Yeah.

What's the best CPU cooler I can get for an AMD Phenom II 940 3.0GHz (AM2 socket) besides water cooling?

I also learned that you can make your own water cooling unit. How?

I'd assume there's some Xigmatek S1283 for AMDs. Search that, it's cheap, but one of the best Aircoolers out now.

quote Buska103

I also learned that you can make your own water cooling unit. How?

you can make almost anything out of anything really. however, i would not get into self made water cooling systems if i were you. unless you have everything exactly as the standards go by. but i guess some hollow metal pipes, heatsinks, and some welding should get you the basics, and then some pvc or metal tubes leading from the cooler to the cooling area right?

that being said, id also like to add that this is not my area, so i cant be too certain about all this.

EDIT: reilly, as long as the speed of your current ram matches your choice and is of the same DDR type, then youre good. but so we can get closure on this, and a bit of confirmation (i dont want a repeat of last time), what were your current RAM specs?

This one

i spent 2 minutes just staring at it, just ot be sure it was the right one.

What would you say to be the best full tower ventilated case? Mid-tower?

What would you pick between these drive options?
2x Western Digital 500GB 32MB Cache HDs RAID0'd
or
4x Western Digital 80GB 8MB Cache HDs RAID'd
or
1x Patriot 32GB SATA II Internal Solid State Disk holding the OS (Vista Ultimate) and if there is room, several games and 1x Western Digital 80GB 8MB Cache HDs

Room for me isn't a big a deal, I do multimedia and all that other crap on my laptop (I only use 20 gigs ), and this PC is going to be for games ONLY. Besides, I can always add them later.
What would you go for? I've got $140 to spend on drives.

How fast does a HD read/write?

$140? Oh dang, if you had ten more, you could get 2 640 WD Caviar Blacks RAID0'd. Or if you want to be my hero, get one WD 640GB Caviar Black, and one Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, and bench them against each other.


Best full tower I'd say is the cooler master HAF32, and the best Mid tower is the Cooler Master 690.

I'm not to picky with HD capacity, I'm looking for the maximum performance I can get with drives.

Would it be 2 RAID0'd drives with a total of 64MB cache.
4 RAID0'd drives with a total of 32MB cache.
Or 1 SSD drive to hold OS and 1 HD with 8MB cache?

for me, im 50/50 between RAID0 and SSD OS + Other drive for stuff.

and by the way, 4 RAID0 setups dont offer any more performance over 2 RAID0's.

How many gigs does Vista Ultimate take?
I'm trying to squeeze every dollar and get a SSD and two RAID0'd 80 gig drives.

If I ran Windows 7 beta instead of Vista, would my drivers work?

get a 64 gig SSD. vista doesnt take up that much space, but after updates and whatnot, it will start to show. also, i dont know if you want to put your paging file there or not, but thats up to you. another reason why 64 gigs is good is because you need to have a reserve of 20 percent free space, or your systems performance will suffer, as well as make it difficult to do certain things such as defragmenting.

but your planned setup will be good.

What's a good video card I can get around the $200 range?
Or two, if it's more worth it.

Also, can I use the same OS disk on two computers?

This message was edited by Buska103 on May 08 2009.

this is a very good card. And its very very cheap too. Check it out.

And you can't use one OS disk on two computers legally, unless it is a Linux or Unix.

...unless you have a license for installing it on multiple compters of course. but usually this is for IT tech dudes only. i mean, i dont think youll have 10 computers in your house!