Liquid Cooling

I am getting ready to build my dream gaming system and the one area I am still a little shady on is liquid cooling. Is that really necessary if you have a big, well-ventilated case? Do most people simple like the reduced noise? I was looking at buying a Thermaltake case (VA8000BWS) which was designed with cooling in mind (good air flow and vent). I'm planning on installing an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 2 NVIDIA 7800GT's in SLI so I know heat will be an issue. I know liquid cooling is relatively cheap, but I can't help thinking about leaks (yikes).

I'm planning on posting a breakdown of the parts I'm ordering for this system. Since this will be my first home-built PC, I'll take any advice you guys can give.

Thanks!!
TK

Todd K wrote:
I am getting ready to build my dream gaming system and the one area I am
still a little shady on is liquid cooling. Is that really necessary if
you have a big, well-ventilated case? Do most people simple like the
reduced noise? I was looking at buying a Thermaltake case (VA8000BWS)
which was designed with cooling in mind (good air flow and vent). I'm
planning on installing an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 2 NVIDIA 7800GT's
in SLI so I know heat will be an issue. I know liquid cooling is
relatively cheap, but I can't help thinking about leaks (yikes).

I'm planning on posting a breakdown of the parts I'm ordering for this
system. Since this will be my first home-built PC, I'll take any advice
you guys can give.

Thanks!!
TK

I don't have an SLI setup, but I do have a P4 3.4 and a PCI-E graphics
cards whose fan started to go. The P4 was running 180 F when running
games using the big heatsink and fan that it came with. I bought a
simple liquid cooling unit (Evercool WC-202). This unit is under $100
and works well. The CPU runs 40 degrees cooler when under load.

In your case (no pun intended), you will most likely need two secondary
radiators (one between each graphics card, one between CPU and main
radiator. There are now, however, all in one units for liquid cooling
on the graphics card and CPU. It will depend on your motherboard it
these units will work.