Quote:I've heard good things about the corsair H-series. They're supposed to be much simpler to set up and less likely to leak than similar ones.
And have less performance per dollar than comparable air coolers, which are even easier to set up.
I might get flamed for probably no good reason but the Intel Xeon 1230V2 (V2 signifies it's Ivy Bridge over V1 which is Sandy Bridge). Why? This chip is also based off of the Ivy Bridge architecture and it's essentially an i7 without integrated graphics on die (so yes, since it's an i7, it has HyperThreading which I don't think you will use all that often). Not only that but it costs $240 (at least on Newegg it does), which is very close to the price of an i5-3570K. The only downside is that you cannot overclock.
Don't get AIO liquid coolers unless you absolutely must, as in you have absolutely no space for tower heatsinks but most cases with a 120mm back exhaust should be able to hold one. They only perform a bit better than some of the best heatsinks (Silver Arrow, NH-D14, Phanteks PH-TC14PE, etc.) but cost more. At that point you should probably go with your own custom loop (but that burns a hole in your wallet).
As far as RAM goes, probably one of the most popular RAM right now is from Samsung, the MV-3V4G3D/US 8GB (2x4GB) which is a kit of great value. Why? Although stock timings and speed are only decent (1600MHz and CL11), this kit can overclock up to 2400MHz (one person has even reached 2800MHz but I think he used some very extreme cooling. Dry ice I think?). In practice you won't notice a difference between most speeds unless you have some horribly loose timings/latency. Only around $40.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147096
Free shipping too.
It's kick-ass heatsink . It will keep your CPU run extremely cool as long as you still having some space for air-blow
The coolers from Noctua are very powerful
It has enough power to cool an overclocked CPU.
Quote:I might get flamed for probably no good reason but the Intel Xeon 1230V2 (V2 signifies it's Ivy Bridge over V1 which is Sandy Bridge). Why? This chip is also based off of the Ivy Bridge architecture and it's essentially an i7 without integrated graphics on die (so yes, since it's an i7, it has HyperThreading which I don't think you will use all that often). Not only that but it costs $240 (at least on Newegg it does), which is very close to the price of an i5-3570K. The only downside is that you cannot overclock.
Well it's basically a 3770 that's clocked 100MHz lower. At stock it should perform inbetween the 3570 and 3770 and it's priced halfway inbetween them so the price/performance ratio isn't really any better. For dolphin a 3570K is $25 cheaper ($245, and $220 on newegg) and after OC will give you much better performance. Not to mention xeons aren't always compatible with desktop motherboards so that's one more thing that you have to worry about.
Quote:Don't get AIO liquid coolers unless you absolutely must, as in you have absolutely no space for tower heatsinks but most cases with a 120mm back exhaust should be able to hold one. They only perform a bit better than some of the best heatsinks (Silver Arrow, NH-D14, Phanteks PH-TC14PE, etc.) but cost more. At that point you should probably go with your own custom loop (but that burns a hole in your wallet).
In 99% of cases they perform worse than "the best heatsinks". The only cheap AIO solution I know of that outperforms high end air coolers is the corsair H-100, which costs $110, whereas high end air coolers are $70-80. And the radiator is pretty big. If you're trying to build an HTPC you either have to put it inside (in which case you have enough space for an air cooler anyways) or outside (which is ugly and makes the rig bigger, thus defeating the entire point of an HTPC). I don't really see the point of AIO liquid cooling for HTPCs in any situation.
Quote:As far as RAM goes, probably one of the most popular RAM right now is from Samsung, the MV-3V4G3D/US 8GB (2x4GB) which is a kit of great value. Why? Although stock timings and speed are only decent (1600MHz and CL11), this kit can overclock up to 2400MHz (one person has even reached 2800MHz but I think he used some very extreme cooling. Dry ice I think?). In practice you won't notice a difference between most speeds unless you have some horribly loose timings/latency. Only around $40.
Memory overclocking is generally a really bad idea. It's extremely dangerous, even more so than cpu overclocking. It increases stress on the motherboard, ram, and cpu. And it almost never nets ANY increase in performance once you get above 1600MHz.
The good thing with AIO water cooler is that you don't need to remove them when transporting your PC.
I had a Ninja 3 before, which is 1040 grams with fan. I was always afraid of breaking the mobo even while transporting it very small distances. I believe the phanteks is even heavier, like 1.3Kg.
It also makes it easier to buy ram as many tower coolers block one or two RAM slots, especially if you have ram with heatsinks.
AIO might not be just as good as the phanteks, but still very decent.
My Antec 620 with push pull (added a scythe fan) is very quiet, and keeps my 2500k @4.3Ghz at around 30c idle, and 40-48C while gaming.
A 16 hrs long prime 95 run peaked highest core at 59C.
However if you plan crazy OC a phanteks would be miles better, but at modest OC like 4.5GHz or less on gen2/gen3 Core it really doesn't matter if your CPU is 62 or 67C at crazy loads like prime95.
Quote:The good thing with AIO water cooler is that you don't need to remove them when transporting your PC.
.....you don't need to remove air coolers either.
Quote:I had a Ninja 3 before, which is 1040 grams with fan. I was always afraid of breaking the mobo even while transporting it very small distances. I believe the phanteks is even heavier, like 1.3Kg.
You worry too much. I have a tuniq tower 120 so I know what it's like to have a huge heavy air cooler. It won't break your motherboard as long as you screwed everything in and don't do anything extremely stupid.
Quote:It also makes it easier to buy ram as many tower coolers block one or two RAM slots, especially if you have ram with heatsinks.
I hear about this a lot but in all my years of building PCs with monster coolers I have never had an issue with this. Usually either the RAM is fairly far away from the cpu socket, the cooler keeps the heatsink fairly well elevated via heatpipes, or the heatsink can be reoriented. And then of course there is always the option of just buying ram without crazy high heatsinks. If you bought ram with big heatsinks, a motherboard that keeps the ram slots and cpu socket close together, a cooler where the heatsink is not well elevated, and a cooler with a symmetric design then with all four of those things it might be a problem. But honestly in our modern world where companies are aware of this problem and design around it how often does that happen anymore?