Please help decide cooling upgrade

runswithascript

Some time ago now, when I started tests to overclock my Intel 4690K I had some issues with cooling in my HTPC Fractal Design Node 605, despite experimenting with different fan configurations, so I never got past the testing phase. I have now ordered a Phanteks Enthoo EVOLV ATX Tempered Glass Edition, and I would like to upgrade my low profile NOCTUA NH-L12 as I only bought a low profile cooler so it would fit in the case. I would like a custom water loop for CPU and graphics card at some point, but it seems quite expensive, and I am wondering if it is something I should leave until my next major upgrade, and instead opt for something like the NOCTUA NH-D15 or even a closed loop watercooling kit?

I built my PC December 2014, and I have since invested in a QHD Acer XB270HU. It would seem the next upgrade for my GTX 970, whatever that card may be, it will be able to handle 4K well, in which case it would be logical to also upgrade to a large 4K gaming monitor - this substantially increases upgrade cost. I would probably also upgrade the board and CPU at the same time. It may be another year or even two before I make this major upgrade, am I right to put off custom water loop cooling until then?

Perhaps I am mistaken and there is or will be a card worth investing in, at a good bang for buck price, that would max out QHD and I need not put everything off to upgrade at once...

I could put some money aside over the next month, and spend a few hundred on custom water cooling, I would just like to know if it is worth it considering my PC is just 2 years old, the monitor 1 year old, or if it is something better left until the next major upgrade?

Current system:

Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5, Sockel 1150, mATX
Intel Core i5 i5-4690K CPU (Quad Core 3.5GHz Processor, 6MB Cache, Intel HD 4600 Graphics, Socket H3 LGA-1150
MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 Gaming Twin Frozr HDMI DVI-I DP Graphics Card (4GB, PCI Express, DDR5, 256 Bit)
1 x Ballistix Sport 8GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) UDIMM 240-Pin Memory - BLS8G3D1609DS1S00CEU
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 750W ATX 2.3, 80+ Gold
NOCTUA NH-L12
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 250GB SATA 6Gb/s
Multiple HDDs
4 x Fractal Design SILENT SERIES R2 120MM 12cm case fan

Running QHD with my 4690K and GTX 970 set to stock settings I have to substantially lower graphics settings in games like Assassin's Creed Unity, Far Cry 4, and Rust to get ~ 50/60 FPS. I am hoping by over clocking both CPU and graphics I can increase these settings.

I would appreciate any input or guidance you can offer.

Digital Solitude

Upgrading the CPU won't help you much, any card available now will bottleneck it.

A 970 should be fine at 1440p, 1070 should absolutely kick ass at that res for a couple years, might be worth waiting on the 1060 or AMD 490 though, both will likely preform better at 1440p than the 970.

There's still no solid 4k card so I'd leave that off for a while yet.

Generally quality closed loop CPU coolers aren't much ahead of quality air ones, obviously a full loop is your coolest bet but they're not silent either. There's a lot of work in a full loop and they're a hefty price so its an investment you'd want to be sure of making.

*Edit* I made an arse of interpreting you but hopefully this is helpful

runswithascript

Just to be clear, I definitely cannot afford the full upgrade of CPU, card, motherboard, and monitor at the moment, but I could afford a minor upgrade, perhaps including cooling.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Upgrading the CPU won't help you much, any card available now will bottleneck it.

Overclocking will though right?

Digital Solitude wrote: »

A 970 should be fine at 1440p, 1070 should absolutely kick ass at that res for a couple years, might be worth waiting on the 1060 or AMD 490 though, both will likely preform better at 1440p than the 970.

When you say the GTX 970 should be fine with 1440p, it is playable, but I do have to lower settings in some games, sometimes substantially, to get 50/60 FPS - is that normal?

Digital Solitude wrote: »

There's still no solid 4k card so I'd leave that off for a while yet.

Yes, no immediate plans to upgrade for that, I just wanted to mention if I wait an upgrade everything at once, I am guessing that would be for a 4K card and monitor.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Generally quality closed loop CPU coolers aren't much ahead of quality air ones, obviously a full loop is your coolest bet but they're not silent either. There's a lot of work in a full loop and they're a hefty price so its an investment you'd want to be sure of making.

