Maximum PC

Well, I am beginning on planning my dream PC and I am currently stuck whether I should water cool or not. Should I? How much of a burden would it be? Cheers

unless your are big time overclocking fanatic, i dont think its worth it. you can if you want too but to me, there is no need to.

I don't know so much about that keymaker, some of these new kits out really bring it down to the regular user.

Zalmans Reserator is a good example, virtually no case mods are necisary, and many of these kits can be had around $200 Well worth the price considering youl gain at least a bin or two on your CPU

I agree with what Keymaker said. But, i you want a "dream" system then i guess that would include water cooling. You should get the Zalman resorator set-up. It seems to be the most user friendly. They also have a flash presentation on their web on how to install it.

This will make it real dreamy
http://www.frozencpu.com/cas-119.html?id=zzgDUSmS

Wow...that is one nice case. Go-L Computers had a case that looked just like that.

Yes, the Zalman system is really nice, but the Reserator standing up at the back of the PC looks at bit, well, out of place. Is there a water cooling system that can be mounted into computer case itself?

Its alot more than just a case. But take a look around that site it has a shitload of cooling products

You could always try a koolance case they are a little expensive but they are a pretty easy setup. The only major drawbacks that I see is the limited case design and the fact that you have to buy the water blocks separate.

Koolance offers a cool "Why Liquid? tutorial. Whether you actually need it is up to you. It invokes bragging rights, but unless you have the prowess to overclock and/or your components are just running too hot, it isn't needed. You can get your case to be a lot cooler by just simply planning your PC out. I now have an air-only comp. I have cool air coming in from the front and also an extra fan pulling in air over the cpu. Warm air from the CPU then moves onto the RAM, then gets ejected by the window fan. I have an extra fan that just moves air around over the GPU, but that is because I had an extra fan.

If you want to go the air route, I would suggest Antec fans, as they are efficient and low noise. Don't go for the cheap flashy fans as they are considerably noisy. You want a FAST computer that doesn't sound like it should have wings.

My next rig will probably have Liquid cooling as I'm planning on Dual-Opterons and possibly Dual 6800GTs with 3+ HDs and 4GB RAM. I also plan to overclock and push those Opties with NUMA to the very limit. I'm nearly convinced I will need water-cooling for that. Liquid also has a tendency to be quieter, which will be good... My current comp isn't that quiet, so much faster and much quieter will be a nice improvement.

Arquero

actually there is a system by kingwin that is only 100 bucks, and it is very simple to set up, and it gets really good reviews. Everything is inside the case, unless you mount the fan on the outside of the case in the back.

check out this review if you like.
http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/super_cooling/kingwin/arcticliquidcooler/

jonathan

yes thermaltake Big WaterCooling http://www.thermaltake.com/watercooling ... -w0005.htm

amd here's a review http://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/ ... index.html

I use this kit myself and I was please on how easy it was to install.

That Thermaltake Big WaterCooling kit looks sharp. How loud is the radiator fan? 120mm should be very quiet.

Havent seen any reviews yet but this system is very versitile in terms of placement and well it looks pretty too...

http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?Language_s=2&url_place=product_list&p_class=414

oh did i mention that its under $200.00 too..

I was suprisew when I put the fans up to full throttle I still could barely hear it so I keep it on hight all the time. If u think about ordering it I the cheapest I found it was from Coolerguys.

If you like quiet, water cool it all baby.
I hate when people only do the CPU. They always forget the Northbridge, VGA, VGA ram (passive cool), And RAM (passive cool).

I purposely bought my Coolermaster Stacker case with a water cooling system like that Aquagate in mind. I could install it in the drive bays, or in the bottom of the case where the 2nd power supply goes.

My friend has that. It’s nice he has external though so it defeats the purpose of the Aluminum LAN case. I would have given up my cd-rw drive and installed it internally.

If you have to think about it, don't do it. For about the same money you'd spend on water cooling, you could buy something useful like a digital raptor 10K hard drive.

As far as I know, as long as a processor is stable, cooling it 10 degrees cooler with water is not going to make your computer act any different than if you were air cooling. Of course that assumes you take the time to actually look inside your pc periodically and make sure dust bunnies and the Monster Family hasn't moved in.

The only reason I would get water cooling was if I was overclocking, and I would probably only overclock if I was trying to save money. Which probably means I would be better off spending money on something a little more conservative and less risky than overclocking tools.

On the other hand, if you want to overclock because you want the fastest processor money can buy, then it might make sense, as long as your applications are not critical.

For example lets say you want to spend $400 on the coolest rig cooler in town. For about the same money, you could get a motherboard with an integrated SCSI controller so you can set up a raid 0 system with (2) 15K hard drives (another 4 hundred).

Once you have the motherboard with SCSI built in, you can add hard drives as you can afford it. Starting at around $200 a piece, you get 3.3 ms access times (with 15K rpm SCSI) to your hard drive. You WILL notice that.

You might not notice watercooling.

I don't personally have watercooling, however I've known some people (a few of them personally) that went to a watercooling setup just for the look when they were modding and all of them, every single one went from "dabbling" with overclocking to being an overclocking enthusiast.
So from what I've seen, if you go with watercooling, you'll end up being an avid overclocker.
But really what it boils down to is this. How anal are you? If you are the type of person that will spend an hour routing stereo wires knowing that it's not going to make any difference in sound quality, but you just want to "do it right", then by all means, watercool your new build. But if you aren't and you think you can "get by" then I'd recommend against it. With speaker wiring it makes no difference, but with a couple thouand dollars worth of top end electronics within millimeters of water.......well, you get the picture. Good luck either way though!