Computer Hardware Recommendations
"The System Formula"
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Performance / Overclocking / Crossfire or SLI / Add-In Cards
The Asus P6TD Deluxe is essentially the "P6T Deluxe V3". Asus replaced the original P6T Deluxe with the V2, which was identical except for the omission of the 2-channel Marvell SAS controller chip. The P6TD Deluxe is basically the same as the previous two P6T Deluxe models, adding additional copper cooling panels on the back of the board, and the new B3 revision of the X58 PCH. Intel Core i7 is faster than the equivalent clocked Core 2 CPU and is currently not much more expensive. Overclocking on this platform is extremely good with at least 3.8 GHz expected from a midrange Core i7 CPU and at least 3.6 GHz with the Core i7 920 model. Many newer CPUs have been known to hit 4.0 GHz or more with air cooling. The X58 chipset supports triple-channel DDR3 and provides 6 DIMM slots. The usual configuration is 3x2GB DDR3 DIMMs for a total of 6 GB RAM (which of course means you should install Vista x64 to take advantage of this memory. If for some reason you need to stay on an x86 operating system for the moment, then you could go with 3x1GB. Note that the DDR3 RAM you install should be rated for 1.5-1.65 volts. I do NOT recommend the stock Intel Socket 1366 heatsink even if you don't plan on overclocking, as it's a very anemic unit that can result in core temperatures well over 70c. See the heatsink section below for specific recommendations. Another bonus of the X58 chipset is its support for both ATI Crossfire and (in cases where the manufacturer has chosen to include support, such as with the Asus P6TD Deluxe) nVidia SLI technology. Previously, gamers who wanted to use multiple video cards had to choose between the somewhat unreliable nVidia chipset for SLI, or the Intel chipset for Crossfire only.
Value
ASRock is a value subsidiary of Asus and their X58 board is extremely well-reviewed.
Why No Socket 1156? While Socket 1156 CPUs use the same Nehalem core as Socket 1366, they move the PCI Express bus into the CPU and provide only 16+8 lanes of PCI-e connectivity. All other components have to communicate with the CPU through a 4-lane PCI-e DMI bridge. Some motherboard manufacturers are using the nVidia NF200 PCI-e expansion chip to provide more x16 slots on Socket 1156, but this is a boondoggle, because any additional PCI-e lanes will get bottlenecked going through the 4-lane DMI bridge to the CPU. All of this is fine if you want a system with one graphics card, no RAID controller, and onboard LAN & audio. In that case, 1156 would be appropriate if it's much less expensive. Unfortunately, if you compare top-rated boards in 1366 & 1156, you'll find that the average price is about the same. This may change sometime in 2010 once the Socket 775 platforms filter out of the retail channel and cause price compression in Socket 1156, but for the time being I'm recommending X58/1366 for enthusiasts.
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DDR3 RAM is used by the DDR3 versions of Intel P35, P45, X38, X48, and by all of the new Core i5/i7 Socket 1366 & 1156 X58/P55 motherboards. The Socket 1366 X58 systems take 3 matched DIMMs for maximum performance so look for a 3-DIMM matched kit. Socket 1156 systems only support dual-channel, so stick with expanding in 2-DIMM increments. I don't recommend getting any speeds lower than DDR3-1333. One big advantage of DDR3 is the ability to run the RAM at the same effective speed as the front side bus (FSB) of the processor when overclocking. The target speed for your FSB depends on the particular CPU, but for several popular Intel CPUs (Q6600, E6850, and QX6850, representing budget quad core, premium dual core, and premium quad core, respectively) the FSB multiplier is the same -- 9x. With a 9x multiplier, a typical overclock will top out at less than 1600 FSB, therefore DDR3-1600 makes the most sense for an overclocking configuration. DDR3-1800/2000 is available and is useful for either extremely high overclocking with refrigerated CPUs or for lower-multiplier chips. Lower latency is extremely valuable on Nehalem systems so I generally recommend CAS7 DIMMs unless you are pushing over 1800 where low latency is either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. Mushkin and G.Skill make the most reliable DDR3.
