[Kal-EL]

The phase change opens up a lot of overclocking potential with certain processors and its effectiveness varies from platform to platform but overall you should reap marked performance over water/air systems.

The only concern with 24/7 phase or short game session phase cooling is the amount of humidity in your area and how well you guard against condensation with your motherboard prep work. In some cases its a careful & tedious process. But if you're up to it, its awesome sauce overclocking.

The other side of the coin is that current hardware offerings are, in my opinion, more than capable of handling today's gaming challenges at a modest hardware level. You can get great performance out of mid-range equipment on air. Thoughtful TIM placement, hardware installation and settings can put you in the zone, UNLESS, you live in Mogadeeshu (HOT).

I'm partial to sub-zero but my 24/7 gamer is all air, two generations old, and still pwning.

As far as vendors, I'm sure someone can point you in the right direction but I've not had the pleasure of picking up a new phase system since acquiring my cascade. That builder no longer builds phase systems afik.

Far as "stock" cooling, nope, invest in a good Air cooler and TIM, not those paltry stock coolers.

Those are my thoughts. BTW, I'm waiting on 2 of 3 Rog Swift 1444p 144mhz monitors to arrive along with a 3rd GTX6804gb card to run surround on. If everything performs well, that just goes to show that hardware is ahead of games atm.

[JHawk]

Wow. Thanks for the amazing response Kal-EL. Very helpful.

I've been on a week long binge of sorts looking into overclocking and had come to the same conclusion as your first two paragraphs. The rest of your post basically let me know the best bang for my buck (and way less work) is a more stock approach which is exactly what I was wondering. =D

As far as using the term "stock cooling" I half threw that in there because I thought it might be like nails on a chalkboard to OCers and wanted to test my theory lmao. ATM I'm thinking about a closed loop liquid cooler or a nice air cooler (something like this http://www.noctua.at/inc/imageviewer.php?item=68&pnr=2 (erm but not for $100 which is what newegg had that listed at O.o)) or maybe just going for a quiet system with low db fans.

I was not sure what you meant by TIM. 95% sure you meant Thermal Interface Material. http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=71658 should help me pick a decent compound haha. Anyway thanks again ^_^

[OC Maximus]

Originally Posted by JHawk

ATM I'm thinking about a closed loop liquid cooler or a nice air cooler (something like this http://www.noctua.at/inc/imageviewer.php?item=68&pnr=2 (erm but not for $100 which is what newegg had that listed at O.o)) or maybe just going for a quiet system with low db fans.

I'm about to disassemble my watercooled rig that's been a solid performer for about 4 years. I feel like it's time for change. Going back to air just for fun. Watercooling components have held up longer than I expected. In the last 4 years I replaced the water 4 times and cleaned waterblocks once. It was a great setup which I'm sure will last another 4 years with a new pump but it's time for something different. Or is this just an excuse for me to build another rig?

[JHawk]

Originally Posted by OC Maximus

Or is this just an excuse for me to build another rig?

Lmao, sounds like a perfect excuse to build a new rig if you ask me =P.

I ended up going with Cooler Master Glacer 240L and it failed about 2 months in. ~_~ Replaced it with the Corsair Hydro Series H110 and I'm happy with the replacement so far. The reviews for the Corsair were much more promising too so I don't expect any future issues.