Ben, watercooling is a nice middle ground between air and peltier or phase change. Twenty watts of power for the pump and fans is far better than the hundreds of watts used for peltier or HVAC. So, I wouldn't call watercooling disproportionately high.
If you want efficiency, go for heat pipes to a passive radiator. But, it is far harder to get great temps that way.
Edit: I wouldn't argue against higher efficiency in watercooling though. There are plenty of gains to be had in variable speed motors for the pump and fans. But, that's not really part of the core demographic (yet?).
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