Cases

[grizzle]

I got Vllad's case and it's great. Tons of room. I compared the case dimensions to other common full size cases and this was the largest in all directions. Ample room behind an nVidia 780 video card and I can actually plug in those stupid sideways SATA cables on the Asus motherboard.

I just added this liquid cooler to the CPU:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series-Extreme-Performance-Liquid/dp/B009ZN2NH6">http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series-Ex ... B009ZN2NH6</a><!-- m -->

That greatly increased the noise (2 smaller fans replacing the huge top case fan) but man, what a difference that thing makes. I always thought liquid cooling was a bit of a gimmick but no. Previously I was hitting over 90 degrees C on my CPU if I was really blasting it with something (mostly when doing video processing, which uses every core at nearly 100% for 10-20 minutes).

Now I've overclocked it to Ludicrous Speed and it still stays under 75C at full blast. ~40 degrees for normal usage, which is cooler than I was idling with the default Intel heat-sink-fan.

I overclocked from 2.80 to 3.66 and it's staying cool and running great.

Definitely worth considering a liquid cooler. They're pretty easy to install if the case has room for it.

I've got that same liquid cooler, and am also very impressed with it. I replaced the stock fans with some pretty quiet beasts, and it rocks. I'm visiting the folks right now, but when i get back home in a week I'll look up the fans I bought and pass them on.