Ok, right now I OC a Q6600 with GO to 3.6 with just air cooled heatsink and it still runs cool under pressure. My old EVGA GT 9800 vid card runs so damned hot though I need to put a table fan on the exposed side of my comp when I play PS2. Sooooo, I'm looking at either the CM HAF 922x mid or even the full tower (would that be more than I need?) and the I5 3570k CPU with GTX 680 gpu. In the summer my office gets pretty hot (upper 70's if I set the AC to 70 downstairs) and with one of the HAF cases would an air cooler be fine for some OC or do you think I need a water cooler and if so, should I go custom (later when I have the cash) so I can hit the gpu as well? Also, keep my vista 64 OS or will games run noticeably faster with Win 7? And finally, 129gb SSD or 256?
256 SSD if you have a lot of programs, if you can wait for Intel Haswell in June do that - hold off on the 3570k. I would just grab a good CPU cooler for it, wouldn't need a full custom loop unless you will be over clocking heavily or just want a quieter system. Corsair Hydro series, NZXT Krakens, or the new swiftechs. Unless you want a full custom loop and lots if hard drives there is no need for a full tower case. A mid tower would be fine, just make sure it has good ventilation and space for whatever cooler you pick out.
I still hear rumors of a USB3 problem with Haswell that will be fixed by a hardware revision. Seems like only an issue if you use sleep mode though so I dont know if that matters or not. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/di...olumes_Because_of_USB_3_0_Issues_Analyst.html What is your screen resolution? Do you run 16x AF in games always? What level of AA do you run? Do you play the latest games and like to use lots of HD texture mods for games? Depending on your answers, it may be better to get a 4GB GTX670 rather than a 2GB 680.
currently i run a small 21" 1680x1050 monitor. i want to upgrade next year to a 27" next year and get a second card for sli, thus actually looking at gtx 680 4gb card. i want to run the games at max settings for textures etc. and I play games as they come out generally. last big ones were SWTOR GW2 and currently PS2.
Size doesn't really matter...what resolution? If you're looking at 1080p 27" monitors you don't need the horsepower of a 680, let alone in SLI. A 670 would do you just fine. A 570 still doesn't have trouble with 1080p on max for most things. GPU's are pretty cool these days, no reason to add cooling unless you're overclocking it. 3570k is as high as I'd go before diminishing returns hits bigtime. Unless you've got a serious number of drives or want to do something crazy with cooling a mid tower will be fine.
unless youre overclocking dont bother with watercooling, but if you do youll want to since your shit is already going to run hot. I would get the bigger SSD. i find my 240 is kinda small for my tastes. personally i hate working in mid tower cases, they drive me nuts. Also if you just want the performance of a 680, my gigabyte windforce 670 2gb uses a 680PCB and runs 680 clocks, but doesnt overclock so keep that in mind. Unless you are running 2560x1440 no need for 4gb, unless youre running skyrim with like 100 mods or something.