Don't understand water cooling etc - help?

[Detective]

I'm getting a rig built and I've decided on FX55, ASUS SLI mobo,1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX-XL, DDR, PC3200XLPT, tagan 480 psu etc, 2 x xfx 6800 gts, Tsunami silver dream case.

How noisy is this going to be. What can I get added to it to keep the noise down, and does it need cooling? How does water cooling work and which way/kit is best/most effective.

[schmunk]

I'd stick with the standard air cooling for a while - see (hear) what it's like, then decide if you want the expense and potential hazards (however small) of watercooling.

Watercooling works by pumping water around a loop through a cooler (CPU heats up water) to a heat exchanger (fans / convection cool water down) and back round. A decent setup will result in lower volume for the same cooling capacity or a higher cooling capacity at similar volume to your air setup. However, similar results (lower volume) can be gained by using better air coolers, such as the Zalman CPNS-7700 (correct name?)

I've never felt the need to watercool myself, so can't profess to you the pros / cons of different kits...

[Raggy]

Well that should be a very nice set up there, but yes it will be very noisy. Check this site out if your interested in lowering the sound decibels (thank Betty_Swallocks for the link) Think about under clocking the video cards to save on the noise level because right now 2 is a bit over kill. As for water cooling you’d have to ask some one else as I don’t know to much about do it your self water cooling, though if your willing to opt for a different case check out Koolance’s PC2650bu it’s an all in one water cooling/case set up, one of the best from what I’ve heard but it’ll run you about $220 (or about 260 quid? (sp)).

[funnelhead]

Detective - you are obviously quite a well-off individual.....rather than get 2 GT's now (where the power will be overkill) why not get one Ultra now, and another ultra in 6 months?

This will be a hot rig....on air cooling you will need a few case fans to get all that heat out...

If you watercool, you can cool your processor, northbridge and 2 vid cards and put the radiator outside of your case so that the heat is immediatly transferred outside. This would reduce the noise to 1 pump, psu and hard disk, rather than cpu fan, mobo fan, 2 x gpu fans, + 2 case fans. And remember, the smaller the fan the more annoying the sound....

but what schmuk says is right..... get the kit now and get used to it first. If you decide you wanna spend £200 on watercooling....well, i cant think of a setup more deserving

[nvening]

You cant get pci-e ultras and if he is going SLI (under my instruction lol) then he will need pci-e. There are other ways of cooling detective, like solid copper heatsinks coated in gold lol. To find out more go to www.computershopper.co.uk Under analysis go to features, and then go on silence your pc.

[Detective]

You cant get pci-e ultras and if he is going SLI (under my instruction lol) then he will need pci-e. There are other ways of cooling detective, like solid copper heatsinks coated in gold lol. To find out more go to www.computershopper.co.uk Under analysis go to features, and then go on silence your pc.

Cheers, nvening. Have taken your advice on set up and I'll take a look at the link