upgrade, please critique. Advice needed

Aricin

Aricin

Aricin

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Joined
5 Aug 2010
Posts
174
Upgrade Advice needed or Spec me PSU and CPU cooler

Hi,

Feeling the itch / urge to upgrade my comp. I upgraded my GFX card and added new HDD/SDD 6 months or so ago. But the rest of the Set Up is 3.5 years old. Mainly used for gaming. I play on a Hanns.G 27.5” at 1900 x 1200 etc

Current PC:
Case: Antec P180 Silver
Power Supply: Antec True Power Trio 650W
Processor: Core 2 Quad Q6600 8MB cache CPU
Cooler: Thermaltake Golden Orb Cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 Twin2X
Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus Socket 775
GFX: HIS ATI Radeon 6950 2048 MB (reference design)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 120GB 3.5 SATA-II
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA 6GB/s 64MB Cache
Soundcard: Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-E Sound Card (not in case currently, recently given as present)

I am not planning on keeping the current case. Its gotten a bit banged up over the years and not as quiet / cool as I like it to be. Also seems to be a dust magnet and I do keep the case on top of my desk.

I also use the PC as my media center and really would like it to be as quiet as possible. Within the confines of the overclocked cpu etc.

Budget is flexible, I dont want to spend any more then really necessary, but dont mind paying a few £ extra here and there for quality and good warranty etc.

Please comment on all component choices.

Upgrade plan:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500k retail https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN

Motherboard: Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-051-AK

Picked board per Stulid’s recommendation as it needs to handle the Xonar D2X, and a possible crossfire of 6950s in the future.

Ram: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit Kit https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS


Case: Silverstone RV02 Raven 2 Case – Black http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-065-SV&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

Or the raven 2 evolutionhttp://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-073-SV&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=
In black rather then white

Cooler: ??? able to run cpu at 4.6ghz as silently and cool as possible, compatible with case / mobo / ram and ideally easy to install. Really no idea what to go for here.

PSU: ??? 650W or 750W modular PSU, again as silent / reliable as possible. Needs to be able to handle 2nd 6950 GFX card in crossfire in the future. Was thinking Corsair or Zalman?

Thanks,
 
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Hi

For the CPU Cooler I've been looking online myself and found countless reviews and customer feedback stating that the Corsair H50, H60 and H70 are without a doubt the next generation of CPU coolers.

I've recently bought one myself and I plan to install it soon. There is also a video on youtube putting 2 computers running with the exact same specs under 100% load for a 24 hour test. The processor was overclocked to 3.8 Ghz. One of them had a Corsair H50, H60 or H70 in it (I cant remember which one) and the other... A top range air cooler. 27 minutes in with the air cooler and the computer Blue Screened. The people conducting the test monitored the computer with the Corsair cooler and it was still going fine. The next day came and they entered the office at 9am to find the computer still on with a maximum CPU temperature of around 78c


Also, the link below is from a different retailer for the ram you deciding to purchase. The only difference is... It's £10 cheaper :D

EDIT: The link does not work

Nova tech

Order Code: CSR-8G13C9
 
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