Liquid cooling questions...

what is your price range for this build? what else are you going to be doing... besides wow?

im at work, postng from my phone, but ill try and help you out when I can.

with your price range you can get a lot of good stuff.


IMO...

Intel Xeon X3320 2.33Ghz CPU (is this good for gaming?) - I would suggest a q6600 or a e8400, both of these have been proven to be excellent overclockers, if thats something you want
ABS Tagan 1300W power supply - I do not think you need PSU THAT powerful, i would suggest SILENCER 750 QUAD or something on that level
Patriot Viper DDR3 ram (only 4 gigs for now) - Unless you are running vista 64, i think 2 gig should be good enough
PNY Geforce 9600 GX2 1G GPU - and do you mean 9800 gx2? IF so, i have the same one, and i have zero compliants

Some quick comments:

If you're going water cooling, you're better off picking the parts yourself or getting a pre-designed kit from somewhere like Petra's Tech. Not knocking the Thermaltake stuff, but you can do better by picking parts yourself ... do you want to water cool just the CPU, or the video card(s) too? Personally, I'd suggest doing an air-cooled build first ... then adding water cooling down the road.

Is the video card you've picked a temporary solution? If not, you don't need the Asus Striker II Extreme board. It's crazy expensive, and really only needed if you want to go SLI and DDR3 memory ... and, if you think you need to cool the Northbridge on the motherboard (not really necessary for your first build). Note ... you can use any motherboard in a water-cooled system that you can use in an air-cooled system. It's totally optional to cool the chipsets on the motherboard. Some, like the ASUS Extreme II, have a built in water cooling block for the NB -- but generally these aren't considered the most robust.

If you only need one video card ... look at the X38 or X48 boards (like GBQ has) ... and there's really no need to get DDR3 RAM or pay $400+ for a motherboard. You won't get that much performance gain -- especially if you really are mostly interested in playing WoW... Re the CPU, I'd recommend something like the 8400 series or the Q9450 (or a Q6600).

Check out this review of the Thermaltake Sword water cooled case: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...ng-review.html

Not trying to put a downer on your choice ... just want to make sure you consider other options. And, even though I've said you don't need the Asus Striker II Extreme and DDR3, it is the one I'm going with in my next build (but I'm not known for rationale decisions )



Good Luck with your decisions ... take your time planning and ask lots of questions.

The Stacker is a good case choice. You can find lots of info on water cooling one at XtremeSystems forums.

I'd definitely recommend Intel over AMD ... you can get an Intel Quad core for a good price (check out the 9450s).

You can probably get a good price on 2 Ultras, but remember that this is now "aging" technology ... still good, but another good option would be the 8800 GT unless you're ready to go for the 9800 series...

Jake, what's status on that build?

I did a rebuild from scratch last Nov and used a Cosmos case and Q6600 as my basis. I've got the CPU clocked to 3.0 using a Vendetta heat sink, and things are quite happy heat-wise (and is nearly silent after I replaced most of the stock fans from CM - I would have to replace the 92mm on the Vendetta to complete the silencing).

Water was briefly considered but I don't see a point, as the system is fast enough for my needs (Oblivion, Second Life, There.com, and Uru/CC/MO:RE). I did finally cave in and traded up my 7800 GT for a 8800 GT from Palit (the 1 gig mem version) and am quite happy with it; Newegg happened to sneak in a deal I could not refuse (came out to be about $160). Only gotcha is that Palit did not use the 'reference' design so its not possible to watercool.

Reference page for my desktop: http://sungak.net/weblog/computer_specs

--TSK