So the question, if I'm following, would be whether Biostar included these features also, since frank2003's comparison used their most recent bios available, right?

I agree the power consumption difference is large, especially if it's the same AMD chips. Can't be just those spiffy capacitors.

Another vote for roofer's tape. Seems to me there are 3 possible effects. 1. ( the main one) is adding mass to a panel, so that a given amount of vibrational energy makes it vibrate less; relatedly "constrained layer damping" as it's sometimes called (bonding a panel with one kind of resonance to a ...

Thanks! I noticed the BE-2350 didn't show up in Biostar's list of supported CPUs but it sounds like it ran fine for you. Do you have any advice on CPU selection? Oh and while I'm pestering you, what kind of memory did you use and does it matter? It sounds like I'm trying to achieve the same thing yo...

The audio marketplace contains some unbelievable woo and there are audiophiles every bit as reality-averse as any new ager or follower of the occult. Google "machina dynamica" or "peter belt" for examples. So far the PC market has little of this (though for all I know there's someone out there selli...

Frank2003, this is just enormously useful, thanks. 2 followups. 1. Some of us on another thread have been speculatin' about whether the Gigabyte 690G boards will properly mount aftermarket NB coolers like the Thermalright HR-05. From your observation, would either or both of these boards have good m...

a. Yes, given the low cost of storage FLAC makes sense. I've certainly heard quality losses on MP3s; they're most evident on acoustic recordings that start with a lot of ambient information; least evident on pop music. b. Gangrel, aef110's the "listening to music is a skill that develops over time" ...

Just to be clear on the technical point, your signal is starting in digital form and ending up, when it is transmitted to the speaker, in analog form. The distinction is whether you do the D-A conversion before the amplification stage or at the end of it; in the latter case you have digital amplific...

I'm not the smartest reader of these things, papakoo, but from reviews like this http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/12872 the BE-2350 plus 690G chipset seems the most efficient current option (aside from VIA), and other reviews http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=439&type=expert&pid=12 seem to show...

Just quickly: MP3 I don't know about. Digital amplification means the amplification happens in the digital not analog domain which is what the Panasonic XR series does. If a system uses a DAC then it's converting digital-to-analog and then amplifying the analog signal. The quality gains with the Pan...

The questions are great. There are 3 ways to get the signal out to amplification: (1) digital out to an amplifier that takes a digital signal or to a DAC and then an analog amp (2) analog out from a sound card (3) usb to a USB DAC or external soundcard. The advantage of (1) is simplicity: amp that t...

aef110's advice is good. Keep in mind that you can usually get used equipment for half the price of new. Almost all my gear was bought used. Munich should have one or more dealers of used gear set up so you can listen and choose. You can definitely do better than Klipsch! Jean-Marie Reynaud is a bra...

correction: I should've said the second person I've talked to on this forum using a 690G board with a CPU fan -- the other conversation was about the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI.

Thanks BS: This is very useful. You're the second person I've talked to on this forum who is using this board successfully with a CPU fan. Presumably the CPU fan is is also pushing air past the adjacent NB heatsink. This suggests that a ninja-plus-casefan strategy might be unwise with the stock NB h...

Firetech, where can I find compatibility listings? What I'm seeing on this Thermalright page: http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_product_hr05.htm is kind of minimal. BS, danke viel schon for posting. Can you tell me how much air you have blowing across the board, and how much stress you are put...

So I'm reading newegg reviews for the SAMSUNG SyncMaster 305T and one of them mentions fan noise. I didn't even realize they had fans.

Do all 30 inchers have fans? Only some? Has this been an issue for anyone?

any comparative thoughts on the MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital, another newish 690G mobo? It's the first full ATX 690G I've seen with a DVI port. The full ATX is maybe a little more spacious ... has anyone with the GA-MA69GM-S2H tried fitting aftermarket heatsinks on its CPU or NB? I'm worried about the clos...

Re PSUs, if you look at the review of the ST30NF http://www.silentpcreview.com/article185-page1.html and the thread that follows it, the data show it does not heat the rest of the case as compared to a fanned PSU, and having an insulating barrier between the PSU and rest of the case helps, which I t...

One question is whether the Athlon X2 BE-2300 or 2350 can be cooled more passively, with a Ninja or Thermalright HR-05 plus just the 120mm case fan. At least that's what I'm hoping to try with this chip in a couple of months. Anyway you can always build it and monitor temperatures and then swap fans...

FC you might want to look at the link Jaganath courteously provided above: http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=6&artpage=1738&articID=421 which *measures* cooling effectiveness. That's evidence, and evidence about the results that people actually want from a fan! The reviews on this s...

Thanks for the great pictures and writeup. Any more experience to report? I'm comparing this with an Antec Solo, and the PC-A16B's intake airflow really does look a lot better. Otherwise the two look roughly comparable in size shape and layout. The Solo has the cable-management features and the sepa...

Thanks much smc. This is a great help in thinking about airflow constraints.

smc, what are your northbridge temperatures like? Can you say a word about how much air you have moving across the NB heatsink? There's no question that if you look at cards made for 25x16 monitors they have a ton more heatsinking than a typical NB. What I don't know is how much of that is for games...

Like a lot of folks here I like small, low-powered PCs and was thinking in terms of a new box using a picoPSU-120. But with big monitors getting cheap I'm also yearning for 1920 x 1200 pixels, maybe 2560 x 1600. It would be for office-type apps not gaming, but I might try watching a DVD. I've been f...

Thanks Bluefront -- I've learned a lot from your postings. Have you written up the whole project anywhere?

I'm trying to make a PC within the constraints of a picoPSU-120 power supply. Data on power draw for standard dvd-r drives is scant but seems typically over 10 watts at idle, peaks around 20. It would be nice to reduce that. Are there any drives known to be low power? I'd happily trade away speed. T...