Case or no case?

[Kosta]

What's louder and what's cooler? To have a case with 120mm fans or having PC bare in the open, mainboard lying on the table or something? I have watercooling, to that presents even further problem for open PC...

What are your opinions?

[Ehwaz001]

For WC, it gets harder to put it just on a table, hence it's not impossible, just harder. But consider this: heat rises, so if it get's blocked but the top of your case, and you need fans to push the heat out, it's better to have it open with all parts on a table. Radiation and accidents are going to happen more often, unless you think before you act. If you spill something next to your setup and it's inside a case, it won't make much of a difference. But if you spill it next to your HW on the table, its going to be a bad day...
When you OC a lot though, you still need to get air rapidly through CPU and NB HSF, so extra fans are still needed to push the air through it rapidly. When you leave it open on the table, there is ambient temp air available all around you which doesn't have to be sucked in like it has to be done with a case.

[heikis]

open on the table is NOT "cool"

[Kosta]

heikis, it would still be watercooled, but for examle, for the passive northbridge pipe on the p5b deluxe, i reckon it is better if its on the open air then in the casing, right, wrong?