Liquid Cooling vs Air Cooling

[Master Ghaleon]

I am looking to buy a new computer. I have looked at some Dell computers and Alienware computers too. I see that Alienware computers come with liquid cooling. I never had a computer with liquid cooling before and I am of need of help. Is liquid cooling that much better then air? If I get a liquid cooling system will I have to have maintence on the tubes/pipes? Will I need to change the coolant like every 6 months? Is it expensive to buy the coolant?

[AtmaWeapon]

I'm a little biased against it. If you require very high-end components, liquid cooling can quickly become the only feasible option for keeping your computer at a safe operating temperature. At this level, everything is top of the line, everything is overclocked, and everything is less stable than it otherwise could be. For the most part, you know Dell isn't going to be selling something liquid cooled unless it's idiot-proof (Alienware counts in this category now too since Dell owns them.) I have no idea about coolant replacement; most of the time I've seen watercooled systems and I never read about replacing it. I know for sure I'd be doing a quick inspection for leaks every month or so.

Do you really need that fast a computer? It seems like you're at least looking at the Area 51, and I'd imagine you could just slap more RAM in the plain-Jane Aurora for a significant savings without sacrificing much power. Unless you just *have* to run your games at the highest resolution possible, it seems a lot more sensible to start with the lower end and upgrade. Either way, by this time next year a high-end PC gaming addict will need an upgrade to keep pace; would you rather have wasted $1,200 or $2,000 when you have to rip out the guts and replace them?

Also jeez, an extra $800 and they don't throw in a 10k RPM or solid state drive? I highly doubt an incremental graphics card upgrade and 3GB of RAM costs $800. The ALX vs. the Area 51 is somewhat sensible as you get a 2nd graphics card for $200, though my experiences with SLI weren't too thrilling. What's the $1k for an Area 51 ALX get you? A slightly faster CPU, ATI cards which are dreaded for their shoddy driver support, and a RAID 0? That's a ripoff. RAID 0 combines 2 drives to make 1 super drive that's faster but has no redundancy. Because of the striping and lack of redundancy, if one drive fails you lose the data on both drives. Yuck. I'd rather have a single SSD for $1k than cut my mean time to failure in half.

At the prices Alienware is charging for the hardware you get, I'm curious if you should just shop elsewhere or build it yourself. This SSD drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227395) will run circles around a RAID 0 of 7.2k SATAs for $400; that leaves plenty of budget for a $100 1TB drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136236), or you can buy 2 and still be under 1K. Those ATI cards are ~$400 a piece, but the nVidia cards they replace are $350 a piece. That Intel i7 960 is a $300 upgrade from the i7 920. So if you spend $2k to go from the Aurora ALX to the Area 51 ALX, you get roughly $500 worth of hardware upgrades for your $1,000 input. (Perhaps it has a different motherboard/power supply, but I doubt that makes up for $500 worth of cost difference.)

The only sensibly priced computer on that site is the Aurora. Everything else has a pretty big margin on the upgrades, and in many cases I'd imagine the performance difference is nil unless you are running 3 instances of FarCry 2 simultaneously on 3 different monitors. This is what Alienware has always been: $2,000 computers with a paintjob sold for $3,500 to suckers that think the brand on the case means anything.

[Master Ghaleon]

ATM I am looking at the Aurora vs the XPS 9000. The XPS 9000, if you buy it before 6 am tommorow it is like 440 dollars off so I am kinda going back and forth on the 2. I don't need the top of the top but I just want something that will last me a long time

[Nicholas Steel]

Liquid cooling can be more effective but the main reason people go for (afaik) is the low noise factor. the water chiller refrigerator thing won't be loud where as a fan will probably give you a headache after extended listening time.

[AtmaWeapon]

Buying a rig to last a long time is somewhat suggestive to your needs.

I use my computer for browser games, email, .NET development, and the occasional indie PC game. The PC games are usually developed for computers that are 2-3 generations old to increase their potential audience. I got a $700 computer from BB with a Core 2 Quad, 6GB of RAM, and an OK nVidia card. Even at the ridiculous rate that software is scaling, the only reason I see myself getting another one in less than 5 years is my financial situation is going to improve dramatically over that period of time.

