Water cooling loop with soft tubing got me judged at a LAN party last Saturday

Tbh I dont get the hardline obsession. I built my loop with soft black tubing three years ago in Phoenix and it still runs perfectly. Last Saturday at a buddy's LAN gathering, two guys looked at my setup like I had a stock Intel cooler. One said, why even bother with custom loop if you dont do hardline. My temps are 8c under my old air cooler, and I can swap a component in 10 minutes without draining the loop. Has anyone else dealt with this hardline snobbery or is my area just weird?

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wyatt_green24d ago

Actually the soft tubing keeps the water cooler since the rubber doesnt soak up heat like those glass hardline pieces do, I tested both setups side by side one summer and saw a 2 degree difference in favor of the soft stuff. Plus you can twist and bend it to route around a GPU without needing five million fittings that all act like little restrictor plates. Those hardline guys are basically paying extra to make their loop worse at its one job.