Hello everyone,
I currently have a retail Acer Aspire desktop that almost a year ago I converted into a gaming computer by installing a XFX Radeon HD 6970 v1.2 and a XFX Pro Core 750w power supply, I've had quite a few issues as far as heat and performance and I was looking for some advice to how I should approach these problems.
I live in Canada, and recently the ambient temeperature specifically in the summer time becomes quite hot to me at around 30 degrees centigrade which directly effects the video cards temperature to sometimes around 90 degrees centrigrade, n my inital upgrade I installed a Noctua NFP14FLX on the side panel which really is loud because of the restrictive mesh that the case has and didn't push much air even at 12 volts . Also I have stability issues and cpu bottlenecking as I have a Athlon 2 x3 440 cpu that is quite slower in comparision, and a motherboard with a terrible amount of bios options, and no overclocking, basically I shouldn't of bought a retail pc and a terribly modified graphics card from XFX that doesn't allow aftermarket coolers without void of warranty, dual bio switch removal, cheaper capacitors, runs hotter and a terrible fan noise.
What I think would be the best step to solve the problem would be a Case, CPU and motherboard upgrade. I really would like to go to an ITX form factor with a Bitfenix Prodigy but my main concern is with heat, I probablly would go with a i5 2500k or a 3570k dependent on price and the motherboard depends on the form factor, and I would sell my power supply and possibly get something from Be Quiet or whatever. I was also thinking if itx wasn't an option of maybe going with a Fractal Define R3 or R4 because of the noise cancelation and just the loudness of the video card at times, or something like a Coolermaster HAF XM which I could tune the 200mm fans to silent and it's around the same price as the Fractal. I really do wish there was a market for aftermarket coolers despite the void of warranty but unfortunately the PCB mounting holes are off, the thermalright shaman is also not for sale anymore and Arctic Cooling outfits their coolers to reference.
Your input is appreciated.