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Best Full-tower and CPU cooler for my upcoming gaming rig

MraK

MraK

Senior member
Hello Everyone, I am currently building a new gaming rig for myself and I was leaning to make use of a high-quality Full-tower case and the best CPU cooler all around (air) and if watercooling is a must then I would consider get that instead.

Question: Im leaning towards the Antec 1200 case, but is there a far better full tower case for my current setup? And is Zalman an ideal brand for CPU cooling? (air) if i had to choose watercooling instead, whats currently popular?

My current budget right now is around $4500 grand, including the Monitor

CPU: Possibly Core 2 Duo extreme, since Quad is not popular for gaming yet
Motherboard: Was thinking of the 790i SLI boards or probably wait till the 890i (that if their will ever be one like that by the end of this year lol
Memory: CORSAIR TW3X4G1600C9DHX 4gb kit (4gb x 2) 1600mhz DDR3
Videocard: Dual or even Tri if possible GTX280s, waiting till it comes out (last week of June I believe)
Optical Drive: PIONEER BDC-2202B blu-ray SATA combo DVD rw+ blu-ray player
Casing: Antec Twelve Hundred *Full-tower*
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling TURBO-COOL 1KW-SR EPS12V 1000W
Monitor: Samsung 275T 27? inch HDMI-LCD
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit system
Aftermarket Cooling: Zalman CNPS9700 NT CPU Cooler (not familiar with what watercooling brands are the best, maybe you guys could help me on that department)

Any other suggestions would help me a lot, Thanks in advance



MOD EDIT #2: Thread continued here. - Zap
 
You're wasting money if you get that Core 2 Extreme. Lots of money. And you're also wasting money on the high-end SLI setup. You are either 1. strapped with cash or have no sense of money or 2. a fool. I hope you're the former because overclocked chips tend to have higher performance than those C2Es and anything in SLI will be pretty much out of date once a new generation comes out.
 
Originally posted by: RallyMaster
You're wasting money if you get that Core 2 Extreme. Lots of money. And you're also wasting money on the high-end SLI setup. You are either 1. strapped with cash or have no sense of money or 2. a fool. I hope you're the former because overclocked chips tend to have higher performance than those C2Es and anything in SLI will be pretty much out of date once a new generation comes out.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that's how computer hardware works. You purchase it one day, something better comes out a week later. If you keep the mindset of "I'll just wait until something better comes out", guess what you end up with... NOTHING because you just keep passing on current in hopes of the future.

Now, I say you wait (lol) for nehalem 😛
 
RallyMaster,

Actually that was a statement one of my stepbrothers told to me to write down and yet i was thinking i would be wasting alot of money with the extreme. I am leaning towards getting a e8500 and OCing it, would that be a much better choice? And with the SLI thingy, i have decided to stick with Dual GTX280s rather that go for the overkilled "TRI-SLI" aspect. Im not actually strapped with cash just have been saving it for awhile, away from my other savings, plus the rig i have now im giving it to my sister since she fell in love with pc gaming and as for me i thought to myself i need a new gaming rig, might as will build a new one lol and i do have a sense for money, i heard people spending 6-8grand on gaming rigs and thought that $4500 was an ideal budget amount for a perfect gaming rig.

theplaidfad,

I heard of the nehalem, whats that all about? I read its a new processor thats coming out from Intel, could you care to share more on that subject?

And lastly to the both of you, do you guys think that the Antec 1200 is a pretty ok tower for the gaming rig im building soon?
 
Oh...well in that case I'm really cheap with computers since I refuse to spend over 800 for a gaming computer (monitor, peripherals not included).
 
Question: Im leaning towards the Antec 1200 case, but is there a far better full tower case for my current setup? And is Zalman an ideal brand for CPU cooling? (air) if i had to choose watercooling instead, whats currently popular?
Click to expand...

Since i've been doing a ton of research on CPU cooling....

One of the better air coolers is the TRUE or Xigmatech S1283. Either of those should be better than the Zalman.

For water cooling, you have to build your own. It seems right now the MCP355 w/ XPS hard top is the one of the "best" pumps right now. For CPU, the Dtek fuzion v2. If you can fit, the Thermochlil PA120.2 radiator or Swiftech MCR330
 
The Antec 1200 should be just fine for the rig that you are building, hell a 900 probably would do. You could also look at the CM stacker, or cosmos S, some of the full tower offerings from Lian-Li, etc... The 1200 does seem to be a good option, and at prices around $200-225 USD it's cheaper than most of the other full towers and already comes with most of the fans needed. As far as coolers go, the TRUE seems to be a good bet... not that the 9700 isn't a good cooler (especially for a 45nm duo).

Other things to consider:

If I was going to drop $4500 on a gaming rig with peripherals... I would definitely be spending more money on peripherals than on the rig itself! I'd probably sink some nice money into a monitor (as it seems you are doing)... and I'd also sink some nice money into speakers (IE: a H/T reciever with at least a quality sub 3 main speakers (front/center)....

