I ordered the Scythe Ninja 4 in the end with some Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. I have to admit there was a moment where I was tempted to get a NZXT Kraken X61, but as this is a 24/7 long term system I just don't trust AIO water systems. I'm still concerned about the weight of the Ninja 4 and clearanc...

Hi Abula, thank you for the detailed response. As you touched upon, my main concern with the larger cooler is clearance issues (RAM, PCI-E accessibility) and the weight. I'm definitely leaning towards a Scythe, so it comes down to the Kotetsu and Ninja 4. Cost and availability for these two isn't a ...

So I now have the following parts arriving soon; Intel Xeon E5 2678 V3 (120w TDP, 12 cores, 2.5GHz) Asus X99 Deluxe motherboard 8 x 8Gb DDR4 2133 ECC Registered Asus GTX970 4Gb graphics card 8 x Western Digital Red 6Tb (WD60EFRX) Samsung 950 Pro 512Gb Superflower Leadex 750w Platinum I appreciate wi...

Thanks for coming back to me guys. After experiencing some problems sourcing the motherboard and CPU's I wanted I'm opting for a single Xeon system instead and sticking with aircooling!

Will create a new thread in that forum.

I'm building a dual Xeon workstation/NAS and I'm trying to minimise noise (appreciate that can be difficult with two CPU's and loads of drives!) Right now the spec I have is: Asus Z10PA-D8 dual CPU motherboard (Intel C612 chipset) 2 x E5 2630 V3 (8C/16T, 85w TDP) or E5 2670 V3 (12C/24T, 105w TDP eac...

Thanks I'll check it out. I'll drop by Doom9 as well :) Thought I'd share this: http://support.divx.com/faq/view/supportFAQen107/video_tutorials_-_other?id=6 Divx7 adds H264 MKV support to Media Player in Windows 7, the video above shows how to make this work with Xbox as well! Will give this a try ...

Oh and I mention PS3 (the console, not the server software), as I may pick one up at some point.

I believe the PMS software muxs the x264 MKV files into an M2TS?

Regarding the Xbox 360, I think it can't do this (as the Xbox only supports MPEG4 files up to 4Gb), so it needs to transcode to MPEG2.

you didn't mention what software you were using to do the encoding? at any rate, i'd be looking at the i7 920, if you want the maximum overclocking performance. the Megahalems costs twice as much as the mugen 2 here in the states, check your pricing. you can easily fit 9 or 10 hdds into the p183, w...

Good to see there's a healthy discussion going :) To explain the situation more clearly, let me explain how things have operated for me up until quite recently. I have a media server (the dual Opteron rig I mention above, made out the bones of an old workstation), which holds around 6-7Tb worth of s...

Of course pretty much any spec would be fine for serving up files alone, but problem I have is with transcoding HD files. I use an application called PS3 Media Server, which can transcode pretty much any file and make it playable over the network on a PS3 or Xbox 360. Now my existing Dual CPU setup ...

For the past 5 years I’ve been using a dual Opteron system in a Lian Li PC-V2000 full tower as an all purposes media server, to encode and stream content. Recently I’ve started using PS3 Media Server software which is fantastic but I’m beginning to see the limitations of my processing power â€...

I've read reviews from other sites on this system.


I'm eager to get an Ion system for a bedrom HD HTPC. To be honest I reckon I'm going to go for one of these - the price difference between making my own system based on the Zotac board is frankly massive.

http://www.atomictech.co.uk/istyle.php This company makes various systems using cases that are widely available (ie from Origen AE) but I don't recognise this one, and I'd quite like to buy it myself separately. I've emailed them but they gave me the usual over inflated cost for it withot one of the...

I've ordered some 3mm elastic/shock cord of eBay (10m for 2 pounds including postage!).

Fingers crossed that'll solve the problem

[UK] Samsung EcoGreen F2 1.5Tb - £79.99 Delivered (eBuyer)


I've just ordered 2 for my server

3 x 500Gb platters.

53.3p per Gb.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166989?gc ... 4wodeU3IpA

I've got 3 coming my way.

Well I've found a Lian Li mounting/accessories kit:

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_2345.html

I ordered some flat shoe laces to suspend 4 to 5 drives in my Lian Li PC-V2000 . I used the shoe laces to weave back and forth through the slots in the side of the 5.25" bays, pulling the laces tight and leaving a 1cm gap to stretch and slot the drives in. In case it matters the drives are: 3 x West...

How stable is the 2Ghz overclock? How significant is the rise in temp?

I'd be interested to see what kind of difference this makes to performance.

Ok I think I've been a bit dense and thought the 775/9300 Zotac board was a MATX - just realised you meant ITX

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mother ... i-review/1

KuniD - Zotac sells a GeForce 9300 board that supports Core 2 Duo processors... it's pretty much the same chipset. So you could get one of those right now. Or did I misunderstand your meaning? Also, if HD Flash videos are a concern, if it helps, Adobe is saying GPU accelerated rendering of Flash vi...

I'm tempted to build a couple of these system for my lounge and bedroom, to play HD movies (MKV, 720/1080) over the network from a NAS. My main concern is playing online content from the likes of Youtube, Hulu and BBC iPlayer.. especially in HD. The bind I'm stuck is that I need a solution in the ne...

Potentially a stupid question, but would I have any problems playing back HD movies from a NAS if my HTPC boot drive was a HM160HI?

Hmmm... I'm kind of leaning towards the Seagate's (shock horror!); ST3500418A.

The Samsung HD502HI doesn't look great performance wise and it's probably going to be a while before they release a 7200. It'll probably also be a while before WD release a 500Gb EADS or a 7200 single platter 500Gb drive.

I wouldn't call any single spindle based drive 'reliable'. I've had loads fail over the years from all sorts of brands and models. In RAID they can be reliable, but that's because you're mitigating against one or two dying on you. I see SSDs as reliable, but I agree they're still way overpriced. I ...

Single platter drives I've found so far... Name: Samsung F1 320Gb Model: HD322HJ Spec: 7200rpm, 16Mb NCQ, SATA-300 Review: Price: Tekheads 38.50 http://planetoverclocking.hartware.de/media/reviews/791/hdtune.png Name: Samsung EcoGreen F2 500Gb Model: HD502HI Spec: 5400rpm, 16Mb, NCQ, SATA-300 Review...

I know Windows can spin down your hard drives if the system has been inactive for certain amount of time, but can it do this on a drive by drive basis? I've got a file server which has about 8 drives in it. I want to set it up so that a particular drive will only spin up if someone tries to access i...

I want to get a new boot drive for my HTPC and my file server. I need something that's: 1) Reliable 2) Fast 3) Quiet 4) Preferably 3.5" I won't be considering SSD's (too expensive and not mature enough) or VelociRaptors (too expensive). Only going to be used for OS and software. I'm guessing I'm loo...

Excellent, I'll give the No Errors thing a try tonight and let you know how it works out

I'm trying to quieten down my server. I'm wondering if anyone knows if it's possible to let the machine boot windows without having a graphics card plugged in? The box is primarily accessed over the network so it doesn't really need a graphics card. The mobo doesn't have onboard graphics nor do I wa...