In my experience, the one place you don't want to skimp $$ on is the case. The better cases will make cable routing easier and have more expandability.
When I bought my Corsair AIO, I was really close to getting the Swifech unit...for the main reason being that I could upgrade later. The Corsair and Swiftech AIOs had very similar cooling results. Some reviews had one slightly better, and another would say the opposite. But then I decided that this wasn't for me...I wasn't really interested in installing water cooled GPU blocks (for $100 or more) to get the extra 0.5% out of them.
I have builds with air coolers and with AIOs. What Tir says above is correct. However, I prefer the AIO for the following reasons:
- the AIO gives the inside of the case a "clean" look (i.e. you don't have this massive heat sink in the center of your case window (if you are going with a window case))
- it's easier to get access to PCI slots, memory slots, motherboard headers, etc. with an AIO (i.e. you don't have the massive heat sink blocking portions of the motherboard)
- it's easier to direct the "waste heat" from the CPU outside of your case (you put the radiator where you want the heat exhaust)
The downside of an AIO is you have to plan your build and the position of the radiator. A general rule with water cooling is: "the more radiator the better". Also, with more radiator space, you can reduce your fan speeds and have a quieter system.
When I first installed my 280 mm Corsair AIO, I hated it as the fans where SOOOOO loud. After multiple rounds of fans (various Noctuas and the like), I settled on the Prolimatech fans I have now. 4 of these in push/pull (2 on each side of the radiator) keeps my processor very cool and they are VERY quiet (a gentle woosh of air versus the turbine sound of the stock Corsair fans).
As far as for overclocking the 5820 K...I haven't read anything similar to what you posted. However, the overclocking process is pretty straight forward and well documented (on this site and on the web).
The most important thing about overclocking is making sure that you have stability. I'm very pessimistic on how I check for stability. However, I keep my machines on 24/7...and I want to make sure that my system is 100% stable and doesn't crash during usage. Hence, my stability testing is probably overkill...but I really can't put a price on peace of mind - hehe.
The XMP settings will work fine. However, there is one point of caution here.
- The general rule for overclocking is to overclock the CPU first, then do the memory.
- You get more "bang for the buck" from CPU overclock
- Memory overclock is not as much gain
When you turn on XMP for the memory in your BIOS, the XMP setting may require a different mainbus speed. You must adjust your CPU multipliers, and the higher mainbus speed may require extra voltage (as the memory controller is on-chip for the 5820 K.)
Good luck...and keep us posted on your build!
