OK, this is all open to a lot of debate, but probably what you'll need to do is decide how serious you are about overclocking, cooling and reliability.
1. Air Cooling:
-Time proven
-Some heatsinks like Swiftech MC462-a can come close to water cooling, but sound like a vacuum
-You could add real case fans like 120mmx38mm, those 80mmx25mm hardly flow 1/3 the cfm.
-The hotter in the case the hotter the CPU (take your sides off and compare the CPU temp).
2. Water Cooling
-I believe my system is as reliable as air cooling, but I might be dreaming.
-Pumps can fail. When a fan fails in a air cooled system the CPU usually lives due to the heatsink and the other case fans. If your pump fails you need some way of shutting down your computer, but luckily there are programs that can do this as soon as it gets warm, MBM5 for example.
-Any decent water setup will kill air cooling.
-Pay special attention to pump quality and avoiding aluminum / copper mix for reliability due to corrosion.
-No fear of condensation as water temp never falls below room temp (this is what I use).
-There is a fear of water leakage but if you build it right, use clamps and high quality equipment this should never happen (hopefully).
3. Water Cooling With TEC (Peltier)
- Well first extra care should be taken to make sure your using the correct TEC for your CPU.
-Condensation may and probably will become a concern as soon as you pass room temperature. Take steps to protect the CPU, motherboard, etc.
-The cooling system not only needs to transfer the heat from the CPU, but the TEC also creates extra heat in the process of cooling (lots of heat, so build accordingly).
-Overclock with your current cooler. Maybe see what it'll do first? Watch your temperature and my rule is keep it below 50C MAX. (but others will debate). Lap your heatsink and use Arctic Silver II (same applies for water and TECs)
-Upgrade your case fans, they will still aid if you go to water or water with TEC.
-Build a great water cooling system and when you build it decide if TECs would be considered in your future. If they are you could spend a little more now and buy suitable products so you won't need to spend double later
-If you really want the TEC, add it and go extreme.
Also, read everyting you can first and ask lots of questions. Take 25% of everything you read as true and consider the fact that there will be those that will push there own products (can't blame them). Theres a lot to learn to do it right, but come up with a plan and we'll all debate it until you have ten, but that's what we're here for.
