It's been a long time since I have thought about air cooling. I run 5-7 machines at all times and all of the bench and gaming rigs are liquid cooled. I do have some air-cooled machines, believe it or not, my daily work rig is still air cooled. Mostly because I've been to busy to add the blocks and radiator, but it is ready. It's a modest 3200+ socket 754. There's an old KOTH cooler, the Thermalright 900 series sink with a temp controlled fan. I have a XP-90 on another and Jet series HSF on yet another. Quiet is the way I roll. My watercooled systems are my loud ones. Let's face it, when most overclockers are liquid cooling their systems, it's not to quiet them down, it's for performance. The radiator is begging for some high flow fans. The intakes and exhaust fans are surely roaring too. Many of us have the ability to quiet them down a little by dropping the voltage going to them but we can turn them up when it's time to play. If I want peace in my office, I have to shut off the other systems.

I'm also the type to change components for the latest and greatest. Video cards can be a real pain to change when it comes to water cooling. If you're brave, you can unscrew the block while the system is still full and try to carefully mount it to the new card. The only problem here is one wrong move and you could send that block crashing against the motherboard, video card or any other sensitive device and knock one of those tiny, yet important components right off your board. The other option is to drain the system and disconnect the block from the tubing and mount the block the safe way. This involves a drying time to ensure no drips sneak out of the block while you are mounting it to your brand new card. Then you have to hook up the tubing, refill and air out the system and test for leaks.

For the past couple of video cards I have owned, the 7800GT and now the 7900GT, I have left them with the stock coolers. I was too busy to deal with adding them back into the H2O loop. I was so impressed by a review we did on Zalman's VF-700 series GPU coolers, I had to go out and get one. I was very impressed by its ability to keep the card cool and quiet. Well Richard, from Sharka Corporation asked if I would like to take a peek at the latest Zalman GPU cooler. I quickly agreed and I must admit that I am anxious to see if it can meet the level of performance and silence the VF-700 series has shown me.