I have to choose "Other" when I think of water cooling, as my water cooling is not your everyday setup! My initial water cooling goals were totally for CPU overclocking and I tried many combinations beginning with traditional heat pipe air coolers to advanced air cooling using radiators and coolant replacing the heat pipe cooling function.
I have always been after the highest possible stable CPU overclock I could possibly run but when Intels Sandy Bridge CPUs arrived on the scene, they proved to be quite hot when 5ghz was approached, and even though many reached 5ghz on air cooling the long term temperatures for a stable system were higher than I was comfortable with, using the heat pipe air cooling, so the quest began for cooler CPU load temperatures.
My first steps back into water cooling were very disappointing as the radiators I was using just did not give me what I was looking for going to water cooling, but at the time money to invest into water cooling was seriously limited, and I did what a lot of us do and started with a kit, which was my first lesson in what not to do!
Water cooling kits are enticing because they are cheaper, and fall into the category of water cooling for dummies, it's simple to assemble if you have any mechanical skills at all, but they are cheaper for a good reason, they do not contain the highest company brand performance line of their products!
Most kits have a couple of quality high cooling performance kit elements mixed with not so much! (But most do not discover this until after the fact, as every part of my original kit investment has either failed, been given away, or re-purposed.)
Is that the company's fault that sold the kit? No absolutely not! They're in it to make money simple as that, it was not their fault I chose what I did!
It was my fault, I bought it, another lesson learned the hard way, and this is a perfect place to insert a link to
"Tom's Hardware Watercooling Sticky v2.0".
Thanks to rubix_1011 for all his collaborative work he invested in the sticky, and to all those that helped him in his earlier endeavors!
Learn first, and then do!
My water cooling today is a result of many frustrating, failed, and try again, and again, and again, which eventually led to successful experiments trying to find a cooling solution for a 5ghz overclocked CPU, yielding very acceptable load stress temperatures, and a solid 24/7 stable daily overclock well within comfortable longevity temperatures.
The CPU cooling journey has gone from
water cooling with ice in a cooler, to the active
peltier chilled water cooling I am running today.
I do use radiator water cooling to cool my graphics, yielding game load temperatures approximately half of what the stock air coolers do, and that has worked out very well!
My 5ghz CPU overclock goal was met with every Sandy Bridge CPU I owned, 2500K, 2550K, and 2700K, and has continued to cool my Ivy Bridge 3770K at 5ghz 24/7 overclock as well, and the 3770K has not been delidded!
So when I think of 'Watercooling', it is all about overclocking cooling performance!