Someone's a forum hostile
rofl.
Water is way more affective then air. It's capacity to hold heat is 5 times greater then air, and the speed at which is absorbs the heat is twenty times greater then air. Which means it's highly affective even in warm ambiant climates.
As for the coolant, of course! There are all sorts of coolants, from the crappy glycerol based to the distilled water based solutions. Glycerol has poor heat transfer and absorbtion, so stay away from it. You want to look for 4 good qualities in a coolant product. 1st off, it should be non conductive as far as electricity goes. That way if there are mistakes, it's easy to clean up.
Secondly, anti-corrosiveness is a must. It will prolong the life of your pump and fittings throughout the system, and also will avoid damage to exposed componets.
Thirdly, anti-algea mixtures are good for obvious reasons. Algea stinks, and will shorten the life of your pump very quickly.
Lastly and obviously, it's ability to transfer heat. Like I said earlier, stay away from glycerol based formulas, as they're more expensive in most cases and perform very badly.
Most kits are never going to be as good as a fully custom loop. A good radiator is key, along with high flow counterparts. It really isn't that hard or complicated of a thing to do. If you follow directions it's all simple stuff.
Oh, and FYI Aspire, this isn't my first WC'ed build, so back down board bully
Anyone who's been following my current project knows this was a quick and easy solution to never have to put the stock HSF on my chip, since it cools worse then fanning it with a peice of paper. It's a 3-4 month solution and I'm just about to roder a good $400 worth of gear from DD.