Yes, I am unsure re custom water loop cooling right now, though it does have a certain appeal.

Comparing say the Noctua D15 I mentioned to custom water loop cooling, can you still achieve the same overclock with the air cooler, would it just be louder, or can you really only achieve the most from your CPU with custom? If you can only achieve it with custom, roughly how much more can you overclock, are we talking only a 1% percent increase in performance here?

Digital Solitude wrote: »

*Edit* I made an arse of interpreting you but hopefully this is helpful

It is helpful

thegreenbean

Custom loops are expensive but if it appeals to you, you should consider it. However, the temp differences are not huge, 2-5 celsius in most cases vs a high end air cooler. I watercool my PC for the love of it and the ascetic. Best of luck with the upgrade.

runswithascript

thegreenbean wrote: »

Custom loops are expensive but if it appeals to you, you should consider it. However, the temp differences are not huge, 2-5 celsius in most cases vs a high end air cooler. I watercool my PC for the love of it and the ascetic. Best of luck with the upgrade.

Okay, so considering the cost, and that I can achieve the same performance results with an air cooler I will probably leave the custom water cooling for now.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

might be worth waiting on the 1060 or AMD 490 though

I am just reading the 1060 will most likely be released July 7, and will probably match or beat the price of an RX480 which is around £200, though I see some on Amazon for £219 and £269. I have two Nvidia Shields which I use for Gamestream and Moonlight so will stick with their cards.

Digital Solitude

Overclocking will in some games yeah, but only a couple of frames, the i5 is more than enough to handle every game currently on the market, except probably a few stupidly tanking games but that can't be helped, the 970 is what's holding you back.

Should be okay for mid-high settings at 1440p I would think, is that about right?

runswithascript

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Overclocking will in some games yeah, but only a couple of frames, the i5 is more than enough to handle every game currently on the market, except probably a few stupidly tanking games but that can't be helped, the 970 is what's holding you back.

Should be okay for mid-high settings at 1440p I would think, is that about right?

Hmm, it seems about right for most games, but I really have nearly everything if not nearly everything at the lowest settings in Assassin's Creed Unity and frequently have to turn down settings.

Is there some specific games I could test, or some software to test?

What do you think about what I said about the 1060?

Digital Solitude

No point testing specifics, games you play are the only worthwhile tests.

Pretty sure the newest Assassins Creed games are pigs and run like dirt on systems they should be fine on by the graphical standards

Price relative to the 480 is unimportant, performance is the main thing, the 480 is about as powerful as the 970, it probably will be a bit more powerful going forward but unless the 1060 is ahead of the 480 and well ahead of the 970 there's no point upgrading to it IMO, you'd be better going full hog for a 1070

Venom

Digital Solitude wrote: »

No point testing specifics, games you play are the only worthwhile tests.

Pretty sure the newest Assassins Creed games are pigs and run like dirt on systems they should be fine on by the graphical standards

Price relative to the 480 is unimportant, performance is the main thing, the 480 is about as powerful as the 970, it probably will be a bit more powerful going forward but unless the 1060 is ahead of the 480 and well ahead of the 970 there's no point upgrading to it IMO, you'd be better going full hog for a 1070

Unity was a bug ridden mess than ran like crap but in fairness to Ubisoft Syndicate ran great.

Jo Satan

A GTX 970 is not going to get you 50-60 fps at high/ultra setting at 1440p
The linked review shows 38fps on Assassins Creed 4 at 1440p.
The MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 Gaming when overclocked will improve performance by ~15%, so overclocking it will not get you 50-60 fps

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/7.html

You will need to upgrade your GPU to a GTX 1070 to get 60fps+ at 1440p
Googling "4690k bottleneck 1070" indicates that the cpu is fine.

According to frostytech reviews the difference between your Noctua NH-L12 vs NOCTUA NH-D15 vs Water Cooling 4 to 5 degrees with a 85 watt cpu

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2662&page=5

If I was in your position, and I wish I was... I would cancel the case, get your €200 back, sell your GTX 970 for €200 - €240 and buy a GTX 1070.

runswithascript

Digital Solitude wrote: »

No point testing specifics, games you play are the only worthwhile tests.

