Don't be afraid to get yourself a watercooling kit! Just make sure you read up on it before you install it. Watercooling is perfectly safe (deionized water will not break your computer, it's not really conductive, and leaks tend to be small) if you take your time when installing it and make sure there's no leaks. Then you only need to check on it once in a while to check the waterlevels. Cleaning the system is usually done like two times per year or less, as long as you don't have light on the water and use a anti-algae solution.
Be aware that watercooling still follows the laws of physics! You need airflow for good cooling, however
passive systems are perfectly fine with most systems as long as you don't expect great overclocking results. Also stay away from stupid designs (generally one fan systems or systems with small radiators) as they tend to be highly priced (the hey it looks cool! designs) and have disappointing performance, spend a couple of evenings examining your options. Watercooling will generally give you good cooling or ok cooling and low noise (the loudest component in my watercooled system was the PSU, which is a lownoise model).
Pros: Good cooling, low noise
Cons: Price (often ~2-3 times the expense of a highend heatsink/fan), takes time to install, not ideal if you have a habit of being in your case and moving things around alot (you
should test for leaks if you bumped into a hose for example)
People who has had accidents with watercooling has often ignored what other users of watercooling is screaming at them -
take your time and read up on what you're getting yourself into and let the installation take the time it needs - including testing for leaks!
And people claiming that it's dangerous don't really know what they're talking about, they're just repeating stuff learnt in physics lessons (yes tapwater conducts a little electricity - which is one reason why it is not used in watercooling) or what others (who also don't have a clue) have said.
As a note for others thinking of watercooling; I've had two leaks in my system with water running over components with the system powered on. Once a loose hose with a very small leak, mere drops fell on a NIC. And once the plastic on my cpu block cracked (bad mounting) and fairly large amounts of water washed over the motherboard (say up to 1/5th or even 1/3rd of a deciliter) while running. And
NOTHING was damaged.
Both times it was my fault for not testing and examining the installation enough. The cpu block cracked after 1/2 a year in pretty much around the clock use (I had mounted it 180 degrees wrong
). And I'll be watercooling my system in a month again (not enough cash for gpu block yet) and there's some pretty expensive components that I wont even worry about destroying because of the watercooling - because I know what to do and what not to do.
I've actually started to think about mounting a laptop harddrive in my computer to reduce noise as I fear that my very quiet
Samsung P120S will be making the most noise. And this will be a high end computer with a heavily overclocked dual core opteron running fully loaded around the clock. So I hope I've encouraged some of you to take the step to watercooling.. You'll be amazed at the simplicity of it and how quiet your system becomes. If you want advice don't hesitate to ask