I am getting ready to buy a h20 cooling setup for my rig. specs are as follows:
EVGA 780i MB
Q6600 will be @ 3.0Ghz (for now)
GTX 260 stock clocks
4 GB Hyper X mem 1066
Thermaltake Armor chassis

I will be watercooling the processor for sure, and eventually the GPU.

I am considering the Thermaltake Bigwater 780 AIO cooling system, and the Swiftech H220 Compact kit. I am leaning more towards the Bigwater because it just tucks in a few drive bays.

What other system should I look at?

I would like to avoid piecing it together myself as this is my first attempt at liquid cooling. Thanks

Comments concerns and ideas please.

I woun't even speak to the quality as I've never seen nor used the Bigwater kits. What I can say is that I doubt very serioulsy a single fan radiator tucked into a drive bay could dissipate enough heat to make it much better (if at all) than a good and cheaper air solution.

I'm not a fan of the Swiftech compact kits unless you are space limited in your case - which the Armor is not.

The Swiftech H20-220 is a good introductory kit that you could build on. Also, Petra's Tech Shops has "kits" it's put together form individual parts if you're afraid you'll over look something.

http://www.petrastechshop.com/wacoki.html

I believe there are experienced Water coolers here who will gladly walk you thorugh the process, so don't feel you have to go it alone.

What is you budget?

Bigwater kits are seriously flawed by their poor pumps. Their 'high flow 350 L/hr' pump doesn't perform nearly as well as the Liang/Swiftech branded MCP655 (1200 L/hr) plus you have a small radiator to cool a single CPU...nothing else and not even that CPU that well.

Not that the Q6600 needs watercooling at 3ghz anyway. I run my G0 at 3.1ghz with a Tuniq Tower and the fan set on lowest and the temp never hits 60 degrees C.

the EVGA 780i mb has the potential to push q6600 above 3.6g, but anything above 3.2g, will be better off for H2O. You are on the right track.

Changing the FSB from 266 to 333 should be all there is to it from stock. It's when you start changing the voltages and pushing it higher that you really should consider a much better cooling solution than the stock HSF. Like some have said, air is fine, but its a person's own decision as to what is fine for them.

budget of around $400, and I hate to push a processor on air even though 3.0Ghz is very easy overclock for it. Thanks for the the ideas.

Please just don't come back and tell us you bought a Bigwater kit...

Leaning towards the petra's coolkit elite. Looks like it is a very good kit, and leaves room for me to add a cooler to my vga eventually also.

My only suggestion is to disable automatic voltage on the cpu in bios cause the mobo tends to overvolt a little when OC'ed. I have mine vdrop/droop modded and keep the setting well below the automatic setting. Less voltage, less heat.