They have been around for many years and were developed for overclockers which is something a videographer doing non-linear editing should NOT do. For normal cooling the current heat sinks and fans work just fine. Any additional cooling can be obtained by cutting and bundling the cables (if you are handly and careful), additional case fans, or by simply leaving the cover off the case when you run it.

John

I prefer hot water heaters.......instead of COLD water heaters.

When rendering, either mpeg or 3D animations, my computer gets
super hot. I would think this would be a good investment.

Grazie, I have watercooled my video cards for about a year now. No problems, cooler PC and silent.

Photo of video card coolers: http://img288.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img12367cw.jpg

Photo of radiator screwed in my spare top drive bays: http://img288.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img12455yx.jpg

There are also several choices of enthusiast heatsink coolers with 12cm fans. They range from $20 to $50. They keep your PC cooler and quieter and make dusting easier! Google for Zalman coolers.

All you need to use water cooling is a big PC case. Or get one of those external tower coolers (I don't recommend). There are several small internal watercooling systems that work fine. They include a small quiet water pump, a CPU water block, a small radiator with 12 cm fan, and tubing to pipe the water around. Size of your case and exaust fan is imortant for selecting a water cooler.

In my opinion, all the popular ones have become very safe over the past 6 or 7 years. Only problems are user error during initial installation. Best to hook it all up outside of your PC and let the pump run 24 hours to check for leaks.

I am obsessed with having a silent PC. So are many audio studio techs who record with mics. My PC has two graphics cards. The graphics cards fans were noisy and made me crazy. So I got the cheap Thermaltake pump & radiator and two Koolance GPU coolers. I also used craft store tubing because the Thermaltake tubing kinked up too easily. No maintenance or worry for about a year now. CPU water coolers are even more standard these days. It's become a huge business.

I like the idea of a "silent" PC!

I've been using zalman products for a couple of years and they are great, I do a lot of audio so it is quite important for me to have a quiet case.

I have the CNPS9500 fan on my CPU and it's great.

I have the same fan and am very happy. The main noise from my system is the graphics card.

We installed three Axios in XW9300 systems at work. Over all, these can get both hot and noisy (I call them the hovercraft) and I was thinking that the Zalman Reserator might be a good choice because of it's lack of fans.

It wasn't really my choice and we didn't go this route. Rather, we purchased Noren cases. These are big and fairly quiet, and offer some filtration on the case intake. The interiors run about 10-15 degrees (F) above room temp so your computer itself still needs good cooling. The advantage is that it doesn't void your warranty, and the cat can sleep on the top of it.

Grazie's first issue is dust and hair, leading to overheating. The Reserator would certainly solve that but I hear there are problems with the pumps on them. I'd definitely want to monitor temps if I went this route.

You still need airflow through the system to keep the PSU and disc drives cool, but water cooling would reduce the noise substantially.

Rob Mack

I can't give any advice on the subject but this is a high priority for me on my next computer. I would love to turn it on and hear nothing....sweet nothing.
I say ..........GET IT!