Passive heatsinks & watercooling
 

I'm in the market for a new video card, and was considering getting the Sapphire 9700 Pro Ultimate package, with the passive heatpipe cooling. My question is however whether or not this heatsink will provide adequate cooling considering the fact that my computer is watercooled and therefore the only fans I have in it are on my radiator. I suppose I could add another fan or two if I HAD to, but I'd prefer not too.

The alternative to the passive cooling would be a fancooled GPU or a watercooled GPU right...

I guess tha a fan delivered with a videocard is quite noisy so if I were to choose I think I would go with the passive heatsink and a slotcooler or something made out of a 80X80 or 120X120 on low voltage. I guess that would make less noise.. and add to air circulation im the case...

But since you've got watercooling I don't understand why you doesn't watercool the GPU to?

Well, there are other heat-producing components in your system, so having a fan for intake and a fan for exhaust is still a good idea.I would use a pair of Pabst 120's , and volt them down to7 volts. You'd never hear them at that point.

Additionally, I would add the vido card to the water-cooling loop. That would evacuate much of the video card heat through the radiator.

Ok, I've decided to watercool the video card. Now I've got a new questions that's sort of along the same topic. Should I watercool the motherboard? I've got an Asus A7N8X and the heatsink on the mobo is just a large passive heatsink. Will watercooling that really make that much of a difference?

If your OC:ing I guess it will make a difference...