[TwentyPercentCooler]

I know a lot of previous posters have said that watercooling is not necessary, but if you plan on overclocking, especially on the Ivy Bridge CPUs, I'd recommend it (really, there's no reason NOT to overclock, it's not difficult if you do your homework, and you can drastically increase the performance of your CPU). I've got a Corsair H60 cooling my i5 and I've been very happy with it. I got it for $50, whereas the Hyper 212+ (if you're sticking with air-cooling, the Hyper 212 is excellent - for the love of all that's holy don't use the cooler that comes with the CPU) is $20. Given your budget, $30 isn't going to be a big deal. In my humble opinion, it's well-worth the peace of mind when overclocking heavily.

[Klaustrophobia]

well beyond the $30 extra in price, it's a much more complicated install.  a good air cooler like the aforementioned hyper 212+/evo will do just fine for all but the craziest of overclocks.

[QuantumDelta]

Don't do WC if you're not confident.
Do if you are.

If you're british I honestly suggest picking through the configurator at overclockers, probably not on the most  expensive machine, but the next one along.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

well beyond the $30 extra in price, it's a much more complicated install.  a good air cooler like the aforementioned hyper 212+/evo will do just fine for all but the craziest of overclocks.

The H60 is just as easy as a stock cooler to install, although I could be biased because I tend to have an intuitive understanding of how stuff fits together (I used to love LEGOs, and not the sets, just a big tub of 'em). Not saying it's a better option because of that, but like I said, the OP has the money to spend, it couldn't hurt. The Ivy Bridge chips get pretty hot (disclaimer: I actually have a Sandy Bridge i5, but the assertion that the Ivy Bridge chips get a lot hotter under similar overclocking is based on research I did while building my system - I'm assuming OP will probably wind up with Ivy Bridge since cost doesn't seem to be much of a problem). I don't like to push chips over 60C, even though I know the modern ones can handle it. Mine doesn't get over 50C unless I'm deliberately trying to burn it. If this is something that matters to the OP, the H60 is also very quiet.

That being said, the Hyper 212+ is a heck of a cooler and there's nothing wrong with it at all.

Edit: forgot to mention - OP, if you do plan on getting aftermarket fans, get Noctua. They're ugly but whisper-quiet and very good.

Edit2: One other thing to mention about watercooling is the coolers are low-profile - not trying to plug the H60 some more, actually, but it reminded me to say make sure to do research on your chosen motherboard to make sure the RAM slots won't get blocked.

[pecenipicek]

Edit: forgot to mention - OP, if you do plan on getting aftermarket fans, get Noctua. They're ugly but whisper-quiet and very good.

i'll throw a vote against Noctua here and for Scythe and Xilence. if only because xilence's hydrodynamic bearings are ****ing glorious and they are durable (i've got a few pushing almost 4 years without a horrid whirr or anything) and scythe's because they are not overpriced.

[Dark RevenantX]

Doesn't your win 7 does it on his own.

not all that effectively.

i got defraggler running on my pc and i've had it replace windaz' one. 9% fragmentation on the 200GB partition, 2% on the 930GB one.

5.9 gigs of fragmented files, for a count of 2500 fragments for one and 18.9 gigs on the other for 83 fragments. and i'm pretty sure thats the guild wars 2 file, as its 16 or so gigs...

lol scrub

My storage drive managed to get up to 44% fragmentation before I finally got around to defragging it.

44% fragmentation.  I mean, what the ****.  There's got to be some upper limit to that ****.  One of the larger files was in several hundred fragments, too.

[Al-Rik]

I know a lot of previous posters have said that watercooling is not necessary, but if you plan on overclocking, especially on the Ivy Bridge CPUs, I'd recommend it (really, there's no reason NOT to overclock, it's not difficult if you do your homework, and you can drastically increase the performance of your CPU).

Watercooling can be silent, and overclocking maybe drastically increase the performance of your CPU, but:
Most Games aren't limited by the CPU.

If you only cool the CPU you will still have to look for silent Fans on the Radiators and a silent and fast GFX Card.
Overclooking the CPU won't give you any benefit, if your GFX Card is to slow.

If money is no matter cool the whole system including the GFX Card with water, if money matters spend it on a good and silent (in Windows) GFX Card.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

I know a lot of previous posters have said that watercooling is not necessary, but if you plan on overclocking, especially on the Ivy Bridge CPUs, I'd recommend it (really, there's no reason NOT to overclock, it's not difficult if you do your homework, and you can drastically increase the performance of your CPU).

Watercooling can be silent, and overclocking maybe drastically increase the performance of your CPU, but:
Most Games aren't limited by the CPU.

If you only cool the CPU you will still have to look for silent Fans on the Radiators and a silent and fast GFX Card.
Overclooking the CPU won't give you any benefit, if your GFX Card is to slow.

If money is no matter cool the whole system including the GFX Card with water, if money matters spend it on a good and silent (in Windows) GFX Card.

This is very true, although a faster CPU is useful for things other than gaming. It's also worth mentioning that a lot of games are terrible at using multiple cores - in that case, overclocking greatly increases the speed of the one core the game utilizes. Sins of a Solar Empire comes to mind first on this one.

OP can do some overclocking with any good cooler, really. The new UEFI BIOS interfaces these days make it very, very easy. 

[Klaustrophobia]

Edit: forgot to mention - OP, if you do plan on getting aftermarket fans, get Noctua. They're ugly but whisper-quiet and very good.

i'll throw a vote against Noctua here and for Scythe and Xilence. if only because xilence's hydrodynamic bearings are ****ing glorious and they are durable (i've got a few pushing almost 4 years without a horrid whirr or anything) and scythe's because they are not overpriced.

i got one of the "silent" scythe fans a while back for my old build.  it moved a lot of air, but it was the loudest fan i've ever heard, including the warp-speed 80mm ones that were in my REALLY old build.  the quietest fans i've ever had are the stock cooler master ones that come with their cases.  except for one that has started humming faintly, the only noise that comes from them is the whoosh of the air.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Edit: forgot to mention - OP, if you do plan on getting aftermarket fans, get Noctua. They're ugly but whisper-quiet and very good.

i'll throw a vote against Noctua here and for Scythe and Xilence. if only because xilence's hydrodynamic bearings are ****ing glorious and they are durable (i've got a few pushing almost 4 years without a horrid whirr or anything) and scythe's because they are not overpriced.

i got one of the "silent" scythe fans a while back for my old build.  it moved a lot of air, but it was the loudest fan i've ever heard, including the warp-speed 80mm ones that were in my REALLY old build.  the quietest fans i've ever had are the stock cooler master ones that come with their cases.  except for one that has started humming faintly, the only noise that comes from them is the whoosh of the air.

Besides my one Noctua fan that blows air over my motherboard, the other fans I have are Cooler Master. Will second this - they're quiet, and good enough at what they do. My case has 8 fans installed, plus the PSU's fans, and it still doesn't make a whole lot of noise. I was pleasantly surprised. I expected it to sound like a Space Shuttle launch.