Keep an eye on amazon, I have had great luck getting things cheaper there, escpecially like-new "Amazon warehouse deals" (the used link). Like new is often just damanged box or opened box. I got Antec HCP-1200 ATX for $161 that was labeled as scratched ("scratch" came off, looks band new, testing next week). Your mileage may vary. All things I have purchase that way worked great except one blu-ray/surround package, I bought for wife's office. Return was super easy, UPS guy picked it up. I do Amazon Prime now and get most stuff 2 days no charge, $3.79 for overnight.
I am one of the lucky ones and my 2600k is running at 4.7 totally stable, haven't tried anything higher. On air until the tech overhall next week, the cpu temp is 65c to 70c per core, during the challenges going full tilt, until my office gets over 75F. Sadly, I had to put a fan in my office to start moving hot air out. The loadest fan isn't in my case. I have a h100 waiting in the corner. My main heat problem is the heat leaking from the GPUs (the factory overclocked 570s) into the case and cutting down Zalman's cpu cooler performance and its fan is getting loader (the second 570 did me in). I plan to top mount the h100 in side the case and place the fans between case and radiator to push air down through the rad. Rather than push the hot GPU air up into rad. If the stock h100 fans are too annoying I plan to go to something like the Noiseblocker NB-Multiframe M12-P (PWM fan) or Scythe Gentle Typhoon (non-pwm).
If you have an Asus boards, this link really helped me put the final touches on my setttings (I have the p8p67 deluxe). The concepts apply to alot of their boards. http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1578110
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Last edited by EmSti; 03-22-12 at 11:24 PM.
First part of upgrades done. I7 now on the H100, what a difference. Running Both 570s on Milkyway and full out on Docking 10c cooler. I am pushing air down through the radaitor.
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