Dilemma of Cooling: Liquid or Air?

Hardware Hub Overclocking
1

Hey Guys, I find myself in a bit of a Dilemma and I'm just looking for some advise.
The story goes  a little something like this:

I purchased an AMD FX6300 to upgrade the Phenom II X4 Black in my desktop(NZXT Phantom). I'm cooling with a Thermaltake Frio (twin fans) which I was using on the Phenom II Black with good results.

So I wanted to then put the Phenom II into my HTPC (Antec NSK2480B) and still run it over clocked and without putting too much thought into it, picked up an Antec Kühler H2O 650 to cool it thinking it would work well with limited space in the case, only to find it doesn't fit at all :( .

So now I arrive at my dilemma - do I keep the liquid cooler and install it in my desktop to cool the FX6300, or do keep using the Frio? I'm hoping to at least get 4.5Ghz out of the FX6300 as I had the Phenom II from 3Ghz to 4Ghz no probs.

Also could anyone recommend a good cooler the would physically fit in my HTPC and offer me some small over clocking potential?

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

  

2

Can you mount the radiator outside of the case?  I think you're going to have issues with the HTPC case due to clearance, my goto the Evo II would definitely not fit in there.

Noctua and Zalman both have good low profile options, and tom's hardware did a review of 8 of them: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/low-profile-heat-sink-mini-itx,3639.html

Hopefully the dimension measurements will help as well, while the Noctua was their chosen winner, it was also the largest.