Water cooling a turbo

I'm fitting a GT3540r/GT3582R BA falcon turbo with an external waste-gate rear housing to my older AU falcon now its a water and oil turbo I would like to know the pros and cons of not hooking up the water portion of it or if its a silly idea. Someone I spoke to said their car made more power with it not hooked up as the water stayed cooler but I'm more worried about reliability after all it will be drifted. The only reason I'm asking is the water lines will be a touch fiddly to make work well if I need to.

If the turbo comes with water cooling ports then I would definitely use them.

Steel roller bearings probably won't live long without a water cooled housing. There is a lot less oil flow in a roller core than a plain bearing core. Pretty sure ducting, thermostat temp, fan switch points, removing or adding a solenoid to intake manifold coolant flow and ceramic coating/insulation of the manifold/turbo/dump will all present more value in terms of controlling final charge temp than dropping coolant supply from the turbo.

Thanks heaps for the replies you guys really know your stuff and always seem to answer well looks like some research into ceramic coatings and a neat way to get some water to the turbo is in order.

You might find repurposing the intake manifold coolant supply and return is the easiest thing to do without having to add couplers or fittings in other parts of the system.

IF the turbo is set up for water cooling and your engine can provide it, I would go with it. If it's a big pain to set up water cooling and you won't be driving the car much you could get away without it.