I'd go for the Hitachi 5K3000 myself.
I might have been exceptionally lucky but I've yet to have a Hitachi HDD fail on me and I've used a fair few for builds over the years.

The best current Atom is the D525 which runs at 1.8 GHz and is a dual core CPU with hyperthreading. AMD's E-350 looks to be fairly close perormace wise too. Having used Atom's I would say they don't offer the performance of a proper desktop even my old X2 4200 thumps an Atom heavily for any serious ...

I would take one fan off the CPU cooler just keep the one on the right blowing out towards the rear case fan. With the thermal past as long as you have the main central area covered I would not be concerned. With heat pipe coolers I tend to "prime" the gaps in the pipes with paste then I use the 2 l...

I've an Asus fanless 5570 and I can hammer it all day and it's pretty cool GPU temps. Gigabyte have a Radeon HD 6770 GPU http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3861#ov Or I'd say something like this would be about as far as I'd go myself http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/AMD_Series/E...

Almost all recent motherboards will not vary the speed of a 3-pin fan plugged into a 4-pin header. A few years ago the opposite was true... I guess this is progress. Situation seems a bit different I've recently built a Gigabyte AM3+ board and have no trouble with it controlling fan speeds esp CPU ...

Tried Nexus they are quiet and well priced unfortunately I'm not sure they last for the long haul I ended up replacing some (out of warranty)

Agree both of those are good value coolers even replacing the fans with better ones (the CM ones are ok but not quiet at higher speeds) it still works out pretty cheap price wise v some other makers offerings. Really we're after the decent heatpipes and oversized fins etc rather than the actual fans...

One thing I noted testing my TX-3 CPU cooler is that at a certain point you can throw a ton of air at a processor cooler and get very little back in regards to lower temps. I can lose only a few degrees off the temperature running at full speed with my 92mm Noctua v having it run at just over 1000rp...

Maxtor well let's just say I saw too many dead ones but a few oldies that were still plugging away ;-) I never bought a Maxtor and now I avoid Seagate as well. I note on the Hitachi models I just got they say max operating temp of 60 degrees celcius I would not get even a bit concerned until temps h...

I see a review for the Corsair CX400W not sure if this is using the same fan as the one I got. Anyway that was a replacement for the Antec Sonata one that died a week ago (380w) earthwatts which really blew up nicely sparks flying out the back!. I'd say it might be the type of PSU you'd look for one...

The rubber feet do help (I got accoustifeet ones) though HDD vibration is a lot less when I made a custom anti static foam to enclose them in the HDD bay (with some gaps for airflow etc) You might be able to skip that part if you are suspending the drives as this seriously cuts down HDD vibrations. ...

Which fan did you try? I'm looking for a few for more affordable builds. Can't put Noctua in all the builds I do!

Not sure how much power you want but I just replaced a dead Antec PSU with a Corsair CX430 V2 which is 80 plus rated it's quiet and surprisingly well made for the price decent cabling all covered nicely. They do a 500/600 watt version as well I believe if you need a bit more grunt. I'll def be stick...

I think the foam does help least that is my own personal view. I added foam to the original Sonata cases too and that def helped more than a bit. But it depends on what is in there if you have quiet fans and a fanless graphics card it's going to be fairly quiet anyway. I just built a Sileo (the one ...

I might be alone in this but I'm not convinced of the benefits of a bottom mounted PSU as it won't help at all removing hot air from the system. On the coolermaster HS/Fan I've used a few including the slightly smaller TX-3 one and they're pretty good for the money though I replaced the fan with a N...

The play is overall system build cost. It's typically cheaper to build AMD systems mobo wise bang per buck you get a better deal. Personally I was tempted to look at the 910e Phenom but it's high cost is a put off hence you end up probably better served looking at "propus" variants which are well pr...

Interesting review I was considering this case but my dislike for doors on pc's have increased over the years! I can see some improvements here over the Sileo 500 but in the end I'm not sure any maker has really nailed it down though it's a decent effort. I picked the Sileo 500 with a few tweaks it'...

Power consumption well it's running a CPU and an embedded GPU unit as well..so it's probably not that bad at all. If you took the GPU out of it then it would be a fair bit lower.

The concept is a good one this is just the start of something that could have a lot of potential.

Been reading this site for years and it's been hugely useful to me being a quite pc based kinda guy! Back to the topic looking to update my aged Athlon X2 4200 pc I was considering various options for a more reasonable budget. The Intel i3-2100 is clearly worth looking at..but review wise you simply...