What cooling solution would you recommend?

[clem84]

First off this is my final build. Any thoughts please share:

1- Case: NZXT gamma case
2- Corsair 850W power supply (I will eventually add a top of the line graphics card)
3- Intel Core i7-2600
4- CPU cooling ???
5- ASUS P8P67 pro motherboard
6- Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 Vengeance 8GB PC12800 DDR3 RAM - 1600MHz, 2x4096MB, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, 8-8-8-24
7- Corsair 60GB 2.5" Solid State Disk Drive Force Series (SSD) 285MB/s Read 275MB/s Write
8- data hard drive : Western Digital 640 GB -- 64M Cache, 7200 RPM
9- 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW
10- Video card asus xtreme design eng240 1gb ddr3 (for now)

Couple questions:
- I know next to nothing about CPU cooling. Do I even need one? If so which one would you recommend?

-I wanted a fast drive, hence the SSD. I just want to make sure that my mobo will be fast enough to take advantage of the read and write speeds of the SSD. So, is it?

Thanks for any feedback! :)

[Spackler]

The i7-2600 you picked is the locked version of that chip / sandbridge (SB) series. Hence, you'll not be overclocking, I'd assume.

That said, in my research on SB before picking up my i7-2600k (the unlocked version), there were guys testing it mildly overclocked with the stock fan and it paced pretty well. The reviews generally talked up how heat vs speed was less of an issue with the SB chips they were testing.

Anyway, I would suppose you'll be just fine with a stock fan.

FWIW, I have a H50 sitting in its box that I did not install first build-through. I'll probably slap that dog in once I start overclocking. But as for that, everything is on hold right now pending the Intel P6 chipset problem resolution. I'll probably install it with the fix.

As for you, you may want to hold off your build until they start shipping the fixed product, and that probably takes your i2600 build offline for 8 weeks or so unless you want to plunge yourself into a fix it process with the P8 p67Pro, which I also have.