Pretty sure the newest Assassins Creed games are pigs and run like dirt on systems they should be fine on by the graphical standards

Price relative to the 480 is unimportant, performance is the main thing, the 480 is about as powerful as the 970, it probably will be a bit more powerful going forward but unless the 1060 is ahead of the 480 and well ahead of the 970 there's no point upgrading to it IMO, you'd be better going full hog for a 1070

Aha, well that is a rather big hog Sir! That said, if it really is a worthwhile investment, best bang for buck, etc. - I could put some money aside over the coming weeks and just about afford one.

So from this thread it seems the best upgrade path for me is GTX 1070 & overclock it >> Noctua D15 and overclock CPU >> at some point in the future when I have enough disposable income to put in custom watercooling just for aesthetics do that. How about my RAM, is the single 8GB stick I have enough?

MarkAnthony

The only reason to do custom water cooling loops is to do custom water cooling loops. The exception is budgets in excess of €3K where you might see that extra 10% performance from overclocking. Unless you've everything at the top end then it is always better to invest money in better hardware.

Closed loop CPU coolers are IMHO okay as they're not particularly expensive and can help with the aesthetic of the system. I personally think they are better than air coolers in real world setups. That said a decent air cooler will do the job, and more quietly on idle.

Watercooling GPUs is a monumental pain in the arse. It used to be worth it on AMD for the likes of the reference R9 290 but now, get a quiet air cooled card and decent air flow through the case. Spend money on the likes of PWM fans and configure the system to only ramp up during gaming. It's only really worth it where you're buying the best of the best card (GTX1080) or have two near top end cards in SLI. Pretty much everything available to buy right now is limited by power anyway as opposed to heat in the previous gen.

Overclocking in general is a waste of money on the additional cost needed for the components. That's not to say don't do it if you already have the gear or just for the sake of doing it. But again unless you got for the top end mainstream i7 of the time (or higher) you're better off with money being spent else where.

K.O.Kiki

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 8Gb might be a bit low for >1080p resolutions.
Doesn't hurt to throw another 8Gb into it.

The GTX 1070 (non-overclocked) will give you 1440p 60fps / 4k 30fps unless you run into bad coding and/or CPU bottlenecks.

Venom

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Closed loop CPU coolers are IMHO okay as they're not particularly expensive and can help with the aesthetic of the system. I personally think they are better than air coolers in real world setups. That said a decent air cooler will do the job, and more quietly on idle.

Agreed with you about the aesthetics but not on the price. AIO's tend to cost quite a bit more that heatsink style coolers, don't last as long and tend to be nosier.

Yes you can buy cheap AIO's or crazy expensive RBG air coolers but on average neither of these is really worth the cost imho.

moc moc a moc

I have a 4690K overclocked to 4.4 GHz on an NH-L12. While water cooling isn't a bad idea if you want to go to extremes, you don't need it.

Redfox25

I have the i5 4690k at 4.5 on the hyper evo in a tower case. Rarely see temps over 60 under load and that's after a few hours of gaming.
Hyper evo is the best cheap air cooler so you don't need aio cooling unless your airflow is poor or you just want to add one

runswithascript

Firstly, there is a lot great advice and information in this thread, thank you to all who have participated.

Venom wrote: »

Unity was a bug ridden mess than ran like crap but in fairness to Ubisoft Syndicate ran great.

Aha, I did read about bugs in the past but I have not knowingly experienced any in game (perhaps of course from performance bugs?) and I assumed they would be ironed out by now. I would like to try Syndicate at some point though I should really play more of ACU first!

Jo Satan wrote: »

A GTX 970 is not going to get you 50-60 fps at high/ultra setting at 1440p
The linked review shows 38fps on Assassins Creed 4 at 1440p.
The MSI NVIDIA GTX 970 Gaming when overclocked will improve performance by ~15%, so overclocking it will not get you 50-60 fps

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_970_Gaming/7.html

You will need to upgrade your GPU to a GTX 1070 to get 60fps+ at 1440p
Googling "4690k bottleneck 1070" indicates that the cpu is fine.

