Now for some results - the end system looks like: - Antec Solo - MSI 785GM-E65 - 4 GB DDR3-1066 - Athlon 64 X2 250 + stock cooler - Enermax Pro82+ 385W - my faithful Seagate Barracuda IV 80 GB (most of my data is on a 2x250 GB NAS anyway. I see no point in buying a new hard disk before going SSD) - ...

Thanks for the review!

Is fan control still a problem for the MSI 785GM series? I thought I read in another thread that the board was now supported by SpeedFan.

/sdc

@boost: Thanks for the link! With a 150W picoPSU and a HD 4670, it might work, but for sure, I will have very little headroom. 120W picoPSUs I know about are supposed to run 40W max on average, so for a 150W, will it be 50W? I think that the HD 4670 under full load might reach that. By the way, the ...

Thanks for your answers! I think I will go for the Antec Solo, as it is the only silencer-oriented Antec case available in local shops. The only other option would be the CoolerMaster Sileo 500, which is 20 € cheaper, and from what I understand easier to work with, but the general consensus seems ...

No answers on that one? My case choice is now between Antec Sonata Elite, Antec Solo or NSK 3480/4480. The Sonata and Solo would be equipped with Enermax PRo82/385, the Antec NSK3480/4480 comes with an Earthwatts PSU. Would all of these cases offer sufficient airflow to cool a 785G/790GX + 45W TDP A...

Dear all, I am in the process of compiling my shopping list for a new desktop system. The goals are: - silent (hopefully, not more than one fan), - not use too much power, - integrated graphics, - possibility to use a dedicated graphics card later without redesigning everything. From what I read abo...

Dear all, My main machine is currently an AOpen XC Cube EX-915, with a Celeron M 1.4 GHz @ 1.75 GHz and a passive ATI Radeon 9600 (AGP). I am thinking about updating the graphics card, which is getting too slow to run anything recent - even though I am looking at games which are not too demanding. T...

I'm also planning on using a 3.5" firewire enclosure to store all of my music, and am thinking about using it as a boot drive as well. When I've tried it previously, a good 7200 rpm drive over FW was snappier than the notebook drive. (...) The part I'm most skeptical about right now is whether even...

Hi wumpus, a few comments: I am planning to go totally passive on the CPU heatsink. Why going passive with the CPU, when you have several case fans, and a PSU fan which is likely to be the main source of noise? That holds especially for such a small PSU, where airflow won't be optimal. If I were you...

Hi tay, I don't have any links or prices in Canada unfortunately. For your parents, the best choice is probably a Shuttle Zen, as long as they don't need a fast graphics card. Meanwhile, I did some modding on my machine: - Suspending the HD makes a huge difference, as expected. The main noise is now...

Hi everyone! I have been using the new AOpen EY 855 together with a Celeron M, and as no-one here has ever described such a machine, I thought you might be interested in my impressions. The configuration is the following: AOpen EY-855 Celeron M 1.4 GHz (Dothan, 1 Mb L2 cache) 512 Mb Infineon DDR400 ...

does the mini come with the OS and applications disks that would allow you to reinstall the system if you replaced the drive? It does, but the best way to change system disks, if you have an external enclosure, is to clone the old disk to the new disk using a utility such as Carbony Copy Cloner (bo...

Well, then I am the "trial rabbit" as the Swedes say. Both parts ordered from Mix.
To use another Swedish saying, I hope that they have clean flour in the bag

I will get a Sapphire 9600 from the reseller-down-the-street when everything comes, and I'll let you know how well this works!

/sdc

Hej Mats! I had read the article on x86-secret as well, that's what decided me to have a look at the Celeron M. But there are surprisingly few reports about that processor on the web. I recently found out that mix-computer.de sold the Celeron 360 (Dothan/1.4 GHz/1Mb L2) for € 119 and the EY855 for €...

Oops, sorry for that. I did a search before, but I must have mistyped something.

/sdc

So here is the 479M motherboard based on the Alviso chipset. http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=1659 http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/mainboards/intel-systeme/2005/januar/aopen_sonoma-desktop-board/ (German, more detailed, pictures) This features PCI Express, 2 DDR and 2 DDR2 slots (not usable at the...

Hie everyone, I thought that you could be interested in a thorough AOpen EY855 review from tweakers.net, even if it's in Dutch: http://www.tweakers.net/reviews/549/2 Together with a 6800LE, they measured it at 42 dB at 20 cm (not much space in Holland) from the front of the case. This compares to 47...

Just when I decide to buy an EZ-65, nobody in Germany can get hold of one. Looks like the EZ-65 II is replacing it, and this one is both more expensive and has a 275W power supply... Another option might be the ASUS Terminator T2P. Has someone here experience with this one? It seems to have got pret...

There is an interesting article on Daring Fireball, which is IMO a good analysis of what market Apple is aiming at: http://daringfireball.net/2005/01/small_cheap_no_display A particularly interesting bit: Apple “does not recommend” that users upgrade the memory themselves — you’re supposed to have a...

First, how difficult is it to change the hard disks in these things? The only current options are 80/160/250gb SATA drives, and I've got my eye on the new Seagate 400gb. Apple states that the hard disk is designed to be easily replaceable, and given their history of not liking users to touch the go...

An interesting link:

If you go the German online shop computeruniverse.net, and search for "passiver Kühler" (search is the "Suchen:" field at the top left), you get a nice list of 90 passively cooled graphic cards.

/sdc

Let's come back to the subject
Excerpt from this roundup article from MacWorld: http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/mi ... mcrss-0105

Among other things:
>According to Apple, the fan runs at 22 decibels, essentially whisper-quiet.

/sdc

Re: Tiger Support and Core Image The Mac mini will work in Tiger, but not support Core Image. Basically the Radeon 9200 lacks certain shader functions that are required to take advantage of it. This probably means we get a Mac Mini equipped with another graphics card by the time Tiger is released, ...

It's worth noting that the Radeon 9200 doesn't fully support all of Tiger's new features. Perhaps a new video card can ship around the same time. Speaking about this, I am pretty sure Apple stated somewhere on their web site that CoreImage (the Tiger graphics engine) would require a 64 Mb graphics ...

Errr... USB 2.0 or Firewire TV tuner? :P Do they exist in good quality for the Mac? A company called ElGato sells that, I believe. Also, I missed any mention of a DVI-to-VGA converter. Is it safe to assume such a device exists for Macs? It's sold with the machine. Correction: included in the box, I...

tay wrote:Does a soundblaster extigy work with OSX?

I still really like it though

Tay,

If you speak French, I found that: http://macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.ph ... 12-21#4187
It worked with 10.2, so it probably does with 10.3 as well.

/sdc