hapkiman

I have never used the USB connector on my Corsair H115i AIO. It is only required if you want to use the Corsair utility software (which I don't). I found that software to be buggy and prone to errors. And it is a resource hog. The AIO works perfectly without it, and right now my i7 7700k is idling in the high 20's (C). Plus I can control whatever I want in my BIOS. I can't see the USB logo light anyway because its inside of my case (that software allows me to change the light color), but I'm happy with the way it works as is. The point is - you don't have to plug that mini USB plug into the pump if you don't want to. It's optional, and the cooler will still work fine as long as you plug in the pump and the fan(s).

Why do you want to water cool it? Are you having heat issues? I have this exact same card, and admittedly have good case air flow, but my card idles in the 20's (C), and hits low to mid 60's (C) while gaming. That is excellent. I've never seen my card even hit 70C. It is a very well cooled card. I use MSI Afterburner and set a fan profile of 60% and it is silent. If it's a super hot day I might even set the fans to 70% - but you really cant hear anything. They are great fans. If you really need to water cool it, I would sell what you have and get one of the AIO cooled versions by MSI or EVGA. Opening it up or modding it will void your warranty.

It is very easy to replace the thermal compound on anything, either a graphics card or a CPU. Just go slow, and take your time. Use a higher than 90% alcohol to clean off all of the old paste (Q-tips work great for this) and then apply a very small amount of the new, about the size of a BB. Don't use too much! Let the heat spreader smash it out as you reassemble it. I recommend MX-4 as it is very high quality, and doesn't require a burning in period. Just remember that you could void your warranty by disassembling your card. Check first to make sure.

For any art and/or animation applications, an i3 wont cut it. Even a new Kaby Lake one. You need an i7, either a i7 4790k / i7 6700k / or the new i7 7700k. If you have the money get a Z270 board and a i7 7700k. You'll be glad you did. The MSI Z270 Gaming M7 looks like a great board.

If you have the right mobo and DDR3 RAM already, then I would say yes. The i7 2600k is old, but still does a fine job and OC's like a champ. However if I had to buy a mobo to go with it then I don't know. Unless I could find a good Z68 board real cheap, I would prob pass.

First of all I wouldn't be running PRIME95. It is an antiquated test designed for a different architecture. It put an extreme unrealistic load on that processor. I'm using a Corsair H80iGT cooler on my i7 7700k and it is idling around 23-25C, and under load (gaming [BF1] and running multiple apps) it is hitting about 50-55C. Mine is staying pretty cool. Right now I have "Enhanced Turbo" feature turned on in my BIOS (MSI Z170A Gaming M7 board) which forces all cores to run at 4.5GHz but I haven't pushed it any harder yet (4.5GHz on all cores is nothing to sneeze at - this thing is fast). So if you are using a H100 and have worse temps than me - something else is wrong. I used MX-4 TIM BTW, removing that stock paste with alcohol off of the H80iGT plate.