The fact is... buying any intel "extreme" processor for face value is pretty stupid as far as price/performance is concerned. Spending $800 on 8gb of ram is pretty bad too (that's what newegg listed 8gb of that ram for). To be very honest, the sweet spot right now is to get a great over-clocking processor in the $150-300 ish range... with 4 or 8gb of ddr2-800 or 1066. Save the rest of the money for future video card upgrades and that sort of stuff.... or spend it on stuff that you'll be really happy with for a while (like a kick ass surround sound system for current and future gaming).

Just trying to add some perspective... my opinion only 🙂
 
Wuzup101,

your opinion is greatly appreciated, thanks for the insight thought. oh btw i have narrowed it down to a $3400-$3700 gaming rig, check out my final specs for my new build in the CPU section as for peripherals, i already have an ok speaker system, reason for not posting about it in the beginning and for monitor, at first i thought a 30inch would do the job, but then i somewhat came to wanting a HP w2408h Black 24" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor, what do you think?
 
The 2408 looks good; however, I know little about them as I've never owned one. I personally have a 24" Dell 2407 (rev A02) that I purchased about 3 years ago (and I'm still loving it). I personally think that 1650x1080, 1920x1200, or 1920x1080 are the preferred resolutions for a high end gaming rig. 30" PC monitors are great, but the resolution is so high that you are going to have problems driving it even with modern hardware if you like eye candy (and you will need to upgrade more frequently). If you do want to go bigger than a 24-27ish inch screen (those that typically use 1920x1200 resolution), I would think about possibly buying a 1080p monitor and sitting back a bit. I have a 40" samsung LCD that I game on fairly frequently and it works great (though I will admit that I use it more for consoles now since my rig is so outdated).

The nice thing about monitors (and peripherals in general) is they don't necessarily need to be upgraded every time you build a PC. A nice monitor will likely last you for years... I know I will use my 24" dell until it dies lol...

Your stuff in the cpu forum looks a bit better, but it's still a bit pricey. However, it's your money, and of course is your call. I've been planning out a new gaming rig for some time now, and I can tell you that you can build a rig (without peripherals) for about $1500-1700 that will play pretty much everything on the market right now without any problem. Q6600 and aftermarket heatsink, 8gb of DDR2, nice motherboard, reasonably high end case and psu, either dual 8800 GT's or HD3870's, etc... If you want to wait for a new video card to come out... it will probably drive anything you need it to for quite some time.

The problem with computer stuff is that there is a huge amount of diminishing marginal returns at the high end. In most cases, it makes little economic sense to buy more than you need for the next 18-24 months. It's better to bank extra cash and use it for future builds and upgrades. Instead of spending $3000 on one system today... spend say 1800... then in 18-24 months... you have 1200 for a new processor, motherboard, ram, and video card... it definitely works out nicely... and you can bet that $1200 in two years will buy you something that is going to kick the crap out of an expensive system right now.

Trust me, I'm not trying to preach, simply giving advice based on my experience. I've built high end rigs and paid $500 for video cards in the past. However, I've recently decided to follow my mind instead of my ePeen!

 
Antec Twelve Hundred ftw. Just put mine together yesterday.

And I would avoid the Samsung monitor. I don't think it has a good panel. I'd try for something with an IPS panel. I have the Doublesight DS-263N 25.5".
 
Whats the difference? sorry for the noob question Jumpem but i had to ask. Actually i have been leaning towards a ASUS 24" MK241H 1920x1200 3000:1 2ms full HD 1080p, since i will do alot of gamin and watching blu-ray movies on my computer (rather than on my PS3). And since I'm going to wait for the new so called GTX280 cards that are coming out his June, do you think i would need a bigger size monitor to fully utilize them??
 
Originally posted by: MrAK
Whats the difference? sorry for the noob question Jumpem but i had to ask. Actually i have been leaning towards a ASUS 24" MK241H 1920x1200 3000:1 2ms full HD 1080p, since i will do alot of gamin and watching blu-ray movies on my computer (rather than on my PS3). And since I'm going to wait for the new so called GTX280 cards that are coming out his June, do you think i would need a bigger size monitor to fully utilize them??
Click to expand...

Panel types: http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/...es/lcd-panel-types.php
List of monitors with IPS panels: http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php

The Doublesight DS-263N is the monitor to have at the moment. It usually comes in stock and then sells out fast. I bought it at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16824185007

See the AT LCD thread; it recommends the DS-263N as well: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2049206&enterthread=y
 
There is no need to post the same thing in EVERY SINGLE FORUM, it could be considered spamming. There is a 'General Forum' in which people can give you advice on every component if you provide a budget etc.
 
*For everyone who has been viewing and posting on this thread, i have relayed this topic to the general hardware section and there you could finally see what specs i chose for my new gaming rig* check it out!
 
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