

Liquid cooling used to frighten the more timid enthusiasts, and for good reason. If you looked into it casually, the sheer range of parts and methods was frightening. You’d need water blocks. You’d need radiators. You’d need reservoirs. You’d need hoses that fit properly. You’d need a pump with the proper pressure for your water cooling system. There wasn’t much help out there, the parts were ala carte, and the entire task was a massive project.

Today, liquid cooling is almost as easy to install as a standard heatsink and fan air cooler, thanks to companies like CoolIt Systems and Kingwin. Both offer products included in this roundup that are compact, pre-filled, and ready to install. Even the third product, Gigabyte’s you-assemble-it hose/valve/pump system comes in a kit with everything you need to liquid cool your system’s CPU. There’s no guesswork, no worries about pump pressure or hose thickness.

Why liquid cool? For overclocking, that’s why. Intel’s latest crop of CPUs leave lots of room for a good overclock; in pushing the parts to the max, our test system turned out to be limited more by its memory than the Intel Core 2 X6800 CPU—especially once we popped the air cooler off and started chilling it with coolant.

Another reason is noise levels. Despite potential noise from the pumps, liquid coolers are often quieter than many air cooling rigs.

We installed and tested three liquid cooling solutions and judged them by two main criteria: ease of installation, and how far they allowed us to push the processor while keeping it at a reasonable temperature. Continued…