mITX boards are not as good as µATX ones. Better build quality, more robustness, better cooling, more features, wider offering... I also think my Asus Mini-ITX board (Z87I-PRO WiFi) is fine. Have not noticed any bad build quality and I don't miss any features, on the contrary, it has WiFi and BlueT...

FYI, SSD's cope really well with heat. Unlike HDD's, where failure rates double or triple when you exceed 40C From Wikipedia: A 2007 study published by Google suggested very little correlation between failure rates and either high temperature or activity level. Indeed, the Google study indicated th...

It took some time to decide what monitor to buy but finally I bought this: Dell U2715H 2560x1440 IPS - Completely silent (no PWM regulation of brightness). MSI GeForce GTX 950 Gaming. It is a great Video Card!! I get plenty of FPS in WoW at 2560x1440 and the fans barely start spinning. Temp varies b...

Thanks for the replies! A bit ashamed I couldn't find TechPowerUp WoD benchmarks by myself. It seems clear that GTX 950 should be fine for 1440p, but now I am tempted to go for GTX 960 and a 32 inches 3840x2160 IPS monitor :D Nah, still have some doubts about 4K. Readability, scaling and such things...

I am tempted to buy a new 27 inch 2560x1440 monitor. Not mainly for gaming, but it could be nice to be able to play World of Warcraft (the only game I play) on the new monitor at native resolution. Today I get 50-100 fps with a XFX Radeon R7 250 Passive at 1920x1200 and with mostly High settings. I ...

Union Jack at PRAD only shows old reviews...

lieto wrote:What am i missing?

Nothing! Go for an i3-4150. It won't hold back a GTX-970. At least not much.

PSU is mounted at the top, in the correct position with the ventilation holes on top. Don't think that matter much. In your case the PSU is working as (main?) intake. Probably ok with your current low power draw but if you are planning to put a videocard in there I have doubts about airflow (or lac...

Joxx wrote:Also I don't understand why one GPU is so much hotter than the other

Because fresh air from the right case fan is stealed/blocked by the CPU-cooler?

Management of what? Swapping hdd/ssd:s, fans, cleaning, whatever... without having to pull everything apart. MicroATX would be better for you. I have to disagree. That is a too generall statement. It depends on many things. My mITX board has everything I need including WiFi and I can't think of any...

xan_user wrote:Im happy to see some ITX love, and am looking forward to more! I like the challenge of smaller cases, and generally find big ones a bore.

Agree.

I like small cases but I also want some space inside for easy management, so for me mITX motherboard in a rather big mITX case is a perfect choise.

MikeC wrote:Should have been explicit: We mounted it as per Seasonic recommendations, with the open top of the PSu cover on top.

Actually, that is clearly visible in the pictures. I should have looked closer. Doing that I can also see that it is space above the PSU.

Is it safe to mount the PSU upside down against Seasonics recommendations? No risk for pockets of hot air at PSU bottom (now top)? Case bottom intake went doesn't look very open.

I don't have that kind of coarse dust (my computer is not on the floor). My dust is very fine, like a thin layer on everything.
Maybe I can se that sort in your pictures on top of the PSU?

CA_Steve wrote:All the dust will accumulate on the front fan filter

Wish I could find such filters. IME, if they let air in without too much obstruction they also let dust in

After reading those links I got worried and had to open the case and take a look :shock: I can se some warping but I don't think it's enough to be worried about. And everything still works fine after 6 months. Nothing changes if I remove the screws so it seems meaningless to add spacers at this mome...

The PSU fan is mostly off, even then gaming, but sometimes I can hear it spinning for a short while, not loud but noticeable. Since I never hear anything from the other three fans I don't consider these Seasonics as the most silent ones out there. I doubt I would gain anything from the front fan, wa...

Yes, it's pricey I suppose. I build a new one every third year or so and then I don't care about price -just picking what I like :oops: Yes, it's the NF-S12A-FLX but you could consider the Redux version to save a few bucks. And you can save much on the PSU (Cooler Master G550M, Corsair RM-series...)...

With a 160mm modular PSU it can be a hard squeeze to add a full sized graphics card in that case.

oops, Luca already pointed out that, my browser wasn't updated...

No issues to report on two Seasonic Platinum SS-860XP2, both are perfect for a month now, no electronic noise or coil, or loud fans. O.K, most likely just the XP3's then, but there is post earlier where someone noted fan noise issues with a 660 XP2. Abula says 'no loud fans' while I may have called...

I have a very similar system to yours. Haswell i5 CPU and R7 250 passive VGA (but XFX version). It's cooled by the tiny Noctua NH-L9i and two exhaust fans (no fans as input). Then playing a game (eg. World of Warcraft) the fans spins at 600-700 rpm and I can't hear them from 1 meter away. Both CPU a...

Would a something like a Silverstone Grandia GD04 USB 3.0 be more difficult to cool than a standard tower? Nothing with an i3 and no graphics card is difficult to cool :D If you like the look and size of the GD04 -go for it. I would use a passive (a bit expensive) or a semi-passive PSU. Noctua NH-L...

Really nice looking!! I suppose that's the reason for using such a monstrosity with double fans in order to cool a Core i5
Btw, is it possible to replace a memory stick without dismounting the entire thing?

Not quite, but I think noise and temperatures would be about the same if you mount one exhaust fan at the back and one at the top. However, there might be a problem with the power supply. AnandTech speaks better english than me, so I will let them explain the issue: Our testbed power supply is 160mm...

From Asus homepage about H97I-PLUS:

- Supports HDMI with max. resolution 4096 x 2160 @ 24 Hz / 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz
- Supports DVI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz

Don't trust reviewers then they call a PSU quiet or silent :shock: During the last few years I have swapped fans in several 'quiet' units, both Seasonic and Corsair. My new Seasonic Platinum 660W is also anything but silent. Well, to be fair, it's not extremely noisy, but from one meter away it's cl...

Abula: I have used the big boys in my previous builds, usually Noctua NH-U12P fanless, but that one didn't fit in this case, so after reading SPCR review of Noctua NH-L9i LP I decided to give it a try. So far I have no reason to regret that, because at practically inaudible fanspeed it keps my CPU ...

Very nice! I've seen this case before and I just read over some Newegg reviews one person was talking about mobo warping. Have you had any issues? And in your completed shot with the OS running, what is that little device on top of the rig? Wifi? Then you mentioned warping I got a bit worried, beca...

capecodbackup: Thanks! quest_for_silence: Depends what you compare with. It sure is smaller than a Fractal R4 and can still house a rather powerfull system :) Speaking mITX, depth (important for me) is a bit less compared with Fractal Node 304 and in this case you can use almost any combination of ...

You could just secure it with a couple of cable ties to an appropriate point on the case to nullify the torque. I did that once then I had to transport the computer in the back seat (not thousand miles but still). It survied. Maybe it had done so even without the cable ties. As lodestar points out,...