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the radiator at the front pulling cold air in and some fans at the back to expel the warm air.
This is just poor thermal design. You'd actually be using the radiator to warm the cold air as it comes in.
Its no worse than having the radiator outside the case entirely, in fact maybe better because you benefit from the air pressure inside the case helping to expel the warm air.
But if you had the radiator outside the case, you remove its heat output from the problem of cooling the case entirely.
I accept that having the radiator on the edge of the case, with fans pushing or pulling its heat outwards is OK.
chez_jay-
This is just poor thermal design. You'd actually be using the radiator to warm the air as it comes in.
Errr...yeah? As opposed to blowing already warm air through the rad? Blowing some warm air through the case wouldn't be a enough to raise the temperature of the components.
I guess the difference is I don't see the warm air from the rads as being much of an issue because its really not that hot.
Sumo
The full setups will have the radiator at the front pulling cold air in and some fans at the back to expel the warm air. Its no worse than having the radiator outside the case entirely, in fact maybe better because you benefit from the air pressure inside the case helping to expel the warm air. The main benefit of water cooling is it can be much more efficient than fans, much quieter and you can add things like the GPU without relying on the stock fans. Saying that you can achieve just as good results with the right fan based setup but it takes more finessing.
AIO water coolers, IMO, are a good upgrade to a standard CPU fan. I know some fans can get decent results but I always struggled until adding an AIO cooler and they also free up space in the case to help airflow for the GPU.