Jo Satan wrote: »

If I was in your position, and I wish I was... I would cancel the case, get your €200 back, sell your GTX 970 for €200 - €240 and buy a GTX 1070.

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

The GTX 1070 (non-overclocked) will give you 1440p 60fps / 4k 30fps unless you run into bad coding and/or CPU bottlenecks.

It took me many years to build a decent gaming PC with a good display. Even when it was built, due to where it had to be placed there was no room for a tower (on top of wardrobe!) I had to buy the HTPC case - although it is a very nice HTPC case - I have wanted a tower for a long time. Should also help with cooling. Phanteks Enthoo Evolv Tempered Glass Edition arrived yesterday, very happy with it, looking forward to seeing it complete.

Rather than wait until the end of the month, I am going to meet with the Credit Union and I hope to order a GTX 1070, probably from Germany - as I find tech usually much cheaper from there. Any particular model you would recommend, I have read for graphics cards generally Gigabyte are the way to go for performance, do you agree, perhaps one of the following?

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 Gaming, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (GV-N1070G1 GAMING-8GD) €479,64

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 WindForce 2X, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (GV-N1070WF2OC-8GD) €469

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Xtreme Gaming, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (GV-N1070XTREME-8GD) €549

I would rather not pay for the latter, unless it really is worth it.

Priorities are overclock performance > decibel level (within reason) > appearance.

Jo Satan wrote: »

According to frostytech reviews the difference between your Noctua NH-L12 vs NOCTUA NH-D15 vs Water Cooling 4 to 5 degrees with a 85 watt cpu

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2662&page=5

MarkAnthony wrote: »

The only reason to do custom water cooling loops is to do custom water cooling loops. The exception is budgets in excess of €3K where you might see that extra 10% performance from overclocking. Unless you've everything at the top end then it is always better to invest money in better hardware.

Closed loop CPU coolers are IMHO okay as they're not particularly expensive and can help with the aesthetic of the system. I personally think they are better than air coolers in real world setups. That said a decent air cooler will do the job, and more quietly on idle.

Venom wrote: »

Agreed with you about the aesthetics but not on the price. AIO's tend to cost quite a bit more that heatsink style coolers, don't last as long and tend to be nosier.

Yes you can buy cheap AIO's or crazy expensive RBG air coolers but on average neither of these is really worth the cost imho.

moc moc a moc wrote: »

I have a 4690K overclocked to 4.4 GHz on an NH-L12. While water cooling isn't a bad idea if you want to go to extremes, you don't need it.

Redfox25 wrote: »

I have the i5 4690k at 4.5 on the hyper evo in a tower case. Rarely see temps over 60 under load and that's after a few hours of gaming.
Hyper evo is the best cheap air cooler so you don't need aio cooling unless your airflow is poor or you just want to add one

I put NOCTUA NH-D15 into Frostytech (great website by the way) and it seems to only be beaten by water cooling, though all are louder than it. And when I say beaten, only by a few degrees.

http://frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2766&page=5

A friend of mine is trying to convince me that those few degrees matter, that say the NH-D15, as it will not be able to keep the CPU as cool, I will not be able to overclock as much. Perhaps, even if this is true, the amount is neglible, what do you guys think? I have not looked at all of the prices, but if one of the closed loop water coolers that keeps the CPU cooler than the NH-D15 was also cheaper, only ever so slightly louder, and had a good name, it would seem logical to consider it. Same priorities regarding the cooler, performance > decibel level (within reason) > appearance.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Watercooling GPUs is a monumental pain in the arse. It used to be worth it on AMD for the likes of the reference R9 290 but now, get a quiet air cooled card and decent air flow through the case. Spend money on the likes of PWM fans and configure the system to only ramp up during gaming. It's only really worth it where you're buying the best of the best card (GTX1080) or have two near top end cards in SLI. Pretty much everything available to buy right now is limited by power anyway as opposed to heat in the previous gen.

Noted.

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Overclocking in general is a waste of money on the additional cost needed for the components. That's not to say don't do it if you already have the gear or just for the sake of doing it. But again unless you got for the top end mainstream i7 of the time (or higher) you're better off with money being spent else where.

