I suggest you check out the ASUS Rampage II GENE. I've listed the lanparty board as having problems with firewire and a tall north bridge heat sink. Oh, yes. There are quite decent boards available for Core i7. But I was asking about Core 2 and DDR3 combination which was on your initial list. I not...

as i pointed out earlier, those test results are not relevant to the i7 that the o.p. spec'ed out in this thread... the i7 generates a lot more heat than the cpu that spcr used, especially when it's overclocked, so the cooling results will be different. Allow me to disagree with this point, which I...

Under normal load (gaming mostly), temps hover around 62-63. This is with the stock Slipstream at around 675rpm. I'm only using one. That is excellent! It is essentially the predicted temp as per the SPCR test results. I am impressed. Regarding the price difference, I checked Scan.co.uk, and the TR...

Hi Just making a note that I've completed the build and results are beyond expectations. I'll be posting details and pics as soon as possible! That is great. I look forward to seeing the details. Did you find a mATX motherboard that supports DDR3 memory? I have been rather frustrated with the non-a...

Another factor to keep in mind is that we are interested in the performance of the coolers at low fan noise, typically 20dbA. When one ramps up the fans to 102CFM, like the Xtreme guys did, the performance advantage of the better cooler may be nullified. In the SPCR tests, using the same reference f...

One must not confuse TJ Max temperature (temp at which the CPU starts to throttle in order to lower temperature) and thermal specification. Thermal Specification is the temperature that Intel recommends the center of the processor's IHS be kept below. Naturally, this temperature will be lower than ...

All this would make sense only if all the non-PWM fans are running at significantly lower speeds than the peak speeds of the PWM fans. If all of them are running at 1200rpm, say, then there is not much point in using any PWM fans at all. I guess the solution is to use PWM splitters like these: http...

Regarding the choice of fans, the OP's choice motherboard, Gigabyte ga-ex58-ud5, has PWM fan headers for the CPU fan and one of the system fans. There are two other system fan headers and a 'power fan' header, which are all 3-pin. So the only sensible choice of Antec Solo would be to put a PWM fan f...

Thanks for the explanation, lodestar. I agree that the cost-benefit ratio favours your choice. (Oh good, this editor doesn't like my spelling of 'favour' :-) However, the OP was going for a 'minitower'. He/she might or might not wish for a 51cm tall case. I wouldn't. I have a 43cm case now which I a...

I just tried out Scythe DFS122512L on a Megahalems, and I thought it was brilliant. It was reviewed here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article832-page2.html

I am not sure if there are any PWM versions of S-Flex.

I found an example build using Nexus Value 430 power supply:

http://codesociety.com/2009/07/29/build ... 7-edition/

It also has a link to an article by Xbit Labs measuring the power consumption of several example builds.

It seems to me that you are putting a high-performance, hot running Core i7 system into a smallish case with virtually no airflow. Hi lodestar. I hope you don't mind me butting in here because this is similar to a system I am planning to build. Why is Antec Solo is a "smallish case"? It is a full A...

not at all; single threaded performance has pretty much come to a halt; we don't need 8 core CPUs, which is what you'll get in 3-years; we won't see 5ghz CPUs, which is what we need to see performance boosts... so a CPU bought today will last you a while without performance issues;) The only law I ...

That's an amazing performance, but comes with an equally amazing pricetag. You can buy a pretty good entry-level processor for just what this heatsink costs, even without a fan! The way I look at it, the cooler has a much longer 'case life' than the processor. In three years, your processor would b...

Doesn't the power consumption increase with overclocking, especially with OCs > +50%? If you think you are overloading the CPU by 50% through overclocking, you can expect 30C over the ambient. That still doesn't give you 70C unless your ambient temperature is 40C. There are tons of reports of overh...

Looks cool! But how is the air flowing?

Bear in mind that programs like prime95 put a heavy stress on the system which is unlikely to be matched even closely by real usage. My CPU hits about 70C with prime95. But I have never seen it go over 62C when encoding or gaming. The SPCR tests of Ultra 120 Extrme with stock fan at 12V showed a th...

According to Chris Hare's web site, Core i7 is supposed to operate at a maximum "cover temperature" of 67.9 degrees Centigrade. So I think 71 is no good. Are you using the "Extreme" version of Thermalright Ultra 120? I have been doing some calculations for my own Core i7 build, and they show that th...

All the articles on CPU Coolers talk about a Nexus reference fan. Does anybody know where to get information about this fan? Why do different articles have different measurements for the reference fan? For instance, the NH-U12 review says the reference fan has noise rating of 22dbA, the NH-U12P revi...