Looking to change to water cooling

[notben]

Hey guys,

I'm currently using an NVIDIA 9800GT GPU which is getting to around 85 degrees load with it's stock fan. In order to get it to a more manageable ~50 degrees, I need to manually turn the fan to about 80% which is too loud for me.

So I've decided that if it's not ridiculously expensive, I'd like to get some water cooling for it. I've got the Antec 900 so my case will work well with it.

Just a few questions if anyone has a minute;

What should be the total cost of a lower-mid range setup be around? I'm looking up components but it looks really complicated and I don't want to waste 3 hours researching to find that it's way out of my price range.

How hard is the setup for a first time user? I've never had, or even seen a water cooling setup. I built my computer so I'm pretty good with the hardware etc, but are there little tricks of the trade that I might miss and fry my computer?

 

[jyjjy]

Water cooling is both tricky and expensive. It's generally meant for people who are really into overclocking and want to get low temps to push their equipment farther. I would definitely be looking at a new card that's better and more power efficient instead. It'll be much cheaper and actually increase performance. The 40nm ATI cards would be a good choice.

 

[notben]

Water cooling is both tricky and expensive. It's generally meant for people who are really into overclocking and want to get low temps to push their equipment farther. I would definitely be looking at a new card that's better and more power efficient instead. It'll be much cheaper and actually increase performance. The 40nm ATI cards would be a good choice.

40nm cards? I'm not too well versed with video cards besides their numbers (Nvidia's 9000 and 200 series, etc) could you be a bit more specific?

Thanks

 

[notben]

Any specific card recomendations will be taken very seriously, too. I'm looking to spend $100-140 on a card. And preferably with its own heatsink and fan. Similar to this one, except less expensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129113

I don't need it for too much. I mainly browse the web, play World of Warcraft, and the occasional FPS. I just want to do those things very smoothely. And obviously I want an upgrade from my stock 9800gt.

 

[jyjjy]

40nm refers to the process by which the chips are produced. The smaller the process the smaller the chips are and the less power they need. 40nm is the new one and all the cards built on it are very power efficient and run quite cool. The first one was the HD4770 which is 10-15% better than your 9800gt while using about 25% less power during normal gaming(power usage is directly related to heat given off by a processor.) The new HD5xxx cards are what I would recommend though. The HD5770 for example is 50% more powerful than the 9800gt. It uses slightly less power while gaming but it's idle power usage is half as much. The HD5xxx cards are also the only DX11 compatible cards available so far.
Nvidia recently released a 40nm card as well but it's on par with the 9600gt and overpriced at the moment.
Here's a good review of the HD5770 with direct comparisons to your 9800gt;
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5770/
It costs $165. The HD5750 is $145 which is closer to your stated budget but the extra $20 is well worth it imo. Or you can go for the HD4770 for $110 but it's not a huge upgrade over your 9800gt and isn't dx11.

 

[notben]

40nm refers to the process by which the chips are produced. The smaller the process the smaller the chips are and the less power they need. 40nm is the new one and all the cards built on it are very power efficient and run quite cool. The first one was the HD4770 which is 10-15% better than your 9800gt while using about 25% less power during normal gaming(power usage is directly related to heat given off by a processor.) The new HD5xxx cards are what I would recommend though. The HD5770 for example is 50% more powerful than the 9800gt. It uses slightly less power while gaming but it's idle power usage is half as much. The HD5xxx cards are also the only DX11 compatible cards available so far.
Nvidia recently released a 40nm card as well but it's on par with the 9600gt and overpriced at the moment.
Here's a good review of the HD5770 with direct comparisons to your 9800gt;
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_5770/
It costs $165. The HD5750 is $145 which is closer to your stated budget but the extra $20 is well worth it imo. Or you can go for the HD4770 for $110 but it's not a huge upgrade over your 9800gt and isn't dx11.

Thank you very much for your time and perfect answer. I'll definitly spring the extra 20 for the 5770.