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High End These drives are so much faster than everything else, it may be the biggest single performance boost you can make to your system. They also generate less heat, and zero noise. Currently available in 80GB and 160GB flavors with 320GB on the way. If you can't get your hands on an Intel G2 drive, the Corsair is the next best option.
Storage WD's Caviar Black is the fastest 7200 rpm drive on the market, equipped with a 32MB cache up to 1TB and 64MB cache in 2TB. It's very advantageous to have more than one storage volume in a machine, so a dual-drive configuration is a good idea unless price-prohibitive. The most optimal configuration is an SSD for the boot/application drive, and a WD Caviar Black for the storage drive.
More hard drive choices?
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Optical drive model numbers have been changing over so fast it's almost impossible to keep a topical recommendation in place. So, the best thing to do is to go to Newegg, view all DVD burners and sort by "Best Rating". I've kept up with all of the reviews and there is no really terrific DVD burner currently in production, they're all about the same. Blu-Ray Drives LG is definitely making the best Blu-ray drives at the moment. Choose from their internal burner (GGW-H20LK), external burner (BE06LU11), or their Blu-ray reader / DVD-writer internal drive (GGC-H20L).
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High Performance
The ATI Radeon 5870 is the value leader on the high end, providing almost exactly the same performance as two of the previous-generation 4870 cards with a single card. Late in 2009 ATI is expected to release a 5970 with two 5870 GPUs on one card. This breaks ATI's previous naming scheme of 3870X2 & 4870X2 for dual-GPU versions. The 5970 will be the same as a theoretical "5870X2". This will be the fastest single-card solution once available.
The ATI Radeon 5850 is a standout in the mainstream performance category.
Check Tom's VGA Charts and buy according to your price point. Vista Ready, No Gaming
ATI Radeon
4670 through 4830 Recommended Video Card Brands: eVGA (for nVidia), Sapphire (for ATI), and to a lesser degree, BFG, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI Video Card Brands to Avoid: XFX (a.k.a. PINE Technology, one of the many shell companies of the infamous PCChips, also known as Elitegroup/ECS etc), Diamond (not the same Diamond you remember, the original company went out of business, the brand was sold to Best Data in 2003, and results have not been good -- see also)
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General
Quiet / Affordable / Home Office / Homes with Pets Since Antec messed up the Sonata with its third revision, the Solo is the best option for an affordable general-purpose case with no bundled power supply, good capacity and 120mm fan. The fact that the Solo is built of high-quality heavy-gauge steel and makes a perfect "quiet PC" case is just icing on the cake. Hard drives are suspended in elastic bands, isolating the drives' vibration from the chassis for extra quiet operation. Pair this case with a good quiet power supply such as SeaSonic, a Zalman CPU heatsink, and choose a video card with passive or quiet active cooling, and you'll have a system that's basically inaudible more than a few feet away. The Solo's fine mesh filters on its front air intakes make this case ideal for homes with pets as they will prevent the CPU heatsink from becoming clogged with pet hair. Just remember to vacuum the filters regularly! The front panel easily hinges open to allow cleaning, and the filters are removable. The Solo case design is also available as the Sonata Plus 550 (with included 550W power supply and gloss black side panels) and the Sonata Designer 500 (with 500W power supply and very attractive gloss white side panels, aluminum-look front panel with light blue accents).