Here's some ugly truths about the "upgrade" models of computers. The i7 is a great chip, and much better than the Core 2 Quad I'm using. But clock speed is a very mysterious and voodoo number these days. Back when I bought parts for my last PC, AMD was king of the CPU. Their 1.7 Ghz Athlon 64 was capable of outperforming the newest 3.0 Ghz Intel whatever was released at that time. Why? AMD had a more efficient architecture that didn't need a higher clock speed. For analogy, assume you need to dig a 100 square foot hole that's 30 feet deep. AMD brought a backhoe to the jobsite. Intel brought 150 day laborers with shovels and amphetamines. Intel's learned from this and clock speeds are mostly irrelevant now unless you have identical architectures. I'm going to bet you that by the time you'll start to notice a performance difference between an i7 920 and an i7 960 it will be time to upgrade to whatever newer CPU is on the market anyway. Add to all of this you are buying from Dell/Alienware, who might be using proprietary motherboards and mounting patterns that aren't compatible with the motherboard or PSU you buy, and you see why enthusiasts tend to build even though it's more expensive.

And that's really the conundrum for a PC gamer. If you want to play cutting-edge games, "a long time" for you is going to be 2 years maximum. At the end of that cycle, you will need a new graphics card, and the high-end ones tend to start at $300 or $400. If the new graphics cards have higher power requirements you'll need a new power supply starting at $150, with good ones averaging $200. If the motherboard power standard has changed, you might need a new one of those starting at $100, and it's going to take a while to verify that what you find will fit a Dell/Alienware case. Odds are there will be a new CPU socket, which means you'll need a new CPU for $300. If it's not the CPU, it will definitely be a new generation of RAM for $200. So in 2 years, you might be looking at a $900-$1500 upgrade cost. Pick liquid cooling, and you'll have to worry about whether your waterblock is compatible with the new components; odds are you'll want to replace some components anyway. I'd replace fans at 2 years in a home-built system anyway after my experiences with the last one.

It sounds like paranoia, but it happened to me. My plan was to build a $1,500 computer and spend $200-$300 a year on keeping it current. What happened instead was a new, better CPU socket was introduced within a year, along with DDR2. So my DDR RAM doubled in price compared to newer DDR2. But upgrading to DDR2 required a new motherboard; the ones with my socket were now 75% higher cost. So if I got the cheaper motherboards, I needed a new CPU. There was also the problem that for some reason I chose a motherboard with a slightly uncommon power connector, so I'd need a new PSU if I replaced it as well. So within a year of buying my machine, upgrading my RAM could cause me to upgrade motherboard, CPU, and PSU; that was 60% of the cost of the machine! In the end, I just upgraded the video card when a cheap one showed up on woot.com, and I learned to avoid the high end like the plague.

YMMV, but IMO buying a top-of-the-line computer is foolish these days. They have a huge margin for the seller and all you're buying is maybe 10% extra lifetime.

[biggiy05]

Water cooling for the every day PC user is not worth the money. Prior to the system I'm running now I had a custom modified case with a DangerDen cooling system. I bought all the parts for the system, put it together, leak tested, etc. The system Alienware uses is inferior to most other systems. It's just a way for them to raise the price.

You're better off building your own PC, having a friend build one for you or asking said friend to help you build one. I am not a fan of Dell because of all the "extra" software they put on their systems, very few if any upgrade options and tech support is terrible. I have an HP laptop that I love and the desktops are just as nice even though they come with some of the extra software I take off right away.

Save your money and don't buy an Alienware or a water cool Alienware system.

[MottZilla]

If you are looking for a new computer and want to customize, give this place a look.
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

I bought my PC from them, customized all the parts I wanted, they built it and I got it with no problems, just want I wanted. My brother bought a PC from them before me and also had no troubles. The prices seemed competitive atleast when I bought it.

I agree that Alienware is overpriced. They always have been. And people assume the high price means that it's hot shit but it's not.

[Master Ghaleon]

Thanks for the input ;) I went ahead and choose the Dell XPS 9000. I built one very simular to the Alienware Aurora that I was fooling around with and saw a 1000 dollar price difference. Just about all hte same stuff plus monitor, surge protector and a 2 year warrenty for 2,000 on the 9000. For the Alienware final price was 3,100. What also changed the final price was the promo so I got like 440 dollars off the 9000. If I didnt have the promo it would of been 2500. Alienware looks badass but I didnt have 3k to blow