[Elluzion]

Ok well As you can see my setup below in my signature..

What would you suggest I do,

Spend $60 on a Thermalright 120 extreme cpu cooler and then spend $150 on something else..

Or

Spend $200 on water cooling...


I am kinda stuck in a jam, not sure what to do

I just wnna know if water cooling is worth it. because if I spend $60 on a heatsink, might as well spend another $150 on water cooling. Or should I invest my money in another item that I have or should upgrade.. I currently have on bought the memory, everything else is open game

[msmolt]

red cross?

[icantfindone]

Get the thermalright, and put the exra $150 towards the 8800Ultra instead of the GTS.

[bing]

My suggestion, but it is different perspective, so take if with grain of salt..

Since your sig doesn't mention your drive configuration, how bout add more drive in Raid to boost your computing experience, remember, the drive is still the slowest sub system in your rig !








.

[Spawn-Inc]

i would buy the parts first then worry about water cooling, thats what i'm doing.

[Elluzion]

Originally Posted by bing

My suggestion, but it is different perspective, so take if with grain of salt..

Since your sig doesn't mention your drive configuration, how bout add more drive in Raid to boost your computing experience, remember, the drive is still the slowest sub system in your rig !









.

so how do I speed up my drive? get a 10,000 rpm drive? and just get the thermalright 120 extreme

[ou_phidelt]

Originally Posted by Elluzion

so how do I speed up my drive? get a 10,000 rpm drive? and just get the thermalright 120 extreme

That is an option. If your motherboard supports it look into matrix raid. Two single platter seagates in matrix will give you about the same performance as a Raptor for less money, more storage space, and be much quieter.

[aja]

Originally Posted by bing

My suggestion, but it is different perspective, so take if with grain of salt..

Since your sig doesn't mention your drive configuration, how bout add more drive in Raid to boost your computing experience, remember, the drive is still the slowest sub system in your rig !

.

+1!

Originally Posted by Elluzion

so how do I speed up my drive? get a 10,000 rpm drive? and just get the thermalright 120 extreme

nope, add more identical drives and RAID 0 them...

[bing]

Your mobo at your sig supports matrix raid, just buy another drive same type as current then you will be good to go.

Go to Storage section, read the matrix raid sticky or just shout out loud on a new thread there, many people will help you.

[juane414]

I say scratch the q6600, get the e6750, the thermalright 120 extreme, a second hard drive for raid, two more sticks of ballistix, and a 64-bit OS. Two gigs of memory for quad core is minimal at best. I say one GB per core... Also, the e6750's do 3.4-3.6 on air... no need for water.

[wa77ss]

Water cooling is generally NOT worth it unless you pay for the best gear available. Especially when comparing it to the Thermalright U120-E. In fact, the Thermalright will probably get much better temps than a 200$ water cooling setup.

I also like the idea of adding another drive for a RAID 0 setup.

[djrussell]

Originally Posted by wa77ss

Water cooling is generally NOT worth it unless you pay for the best gear available. Especially when comparing it to the Thermalright U120-E. In fact, the Thermalright will probably get much better temps than a 200$ water cooling setup.

+1. the ultra is one of the best heat sinks out there. according to the rankings here, it is the best and should out do low and maybe medium range watercooling. $200 won't buy you much for WCing. don't forget to toss in extra $$$ for a quality fan or two.

more ram or an additional drive in raid are probably the best ways to spend your money.

[Elluzion]

Ok, I will possibly scratch the water cooling because the thermalright will probably do a pretty well job. I like the idea of the RAID matrix setup with an extra hard drive. I don't need that much hard drive space, so Maybe I will get 2 x 200 gb hard drives. and do I truly need 4gb of ram for a quad core? I don't think so. but is it a good thing to have?? I am sticking with the quad core, I dont' wanna go out of date with an e6750. I'd rather pay a bit more for a quad now.

I still dnt know about the water cooling...

Also, what is RAID? im guessing it is the combining of 2 hard drives to act as 1. ??? faster? hmmm

[Anfallgel]

a RAID array is a good cheap choice. its fun to have stuff boot fast (OS, games, apps, etc). For a detailed description of RAID you can read the wiki page here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID. In simpler terms, RAID is an interace to utilize drives in parallel or serial arrays. Parallel allows redundancy (what's written on one drive is simultaneously written on the other) while serial allows half the information to be written on one and half on the other (so almost twice as fast).

4gb of ram really drops you off the upward price/performance curve in my opinion, you don't need it.

Q6600 will do just fine.

[Elluzion]

Yeah I like when OS and programs load up pretty fast and all. I should do raid. So if I use 2 300gb hard drives it would be like using 1 really fast 300gb hard drive or what??/ thanks for the link~!

I still dont know if I should do watercooling. Depends how the thermalright compares to watercooling..

[Anfallgel]

Originally Posted by Elluzion

Yeah I like when OS and programs load up pretty fast and all. I should do raid. So if I use 2 300gb hard drives it would be like using 1 really fast 300gb hard drive or what??/ thanks for the link~!

Even better, its like using 1 really fast 600gb drive.

[Elluzion]

^are you serious. Well then I gotta go that route. I'll probably get 2 - 180gb or 200gb hard drives because I don't need much space and then link them. Do they act as 1 hard drive right? so both drives would be the C drive..

[djrussell]

well, here's the rankings from the front page. http://overclockers.com/articles373/p4sum.asp

if you could find c/w ratings for a low/average water loop, that'd be a good comparison.

two notes: judging from current newegg reviews, the ultra will need to be lapped. thermalright's QA doesn't seem so great right now. also, it'll be a lot more reliable/lower-maintenance/lower-risk than WC.