I'm using a Zalman Reserator-XT with the pump upgraded to a Laing DDC Ultra 18w, along with Aqua-Computer blocks on my 2x 8800 GTS 512s, an Apogee GTX waterblock on the Q9550 CPU, and I even had water cooled RAM until I had to use all 4 slots to get to 8GB (funny thing is, I'm not overclocking anything, might when things get a bit older/are worth a bit less). Being in Europe makes water cooling a lot easier, because there are a lot of purpose made components available from Germany (GFX blocks and coolants especially).

If you go liquid cooling don't use water, get a proper coolant made for watercooling computers. You have to be absolutely sure your coolant can't conduct electricity (at least enough that it won't affect PC components). Car coolants have additives to reduce corrosion where several metals are used in the coolant loop, which goes some way to reducing conductivity, but they don't go as far as purpose made PC coolants. Your water may start off deionised, but when it's spending months in contact with copper/aluminium waterblocks, copper radiators, and brass fittings, it picks up a lot of metal ions and becomes more conductive over time. After several months of use I had a leak that resulted in my GFX card being covered in fluorescent pink coolant for several days, whilst running (the window on my comp is on the far side of it, so I've no idea how long for). Guess what, it still works. There's solid gunk that collects in the bottom of my reservoir, and that is the fancy stuff in the coolant binding onto the metal ions so they can't conduct.

It sure is a royal pain upgrading or adding components to something with a coolant loop in it. It took me at leat 3 hours to add a second graphics card, and probably the same when I added the RAM. The CPU at least is easier, as I don't have to drain the loop because it just unscrews and is on enough hose to swing out of the way.


If you decide to stick with fans, make sure the case has positive pressure (more fans blowing air into it, than sucking air out). Because the fans on graphics cards have to fit into the small space of card slots, they are very limited in their ability to shift air, or work against a pressure gradient. If you have a lot of fans sucking air out of the case, then chances are the airflow throught the GFX card's coolers will be reduced. Positive pressure on the other hand increases flow through the GFX cards.