Building a Gaming PC

[My_Darn_Snake_Legs]

@SenorBeef

That’s a socket 775 cooler, which isn’t what he’s looking for - and you can get great cooling at $50 or less, you don’t have to spend that much.

I actually picked up that cooler from a friend who writes hardware reviews, so I didn’t pay anything close to retail for it. All I know is that it cools my processor really well.

What’s a “socket 775 cooler” mean? Does that refer to a processor size or something else? I’ve been wanting to upgrade to an i7, but I might think twice if I can’t use the cooler on it. (I haven’t done my research on those yet. :smack:)

[Palooka]

In practical terms, the socket 775 is the screw pattern. If you get a cooler that doesn’t support your socket, the screws won’t line up. Coolers generally come with different plates so you can use them on a bunch of different sockets. In this picture, you can see that the backplate has different screw patterns for 775, AM2, K8.

Oh, and it’ll probably fit an i7.