www.logicsupply.com also has some good itx cases.

i dont really see many consumers rack mounting their PC's. I've seen it maybe once or twice ever. Its just too big. It makes your computer basically immobile. So yea it may quiet it, but it makes it so much more inconvenient to work on, or move it around. So imo, you should look at going smaller not...

thepwner wrote:Well I was looking at them on Western Digital.com and their rated at 25dBa idle while the Scorpio Blacks are at 22dBa idle.

Manufacturer rated specs, when it comes to acoustics anyhow, are meaningless. Read the reviews here on SPCR.

best thing you can do is take the stock PSU out, slap a scythe s-flex or nexus fan back there, and use a pico-psu with external brick adapter.

the ocz core drives are notoriously slow. its the way they are built. you need to get an SSD with built in cache, like the intel x25-m or the new ocz vertex drives.

get the WD green power. its about as quiet as your going to get.

the max operating temp of HDD's is typically 55c. Long as you don't go over the manufacturers thermal thresholds you will be fine.

I just take some insulated wire and tie it down someplace. I tie HDD's down onto some foam, but for my SSD's i just strap em someplace so their secure. You could also get some industrial strength velcro.

I'm pretty sure best buy has some el-cheapo 2.5-3.5" bracket adapters.

Not always. You still have to read reviews of specific drives to make sure they are quiet. Some 2.5" drives are louder than some 3.5" drives.

Id say a WD GP. They are quiet and have lots of space for mass storage.

under 40c? i doubt it. You should be able to keep them under the manufacturers maximum operational temp though which is likely 55c. I think when i had my drives in a SQD they ran around 45-50c. I just suspend now, i've found drive enclosures do very little in the way of quieting hard drives and that...

ck8-04 wrote: The new GTS 250 should fit as well since nVidia has reduced the PCB length down to about 9.5".

Only the 1gb version has a shorter PCB.

The Antec NSK3480 has a thermally separated PSU zone like the P180, and can accomidate any length video card. But you'd have to select a micro atx motherboard.

FartingBob wrote:So your definition of "good" is industry leading?

Yes that would be the definition of good.

Being one of the pack = average = mediocre.

finally intel has some real competition.

fyi: they are also now for sale at newegg.

you could fit 4x 2.5" drives in an Antec NSK3480, though you would have to get a bit creative with mounting them. Theres probably enough room to just stack 4 drives in the top 2x 5.25" bays.

Scythe is like Bose, they are most impressed with themselves. yeah, I know, sux right? yeah them having some of the best cpu coolers for the past 4 years and also now the best 120mm fans, yeah what a crap company. yeah I hate it. They had 1 good cpu cooler at one time, and ever since they went to t...

WoW is mostly effected by CPU speed, not VGA speed. i upgraded from a 7600GS to an 8800gt and only saw MAYBE 10fps more in wow at the same resolution and settings. If you want faster framerates in wow, you need to upgrade your processor, not your video card. As far as strategy games being FPS limite...

the power supply is the single most important item in your case. its also the most overlooked item when building a new system. POS power supplies arnt just loud, they are also unstable and typically have short life spans. So is it possible to make a crappy/cheap psu quiet? Sure. But you'll still hav...

500W? Do you need two top-of-the-line graphics cards in SLI? Even 200W is overkill for non-gaming computers. You may only NEED 200w, but if you got a 200w psu your fan would be running at max speed all the time and wouldnt be quiet. So while you may not need 500w, getting a 500w psu means it will r...

but then, what *is* perfect these days? Antec Solo is the closest thing to "perfect" that ive ever seen, and its only $100. I Use Corsair VX450W, VX550W and TX850W. Very quiet Regards I've heard bad things about the TX series. The VX on the other hand is merely the non modular version of the HX ser...

spinning down your drive is a bad idea anyhow. You dont want your drive to "cool down". repeated temp variances will cause your drive to prematurely fail.

Capsaicin wrote: My mistake. So why are all these other SSDs so slow?

No cache to sequence data. Every SSD with built in cache, or any SSD used with a raid controller with cache runs fine.

Putting the fan on the outside = GREAT IDEA! Now i can get rid of their crappy stock fans easily to replace them with something more quality. Oh and that finger guard would be the first thing i unbolted off of that thing. I also prefer the whole (fan on the inside blowing front to back) configuratio...

relitz wrote:Since they are not avalible in Sweden I don't have any personal experience, but from what I've read the Enermax Modu82+ are the best when it comes to silence, and I do belive they come in a 625W model.

Yea i'd go with the enrmax modu82+ 625w or the corsair hx620

its lian li, so it'll be aluminum. The panels will resonate too much for it to be quiet.

Look for a case made out of steel. Preferably "cold rolled steel".

Idunno how much experience you have with VM's, but they are mostly effected by your storage subsystem. You'll still need a good chunk of ram, but you should have a seperate HDD for each VM you plan on running. Your machine is gunna be chuggin real slow if you have all these VM's on a single drive. E...

the Antec Signature 650 was reviewed here, did very well. As was the Seasonic M12D 850. Both are top rated PSU's, albeit very expensive.

Are you sure you need that much power? Unless your running SLI/Xfire i doubt you do.

The 55nm GTX260 does about 100 watts, the 65nm version was quite bad. Check www.xbitlabs.com NVidia was suppose to be all 55nm quite a while ago. And when i'm adding a GTX260 to my shopping cart, how do i tell its the 55nm version? This is the thing that really bothers me about nvidia lately, is th...

rei wrote:i wish they could make the card SHORTER.

They said the 1gb version was 1.5" shorter, but its still fairly long. I wouldnt mind "upgrading" to an 8800gt that was as short as a 8600 (6 inches i believe"

so you've been suspending for years, but when a new drive fails after 6 months you think there could be a problem with suspending them? Idunno, me personally i would just assume its the drive. If suspension were really a problem you would see it with the drives suspended for years, not on one you ju...