What Hardware Should I Buy? - April 2009

Case

First Choice: Cooler Master ATCS 840
UK Pricing: £211.97 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $199.99 (ex. Tax)

Stock of Cooler Master's aluminium monster masterpiece has finally landed here in the UK, but the price tag for now is still steep. However, if you're buying an ultra high end system then the Cooler Master ATCS 840 represents the absolute pinnacle of high-end cases to house it all in and we assure you that it’s well worth the investment.

Not only is it stunningly gorgeous in either black or silver, it also packs fistfuls of brilliant little touches that elevate it head and shoulders above the competition. A pop out front panel, ball bearings in the motherboard tray guide runners, plenty of removable dust filters and a fully reconfigurable cooling system are just the tip of the iceberg.

Build quality is excellent throughout and the included cooling set up, while not as potent as its sibling, the Cooler Master HAF 932, is still very capable with one 120mm and three 230mm fans tasked with keeping your hardware cool. The cavernous interior is an absolute doddle to work with as well, and with space for E-ATX motherboards, six hard disk drives and mounts for a 3x120mm watercooling radiator, the ATCS 840 is big enough to easily accommodate even the most ambitious mod or build.

Perhaps the only downside other than the price is its size - it is VERY large and you'll need a whole lot of desk or floor space to accommodate this aluminium mammoth, but trust us when we say it's worth making room for.

Power Supply

First Choice: Seasonic M12D 850W
UK Pricing: £158.18 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $300.00 (ex. Tax)

Even with an overclocked Core i7 processor and twin GTX 260-216 graphics cards there's no need to make the jump to a 1,000W PSU, and 850W is more than sufficient.

It seems that the PSU manufacturers know this too and there's a great deal of competition at this price point. Both the Antec Signature 850W, Cooler Master UCP 900W and the Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 850W are fine choices, but this month we feel that the Seasonic M12D 850W just edges it with consistently higher efficiency up to 88.5 percent, a slightly higher build quality and all at a competitive price.

It's quiet even at high loads and the semi modular cabling system will help keep things tidy inside your case too. Simply put it's an extremely capable high end PSU and if you're putting together a powerful premium system it's a fine choice.

Hard Disk Drive

First Choice: G.Skill Titan 128GB SSD
(and Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB hard Disk Drive)
UK Pricing: £275.99 (inc. VAT) and £78.07 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $324.99 (ex. Tax) and $99.99 (ex. Tax)

How can you improve on a terabyte of speedy mechanical storage? By coupling it with G.Skill's speedy 128GB Titan SSD, that's how! Offering speeds comparable to those (and in some cases faster than) Intel's high end SSDs, but with the added benefit of a reasonable amount of storage space, the G.Skill Titan really surprised us. The 128GB is now available for half the price of the 256GB, but both offer a price:performance and capacity that's relatively unmatched.

The innovative use of twin drive controller chips has allowed G.Skill to get the most out of the drive's Samsung NAND flash memory, and has completely resolved the micro-stuttering effects we observed on earlier generations.

Unless you're an obsessive gamer, 128GB will do, although 256GB is more than enough for a boot partition and a healthy stack of games to keep you up all... month, and the difference between even the fastest 10,000 RPM and an SSD like this in general operation is immediately obvious especially in regards to boot and game load times. When combined with the brute force storage of a 1TB hard disk drive or two, you have an ideal storage set up which delivers the very best of both worlds. Just hide the bank statement from the missus!

CPU Cooler

First Choice: Noctua NH-U12P 1366 Special Edition
UK Pricing: £55.18 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $67.00 (ex. Tax)

We see a lot of very expensive CPU coolers here at bit-tech, and sadly for the most part they're rarely a decent option for cooling your CPU, often built too large, too heavy or just too damn noisy.

However, the Noctua NH-U12P manages to achieve both excellent cooling with fantastically quiet performance and excellent thermal results too, making it one of the best heatsinks we’ve ever seen. Despite whispering away at 19dBA thanks to its special SSO bearing fan, the cooler is able to keep even a heavily overclocked Core i7 CPU a full 26°C cooler than an Intel stock cooler.

While there are coolers which perform better thermally, none are able to do so this quietly, and to sweeten the deal even further Nocuta now sell the cooler in a special LGA 1366 bundle with a second NF-P12 cooling fan, which usually sells for £18/$30 solo! If you’re looking for the complete package of high-end air cooling and excellent acoustic performance (and why wouldn't you be?) the Noctua NH-U12P is one of the best options out there.

Optical Drive

First Choice: LG GGGC H2OL Blu-ray, HD DVD DVD-RW combo drive
UK Pricing: £74.75 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: $115.29 (ex. Tax)

To get the best cinema experience from your high-resolution display and 7.1 surround sound you really should consider grabbing yourself a Blu-ray drive. This model combines Sony's high definition format with all the usual DVD-RW and CD-RW functionality you'd expect from a cheaper drive, as well as the ability to play the now defunct HD DVD high definition discs too.

Using this drive, and your choice of movie playback software, you're effectively turning your PC into a high end Blu-ray/HD DVD player for less than £130. Just remember that you'll need a monitor that can manage a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution to get the full 1080p high definition playback Blu-ray discs are capable of.