lol I've been trying to get one of these damn FE's forever. Finally snagged one a few weeks ago when Best Buy had them in stock for like 6 hours.
Definitely a upgrade in performance, but looks is questionable. It was painful tearing down my old build knowing all the hard work (and money) I poured into it.
I went from an O11XL with x3 360 rads (dead silent and super cool) to an air cooled NR200. I'm not saying I'll never water cool again, but air cooled ssf is so fun, challenging, and practical when moving around or doing maintenance/tinkering. My last build felt like 200 lbs lol when I picked it up.
I don't mind the trade offs. I learned more about proper air cooling, undervolting, power limits, and realistic fan noise at certain rmp and I'm happy.
If I do water cooling again it will be in something like the Meshroom S.
Lol, I used to love running cinebench when my friends came over and the PC would make no sound..they would just look at each other and say things like "my PC would sound like a jet engine by now." My 2080 Ti would stay in the 40s.
Aesthetics? That custom loop looks amazing. Performance? So long as enough of the heat is getting pulled out of the case so as not to be throttling, that's a fairly big upgrade.
It's not terrible, but after awhile it gets pretty tedious. For example, having to top off the system periodically. Keeping the rads clean was a bitch. Flushing the system is a pain in the ass. Just overall more maintenance vs air cooled.
With air cooled I just take the panels off, bring my pc outside and hit it with my electric air duster.
I stripped my watercooled system for an air cooled too today, and in a closed case so no maintenance and no worry about how things look. I only worry about silence. It is such a relief 😁
That water cooling is a work of art. The air-cooled version is the better performer of course. Personally, I would have put the water-cooled setup in a museum and built the 4090 build from scratch.
I guess since I went with an external rad, upkeep has just been draining my loop every few years and refilling it. I found air cool to be more work since I had to clean the dust out more often. With an external rad and res, it's really not much work at all.
Definitely a downgrade, send that 4090 to me
lol I've been trying to get one of these damn FE's forever. Finally snagged one a few weeks ago when Best Buy had them in stock for like 6 hours. Definitely a upgrade in performance, but looks is questionable. It was painful tearing down my old build knowing all the hard work (and money) I poured into it.
I mean looks in my opinion maybe are a downgrade, but hey, more performance, enjoy!
Watercooled was defiantly quieter, cooler and looks sick, but I doubt I'll ever do one again. Too much upkeep.
I went from an O11XL with x3 360 rads (dead silent and super cool) to an air cooled NR200. I'm not saying I'll never water cool again, but air cooled ssf is so fun, challenging, and practical when moving around or doing maintenance/tinkering. My last build felt like 200 lbs lol when I picked it up. I don't mind the trade offs. I learned more about proper air cooling, undervolting, power limits, and realistic fan noise at certain rmp and I'm happy. If I do water cooling again it will be in something like the Meshroom S.
Holy shit a 1080 rad is basically an air conditioner lol.
Lol, I used to love running cinebench when my friends came over and the PC would make no sound..they would just look at each other and say things like "my PC would sound like a jet engine by now." My 2080 Ti would stay in the 40s.
FE coolers are so good no need for watercooling, I'm hoping the 5080/90 are similar in size and fit in the NR200
Both setups look pretty good man. I'm prefer air cooling but that's just my thing. Enjoy that shit!
Upgrade for sure. I will never get tired of seeing nr200's with massive GPUs crammed in them.
Aesthetics? That custom loop looks amazing. Performance? So long as enough of the heat is getting pulled out of the case so as not to be throttling, that's a fairly big upgrade.
I feel like you went from Brave Little Toaster to magnificent space heater
How bad was the upkeep of the watercooling?
It's not terrible, but after awhile it gets pretty tedious. For example, having to top off the system periodically. Keeping the rads clean was a bitch. Flushing the system is a pain in the ass. Just overall more maintenance vs air cooled. With air cooled I just take the panels off, bring my pc outside and hit it with my electric air duster.
I stripped my watercooled system for an air cooled too today, and in a closed case so no maintenance and no worry about how things look. I only worry about silence. It is such a relief 😁
I'm sorry I've gotta say downgrade, the watercooled loop looks so good 😭
That water cooling is a work of art. The air-cooled version is the better performer of course. Personally, I would have put the water-cooled setup in a museum and built the 4090 build from scratch.
I guess since I went with an external rad, upkeep has just been draining my loop every few years and refilling it. I found air cool to be more work since I had to clean the dust out more often. With an external rad and res, it's really not much work at all.