High-Performance Quiet
The Nine Hundred is an extraordinary case for its size and price (under $150). It's equipped with dual hard drive modules, each equipped with its own 120mm fan (seen through the front grille on the thumbnail picture above). There is another 120mm fan in the back, but the real surprise is the huge 200mm fan in the top rear, taking up the entire width of the case. To accommodate the big fan, the power supply mount point has been moved to the bottom rear, which is nice because big, heavy power supplies can sit comfortably on the bottom without stressing the case. The Nine Hundred Two is an updated alternate version with fan filters on all intakes, which is advisable for dusty environments or families with pets. The only downsides to the Nine Hundred are the inclusion of a window (I hate cases with windows due to the potential RF pollution) but with the rest of this case's positives, that's a small negative. The other downside is that on many motherboards (based on CPU socket location) large heat-pipe heatsinks like the Thermalright Ultra 120 and Prolimatech Megahalem will interfere with the side fan mount of the Nine Hundred. One note on this case's bigger brother, the Twelve Hundred -- I had high hopes for that larger unit but when I had a chance to check it out in person, it was quite disappointing. The main drawback of the Twelve Hundred is that the width of the interior space is no larger than the Nine Hundred. It adds only vertical space which is difficult to use, and does not accommodate larger motherboards.
High-Capacity Cooler Master has hit it out of the park with their HAF (High Air Flow) 932 chassis. It comes equipped with three 230mm quiet fans (in the side door, the top rear, and lower front blowing directly over the HDD bays). The generous interior depth easily fits the largest heatsinks and there is plenty of room to work. This is a big case, but if you have the room for it, it has all of the advantages of the Antec Nine Hundred with none of the disadvantages. Noise levels are very low with the HAF 932 despite its size, due to the large diameter fans. Optional casters are included. The power supply intakes from the bottom so I recommend installing the casters if you are using the case in a carpeted room, to ensure adequate airflow clearance. The HAF 932 can adapt to water cooling, though only with a 2x120mm internal radiator (which necessitates swapping out the top 230mm fan for dual 120mm fans and the radiator). The HAF 932 is also available in a stylish designer aluminum-bodied version called the ATCS 840 which has slightly less airflow but competes with Apple on a design standpoint. There is also a slightly shorter version badged the HAF 922 which I don't recommend unless you cannot fit the HAF 932 in your space, since the 922 is actually more expensive than the 932 once you add optional fans (which the 932 comes with as standard).
Value Overclocking This amazing budget case is actually better than the original Three Hundred. This is overall one of the best values in build-it-yourself computing.
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SeaSonic's very quiet and efficient S12 series uses 120mm fans and 24-pin power connectors. They include Active PFC for lower energy usage.
SeaSonic M12 700w (SS-700HM) which also adds modular connections (Newegg link) You'd be surprised at how high end a system this conservatively rated, quiet, efficient SeaSonic can power with 100% stability. A second backup fan only kicks in under extreme circumstances. Highly recommended.
Value Overclocking Corsair Micro HX620W (CMPSU-620HX) While not the quietest unit in the world, and not modular, the HX620W has a sterling reputation in budget enthusiast circles for delivering solid overclocking power on a budget. Keep an eye out for frequent special deals and rebates.
Quad-Core + Dual High-End Video: Cooler Master Real Power Pro 1000W The Cooler Master has an almost ridiculously high efficiency level (around 86% at target loads), runs quietly, and at only 180mm long, it will fit in most cases. It only lacks modular cabling support.
Thermaltake Tough Power 1000W Cable Management (W0132) While Thermaltake is not known for the highest-quality products in general, they chose an excellent supplier for their 1000 & 1200 watt Toughpower units. Channel Well Technology makes high end server power supplies, and their expertise shows with these Thermaltake-labeled versions. Note: The Thermaltake Tough Power versions lower than 1000W are not the same quality and are not recommended!
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Since Windows Vista effectively killed accelerated audio, and supports only UAA-compliant solutions, I'm no longer recommending Creative X-Fi products (although none of this is their fault). The state-of-the-art in PCi-based UAA-compliant sound cards is the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 chip which is featured to best effect on the Asus Xonar D2 (arguably the best CMI8788 implementation ever was the Auzentech X-Meridian, which has sadly been discontinued, but the Asus comes very close). The CMI8788 provides both Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect features, both of which will take multi-channel DirectSound3D positional audio (e.g. from PC games) and translate them into a Dolby Digital or DTS stream to connect with a home theater receiver or AC-3 capable speaker set using a single digital cable. DTS Connect offers better sound than the more common Dolby Digital Live, since the former is 1.5Mbits while the latter uses only 640Kbits. The Xonar's ports are illuminated with color-coded LEDs which makes it easy to plug in components in the dark beneath a desk without having to dig out a flashlight. A metal shield on the card helps reduce RF interference with the audio quality. This is another card using the same CMI8788 chipset. While the Asus uses somewhat customized drivers, the Claro Plus uses the basic CMI reference drivers. Sound quality is basically the same as the Asus, pricing is about the same, but Asus seems to update the drivers a bit more often and adds the LED port illumination and metal RF shield. I own both and narrowly recommend the Asus.
