Just sold my dvd collection, therefore I'm looking for a new CPU/Mobo combo. Basically looking at i5 type stuff because I've heard that provides the best cost/performance ratio. Is Sandybridge worth looking at?

I'd like to overclock but its not a primary concern. There are so many different i5/i7 cpus doing the rounds I've got no clue what is gonna be the best for me. Cheers.

All noctua stuff kicks ass really, as long as it fits, you can't go wrong 

NH-U12p is what I have, but I think there's a 'newer' one 

Thanks for the advice. Can the IGP be disabled? Or is there an option without it? I have a decent enough GPU right now.

Yes.

Some boards don't even use it, I've had both types, it's no big deal to offski it.

Sounds fine by me. Ta very much for the help. Now all I have to do is explain the expenditure to the missus.

Would an Asus M2A-VM + CPU + Mem have any second hand value? Got 6GB of various memory stuffed in the board.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Thats what the order history tells me I bought.

As for the memory, I had a 2 x 1GB sticks and 2 x 2GB sticks. I'm not entirely sure what the brand is but I think Crucial for the 2gb sticks rings a bell.

The 5000+ and Mobo and Ram you could sell as a bundle on Ebay quite easily, do a search of completed listings to check prices or put up here on the forums as a Dual core Athlon is still a capable system so someone might buy it, although i would be tempted to get the other bits cheap and build a system to sell to someone in the family that needs an upgrade!

As for the different motherboards, they will differ from features, the board i linked you has all you need to OC, it might not have Firewire but the next model might, it might not have 110 sata ports but the next model might etc.

I wouldn't really bother with it tbh....

the whole idea behind water cooling is to take the heat from your tiny cpu and spread it over a massive radiator... the radiator on the H60 isn't really big enough for that....

if you want water cooling you could probably buy yourself a heat sink, pump, pipe and radiator for not a lot more.... but it would run quieter and keep your cpu a lot cooler than the H60 would/could


as long as your case temps are cool, you'll do just as well with air cooling - the only real advantage of the H60 system over air cooling is that the radiator is attached to the case side so always gets cool fresh air :-)

Jesus christ, That cooler is stupidly big 

My next worry is will this stuff fit in a midi tower or am I looking at buying a new case too? I never realised how big the coolers were.