Please advise me on this build

Click on the Full ATX build in my sig, that is going to be my next tower case.

OK, after a lot of tweaking and advice from you guys, I finally came up with a build that should give me everything that I need. Still a little confused about which VGA/CPU coolers I might need. I've narrowed it down to either Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme or Scythe Ninja PLUS. Keep in mind that I won't be doing much, if any OCing or benchmark one-upping for the first year of ownership. Which would fit onto my mobo with no problems? Don't want to do any tricky modding to get this CPU cooler working.

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3P
Q6600 with GO Stepping
EVGA 8800GTX
Corsair 620 Modular PSU
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC6400
320GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS
Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 Full ATX tower

Any takers?

I really wanted a case that's easy to work with and newbie friendly. But I'm now very worried about it because of the lack of HDD cooling. Will I run into problems if I only plan on using one? Couldn't I just mount my HDD closest to the top/rear position and hope that the majority of the heat is pulled away by the two 120mm fans that are mounted on the top/inside part of the case? Here's a pic.

http://www.dvhardware.net/reviews/cooler_master_cosmos/33.jpg

as mentioned, OCing isn't that hard if you take it slow and steady. bump it up a little then run diagnostic tests to make sure your temps are acceptable and your hardware is stable. it takes some time but it's worth it in the end.

Isn't there a fan in front of the HDDs? That should be sufficient for cooling them, they don't need to be moved. Remember the basic geothermal prinipcle; heat rises, even if it's leaving your case... The lower in your case components are the cooler they will stay.

Yeah, but that brings up another question. Is a fan/air intake on the bottom a good thing? The case will be sitting on a carpet under my desk. Is it normal to have intake on the bottom of a case? There's a filter on the top and bottom to catch dust bunnies and carpet fuzzies but seems like a weird place for an intake.

newtothisoc: as long as your hard drives aren't getting over 50C, they'll be fine (you can check this with various HDD software). They have quite a tolerance for temperature, even during prolonged use. the build you posted above looks great. All i would do is swap out that 320gb for a 250GB seagate with the model number ST3250410AS; they have just a single platter, they're slimmer, and should be easier to cool

NewToThisOC said:

Yeah, but that brings up another question. Is a fan/air intake on the bottom a good thing?

Click to expand...

front/side air intake on the bottom is normal, because 1) that's where the hard drives usually are, and 2) fresh air cools the hardware near the bottom, then as it heats up, rises to the top of your case where the rear fan and psu fan blows it out

http://www.lian-li.com/product/product06.php?pr_index=109&cl_index=1&sc_index=1&ss_index=56&type=a

Watch "Dissipating flow" at the bottom.

Then imagine the flow with your fan setup (take into account blowhole, side fans/vents etc)