water cooling questions

hey,

I plan on making a build with water cooling soon. I have some questions I need answered:

1. Are there special cases for water cooling? or will any case do

2. how risky is water cooling

3. any other tips you could give.

thanks!

Any case will do IF you're willing to mod it. Otherwise you will need to look for cases with certain features like holes for running tubing to an external radiator, areas to mount a radiator, and extra space never hurts. From what I hear the Corsair 800D is an excellent case for water cooling so you may wish to look into that although it is expensive. I also hear that the HAF-932 is also pretty good for water cooling, as is the ATCS 840 (which I own and although I haven't tried to water cool with it the case does look like it would be a good choice for water cooling).

As for the risk it's not too bad as long as you take the proper precautions (test for 24 hours before installing everything, practice proper maintainence, etc). That said, it's like airplane travel. The risk may not be very large but it is there and if **** does hit the fan then it's always a worst case scenario. I think there are non-conductive fluids you can use though which does more or less eliminate the "I just had a leak and destroyed my $2000 PC" risk.

other good cases:

corsair obsidian 700D

silverstone raven

antec 900/900 two/twelve hundred

cooler master storm scout

corsair obsidian 800d

nzxt guardian 921 (unsure)

lian-li arachnid (plus this looks the coolest imho)

cm 690/ 690 nvidia edition (unsure again srry)

water cooling is actually a very nice option escpecially for those who can afford it it looks amazing, has the potential at least to reduce noise and can run significantly cooler than many case fan options. the coolit gtx 400 series watercooling kit actually drops it considerably but then again i guess sending your psu off the deep end isnt a worthwhile side effect.

You dont throw electronics into a bathtub, You dont throw water into a computerSTAR_Admiral

It's not literally "water" cooling; well, not always at least. A better term for it would be "liquid cooling." Water can still be used as a coolant in your computer, but as another poster has said, non-conductive liquids are available to run through your cooling loop, which still have the same cooling potential.

You dont throw electronics into a bathtub, You dont throw water into a computerSTAR_Admiral

expect to drop $400-800.phlawedgaming

[QUOTE="phlawedgaming"]expect to drop $400-800.mike4realz

It's also a gross overstatement. I built my CPU-only loop for less than $100, and I can easily say that it trumps any air cooler on the market today. $400 could buy you a CPU and 2x GPU loop with all the extra "bling" associated with watercooling systems.