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A bit about my set up

Motherboard: Asus Tech P5W DH Deluxe
CPU Type: dual core Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 3600 MHz (9 x 400) (overclocked)
CPU Clock: 3603.9 MHz (stock speed: 2400 MHz, overclocked by 50%)
RAM: DIMM1: OCZ OCZ2SOE9001G 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-10 @ 266 MHz)
DIMM3: OCZ OCZ2SOE9001G 1 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15@ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-10 @ 266 MHz)
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, and driver by TweaksRUs
Disk Drive: Maxtor 6 L300R0 SCSI Disk Device (300 GB, 7200 RPM, Ultra-ATA/133)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional SP 4
Case: Lian Li
PSU: Liberty 500 watt

EVGA 8800GTS

I call it my "set up" as "Test bench" would lead one to believe that I might be attempting to publish definitive results. I'm not. Please read this only as a guide as to what the reader can reasonably expect from a similar system.

When I received my card I first installed it as is out of the box in order to establish base temps and give me the means to chart my progress. Like many before me, I was stunned. The card idles in my system at 50-55C running at it's native 576 Core 850 memory, depending upon ambient. (65-70F). The good news is that running it hard seems to little effect it's temps. As there are reviews available and my interests lies in watercooling I didn't push the stock card very much or very hard....Hey! I had a watercooler to install! ":O}

I setup to go to work on my card. The removal of the stock EVGA cooler was a walkthough. Following the Koolance instructions, and pretending I didn't know I was messing with a $500.00 investment, I can't afford to replace.  I had to keep reminding myself that with reasonable care and precaution there was nothing "dangerous" about what I was doing... $500.00 WOW!

So with way more sweat than ambient can explain I marched on until... there were simply no more checks to my assembly or system I could make... again... without embarrassing myself... Time to do the deed...

By the way, if you're interested in acquiring this card... and I think you should be ":O} There is something you should know before you get one. These cards are advertised as requiring TWO slots to accommodates card and cooler. This is a lie! They require THREE SLOTS TO FUNCTION. There I said it.  Why hasn't anyone else!? The 8800GTS from EVGA features the blower/heat pipe Nvidia reference design cooler.  It looks a step up from previous coolers from reference, but it has what to me is a glaring flaw. Once installed, the blower faces the bottom of the case, which is to say the card immediately beneath it is less that a 1/4 inch off the blower... you can just see daylight!  This maybe a perfectly acceptable arrangement at stock, but I would be very uneasy pushing things in this configuration.

Perhaps, someone reading this will post to forums and set me straight on how this works?  Will people give up every slot in on their motherboard to run SLI? Because that IS what it will take to put two of these mothers in SLI with stock cooling... a small oversight from the people pushing SLI. I'd say.

The upside? The Koolance jacket takes up 14mm (about 1/2 an inch) of slot width space, an easy fit into a single slot.

Did I mention that water is a lot prettier than air? It is! It truly is! ":O}  When you finally hit that button and cool clear water splashes its way out of the reservoir stalling then shooting the tubes to charge the system... it just does something to me, every time. I suppose I should mention that the above was included for it's emotive and literary value rather than as actual instruction on how to charge a water cooling system? ":O}

System charged, I take a few deep ones and kick-off. The final bubbles hiding out in dark places find their way to the clear tubes linking reservoir to CPU, CPU to GPU and back up to air purging reservoir, and vanish leaving micro bubbles to follow after them up my 3/8 inch tubes where they to vanish. And with their passing all evidence of motion within the connecting tubes leaves the water still seeming and blue with coolant. I check to see my dual pumps are running... (How many of you air coolers have a back up in place if a fan fails? Was that a cheap shot? Sorry. ":O}