What would you choose?

[bellevegasj]

Looks and money aside, which is the better choice for a gaming machine... compressor cooling(that I think just cools the cpu) or a good water cooling kit that would cool the cpu and video card. I'm leaning towards building a water kit right now.

 

[DustMite]

For water cooling, I would not recommend a kit. A kit is usually only as good as half way decent air cooling. If you are thinking about overclocking, a DIY setup is the preferred choice. You can get all your parts for a DIY setup cheaper then any kit as well. All that you really pay for in a kit is a name and an instruction manual. As for how to put it all together, there are some very good tutorials on how to set it up in the water cooling forum and across the web. The parts, in a kit, are usually not that good and only offer adequate cooling for a non overclocked computer.

For some good tips about water cooling and what components to get, check out the water cooling forum on this site. Here: http://www.hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=91

It is generally recommended to begin with water cooling and get familiar with it before tackling the more advanced methods (peltier, tec, vapor phase change, dry ice, liquid nitrogen, etc).