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PWM Fan Control Note: If you have a motherboard built in the last year or two, you probably have PWM fan control. Check the CPU fan connector on your board, if it has 4 pins it's a PWM connector, if it has 3 pins it's an old voltage-only speed control connector. 3-pin non-PWM fans can work on either PWM or non-PWM motherboards, but 4-pin PWM fans can only work on modern PWM motherboards. You want to use PWM if your board supports it, because it results in a quieter system.
Mainstream Performance / Quiet PC
The Zalman 9900 is widely available, comes with brackets for Socket 1366, and outperforms the previous 9500 & 9700 series. It also fits in virtually any case. The downside is that the mounting mechamism still allows some rotation after mounting.
Highest Performance / Flexibility So it may have a silly-sounding name, but the Prolimatech Megahalems is the heatsink to finally one-up the famous Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme (TRUE) for both performance and, more importantly, mounting stability. Unlike the TRUE, the Megahalems mounting bracket does not allow rotation of the heatsink after mounting. This prevents disruption of the thermal interface material after mounting, and allows use of the Indigo Xtreme high-end thermal coupling system. Dual mount direction allows it to face vertically or horizontally for optimum case airflow. Available from Sidewindercomputers and others. For quiet systems, moderately overclocked, I recommend the Enermax Cluster UCCL12 with PWM support.
Heatsink Mounting While there are plenty of methods for applying heat sink compound, it's more important to have good contact at the center of the CPU heat spreader than to have an even layer over every square mm of the CPU. To this end, rather than using any fiddly schemes to apply compound, I recommend placing a dab of Arctic Silver 5 the size of a dried pea on the center of the CPU, and letting the heatsink's mounting pressure spread out the compound. There is very little difference between thermal compounds and it only makes sense to use Arctic Silver 5 if you really need that extra margin of 1-3C it provides. Otherwise, use the thermal compound that came with your heatsink. Do not use Arctic Silver on anything but a CPU since it's slightly conductive and if there are other components in the immediate area it could potentially cause issues if it runs or is misapplied. For video cards, south bridges, etc. I recommend Arctic Ceramique which unfortunately does have to be spread manually, and is fairly viscous so it can take some practice to apply evenly. Both products are available at most any PC components retailer such as Fry's, Sidewindercomputers or Newegg. The latest thermal coupling system is the Indigo Xtreme which provides the best possible temperatures but is very tricky to install and requires a heatsink that will not rotate after installation.
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After extensive experimentation with water-cooling setups for several years, I've really narrowed down my recommendations and now that water cooling has become mainstream in enthusiast circles, I'm ready to share them with you.
CPU Block
Danger Den TDX Socket 775 Danger Den was first out of the gate with a Core i7 water block and it's a solid, industry standard design. Our Slovenian friends at EK Waterblocks unfortunately no longer produce the superb EK-Wave low-restriction block, preferring to offer a jet-based high-restriction EK Supreme unit. I'm in favor of low-restriction water cooling loops so I have switched back to recommending Danger Den for CPU blocks.
GPU Block
While "Full Coverage" graphics water blocks are more expensive in the long run because you need to replace them each time you get a new model of graphics card, today's cards have hot-running RAM & voltage regulators that really benefit from the extra cooling. Also, a full-coverage block is fully removable so you can reinstall the card's original heatsink assembly. If you used a GPU-only waterblock, you would need to install individual RAM heatsinks which are tricky to remove due to the possibility of pulling the surface-mount RAM chip off of the board. EK's full coverage blocks have double-sided fitting placement for flexibility and SLI/Crossfire capability. Threads are standard G1/4" and you should order 1/2" OD fittings.
