So I'm one of those guys who will be replacing his faulty Sandy Bridge motherboard fairly soon. Since I will need to rebuild my system anyway, I'm thinking about a new case and CPU cooler.
My current case is an Antec 900 that I bought 4+ years ago. It keeps my rig cool, looks decent (although I could do without the blue LED fans), and is roomy enough without being too massive, but I have some quibbles with it. First is that the sound ports on the front panel no longer work. Second is that cable management could leave something to be desired. Third is that the case fans can't be powered/controlled from the motherboard. Fourth is the dust buildup.
There are so many options for cases that it's hard to know where to start doing research, so I was hoping I could get some initial recommendations from you guys. I'd be OK spending ~$100 on a case, and could go up to $150 for "The Case of The Gods" if such a thing exists. I don't need a massive case, because there isn't that much stuff to fit into it. Just one each DVD drive, SSD and HDD, one GTX 570 GPU, an XFX 650w power supply, and an Asus P8P67 PRO motherboard with an i5-2500k.
With regard to a CPU cooler, I could simply reinstall the stock cooler, but if there's an aftermarket cooler that isn't too expensive (say in the $20-$40 range) and works better, I'd consider getting one. Since overclocking to 4.0GHz ended up being so easy, I could see myself pushing it further but would want a better cooler to give ~4.5GHz a shot.
Thanks for your help!
My current case is an Antec 900 that I bought 4+ years ago. It keeps my rig cool, looks decent (although I could do without the blue LED fans), and is roomy enough without being too massive, but I have some quibbles with it. First is that the sound ports on the front panel no longer work. Second is that cable management could leave something to be desired. Third is that the case fans can't be powered/controlled from the motherboard. Fourth is the dust buildup.
There are so many options for cases that it's hard to know where to start doing research, so I was hoping I could get some initial recommendations from you guys. I'd be OK spending ~$100 on a case, and could go up to $150 for "The Case of The Gods" if such a thing exists. I don't need a massive case, because there isn't that much stuff to fit into it. Just one each DVD drive, SSD and HDD, one GTX 570 GPU, an XFX 650w power supply, and an Asus P8P67 PRO motherboard with an i5-2500k.
With regard to a CPU cooler, I could simply reinstall the stock cooler, but if there's an aftermarket cooler that isn't too expensive (say in the $20-$40 range) and works better, I'd consider getting one. Since overclocking to 4.0GHz ended up being so easy, I could see myself pushing it further but would want a better cooler to give ~4.5GHz a shot.
Thanks for your help!
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