thejamppa wrote:Infact, passively cooled HD 2600-series would be also more than enough for your htpc.

So, is the HD 2000 series all for HTPC mostly?

I just looked at NewEgg and no sign of this card or any other passive for the 3850. I wonder why.

I've looked at that ASUS card before and wondered how it compares to other cards for sound. From the looks it seems like it would be quieter than the other cards. Off topic ... why does it seem like the card is floating in the picture? That shadow in the lower right makes it look like it's off the g...

djkest wrote:BTW, this is a dead deal. Hopefully people bought these before they sold out.

Shoot. Guess I'll have to wait for release.

Blue, One of these days, I'm driving out to MO just to look at your garage... :lol: I think that may be the only way to figure out what's going on!! I don't know why but I struggle with the pictures trying to figure out how it all works. For example, I can't tell where the air comes from for the dr...

djkest wrote:$183 is how much Intel sells them to you if you buy 1000+ units of them. $16 profit is not that much, imo.

Aha, I didn't know that. I agree that $16 isn't so bad. Wonder how long before they pop up on NewEgg.

Curse you!! Now I'm tempted again. I was convinced we wouldn't see these until March. Then again, I suppose it's still possible that Directron has no idea when they will ship and is being optimistic. Price is a bit higher than what x-bit predicted. I also had my eye on the E8400 at a price of $183 b...

Why would you remove the motherboard? Just lay the case on its side and be careful not to pour super glue all over! :lol: I don't have a picture but the layout has two rows of three connectors that are stacked vertically. Another mistake I probably made was to add connectors sequentially so I have ...

JimX wrote:Sure, glue it down, super glue is not conductive. But maybe it needs something stronger.

I barely trust myself with super glue because I'm so clumsy - I'm not sure I want anything stronger.

Maybe I'll give it a try. It's such a pain tearing everything out of the case though. Thanks.

Before going for the old E6800, you should check this article about the new 45 nm dual-cores, which should be available soon: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale.html Only the quad-cores are delayed, due to excessive bus noise, but not the dual-cores: http://www.dailytech.co...

I did a quick browse at NewEgg to see if maybe there were better cables but mostly I just found the same thing or ones at a right angle (which would be worse with the way the connectors are arranged on the mobo). You'd think the cables that came with the mobo would be the ultimate in cheap and not h...

The cables do have that metal tab on them but I'm pinching that has hard as I can and it still won't budge. I even tried using needlenose pliers. What's worse is that it gets harder as you add cables since you can't pinch one cable without shoving another cable and bending the connector on the mobo....

It's a shame I just got a P182 because that looks about perfect for me. The idea of steel to reinforce the aluminum seems like a great idea. I actually like the drive mount system too. Ah well.

On a recent build I used the recommened ABIT IP35 and while installing two HDD and one DVD I've managed to detach three plastic connectors for the SATA devices on the mobo. I was willing to blame myself for the first one but I've pinched the cables to the point of breaking and I'm still unable to de...

The P182 isn't what I'd call an easy case. I had issues with the mobo power connectors. The 24 pin did work but the 4 pin required an extension. Without the extension the cable was wrapped around the bottom of the video card slot and barely reached. Worst part was it's hard to find those extensions ...

Why does it have to be nVidia? HD3850/HD3870 seems like the way to go right now if you ask me. Both of those will come passively cooled from some vendors (Sapphire and Powercolor). I was burned by ATI in the past so I made the promise years ago to go Nvidia. I still have a hard time forgiving the d...

I downloaded the PDF and didn't realize that there were 6 fan headers. For some reason I was thinking only 3. Perhaps I'm just too accustomed to manually controlling the fans. One last question though, how does fan control on the mobo work with fans that have controllers on them like those that come...

FWIW, Abit's uGuru (as featured in the IP35 Pro) offers probably the best onboard fan controls of any motherboard currently available, and certainly much better than most bay mounted (manual) controllers. :) So what makes the controls on the Abit board so great? I'm not sure what I'm missing with b...

I've seen a few mentions on the Sparkle card but it's not for sale at NewEgg.

Using the Tomshardware charts as a reference I think my 7950 can only be upgraded to a 8800 if I want Nvidia and DX10. But every time I search NewEgg I only see cards with large fans. ARe there no cards that come passively cooled right from the vendor? I see some 8600 passively cooled options but I ...

After reading some reviews I started to see more mention of how some motherboards allow you to control the fans. Is there a way to tell by the specs if the mobo allows it? I'm shopping via NewEgg and (for example) I think the ABIT IP35 Pro LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard allows fan control b...

The Abit board is great, for ram I would be looking at Crucial Ballistix 667, I would also be thinking about replacing that graphics card so to get a better balance in the system. I found Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) and the price looks good so I may go 4GB...

The 7200.10 has been known to be quite loud. I have the 320GB model and I can tell you that it is quite loud unless suspended, and does run quite hot. Perhaps a Western Digital hard drive? I've had bad luck with WD which is the only reason why I still buy Seagate. The warrany is why I normally go S...

I'm thinking of an upgrade since it's been almost 2 years since the rig in my signature was installed. I was going to reuse the following Antec P182 SeaSonic S12-500 ATX12V 500W PSU Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3250824AS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA HD Passive XFX 7950 GT Creative Labs X-FI Then I was going to...

Conroy wrote:E6600 is obsolete.

If you can wait a few weeks, wait for the e8400. Otherwise, check out the E6750 - it's faster and cheaper than the E6600.

You are correct, the E6750 is cheaper (234 vs 189). How strange.

Just checked the DDR3 prices ... holy cow! That might be enough to make the decision for me. Intel does a decent job of trying to provide information on their website but it does list the X38 and 975X under "Extreme" which is geared toward gamers. The 975X takes DDR2 but from reading here on my last...

I just rebuilt my girlfriend's machine and I was thinking of upgrading my main rig that I use for gaming and photo editing. I decided to try Intel this time for my rig so far I picked the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor. At around $234 it's more than I've normall...

Wish I could help you but I really have no clue which bios came with the board since I didn't take note of it before I upgraded. Based on my experience I would say the first step with the Abit IP35 board would be to upgrade the bios and flash the CMOS.

Apart from that, to my mind it is good practice to update to the latest BIOS when you build a new system. I used to think this too but from the glances I took in the Abit forum it appeared that the double boot problem was actually introduced with one of the bios upgrades. To make matters worse it a...

It does appear to be working now but I keep holding my breath. It's been a strange install because on the one hand it went very smooth for all the parts together and installing XP, and then fell apart after that. The fact that Puppy and Ubuntu didn't work without tweaks also threw me. Now I'm a bit ...