considering water cooling

[pc master]

I have an alienware Area-51 3500 with thier mid-tower case, not the really nice looking one. I had wanted to pick the warer cooling option but it wasnt an option.

I really want to have water cooling. This may seem stupid but i have emailed alienware (U.K) and asked if i can buy thier water cooling kit and send it to them to fit it or i will fit it.

I probably wont be able to do that, but just in case does anyone reccommened any water cooling kits.

if i have missed anything out let me know.

[figarowa]

depends if you want quality or cheap, good quality kits can be found at www.dangerden.com, or some major manufacturers are putting out kits, I've always liked the koolance Exos, a simple out of case design with adequate cooling

[ricercar]

I love my Innovatek passive Maxi-cool radiator system, am pleased with my Koolance 610 system, but am very disappointed with my Globalwin SilentStream.

[pc master]

I might go for an external koolance exos.

[David M]

I have this Koolance system http://www.koolance.com/shop/product...87a8c6230bf9c9

I am very happy with it.

And it looks great on this case. http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/lianli...us/index.shtml

Plus the case comes with wheels so you can take your computer for walks.

[nocturnx]

If you want a good quality water cooling setup buy the parts and build it yourself, the kits always have downsides. Like the koolance kit is a 3/8" kit, you would get more flow and better temps with a 1/2" setup, not to mention that koolance kit is gonna be $300 after tax and it doesnt even include a cpu waterblock. I built mine for under $200 and that includes the cpu waterblock, video card waterblock, reservoir, pump, and everything else. After a bit of researching parts and reading reviews I picked parts and installed mine, usually runs at 30c idle, but its also gonna depend on your room temp. Buying a kit is like buying a proprietary pc, your gonna get standard parts and limited upgradeability. Build it yourself with quality parts (swiftech, dangerden) and you'll see a difference in performance and have something to be proud of, same as a pc. Especially if you bought a highend or built your pc, I cant see the purpose in custom building your pc and then throwing a stock water cooling kit on it. Its a fun project, you'll learn alot about the physics of it, like resistance to flow due to a reservoir or elbows and how to calculate your flow for max results. The overclockers forums have several guides on doing it yourself and are always posting about the latest and greatest water blocks, and their performance results.
I have pics in my sig of my watercooled setup.

[David M]

The 3/8 tubing is more than adequate for carrying away heat. The fact that the water leaving the cooling block is only a degree warmer than the water entering the coolant block is proof that 3/8 tubing is more than adequate. (The greater the temperature difference, the less efficient the cooling block) It's a bunch of hype that 1/2 inch tubing will make any difference vs 3/8 inch tubing...unless your running a ridiculously low volume which is not the case with an adequately designed system. It's the amount of heat that can flow through the coolant block and not the volume of coolant that passes through the coolant block that is the limiting factor. Ever seen how fast the fluid flows through 3/8 inch tubing?...One cycle only takes about 4 seconds. Half-inch is for bragging rights not efficiency.

The downside to 1/2 inch tubing is the bend radius is much greater than 3/8 which can make things difficult in routing the tubing. I saw one build where the guy could not get his case panel back on because the 1/2 inch tubing stuck out so far that he would be pinching the tubing if he were to try to put the panel back on. Thats an extreme case but I did get a chuckle out of his problem.

I do agree with Nocturnx that doing the research and designing a custom system will save you money and provide you with a better cooling system than a kit. The only advantage to a kit is that you don't have to do the research. You have far more selection doing a custom design. Which is pretty analogous to buying a Dell or Gateway vs building your own.