It used to be the case that your CPU was top priority when it came to water-cooling your PC. However, with the latest super-quiet high-end air coolers such as Be Quiet’s Dark Rock Advanced able to tame the likes of Intel’s Core i5-2500K, even when it’s overclocked to 5GHz, it’s not surprising that the focus has shifted.

Your graphics card is far more likely to be the noisiest component inside your case these days, and with power consumption at record levels with the current generations of DirectX 11 hardware, given the choice, you could well see far more benefit if you water-cool your graphics card rather than your CPU. The benefits are two-fold – reduced noise (a couple of slow-spinning 120mm fans are far quieter than a stock GTX 580 1.5GB cooler, especially in games) and better cooling, which in turn usually means more overclocking headroom too.

Of course, buying a pump, reservoir, tubing, fittings and a waterblock isn’t a pleasant experience for your wallet. Even a double 120mm-fan radiator-based setup will set you back £200, and that’s before you’ve done the essential research into the dark arts of water cooling.

• READ MORE (Source): PNY XLR8 Liquid Cooled GTX 580 OC 1.5GB Review | bit-tech.net