ro 290 water cooling question

[cwtech]

I am tired of the high temps and loudness of the reference cooler. Was looking for advice on water cooling my r9 290. I have a CM storm scout 2 case and I have 3 choices that I can think of. (All of which are closed loop). 1) using the 120mm exhaust but not sure if the lines one any coolers are long enough to reach comfortably. 2) remove HDD cage and put in the 140mm rad there but a little nervous it will reduce system aair flow. 3) ( not my favorite but y'all may have some Ideas that it could be a good idea) using the 2 side panel 120mm for a 240mm rad or a single 120mm rad but I've always had a thing about wanting to keep air flow from front to back in my case and also it will make it difficult to remove the side panel having to remove the rad every time I want to get into my rig. What are yalls ideas?

 

[newconroer]

Before you goto liquid cooling them, try the following :

1. Remove stock fan and fan shroud from the heatsink if possible on the reference card. Then strap on two 90mm or 120mm fans, and either plug them into a little fan controller, or straight into a molex connector from your PSU.
2. Lower the stock voltage. In MSI Afterburner( as an example), you can enable voltage control, then turn down the Core Voltage. Try -31 to start, and go low as you can until you get artifacts/flickering in games/desktop. Voltage alone makes a significant difference!
3. You talk about airflow a lot, sounds like you have your head around most of that. A little more positive flow or more negative flow is not a bad thing, and thus if you have the basic fan layout and air flow all ready in place, there's not much you can do other than to get a larger case (which may then require a new air flow strategy).

Liquid cooling can be helpful, though depends on how many components in the loop.