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Advice for first timer

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Ryco

New Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2004
Got a few questions.

Would a beginner be able to easily setup a water cooling kit (I'm reading as much as I can, for the sake of the question assume someone knows NOTHING on water cooling, assuming a few guides are read would you say it's something that could be done fairly easy?).

How much of a difference would a good water cooled system give in terms of temp? Right now according to MBM5 my case temp is 30C and the CPU 35. Under load the CPU goes to about 47. The part that always worried me was my 9800XT (soon to be X800 XT) NEVER goes below 60C, usually hovers at about 70C under load, I've heard thats just what they run at, still bugs me.

Would it be possible to get a water cooling kit setup in this PC without modding it? (Pic below). Having never built a PC before and buying my first badass PC I was very afraid to build it myself, like a noob I went with Alienware (at least the price was reasonable, $2200 for 3.0 ghz, 9800XT, 1 GB corsair ram, etc.. 6 months old). I love the case, I have no intentions of screwing around with it however time and time again I've really considered a 2nd case, it's annoying not being able to mod it at all (damn plastic). Could the case be water cooled? Is there enough room?

Finally...assuming it would fit what would be some good parts to go with? Are the 3/8 tubes actually alot better than the 1/2? Are all kits bad? Would the swiftech kits be any good? Money isnt really an issue however I dont want to go too crazy on the price.

I still have alot of reading to do, I'm sorry if I posted questions that have been answered a billion times. Any help would be apprechiated! Thanks
 

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isnt it the other way? 1/2'' tubing is better than the 3/8'' ones. this is so becuz of the 3/8's retriction size
 
I think that, as you read about the subject you'll find that opinions about a proper H2O setup are just as varied as they are about air-cooling.
Your desire not to mod your pretty case, while understandable, limits your options somewhat.
You could easily go with a store bought external kit (Zalman Reserator comes to mind) or build from scratch an external box to house the pump and radiator.
Either way, the mods to the case are minimal and reversable.
 
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