just as a note, you techincally don't want your hard drives getting TOO 'cold.' i don't think it can actually get that cold unless you're trying to, but if your HDD dips below 35-degrees C(estimate), you're killing your hard-drive. thats because the lubricant inside the HDD works best between 40-60 degrees(approx.). so unless you're REALLY stacking ALOT of HDDs in a tight space with no fans, you don't have to worry about your HDD getting too hot.

Link?
My hard drives right now state 28C and 29C.
It's worst temperatures, according to smart/speedfan are 40/46.

software temp monitors are crap - according to hardcore hardware enthusiast overclockers(not me xd).

lol, hang on, let me find it. it was actually two seperate articles i believe. the first was where google ran some experiments to test hard-drive failure on SCSI HDDs and the second was based on the first, but it was a hardware site testing to see if it was true for SATA drives.

EDIT:

article about the google survey

alright, here is a litlte article about the survey...can't seem to actually get to the statistics themselves though. can't find the other article though.

also, it WAS for SATA drives. on a side note, i know Google is frugal but running SATA drives in a server environment?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 23 2009, 4:20 pm by Sauceover.

Coretemp is the most reliable temp sensor ever. And my CPU is running at a 100% OC, so I think I qualify.

like i said, this is coming from people that ln2 bench and set benchmarking world records 'accidentally' on the weekends for fun. they invest in higher quality temp-monitors which they actually drill a hole into the CPU IHS for the probe. take it as you will.

wait wut?

Excal, OC only gives you about 30-40% yield performance wise, and the difference between stock and aftermarket coolers isn't great enough at this budget to justify spending it on a HSF instead of a better piece of hardware. It really is just a pissing contest. He can still OC if he thinks it's really necessary with his CPU, but his graphics performance is going to suffer with that card.

You are so wrong it's like reading Falkoner's posts in SD.
(Numbers are 150w TDP, 85w TDP, and the third is the noise in dBa.)
Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer 16.1 10.0 51.3
Intel Stock Core 2 Duo 49.2 29.0 36.7
http://www.crazypc.com/products/core-contact-5048.html 35$
With shipping, probably around lets say 42$. 42$ for 4GHz? Very much worth it.

Wow, great use of logic there. "You are so wrong it's like reading Falkoner's posts in SD."

Let's say that he gets an additional, I'll be generous and say 40% performance from OCing to 4 GHz from stock. Notice that I don't say anything about clock speed. Even if he gets an additional 100% clock speed, he's not going to get an additional 100% performance increase. I know that it's easy to hit 3.2, 3.4, maybe even higher with the stock Intel HSF, and I mean easy for Core 2 chips. So he can get an additional 500 MHz and we'll say 5-10% performance increase over stock HSF OCing, or he can get an additional 20, 25% performance increase with his GPU for that money. I know that you are a little zealous for OC, but try to not sound like you have a knife up your butt when somebody disagrees with you.

Of course, a couple of years ago I spent more on my GPU than my CPU (8800 GTX versus E6700), and you know what I found? I didn't need to OC either thing to do everything that I wanted to do as efficiently as possible. Trust me, in games, he's not going to be limited by that CPU nearly as much as he will be by that graphics card.

You have to note though that this really depends on the game, most games that heavy "gamers" love to play are extremely graphics intensive, so in general this statement is correct, however, some processor intensive games, like The Sims, experience the bottleneck at the CPU, rather than the GPU.

I don't believe OCs to 3.0GHz and above are kept at the safest of temps on the stock coolers. Especially in the summer.

And much worse if you have to bump vcore. Lets say you get stock at 1.25v. You have to bump to 1.30v for 3.0Ghz. Take that additional vcore + summer temps with the stock cooler and you've got yourself a bad case of lifetime decrease, and we're not talking small potatoes either. Which is why OCers are very careful with their vcore.

Anybody can hit 3.4 GHz on a C2D chip on the stock cooler and be safe.

Untrue, every chip OCs differently. Just look at the Q6600s.

Some can go higher, sure, but 3.4 GHz is a very easy OC. Stop telling me that it's better to spend money on a HSF than it is to upgrade the 4850. I'm done arguing.

really though, the best idea is to look for reviews and find out if the games you're going to be playing are going to be CPU-bound or not.

Although I did make this topic nearly a year ago, I never actually managed to purchase the build.
However, this time I am nearly certain that I can actually get the compy, so if anyone is still interested in helping Viet out, please do so.

*Looks at Ex*.

Updated price range, usage, and if you need anything other than the tower and its insides.

Thanks Ex. But I need to reinstate that I live in Canada, and shipping across the border is impractical.

Newegg.ca

Now answer my questions before I beat you.

$1,000 CDN including shipping and handling (reserve $70 for this).

Although technically a gaming rig, it will also be used for extensive Photoshop.