My girlfriend has unfortunately got it stuck in her head that she must have a water cooling setup in the rig she wants me to put together for her. She has always hated the noise of her current rig. (In fact, adding extra fans never seemed to do much for her case temps, it just increased the noise.)
Here are the parts she is currently considering for cooling:
Asus P5N32-SLI Premium mobo
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB (see note below)
Intel E6400 Core 2 Duo
She plans on putting this into a Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS case, which is supposedly one of the biggest cases out there, so it should fit any video card and cooling system one can think of. (Personally, I'm considering an Antec Nine Hundred for myself since the big fans it uses are fairly quiet and don't bother me, though I hear some video cards don't fit quite right. But I digress.)
She may go with a 8800GTS 640MB card (since she only has a 1240x1080 LCD), or even an ATi X1950 XTX (which is faster than the 8800 for DX9 games, and we'll still be using XP because Vista is still buggy and there are no DX10 games for it yet, anyway, and by the time there are, DX10 cards will probably be cheaper than they are now).
I figure there's no need for a Northbridge waterblock, since the mobo has passive heatpipe cooling for it, and since we're not OC'ing the existing coolers will be fine.
She just wants as silent a system as possible, without breaking the bank. She thinks watercooling is the only way to get a silent rig, so we ask your advice!
Here are the parts she is currently considering for cooling:
Asus P5N32-SLI Premium mobo
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB (see note below)
Intel E6400 Core 2 Duo
She plans on putting this into a Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS case, which is supposedly one of the biggest cases out there, so it should fit any video card and cooling system one can think of. (Personally, I'm considering an Antec Nine Hundred for myself since the big fans it uses are fairly quiet and don't bother me, though I hear some video cards don't fit quite right. But I digress.)
She may go with a 8800GTS 640MB card (since she only has a 1240x1080 LCD), or even an ATi X1950 XTX (which is faster than the 8800 for DX9 games, and we'll still be using XP because Vista is still buggy and there are no DX10 games for it yet, anyway, and by the time there are, DX10 cards will probably be cheaper than they are now).
I figure there's no need for a Northbridge waterblock, since the mobo has passive heatpipe cooling for it, and since we're not OC'ing the existing coolers will be fine.
She just wants as silent a system as possible, without breaking the bank. She thinks watercooling is the only way to get a silent rig, so we ask your advice!