Well I bought the 4690K as someone on boards.ie persuaded me to save €100 rather than getting whichever chip I had been considering. I really would like to overclock, especially since I have an unlocked CPU, and my current card and the 1070 are designed with this in mind.

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but 8Gb might be a bit low for >1080p resolutions.
Doesn't hurt to throw another 8Gb into it.

My motherboard and RAM specs are in an earlier post, would you recommend another 8GB the same, or selling the 8GB and upgrade to different RAM, if so what speed? Performance is important, but I do not want to buy the most expensive, and I would be happy with best bang for buck! Maybe something like DDR4 2133mhz?

Digital Solitude

Your board won't accept DDR4 RAM, you have to stick with DDR3 for now anyways.

runswithascript

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Your board won't accept DDR4 RAM, you have to stick with DDR3 for now anyways.

Hmm, I really would like to get more use out of this board if I can.

Maybe another stick of identical RAM or would upgrading to high frequency really be noticeable?

Any preference regarding 1070s?

K.O.Kiki

dasf wrote:

Rather than wait until the end of the month, I am going to meet with the Credit Union and I hope to order a GTX 1070, probably from Germany - as I find tech usually much cheaper from there. Any particular model you would recommend, I have read for graphics cards generally Gigabyte are the way to go for performance, do you agree, perhaps one of the following?

If I'm reading this right, friendly life advice:

Don't buy expensive non-essentials until you can afford them twice over.

---

Your RAM "BLS8G3D1609DS1S00CEU" is actually amongst the best you can get for your system, it's DDR3-1600 @ CAS 9.

Most higher-frequency RAM also has worse (higher) CAS latency.

Use Task Manager to look at your RAM usage in games - if it's higher than, say, 6Gb, wouldn't hurt to buy another 8Gb stick.

But what's bottlenecking is your GPU, so save up for 1070 or 1080.

runswithascript

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

If I'm reading this right, friendly life advice:

Don't buy expensive non-essentials until you can afford them twice over.

---

Your RAM "BLS8G3D1609DS1S00CEU" is actually amongst the best you can get for your system, it's DDR3-1600 @ CAS 9.

Most higher-frequency RAM also has worse (higher) CAS latency.

Use Task Manager to look at your RAM usage in games - if it's higher than, say, 6Gb, wouldn't hurt to buy another 8Gb stick.

But what's bottlenecking is your GPU, so save up for 1070 or 1080.

The truth is, I have reduced hours from college and work at the moment, but this will all change soon, and I would rather have the 1070 before the end of the month so I could play away the hours! I would still use it if I buy at the end of the month, I could just get a lot of use from it sooner than that. I usually do save, and put money aside, which is why I am in the position to get a secured (based on money already in account) Credit Union loan in the first place. I have money in the Credit Union I could just withdraw and spend on this card, but to build up my credit rating with them I think it is better to borrow. The cost of credit is around €10 total.

Nice, I will check out memory usage. Definitely only interested in the 1070 at the moment. Would you lean towards any particular 1070 models yourself?

thegreenbean

dusf wrote: »

The truth is, I have reduced hours from college and work at the moment, but this will all change soon, and I would rather have the 1070 before the end of the month so I could play away the hours! I would still use it if I buy at the end of the month, I could just get a lot of use from it sooner than that. I usually do save, and put money aside, which is why I am in the position to get a secured (based on money already in account) Credit Union loan in the first place. I have money in the Credit Union I could just withdraw and spend on this card, but to build up my credit rating with them I think it is better to borrow. The cost of credit is around €10 total.

Nice, I will check out memory usage. Definitely only interested in the 1070 at the moment. Would you lean towards any particular 1070 models yourself?

Have you looked at the EVGA SC lineup? Their already heavily overclocked and can be pushed a little more on top. I have the 980 ACX 2.0 SC and i have to say she's a beauty.
1070 acx 3.0 sc

MarkAnthony

I have the EVGA 1080 SC, same cooler etc. I'm a very, very happy bunny apart from I should have bought the 1070!