Pump
Laing D5 Vario/D-Tek/Danger Den D5/Swiftech MCP655 This DC-powered pump is known under several names and is available in both variable-speed (recommended) and fixed-speed versions. The link above is to the variable-speed version. The integrated barb fittings are 1/2" OD and anti-vibration mounting pads are usually included.
Reservoir
XSPC 5-1/4" Bay Reservoir with Internal Baffles The top 5-1/4" bay in your case is the ideal place for a reservoir because the reservoir should be located above the rest of the water-cooling loop. Beware standard 5-1/4" bay reservoirs with no internal baffling, because they will make gurgling sounds that will annoy you, your friends, family and pets. This XSPC design is by far the best on the market and is dead quiet even with a high-flow system. Threads are standard G1/4" and you should order 1/2" OD fittings. There is another version without the face plate available for about $10 less.
Radiator
Thermochill PA series 120mm radiators The Thermochill PA offers the lowest flow restriction on the market and is optimized for low- to mid-CFM fans so it can operate quietly. Available in 1x120, 2x120 and 3x120 versions -- you should use the largest radiator possible for your given configuration for the best performance. These radiators have G3/8" native threads, order with 1/2" OD plastic barb fittings. Due to the G3/8" internal threads, if you want to use different (e.g. metal) fittings, you'll need to order two of part # 4860K657 bushing adapters from McMasterCarr.com. These will allow you to use any standard G1/4" fitting on the Thermochill. The PA series is pretty thick and there are going to be cases where it's just not practical to fit this radiator series. There are a lot of other good radiators on the market (e.g. Black Ice series) available in various thicknesses and overall sizes. While the Thermochill PA is the best, use whatever will fit. It's better to water cool with a lesser radiator than to not water cool at all! Consider mounting your radiator externally, since you can often use a larger size that way, and it benefits from the cooler external air as opposed to blowing hot case air through the radiator. The best mounting option for external radiators is the Swiftech RadBox system.
Tubing, Hose Clamps and Coolant
Tygon R-3603
7/16" ID, 11/16" OD You'll get a tighter fit on 1/2" OD fittings using 7/16" ID tubing, for some extra security. Flow rate isn't reduced over 1/2" ID tubing because the fittings are 7/16" or less ID. This particular model's extra-thick 1/8" wall provides the tightest bend radius available without having to resort to plastic coils which are tedious to install and make maintenance difficult. Sidewindercomputers is one of the only sources of this 7/16-11/16 Tygon outside of laboratory supply shops (which generally charge more, too). Sidewinder also sells a nifty tubing cutter which you should consider if you plan on doing a lot of water-cooling installs. Most systems require less than 10' of tubing. Hose Clamps After fiddling with worm-drive hose clamps for ages, I finally went with the superb Herbie Clip nylon hose clamps and haven't looked back. These are much easier to install, and less failure-prone than worm drive clamps. Coolant I don't recommend any of the name-brand cooling solutions or additives, as most of them are focused primarily on cosmetic color and UV sensitivity, rather than any practical purpose. Many of them (e.g. Swiftech, which is normally a very reliable company) cause excessive foaming and residue buildup. Most systems can run just fine with standard distilled water and nothing else. Distilled water is available at any grocery store for about $0.99 a gallon. Do not use tap water under any circumstances! All of the metal components on my recommended list are either copper or brass, with chrome- or nickel-plated brass fittings. These metals are very close together on the galvanic corrosion scale so you shouldn't have to worry about corrosion. If you want to be extra-sure, you can add 10% by volume of Pentosin, a German-made antifreeze / corrosion-inhibitor available cheaply in half-gallons at NAPA stores nationwide as well as in small quantities from Petra's Tech Shop.
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