Interesting in replacing the stock fan with a better capable one. Or if possible I would prefer a water cooler, budget is no worry.
Well I built my entire rig myself and installed a watercooler on my CPU, so I'm fairly ok, never worked on a GPU though.
Don't worry, it's not that hard (based on my experiences with other graphics cards). It can be a bit fiddly, but IMO it's actually easier than wrapping your hands around a CPU cooler whilst it's in the case. Just go carefully and make sure you try to only touch the edges of the card, and make sure you have appropriately sized screwdrivers - I nearly stripped the thread on my GTX285 because I was too lazy to find the right sized screwdriver. In terms of choosing which cooler, this link will probably be helpful for you: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2010/05/19/graphics-card-coolers-investigated/7
Kinda, but in the words of the reviewer - it's not an easy fit. Looking at that, the best are either the thermalright t-rad 2 or the scythe setsugen
If you already have a water cooling setup with a 360 radiator. You can easily add a 5870 into the loop without must temperature difference and it would be extremely quiet. I would just buy a block, some tubing, and add it. I recommend the EK block.
I've got the Corsair H50 Cooler attached to my CPU and I (assume) can't add a loop to that and I still have plenty of room in my case.
No the H50 is a closed loop cooler for cpu only. You will need to buy seperate parts and put it all together yourself and add your own water etc if you want to water-cool the card. Why do you want this anyway?
First off, how much are you willing to spend on this. because a WC loop is looking at the wrong side of £150+ i know you said budget wasn't a concern, but with WC, you have to buy everything you want/need in one go, for until the loop is finished, nothing will be able to work. second, tell us what case you have. because for a graphics card, the bare minimum you'd need for a radiator would be a 2x120mm radiator (more known as a 240) and if you can't fit that in your case, or mount it externally, it'll be new case time. whatever your case, be prepared to get a Dremel/drill out for modifications you may need to make things fit. a Corsair H50 is a self-contained unit. I've heard of people that have broke it apart to add WC hardware to it, but it's not powerful enough to run a true WC loop. your best bet would be to sell it on, and get a proper WC block for your CPU and plumb it in with your graphics card. but for that, I'd recommend fitting larger/more radiators
Well first off I'm interested as for one it's always good to have things cooler and also for overclocking purposes. I have the HAF 922 Coolmaster case so room isn't too limited but I'm not entirely aware of how big some of the WC can be, although I've seen individual tanks that run on the outside? Also as long as the price is justified £150+ is no problem for me.
As a fellow HAF 922 owner your best bet is looking at putting a 240 in where the top fan currently is (there are mounting holes drilled already), and placing in other radiators in other places as needed. The side door also has standard mounting holes for a 240 radiator though it may get akward with just how you want air to flow, kinda strange having it suck air into the case since it will be warm air, but having twin 240 rads as exhaust would cause some intense negative pressure unless you added a fan in the floor and/or turned the back fan to an intake. Speaking of the back and floor, each could possibly hold a 120 rad if you so desired. A 240 in the roof and a 120 in the floor or back should give pretty good cooling and lets you do things like GPU -> 120 -> CPU -> 240 -> res -> pump to get some cooling in between. So yes, the 922 leaves you some room to play, just no options for things like 360 rads without some more involved modding.
