To liquid cool or not.

[harmattan]

I will be building a new Core2Duo-based rig in the beginning of November when nVidia 590 (or whatever they're calling it now) and G80 are released.

I have been interested in building a liquid cooled solution for some time now. While I am not at all new to building PC's (my first was a 386 DX...), I am, admittedly, quite noob at liquid cooling. My questions goes to those who have had some experience with this.

1. What would be a good all-included starter kit and case? (I know a lot will say DIY, but I want to start off easy)
2. How much of a temp difference will I see over good air cooling?
3. Is the possible pain in the a$$/benefit ratio worth it?

Thanks

 

[cb62fcni]

Well, overall I'd have to say the benefits to pain in the butt ratio is pretty good. Honesty, most kits are pretty darn simplistic nowadays, and even DIY isn't very challenging if you're at least moderately mechanically inclined. I've built several DIY jobs and several Koolance setups. Koolance gets high marks for ease of use and overall looks, but it's not cheap at all and doesn't perform as well as some DIY setups. I like the built-in safety features it offers such as overtemp protection. It's extremely easy to set-up too. I have a D805 running at 4Ghz, and it idles at ~36C and at load gets up to 39-40C with the Koolance PC3-725. DIY setups perform better, there's a few good guides on the net to help you sort through various parts and setup, and it's generally more cost effective. A good all-in-one kit offered by gigabyte is actually mentioned in the E6300 overclocking article on THG today, check it out.