As I come to the purchasing period for my new PC, I have found that I have a bit of extra cash, but not really enough that investing in a better GFX card or CPU or w/e.

Therefore, I feel like purchasing a case mod or two. How useful are the Fan controllers and temp guages? How hard are they to set up?

And finally: which are the best? Newegg doesn't really seem to have a good selection of case accessories. I'm ideally looking for something that can both control fans and get the temperature of my various devices...

I do have two GFX cards (three actually, but only two I need to know the temp of) and I plan to overclock, so I would ideally like to read the temperature of these three things.

Any reccomendations?

I would suggest that you try Speedfan to control fans, and report temperatures. It's free.

What parts do you have coming, and what is your budget for "extras"?

Q6600
Dual Radeon 4870s
4 GB RAM
X48 MoBo
SeaGate Barracuda 640GB HD

Thats the jist of it... and I have about eighty bucks left to spend, but that can vary slightly

Rheobus fan controllers are supposed to be the best "bang for your buck at $15.

I just use software for actual temps.

You have two hot vga cards, and a hot cpu. The first thing I would spend money on is a good cooling case, and an oem cpu cooler.

Only problem with that is, you would need to hook all your fans to a MB fan port, and the MB fan port would have to have 4 pin setup, like the CPU. That would be the only way I know of to fully use Speed Fan.

The 4th wire, if I remember correctly is what allows software to speed up or slow down the fans.

For speedfan to control a fan speed, the fan needs to be connected to the mobo. True. The mobo cpu connector is often a 4 pin connector. This allows PWM(pulse width modulation) control of PWM fans, like those on stock intel coolers. It basicly turns the fan on &off at a rate to control the fan. Otherwise, the three pin connectors need to be controlled by adjusting the voltage to the fan headers. It is my understanding that Speedfan can do this.

For fans connected to the psu molex connectors, then something simple like a zalman fanmate works well. For more "bling" you can get a front mounted panel with some knobs and lights. Zalman makes a nice one in that category.

My thought is to keep the fans turning at a constant speed, and accept a little heat buildup under load. It seems less noisy to me if I hear a constant fann speed.

Hmm... I guess it does more with the MB chipset supported by speed fan.

So far, all the MB I have, don't have support.

I do have a good case, as well as a good cooler.