Hey all! Just wanted to post a few pictures of my main computer. I, like many of you, constantly struggle to sate both my desire for quiet computing and my thirst for raw computing power. I'm pretty happy with the compromise that I have with this computer. Most of the computer was purchased in late ...

It works! The PS starts at $129.99, -$20 instant rebate, -$16.50 after a 15% off w/ promo code SEASONIC15, ends 2/8. Free shipping, too, so the total comes out to $93.49 before a $15 mail-in rebate.

So funny, I just had to share. My friend called saying his computer that I built had a bunch of errors on it. He sent me some screenshots to show me what's happening. I was a little worried that it was a hardware failure, since I built the computer and it is quite overclocked. After seeing the scree...

Simply, the head parking problem is an artifact of one of the features of the Western Digital Green line. Basically, every time a hard drive takes its reading arms off the platters, it ticks a counter. On normal hard drives, the only normal time the arms were taken off the platters was during power ...

The S12-500 would work fine with that system. There are new PSs that have better efficiency, but they are only marginally better and wouldn't be worth spending the extra money.

If I recall correctly, the reference 6950 will only let its fan speed go down to 20%. I tried BIOS modding to change the fan profile, but it seems that driver settings override once they load. I didn't try other software utilities, so maybe RivaTuner, MSI Afterburner, or something similar will work ...

http://img.techpowerup.org/110604/209985_10100185602697668_16741166_49089733_1812426_o.jpg Here is my card with the Setsugen2 VRM/Mem heatsinks on. My card was a reference card, so everything fit properly. The bar on the right is for nearly all of the VRM components - this piece actually bolts onto...

Done testing and my computer's not on fire :) Computer specs to establish a baseline: Core i7-920 @ 4.01GHz, 1.35v Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R rev 1.6 3x2GB OCZ DDR3-1600 @ 1528, 7-7-7-20-1T, 1.64v XFX Radeon HD 6950, unlocked shaders, 880/1300 (can't get memory stable at true 6970 speeds) ASUS Xonar DX A...

Scythe Setsugen 2 works well. If I turn up my case fans, temps stay within tolerances at the lowest fan speed setting. I can run some tests tomorrow on my rig to give you ideas of temps, just tell me what prog you want me to run to simulate load. Preferably something free haha.

If the fan vibrates badly, using rubber grommets can help isolate the vibration and keep it from spreading to the case. I can't say how effective they are, since I usually start out with fans that don't vibrate all that much...

Ah, I see. My bad. I would imagine the principal would be the same though, no? I'm just not sure how feasible it would be to use.

Also, isn't Na and K rediculously reactive?

There was a cooler that came out a few years ago that used mercury in the place of heatpipes and water. It had pretty good performance, but it cost upwards of $300 I think. Ah, here it is . I guess if you made the entire thing like a water setup, then it may have better performance, but as everybody...

I just perused the thread so sorry if this has already been answered... DaRussiaMan, the reason why your power consumption seems so high compared to the review is because you are looking at two seperate figures. You see 38w, but that's the AC power from the wall. The review quoted estimated DC power...

the advantage of having extra GB/$ is far more beneficial even if the capacity is not used. Newegg 120G prices: Intel 320 $240, Intel X25-M $230) The prices between the x25 and the 320 are about the same. But i would think that I would get more writes per G out of the x25 with its 32nm nand. Correc...

About the Marvell controller. That would give me pause too. I guess to be fair, the C300/C400 drives have been chugging along without incident after their initial growing pains. Also, with Intel firmware, it may have a better chance to not fail. Or a worse chance? Haha who knows. If you trust Intel'...

Intel 520 Pros: 6Gb/s interface 34nm NAND flash. This should be more durable than 25nm flash, though flash endurance shouldn't be an issue in all but the most demanding applications. Very high sequential read/write performance Very high 'real world' performance (as PC Mark, Anand Heavy Storage Bench...

It's hard to generalize since different motherboards run differently. Most motherboards will run a PCI graphics card just fine, but you may have to go into the BIOS to enable graphics through PCI. Does the mobo have onboard graphics? Can you get to the BIOS through the onboard graphics?

I'm reporting that the Setsugen 2 is almost the perfect cooler for the Radeon 6950. I bought a Radeon 6950, unlocked the shaders, and overclocked it. With the stock fan, temps idled in the 50's and load hit 90C. Also, at idle the fan was clearly audible in my system. So I bought the Setsugen 2. Init...

^ This is correct. Satellites need a special paint coating that helps them radiate internal heat away, while minimizing radiation taken in by the satellite. Too bad, since a computer in a complete vacuum (and suspended magically) would be the closest thing to being totally, absolutely silent

Thanks! Verified it works, I just bought a slim Slipstream fan. The promo code requires that you sign up for the email newsletter. A small price to pay, I think .

Are there size/price restrictions? The first case that came to mind was the Corsair Obsidian , but it is quite expensive and HUGE. You would easily be able to fit anything you want in there, though. Seeing as you don't want any plastic, that limits options somewhat. Cooler Master has some nice all-a...

As we're dealing with a digital signal, you don't have to worry about signal degradation with a long cable. There are limits, however, to how long an HDMI cable can be. Basically, HDMI cables come in two varieties: Class 1 and Class 2. Class 1 cables are guaranteed up to 720p/1080i, and Class 2 cabl...

Looks like you're talking about the upcoming Sandy Bridge processors. As these parts have not been released, the following comments can only be seen as estimates. The TDP on Intel processors represents a 'realistic' load number. This includes everything on the chip. On the Sandy Bridge chips, this w...

The bokeh on the last picture is beautiful. Actually, given how demanding the shooting environment is, many of the shots show great bokeh. What camera system did you use?

And of course, very nice build!

Thanks to everybody for the votes/feedback so far. @Eunos: Polling by manufacturer/controller would most definitely be extremely enlightening, but I was more interested at SSDs vs HDDs as a whole. It would be interesting to see which SSD controller seems to have a higher reliability rate, however......

And my story... In my main computer, I have two drives: 640GB Western Digital Caviar Blue (WD6400AAKS) 120GB OCZ Agility 2 (Sandforce) My WD is older than my OCZ and was originally my system drive. I then bought the OCZ and converted the WD into a data drive. My OCZ failed within 2 days of first usi...

For any semblance of fair statistical representation, it is important that anybody who reads this votes. I'm trying to gauge SSD reliability relative to normal HDDs. We all know about the 'Newegg effect', ie., a disproportionate amount of reviews are negative, since people are more likely to comment...

As of right now, the only Intel desktop chips that are 32nm are Gulftown (6-core, LGA1366) and Clarkdale (2-core, LGA1156). Unfortunately, the 45-nm to 32-nm transition is gonna be on three seperate platforms so let's try to go through the options: The LGA1366 platform, on which Bloomfield (original...

**Personal opinion alert: What is to follow is my personal opinion. Abandon hope all ye who enter here. Also, somewhat of a spoiler...** I think that it is unfair and kind of misleading to compare Inception to The Matrix or any 'anti-reality' movies. Yes, they are diving into a 'virtual world', but ...

I don't know of any drives that specifically need the 3.3v line. The voltage is included in the SATA power specification, but knowing that a lot of people use molex to SATA connectors which won't have 3.3v lines attached, most companies have chosen to not use the 3.3v lines.