Water cooling?

I am going to build my ultimate gaming computer soon (I hope). From reading the forums, I see that keeping the PC cool is one of the most important things. I wanted to get you pros opinion of whether or not it is worth getting a water cooling system or just a lot of fans. Thanks for your input.

System I play to build will be:

AMD X2 4800
A8N32-SLI Deluxe MB
Thermaltake Armor case
7800 gtx video (1 at first but wll end up putting in 2)
2G RAM
600W PS (any recommendations on brand would be welcome)

I do not plan to overclock, I just want a comp that will not have any problems running games.

First - read this thread... http://forumz.tomshardware.com/har [...] 75938.html

I'm pretty much right where you are...there's a lot of good information to be had here but do your homework.

If you're not going to OC then air is going to be fine and you'll prob save some cash.

You have a awesome MB and certainly have the ability to OC...even on air. You'll get the most out of the processor you paid for and building a gaming system with that equipment - you should. Take your time and do this right.

Go with WC if you want (yes, it's really cool and that's half of the reason I'm doing it...) but be forewarned it's a lot of work to do it right. Most everywhere you read, you'll find out the the best WC systems are the ones you build yourself.

I agree.

Now finding the technical information on doing this is not going to be as easy as you think....and if you find any good sites that explain the actual mechanics of WCing, (volume, flow, heat exchange, etc.) let me know...

If your not going to the extreme and don't want to spend a whole lot of time researching WCing - get a kit, but get a good one. It'll save you time, money and a really big headache 8)

P.S. That's a really cool case. (No matter what the CoolerMaster fanboys may say ). I just got the black and it's getting cut up this weekend. Did you get the black or aluminum? What are you doing to yours?

Hi,

I have about the same specs as you do. You get wc for two reasons, cool and quiet.

If it's cool, you can get better oc's, when at stock or having a very capable wc system it can be almost completely silent.

I have the same cpu and the same mb and 2 7800Gt factory clocked to 470Mhz. To cool this I use waterchill components and alphacool waterblocks with ram cooler for the gpus. I have the black Ice Extreme Dual, for 120mm fans. So I've mounted 2 fans that blow air out of the case and through the rad, and also I have 2 120 fans for intake. This sounds a bit extreme perhaps, but doing this lets me drive the fans at 5V keeping it barely audible. For Cpu I use the antarctica.

So since I have fans blowing straigt at the heatpipe with the fins I didn't bother getting a waterblock for the chipset. Harddrives I cool with Zalman passive heatpipes.

So my loop is: pump - rad - cpu - gpu1 - gpu2 - pump. I use the pump for waterchill that's called xtreme 12V. It comes with a built in small reservoar. Other than that I use battery water and watter wetter. All the watercooling stuff has costed about $420, but with regular waterchill gpu blocks it would be about $300

So Extremely Quiet - Watercooling ~ $300 - 450
Just Quiet - Aircooler like Zalman Cnps or a big Heatpipe tower ~ $70
Fair sound - Stock cooler ~ free

Extreme overclock - Phasechanger + watercooling ~ $700
Good overclock - Watercooling ~ $300 - 450
Fair Overclock - Stock cooler ~ free

Buying a wc system for less than $250 will in many cases just give a slight benefit over regular AC. If you just want to WC the cpu you could get away with a good kit for about $200. But then you'll have the vacum cleaner graphicscards wrecking you overall system.

So my recomendation as also said in the previous post. Get a good watercooling system like the one I have or do the sneak and less expencive way: zalman cnps-7000/9500 + zalman cnps-vf700.

There have been reports about the 1/2" kits from waterchill beeing bad, but the 10mm kits are supposed to be good. I have 10mm parts

Good Luck!