CPU Cooling, Case, Power And Drives
Lacking enough money to buy any form of liquid cooling or even a $75 heat sink/fan combo, I had to get a little more resourceful in my CPU cooler selection.
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 612 Ver. 2
I know that Intel’s Haswell-E puts out too much heat for most heat sink/fan coolers, so I had to go as big as I could, as cheap as I could. My choices were either the NiC L32 from last June’s SBM or Cooler Master’s Hyper 612 Ver. 2. While the previously-used cooler has a larger fan, Cooler Master’s part has a larger sink. Decisions, decisions.
Read Customer Reviews of Cooler Master's Hyper 612 Ver. 2 (opens in new tab)
Featuring a 120mm fan with both wire and plastic clips, the Hyper 612 Ver. 2 supports all of Intel’s mainstream LGA interfaces, and even includes two sets of AMD brackets so that it can be rotated. I’ve never been able to test it side-by-side against the NiC L32, however, and wasn’t even able to find another site that had tested both products on the same hardware. Perhaps I made a mistake, perhaps not. But I’m sure our readers will have an opinion.
Case: Corsair Graphite 230T
Unlike the red case used in my SLI build, the chassis used in today’s alternative PC is closer to its namesake in color. The basic black version of Corsair’s Graphite 230T comes without a window and costs $10 less than the windowed model on the day of my purchase.
Read Customer Reviews of Corsair's Graphite 230T (opens in new tab)
Dual 120mm intake fans and a single 120mm exhaust provide good directional flow, while vents on the back panel and slot covers should help the positive-pressure case blow heat away from the CPU cooler. A vented top panel diminishes that positive pressure as it approaches the CPU however, so this might not be the best case for my combination of CPU cooler and graphics. While I didn’t see any better enclosures for less money, new knowledge about the case’s cut-rate materials will cause me to look even harder during my next build.
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750
If you think that my use of the above case indicates that I’m trying to keep my systems as similar as the price allows, you’re right. Rosewill’s Capstone 750 was the best value I could find for a 600W+ unit on the day of my purchase, so I bought two of them.
Read Customer Reviews of Rosewill's Capstone 750 Power Supply (opens in new tab)
Most of our regular readers will realize that none of my recent builds have needed more than 600W of reliable output. But every 600W unit that I found acceptable was priced at least as much as Rosewill’s Capstone 750. Approved by some of my favorite power supply guys, confirmed to 80 PLUS Gold efficiency standards and capable of powering yet another GeForce GTX 980, this unit presents bonus value to the eventual winner of our SBM giveaway.
System Drive: Crucial MX100 256GB SSD
Chosen by readers as a money-saver for my SLI build and approved by our hard drive team for its low-cost performance, Crucial’s MX100 256GB provides just enough capacity to run our entire test suite. OK, a 200GB unit would probably do that too, barely. But I wouldn’t take that risk.
Read Customer Reviews of Crucial's MX100 256GB SSD (opens in new tab)
This means that most high-end users will need a second drive for storage. I normally include one, but was forced to leave it out of my other Q1 build in order to include a 16GB memory upgrade. A downgrade to 8GB would have broken this platform’s quad-channel capability, and fairness demands that I treat both machines equally.
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD Burner
Read Customer Reviews of Asus' DRW-24B1ST DVD Burner (opens in new tab)
The main reason we include optical drives in our builds is so that the winner can install Windows from the included DVD. Asus’ 24x burner has proven itself cheap and reliable, and it even includes the company's DVD software suite.