Overclocking with water cooling or air cooling?
Overclocking with water cooling or air cooling?
I'm looking to boost my CPU's performance but am unsure whether watercooling or aircooling is the better choice. I've thought about options like a Hyper212 Evo or a H100i V2. While watercooling can leak, it's uncommon. I want something affordable under $100 and quiet. Do you have any advice on what to choose?
Air cooling works well for the FX-6300. A hyper212 EVO should reach up to around 4.65 ghz on the chip, whereas watercooling could push it to about 4.85 ghz. These results are only under perfect conditions. Your specific chip might hit its limit at 4.5ghz, and the impact of watercooling would be negligible. When it comes to overclocking, your power supply unit is crucial—ensure you have a solid one. Your motherboard could also be a limiting factor, potentially creating another bottleneck. I’d recommend air cooling if that’s your preference. Watercooling demands all components to perform at their peak and can leak.
I aim to boost my CPU performance but am unsure whether to choose watercooling or aircooling. I’ve looked into the Hyper 212 EVO and the H100i V2. Watercooling is known to leak, though that’s uncommon. It fits my budget under $100 and offers quiet operation. Could anyone recommend what to pick? My specs are: CPU-Amd Fx-6300 at 3.5GHz, GPU Sapphire Vapor-x R9-290 with 4GB RAM, 8GB DDR3, motherboard Mobo-MSI760gma-p34, and case Phanteks p400s. The Hyper 212 EVO should work well up to 4.5-4.6GHz with a slight voltage increase. For OC, I don’t need water cooling; targeting 4.7-4.8GHz usually isn’t worth the power draw or heat. However, the 760GMA board isn’t ideal for overclocking—it requires a strong VRM with a solid chipset and cooling to achieve higher speeds. You might try staying at stock voltage and see if you can reach around 4.4GHz, or consider a better board like the Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P. Also, as Woohoopy notes, overclocking depends on luck with the chip design. My FX 9590 consistently hits 4.90-4.92GHz at just 1.40-1.4125V core, but reaching 5.0GHz stable would require a jump to 1.475—definitely not worth it.
I own a rosewill arc-750 psu and am certain it isn't drawing all the voltage, but someone advised me to replace the CPU and motherboard instead of upgrading the motherboard. Also, I have an Enermax ets-n30r-taa cooler but believe I should return it to get the Hyper212 Evo.