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At what size CPU would the absolute threshold level be with regards to air cool and water cool in reference to an Intel CPU? I am contemplating on building my computer, but leery of using water cool and was wondering how high I can go with the CPU speed before switching to water cooling.

I thought it was in relation to temperature level, not so much CPU level

Actually if anyone has a good chart on Temperature (normal) levels, (on different CPUs) please post.

Well if u r going to overclock the new intel cpus then i think u can do alot as long as u get a good cpu fan cooler i mean people are getting a 2.4ghz to 3.2+ easily on stock cooler so i think water cooling maybe a cool thing but always risky with water as you know.

with water cooling you could get ~300-500 Mhz more than air cooling. I've been running water for 7 years on my main system. I've wondered what I could do with some of the new air coolers. I'd like to see how well I could do with the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme.

There are some excellent cooling fans out now. I''m running a Zalman 92mm fan with heatsink on my quad core. It keeps me in the high 40's and low 50's. It is really for dual core apps. A quad core fan would be more like a 120 mm. I would say to look at the newest cpu coolers with lots of fins and a 120 fan. Also Tuniq.