I was looking over the thermal pads on FrozenCPU and I noticed there are pads that are rated 17.0 W/mK vs 11 W/mK. I assume they are better, but I don't really have any experience with thermal pads. Anybody have any thoughts?
They are better but they are crazy expensive and believed not to be worth the money, though extensive testing hasn't been done. The 11W/mK has been confirmed to work well though, so I'm going with that.
Also, what CPU fans are you guys going with?
I'm going with a Hyper 212 Evo because the GPU coolers, although probably a bit better, are not worth the extra money IMHO. The cheapest place I could find one on the net was from bitcoinstore.com which obviously has the advantage of paying in BTC!
https://www.bitcoinstore.com/cooler-master-hyper-212-evo-rr-212e-20pk-r2-cooling-fan-heatsink.html
This is confirmed to be compatible with the boards and performs well with the 11 W/mk TIM.
Last question - will I need to round up USB cables?
I believe you will. I have just asked above for one of them to confirm it's the standard USB-mini cables they take. I'll be surprised if it's not, but I'm going to wait before ordering a ton of the wrong cables!
