TechGremlin
This is my main computer, I built it this time last year:
Case: Cooler Master Cosmos S
Power Supply: Antec NeoPower 650
Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 (C0 Stepping)
RAM: 3GB Corsair DDR3 1333MHz (tr3x3g1333c9)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX, temporarily only one, normally x2 in SLi, explanation below
Hard Drives: 1x 60GB OCZ Vertex (running firmware 1.40 (TRIM)), 1x 500GB Seagate 702.11 (running fixed firmware)
Other Drives: ASUS 20x SATA DVD Burner
Over past few months the fan on my Intel Core i7 stock CPU cooler started failing, the fan initially halved in fan speed, then slowly lost ~50rpm per week while my CPU temp crept up, fan control was off and there was nothing blocking the fan from physically moving, so I decided to replace it.
Unfortunately getting a new one involves purchasing something, luckily I had an OCZ Vendetta 2 from my previous system lying around, so I shelled out for the OCZ Force 2 Retention Bracket. There were a few problems with the upgrade, the most important being that the heatsink was larger than the acceptable size for my case.
The only solution being to remove the side panel fan and lose a major cooling force in my computer, once it was removed I had no problem closing the door and the only temp increase was in my graphics cards. I still have one of my graphics cards using the stock cooler and those with experience know that it has incredibly poor cooling performance, the temps increased far too high for my liking so I moved it into another computer temporarily.
I was a little disappointed by the performance of the cooler, I even cleaned/replaced the thermal paste to double check but I simply couldn’t get my Idle temps to go below what was experienced with the failing stock cooler, however load temps dropped from the 80s to the mid 60s, acceptable for normal usage, but unacceptable for overclocking, so I thought I would take drastic measures and get a Corsair H50, the main selling point was the compact design, it would allow me to put my side fan on and would contain the excess heat that the previous coolers radiated towards my graphics cards.
Continue to the next page below
