Peripherals

With the motherboard and CPU in place the peripherals are the next step in a new system. The Core i5 750 comes with a very low profile cooler, which does an adequate job of cooling, but this system will be spending a good deal of it's life overclocked, so I decided to invest in an after market cooler. None of my existing coolers fit with the new socket, so I was forced to look for a new one. I landed on the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus.

Now this isn't a cooler review, so I won't go into too much detail right away other than a brief mention of the important points. Firstly the fan mounting is fairly simple. I didn't really look too much at the instructions, but was able to figure out fairly quickly the way the metal brackets held the fan in place. The included fan has rubber pads that decrease rattle and fan vibrations. It is one of the lesser sources of sound in my case. The cheap included front fan on my case is by far the noisiest, followed by the video card fan. I used the included CoolerMaseter thermal grease, as I am now officially out of Arctic Silver 5. Results on temperature will be coming up later. Mounting was fairly simple. The bolts push through the board into nuts that secure the back plate to the motherboard. The cooler itself is secured into the bolts. Central pressure is applied to the CPU cooler base by a screwed on central pivot. Simple and effective. A quick wiggle test, and she seems secure.

For memory I decided on the G Skill Ripjaw 2 x 2GB PC 10666 kit with timings of 7-7-7-21 at 1.5V according to the spec sheets. G Skill has a lifetime warranty on these sticks, and I've not seen any need for more than 4GB at this point. Later I could expand to either a dual channel 8GB kit, or add a second 4GB kit. But for the next little while, I am happy with 4GB.

The video card powering this machine is the XFX 4890 mentioned in the previous review. If you would like a refresher on it's performance, and details CLICK HERE.

Previously I've mentioned that I moved away from my old OCZ power supply to a Corsair TX750W unit. I hadn't posted too much about the device, so I'll take this opportunity to showcase the power supply that will make everything go.

Corsair is kind enough to send a little felt bag with the power supply. It's a nice, while a bit unneeded, touch to the package. The bag now holds my bottlecaps.

Along with the standard mounting screws a small ziplock bag of zip ties is included. The zip ties are actually a good idea because the TX750W comes with a HUGE amount of cables. Not being a modular power supply means those ties can be used to keep the cables from messing up the airflow of your case.

On the underside of the power supply is a large silent fan. In operation it is totally silent, so far as I can tell. On the side of the unit, the specs sticker indicates the power capabilities. Among other reasons, the 60A rating on the single 12V rail makes the TX750W a particularly attractive power supply.

It looks like a big mess of cables, and it is. However when you buy a beefy 750W power supply it's assumed you have extensive hardware to hook it up to. Personally, I just got the TX750W on for a great sale. Here is a breakdown of the cables and their length:

1x 20 + 4 ATX motherboard connector - 23inches in length

2x Molex power cables with 4 connections apiece - 34inches in length (both ended with an extra 4 inches of cable to a floppy power connector)

2x SATA power cables with 4 connections apiece - 34inches in length

4x 6+2pin PCIexpress power cables - 24inches in length

1x 4+4 pin CPU power connector - 19.5inches in length

The hard drive connected to this system is the Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7200RPM, with 32MB cache size.

Also connected is a Samsung SH-S223L/BEBS SATA DVD-writer, and a Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 DDL sound card. That pretty much covers the specs of the system and the details of the pertinent new hardware.

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