 Core
Memory - G.SKILL RIPJAWS4 - 16GB - 2400MHZ - DDR4
Video Card - EVGA - GEFORCE GTX 1070 - 8GB
System Drive - INTEL 600P 1TB SSD
Data Drive - Western Digital Red 3TB Hard Drive
Optical Drive - ASUS - BLUE-RAY READER - BLACK (for Netflix)
$3127 did not include monitor, keyboard or mouse. The documentation that I have doesn't say how much of the total cost was shipping but it, obviously, would be more from Oregon to N.Y. than it is from Oregon to my home in the Seattle area.
Got it, thank you!