Here are some images of our Alienware ALX system. I am considering upgrading the graphics cards on my watercooled demon myself, or sending it to Alienware’s Depot at a hefty freight fee.
The goal is to replace the aging 7800GT graphics card with a single new 8800GTX, or two 8800GTS in SLI.
But, do you go Watercooled 8800GTX card? Watercooled GTS’s? Or just somehow bypass the Watercooling for the GPUs altogether and leave them air cooled?
Either way, one lesson learnt – do NOT buy an OEM watercooled solution for the GPU. They change too quickly and unless you are very , very knowledgeable you are going to catch your ass to swap out graphics cards 
Update 29th March – Professional advice on the Alienware situation is to sell it and purchase a new PC. The entire Water Cooling situation is a complicated one, and missteps could result in destroying the motherboard or other components. A suggestion was to remove the water blocks from the two 7800GTs and leave them hanging inside the case. That way one does not have to fiddle overly with the actual water cooling loop, which should still function just fine for the CPU.
nice pics. Lots of dust in there
Does water cooling make a great difference in terms of overall performance…especially considering the headaches associated with upgrading a component?
See you have all of the toys on display in the 2nd to last pic….nice
Comment by Ryan — March 30, 2007 @ 12:05 am
Water cooling keeps the components sometimes as much as 10 degrees celcius cooler than air cooling. This is only ever necessary if you are Overclocking your components, as at standard speeds Air Cooling works fine.
Another concern is the noise of so many fans going at once in the standard PC Case. Some manufacturers though, now provide sound dampening features in their cases to counter the noise of the fans.
My sad experience has been that for 99% of people Water Cooling is nothing more than expensive overkill, and adds inconvenience and complications down the line unless you are very comfortable with the entire watercooling system and the risk of damaging your precious hardware components should you need to change or service parts.
The Dell 710H2C computer may be an exception to the rule, however, as its water cooling system is completely self contained and can actually be easily unsnapped, unscrewed and swiveled off the CPU as one complete module. That makes changing it easy if anything goes wrong, or swapping processors, or reverting to air cooling if you so desire. This solution is the only one like it I’ve seen however and it was specially built to fit the Dell 710 Chassis.
Comment by Ramajay — April 5, 2007 @ 7:50 am
omg havent you ever heard of a air duster
clean you pc dude
bofore it blo
Comment by djm — February 7, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Sei un figlio di puttana, con tutti i soldi ke hai vatti a prendere dei vestiti nuovi pirla altro ke 8800ultra, poi cosa te ne fai???? ma dio cane esci un po
Comment by oOoKedevrAoOo — October 17, 2008 @ 1:11 pm