Thinking of maybe going with Water.

[barch 88]

Im thinking of maybe going with a water-cooling setup. I know almost nothing about the subject, but with your help Im willing to learn.

Right now my Specs are

AMD 3200+, not overclocked...but once I switch over to water Im going to.

Getting ASUS A8N-SLI Premium in the next couple weeks (christmas)
Getting eVGA 7800GT

Dual 74g Raptors (RAID 0)
Cosiar 1 gig XMS Series Ram

I was first going to ask about it, kit, or seperate....do you think I can set my rig up for it for under 450 bucks?


Right now my temps are nice and cool, but I would like to go with Water to save space and not have to worry about my temps as much.

[jayb1234]

It depends on a few things.

Does your case have room for a liquid cooling setup?

If not are you OK with having the coolant tank outside the case?

If you decide you need a new case look for one that has Knockouts to run the tubes to the radiator through.

You should be able to set up a watercooling system foe well under $450. It would probably be easier to get a kit than buying individual parts

.

Here is what newegg has in stock today (2 pages). Browse through them and read some reviews or download some manuals and you should have a pretty good idea of what it will involve.

[HaloAddict19]

From what I've heard from friends and such, and from my recent research, as I am also looking at getting liquid cooling for a new system, it is much less expensive, and often more thermally beneficial to buy all the parts seperately. I was looking at getting a thermaltake bigwater kit, but was steered away because it is often WORSE than many air cooled systems for 1/2 the cost. Danger Den makes very good water cooling parts. I would suggest the D5 12v pump, and acetal maze 4 gpu cooler (get some ram sinks for the memory, my friend got the this gpu block and dropped his temps 20c), and a black ice pro radiator (they come in 3 sizes, 1x 2x or 3x 120mm fan support). If you really want to get the Xtreme be warned, they are very thick, therefore you need loud 100+ cfm fans (not sure if that bothers you). I wouldn't suggest getting a Danger Den CPU block, check out some of the swiftech blocks instead. For a first time liquid cooling system a few suggestions would be to get non-conductive coolant, and that a resovior isnt really necessary, and greatly increases the volume of any spills/leaks. If you have lots of 5.25"s you can mount the radiotor there, or you can mount it on the top of the case with a couple inches space between the top of the case and the buttom of the radiator. Have the fans pull air through the radiator, not push. Test all parts for leaks for 24 hours (like they suggest).Also go with 1/2" tubing, more flow, more cooling. You can order all the danger den parts from their online store (dangerdenstore.com) they are cheaper here than anywhere else I have found. I found a few good CPU blocks on frozencpu.com for a good price, again I suggest the swiftechs.

[David M]

There are a lot of good water cooling kits for less than $450. Some kits are decent and some are junk. You cannot blanket label all kits as worse than buying the parts individually.

You may want to add Koolance to your list of sources.

[MaxRat]

If you buy a good heatsink like the Zalman or Thermalright brand..They are so efficient now a days that they are almost just as good as water cooling withouth the mess and expence...

Most recieve very descent overclocks on air....You stilll have to have some sort of air cooling to cool the mother board itself...enjoy