MicroCenter is having a sale on all of its cases, PSU's, GPU's, SSD's and CPU's. Antec P280 for $90, just to name one.

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I first found them when I was looking for a store I could go try different mechanical keyboards before I bought one. Really great stuff!

You want a quiet fan, but it should keep the PSU the same temperature, since its performance and lifetime depend on that. With that said, measure the fan width to get an idea for the size, and make sure the wires coming from it match those in a standard fan. From there, perhaps the company has a dat...

That is a cute little case. Probably not bad for keeping quiet and cool. I have no idea where that GPU will go, that case looks pretty full, though if the hard drive slot comes out it might be OK. I would get a fan for the front to blow air over the GPU, something in the 800RPM range should move eno...

I know AMD just dropped the prices on their cards by $50, maybe Sapphire is redesigning the cards and doing the same?

Looks like a nice system. If you have the funds I would invest a little more into the PSU. 80 PLUS Gold or Platinum rated units will really ensure you have a quiet, powerful PSU for a long time. Its the difference between dissipating an extra 50W which can help you run that much cooler and quieter. ...

It looks like a good, strong setup. The GPU will put out a bit of heat, so I would take out the top HDD bay to let the fan there blow cool air over the GPU. I would remove the lower fan, that SSD+HDD will run cool enough I think. Perhaps look for replacement fans that are around 800RPM to get a good...

The chips themselves are, the SSD's and such like built from them are likely a year or more off. Companies that use the chips for storage and memory will have to build test devices first to evaluate performance, etc, before selling things to the public.

Looks interesting. Hopefully this is the first in a long line of flash-killers. Several places seem to confirm, but it will likely be a while until we see products made from it. For older devices (looks like 90nm process):The VCC is a little high, at ~3V, but the highest current draw I could see is ...

That GPU is a hot one, and OCing wont make it happier. I would recommend the Antec SoloII, it has gotten great reviews here at SPCR, and looks to be the best cooling PC case aside from the huge ones with tons of fans. It has the benefit of a fan at the bottom of the case that would blow cool air dir...

The XMS3 RAM in the link you gave should be fine. So long as the RAM doesn't have a heatsink that extends above the module, most CPU heatsinks are built to be taller than the RAM in the slots. As for performance, they all will probably have roughly the same. DDR3 is a pretty mature market now. http:...

I think a case hole and a grill would be the best fix for the lowest cost. Fans really do need a larger space than about 1cm to pull air from. I haven't done the modeling, but I would bet the clearance should be roughly half the fan width; SPCR'ers please correct me if I'm wrong. I would probably re...

SSD's shouldn't be sensitive to magnetic fields below those used in MRI machines. SSD's use stored charge to hold your data, so unless you are working with some wickedly powerful magnets, they should be pretty solid. Static might be a problem but just always ground yourself and be careful when worki...

Interesting! Takes up a lot of volume though, but with a few good case fans will probably work well. Wish those wires were all heatpipes!

I want to upgrade my hard drive to a new, faster, quieter one. Are there any recommendations on inexpensive or demo-ware hard drive copy programs? I've seen lots of SSDs sold with some software, often Norton Ghost. Its a bit expensive at $70 for what I want, though. If I need to, I think I will get ...

Thanks everyone for all the replies and information! Looks like a main SSD is the best bet for me. Prices are still a bit steep for the volume of data I keep but I'm sure they will come down as competition abounds. Thanks again to everyone who contributed!

Oh, yea, sorry let me be more clear. I had a system with 4 HDDs in it, back in 2002 or so, that lasted until 2008. One for system, one for applications/games and two for video/audio. Its a mess, but it works when you are 17 and putting together a system piecemeal at college, it works. I don't know i...

What is the risk? From my understanding, with the Win7 built-in mechanism the data is always on the HDD and the system will look back there if anything is missing or corrupted. How do these addons and special drives etc compare against Win7's built in caching software with a standard drive? Do they ...

Welcome! What about the recommended list don't you like? I was looking at a Antec P280 and a SoloII, the SoloII actually has an excellent review from here , and it manages to keep things pretty cool while being quiet and small. What kind of system are you putting into this new case? Perhaps you can ...

I've been reading a little bit lately, and am thinking about buying a small 32-64 GB SSD to act as a cache for my larger, but "slower", louder and more power hungry HDD. I'm hoping I can install a small internal SSD and set it to use as readyboost to increase system boot times, program load times, e...

I think the Antec Solo II would be an excellent case. It has great airflow, can fit the components you desire and is quiet. You can probably scale back on the PSU a bit, down to something in the 500W range, I would recommend a nice platinum one like the KINGWIN Absolute Platinum Series AP-550, $120 ...

I want to say that the Big Shuriken 2 Rev B with a 120mm fan would be better than than Noctua with a 92mm fan, but honestly I have no idea. I am puzzled by the relatively low seeming performance of the Big Shuriken 2 Rev B, as it has 5 heatpipes (which other companies would call 10), etc. I am consi...

That's about right, the CPU should only ever pull 125W and the Mobo, HDD, etc, usually pull no more than 50W all together. But thats at steady state - when running. And without using the GPU at all. When booting, the system draws a lot more power to bring everything up. Though newer motherboards spr...

That's quite a specific set of requirements. Can the HDD's go into an external enclosure, as 5 is a lot of 3.5" spaces in addition to the 2.5" drive. I don't know of any cases that have fewer than one 5.25" external bay, I guess case makers worry that you have to install the OS somehow. Most cases i...

I would worry about trying to cool a case who's air has come in over the cooler of the GPU. If the exhaust is big enough, it will keep it cool, but I think you might sacrifice some quietness.

It looks like a pretty solid setup. I tend to run a bit overkill on my PSUs, so I would say you might need a bigger PSU, as the CPU (77W) and the GPU (151W) draw 228W of its 324W max on the 12V line. If you are willing to spend twice as much, a nice platinum rated one would be good, much lower waste...

Looks like a pretty awesome set up! I would keep an eye on those CPU temps but like you say, very few games stress the CPU like Prim95 does. Sounds like a frustrating case to work in.

That seems like a contradiction in terms. You don't want a tower style case? Generally any of those have more than enough room for the cooler you describe. If you are going mini-ATX, you might be able to find one if you do not install a DVD/Blu-ray drive in it. I have a Antec NSK1380, which at 8" ta...

Pulsing power like that is hard on a system. All PWM fans draw a constant 12V, there is no pulsing of the power from the PSU. An integrated circuit (IC) fan driver chip within the fan itself generates the pulses and supplies them direct to the fan motor. Right, but if the PWM was implemented on the...

Thanks for the reply Mike! And the great welcome to the community! Yea, the PSU is a noisy beast when I am drawing a lot of power. I am definitely looking at the gold and platinum rated PSU's recommended here to drop power draw, temps, noise, etc. Seems like it's a win all around. The Black HDD wasn...

Hey all! Thanks for the help with what is probably the most posted and contested question: What should I buy? Right now i have a CHENMING CMUI-601AECB-U case, which is large but unwieldy and only supports 80mm fans. I run it mostly open case with the case fans off (the existing fans are LOUD), but b...