cheap/easy/efficient water cooling? im a n00b but interested

[xSauronx]

last summer my computer room was the hottest in the house, overclocking an athlonx xp does not make for a cool place...so i was thinking of going with watercooling this year, losing the noise of a 38db fan would be nice as well, though its not too bad since the pc is in a cabinet. currently im cooling with a sk-7 and a panaflo h1-a or whichever it is that does something like 48cfm

i dont want to spend a fortune, or custom make something...and id like very little chance of ruining something

so whats a good way for a n00b like myself to get started? who makes good kits that work well and are easy to install with a decent price on them?

 

[StageLeft]

Watercooling will bring down the temp of your CPU closer to ambient, but that heat has to go somewhere, so it's not going to cool down your room anymore than it was before. I remember I had the same problem when I didn't have central AC. The room I had my comp in was a solid 5 degrees celcius warmer than most of the other rooms in the house.

 

[Badjokesben]

I hear the Thermaltake Aquarius III is pretty good. It runs about $250, but it is easy to install and it has a minimum amount of tubing inside the computer case, reducing the risk of a spill.

 

[smahoney]

I would suggest the Hydrocool 200 for your first attempt. It is very easy to install. Is an external unit so it is not a problem for cramped/small cases. It doesn't have an option for GPU or chipset cooling but isn't too expensive for the complete kit at $205. Not top of the line cooling but a decent price for something that is so easy to use and has hardware monitoring and support. It is a good system to start with for your first watercooling attempt. The Koolance EXOS has a lot of fans but is a bit more money.

 

[xSauronx]

soo $200 is on the cheap for something like that then? didnt realize it cost quite so much but ill take a look at some of this later when im off work, anyone else?

 

[smahoney]

You can buy the parts separately for less and build it yourself and possibly get better performance. I bought the complete kit to save time and since it was my first attempt and I had room for an external unit. Since the tubes were preconnected to the waterblock and tested the chance of leaks inside of the case was never an issue. The block is also lapped and polished in the latest rev. If you buy all highend parts and build it you can go over $250 very quickly. It depends on how much room you have in your case and how much modding you want to do - also how comfortable you are putting potentially leaking hydraulics in a case with expensive electronic components. It isn't cheap but getting a Hydrocool 200, a 2.8C M0, a new IC7-G and some PC4000 memory and running 250FSB at 3.5GHZ was faster and cheaper than a 3.2EE chip all by itself.

 

[xSauronx]

meh, stuff has come up, wont have money for watercooling

mostly wanted the low noise, this 1700+ i dont htink will go any higher. maybe ill just get a larger heat sink and a l1a or something to go on it

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
soo $200 is on the cheap for something like that then? didnt realize it cost quite so much but ill take a look at some of this later when im off work, anyone else?

for about $85; dunno if you can get better price/performance:

http://www.3dxtreme.net/index.php?id=evercoolwc-2011