Considering how long you'd have to wait, neither of those options really makes sense. (Generally speaking, the more expensive a component is, the less value you get, mostly because the next generation usually crushes all the previous high-end gear.)
Two 5870s will run you about $800. A single 5970 is roughly $650. That's about a $333 difference. The pricier option does offer better performance, but I doubt you'll notice much of a difference regardless of which one you pick, so I'd probably just go with the cheaper route myself. If raw performance is your main priority, just keep in mind that the 6xxx series is going to blow everything else out of the water.
If you can hold off, I wouldn't wait until Christmas; instead, just hang tight for the ATI HD5xxx series coming out this month. If you grab a 6850 or 6870 once they drop in November, you'll be in great shape. Yeah, IBM is a standard retailer. Their website lists their locations.
Our customs department is incredibly unreliable. There are two hundred and sixty-five damn articles about customs regulations, but I could probably condense everything a toddler needs to know into just 20 posts 🤣
If you spread the thermal paste manually over the CPU or the cooler base to get an even layer, you're going to end up with way more air bubbles than if you just put a small pea-sized amount in the center and let the pressure from the cooler base do the spreading for you. There's a really great video out there demonstrating this; I think someone on the forum posted a link to it a while back. Let me see if I can track it down.
Edit: Found it. Link. Here's another one. To be fair, the base on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 + isn't quite as flat as what they're using in the video, but I doubt the difference would be all that significant.
I'm not sure if you should apply the thermal paste directly to the cooler base first, but I'd suggest against it. Instead, just put a small X pattern of paste on the processor itself and then set the cooler on top. Just be careful that the paste doesn't squeeze out too much when you press it down, since it tends to spread. Personally, I wouldn't use a cooler like that on my CPU without doing some delidding first.😁
Zachary Wilson30 said:There's plenty to debate there, but yeah, having paste is definitely the smarter move...
It doesn't have to be paste, obviously; anything else that conducts heat just as well or better would work. 😛
Thermal paste must be used regardless of whether the processor and cooler bases are perfectly flat or uneven. Everyone reading this should keep that in mind! 😁 If you have the time and interest, you could lap the cooler base to make it flatter, provided you know how. If not, you can probably figure it out with a little bit of Googling.
Check the chart below to get a general idea of how much better the performance will be.
Looking at $67 there aren't many decent coolers available. Sure, you can find some that will drop the temperatures, but they won't make a massive difference. If you want the absolute heavy hitters, you're looking at something around $167 😁 . Though... I suppose at least until this point we could stretch it.
Buy one? You're into PC Modding, just build it yourself! 😁 I'm not entirely sure where you'd even find one for sale, but I suspect it wouldn't be too difficult to put together on your own, provided you have the right gear and put in some serious work.
I feel like Logitech is a bit overrated. It's fine, I guess, but nothing special. I've heard some good things about Speedlink's Medusa NX. I spotted them on sale recently, though I didn't catch the exact price. If you're looking for high-quality audio, you might also want to consider the Creative Technology Fatal1ty series; they offer a USB version with its own onboard sound card too.
If you're just looking for headphones, I think many Sennheiser's models tend to have the edge.
Zachary Wilson30 said:I've explored a few different setups before 😁 Basically, it might be time to swap out my 4830 for something more recent. I'm thinking about maybe picking up two 460s and running them in SLI 😁 (on a Crossfire board), since I'm getting pretty tired of these older cards... Does the Fermi architecture still run hot like the previous generations?
The Fermi GF100 chip pulls more power than a small town can produce, but the scaled-down version, the GF104 found on the GTX 460, has pretty standard power draw and temps. Plus, the performance is top-tier for mainstream builds. It feels like an NVIDIA win after a long time. 😁