Here's the question I want to see answered:

When using an i5-750 and a discrete GPU, what are the real differences between P55 and H55?

Anyone have any thoughts?

It's probably actually the insides of the speakers that are lacking shielding, rather than the wires.

I can't speak to the case, but the Big Shuriken is designed to have its fins high enough to clear standard sized memory sticks. You should avoid memory with tall heatsinks, and you may also have to put the memory in the motherboard before the Shuriken. Depending on your configuration, this can make ...

Welcome to SPCR (I won't steal the thunder from more senior members by using big colorful type, so they can still do it)! I'm glad you've come out of the shadows. The i7-860 might be a better choice than the 920. It has a lower TDP (95 W vs 140) and a correspondingly lower measured power consumption...

With any luck, the price of the i5-750 will go down a little bit once these new processors find their way to retail. I think pairing the 750 with it's true 4 cores and 20% turbo-boost with one of the upcoming lower-end HD 5xxx cards will still be an attractive option for many mid-range system builde...

Yes, plenty.

So the guy's a little silly, and doesn't write quite perfectly. Big deal. What compelled you to join the forums just to beat on the guy?

How about trying to make a contribution of your own to the discussion of quiet computing, rather than merely spewing destructive criticism?

Fanless Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 512MB, $50:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102862

1 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 VGA, HDCP compliant, single slot, full width.

That's probably the most modern thing out there, and you get a warranty which you won't get if you buy a used card.

A mobile i7 will be faster in probably all tasks than a core 2 duo, but the P-series processors represent a highly evolved, optimized technology, and will run quietly, with a long battery life. The i7 will be a powerhouse but consume a lot of power.

Windows is smart. Something's been deleted but for some reason the space wasn't reclaimed. You can try formatting it, that should get it back to normal. Or, if you stick to FAT32, that sort of thing generally happens less.

I thought in order to make that work you also had to split the fan's ground wire off to accompany the RPM wire. I guess scythe knows what they're doing, though.

The only key that's particularly noisy on my LIK is the spacebar, just because it's bigger. It makes a lower-pitched Thunk. All the other keys just output a soft rat-a-tat.

Looks nice, but as usual the major drawback to any logitech input device is the ridiculous setpoint bloat-ware. -When they fix that, I will surely reconsider. Yeah, Setpoint is crap. I never installed it. The keyboard works fine without it, and I would never use whatever fancy features Setpoint ena...

I've had the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard (that's a mouthful, I'll just call it the LIK ;) ) for a while now. I got it from ebay for $40 with free shipping, which is quite a deal for what it is. It's very classy and pretty quiet - possibly about as quiet as a traditional mechanical keyboard can be....

...The most common reason for not being able to measure fan voltage these days is PWM fan control... The easiest way around that would be to buy a multimeter that can measure duty cycle, which will show you the fan speed directly as 0-100%. Or just stick an oscilloscope on the PWM pin and see what'...

Here it is on the SilenX website, with more details and pictures: http://www.silenx.com/ixtremaproheatsinks.asp?sku=ixg-80ha2 "8-18 dB" my foot. They don't specifically say it's compatible with HD 57xx (or upcoming 56xx and lower). They say, "designed to work with all ATI and nVidia reference design...

Do you have to run any demanding software for CompE/EE? If not, you can get away with a cheap netbook in class (or good old dead trees) and a desktop at home, which gets you less noise than a full-fledged laptop. If you're going to be living in any sort of undergraduate dorm, however, you generally ...

Sounds like time for a new KVM then, as I doubt dedicated D-sub ports will be coming to the 5000 series at all. These cards, even the not-yet-released lower end ones, support 3 digital displays, leaving no room on the backplate for an analog output.

You should be able to use a DVI->VGA adapter with those cards.

I doubt there are any motherboards at all that do that. You should look for an expansion card, or possibly a USB or firewire dongle.

What's inside an external power brick? What's stopping a manufacturer - or a brave modder - from transferring the contents of a power brick into a TFX or SFX form factor box with lots of holes in it? I don't see a reason why that can't be done, so why aren't there fanless, 80-Plus efficiency, ~120W ...

Nice build - I will be doing something similar in a few months. Can you answer a question about the Accelero S1 in this setup: would it be possible to insert a card in the 3rd slot (2nd from bottom) while it is installed this way, without a fan on it? There is clearance to insert a card in the thir...

Nice build - I will be doing something similar in a few months.

Can you answer a question about the Accelero S1 in this setup: would it be possible to insert a card in the 3rd slot (2nd from bottom) while it is installed this way, without a fan on it?

If you're concerned mainly with pure blistering memory speed, don't use more than 1 DIMM per channel in order to go past 4 GB. You generally can't run as high speeds or as tight timings with 2 DIMMs per channel. Then again, if you're concerned with memory speed that much, get an i7-920, because havi...

This would be a situation where I broke out a piece of cardboard and some tape.

Faster clock speed generally produces more memory bandwidth than tighter timings. However, it's very possible that the two kits are the same memory chips, but with different XMP settings (the unit on the memory that tells the motherboard's BIOS what the rated speed of the memory is).

The Xigmatek line of HDT (heatpipe direct-touch) coolers is also extremely effective for the price. Several have been reviewed on SPCR.

He never said he was going to neglect VRM and RAM cooling, he just said he was going to modify the GPU core cooling device to allow it to catch much more airflow. In fact, doing what he proposes would provide plenty of room to use gigantic VRM and RAM heatsinks, improving their cooling.

How about transplanting the heatsink from this XFX 9400 to the XFX 4650? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150354 The hole pattern appears to be the same from the back of the card, and with them both being XFX, you might get lucky with the rest of it fitting (clearing capacito...

Try limiting your upload speeds. Broadband providers use large amounts of upload usage to flag peer-to-peer users, and throttle them.

When I cut my uploading down from ~200 KB/s to 50 KB/s, my download speeds went from 50 KB/s to 500 KB/s.