"Taking the plunge?" Space problems...

I'm considering "taking the plunge," so to speak. I can't bear the noise of my Tornado any longer. The only thing I can't figure out is where to place all the required components for a good watercooling setup. Seeing as how I only have one CDROM drive and 2 hard drives, I would utilize my 5.25" bays for a reservoir, and the 3.5" space below my hard drives for the pump.

The only thing I am having trouble with is finding a place for a decent radiator.

At first I considered screwing it to the back of my case where two 80mm fans reside and adding two more high output low noise fans on the outside of the radiator to have a push-pull type radiator sandwich.

Then I thought of raising my case about 1" off the ground and cutting a massive hole in the bottom for a radiator that would accomodate two 120mm fans which would pull air out of the case and push it out under the computer.

Which option would be better for performance?

I think the two 120's would be better for performance and noise level. All depends on the fans you get of course.

I kind of had the same situations as you. I also considered emptying the top 5.25 bay and mounting it on the top of the case.

Cheers!

Reaper: What did you end up doing?

Also: Heatercore or Radiator? What are the differences? Pros/Cons?

what case are we talking about?

a heatercore is a part from a car that a lot of people use as rads for their watercooled setup cause they're cheaper and they perform just as well.

Case

The bottom of the case will take a 120mm radiator/fan setup since it is 8" or 203mm across, I'm just concerned about the fact that the air would be flowing OUT of the bottom of the case. If this has been done before (which I am sure of) how did it work out?

i have my blackice extreme2 mounted on top of my c3 acrylic case. the case has two 92mm fan holes in back. i had custom plugs made and the rad outlet goes through one of these fan plugs into the cpu. my eheim 1260 is ouside the case and goes to my rad. that pump is huge . better looking outside the case. temps are 28.5c idle. no problems. it's also a little safer, as there's less things to leak inside your case, if they should leak.

8" width is a lot of space, the Chevette and Caprice HCs are about 6" or 6.5" wide.

Do this, i didnt want to move my raid drives cuz I had a filtered air fan blowing on them, so I just set it in back of the comp.
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=287899