I considered water cooling for my GTX-970 but since it's a reference design, the VRMs really aren't capable of supplying enough current to OC the gpu to any meaningful extent. The Stock fan cooler is plenty capable (albeit with a custom fan speed profile) of cooling everything. The only advantage I see with water cooling in most circumstances nowadays is that, you may get longer component life by keeping them running at cooler temps and if you use a see-thru side window, you can have a slick looking rig. Otherwise, it's a lot of expense. I guess it depends on what the limiting factor is. For my reference design PNY GTX-970, I ran into a ceiling in on-card power delivery components which I don't think would benefit from water cooling. Also the factory BIOS would not allow for more than 107% power and hacked BIOS were not available and seemingly not going to be.