It looks nice as a replacement for that headless receiver connected to a personal network that already has other NAS and ripping devices. This should have been called Logitech Squeezebox TV or something. ;) But that's only a part of the HTPC market IMO. There are many general purpose rigs that can a...

There was a Clarksdale review at AnandTech earlier this year. The current Intel solution is good enough for a HTPC without an additional graphics card.

The only thing you really need to watch for is the maximum temperature after prolonged use (load). As others have confirmed, the temperature spikes happen in a similar fashion on a Core 2 Duo. You have a CPU with two generations of improvements to power-saving, so yeah, it is pretty much expected to...

Yes, the Ninja Mini will fit perfectly in that case, and it will provide very good airflow even without the included Scythe fan. There are examples in the SPCR gallery (older entries, but the case didn't change). Is there a reason for getting an AMD processor for a rig that's supposed to be running ...

That open source app looks nice. It will be great when they add fan controls.

SpeedFan works fine unless you need the temperatures of an ATI graphics card. The author has been dragging his feet for years on support for their sensors.

Maybe it's because the refreshed X-660 and X-760 models are out?

I've had an opposite experience. My two S-FLEX fans were running fine for two years. I replaced them with SlipStream fans to see what everyone was so loud ;) about, but these seem slightly more audible at the lowest speed I use (about 550 rpm). I'm guessing that at these low noise levels sample vari...

To get less heat with reasonable performance, you'd probably have to use some of the modern integrated solutions. The 5450 is a very efficient design, and should not be overheating in normal scenarios. Either the case used has extremely bad airflow, or you are expecting unrealistic (much too low) te...

I'd still suggest the 5770, as it generates less heat That's an interesting point because from what I have seen the GTX 460's run cooler than HD 5770's. I would imagine that less efficient heatsinks are enough to cool the 5770 because it generates less heat. Even though the GPU might be getting hot...

It fits, so it should do fine. My experience with the 4850 shows that there's enough airflow for even hotter graphics cards. I'd still suggest the 5770, as it generates less heat, so you'd need lower exhaust fan speeds under load.

I am planning on adding an HD 5770 or similar Nvidia graphics card so I think I need the extra airflow. What do you think? Cooling a decent graphics card in the NSK 2480 won't be a problem. There's a vent above the graphics card slightly farther away from the fans than the card itself. It allows fr...

I know you don't have to worry with moderate overclocking (BTDT), and I suspect you wouldn't have to even with heavy overclocking. Remember that you get two 120 mm fans to move air while not having to cool the PSU. There are fresh air intakes close to all potentially hot components, including one po...

The Ninja Mini is perfect for this case. Both case fans will pull air through it, and the Ninja fin layout means lots of air moving at all times. You'll find multiple builds in the gallery with very low temperatures. The only problem would be getting your hands on one. Any other high-end heatsink wi...

Some basic ideas, maybe you haven't tried one: Do you have the PSU pulling air from inside the case? If so, try turning it around to pull from outside of the case. Do you have the covers for slots near the graphics card installed? Maybe removing them would help. Are you using the fan above the CPU a...

There's also Silverstone with their Raven and Fortress (FT02, not FT01). Instead of separating components by panels, these create divergent airflow paths. The Raven might be cheaper than a P18x.

Is water cooling quieter than fan cooled or is it mostly for the coolness factor of having it water cooled? My understanding is they both need a fan. One way its a fan to cool the heat sink and the other way its a fan to cool the water. The difference is performance. Watercooling allows you to use ...

Current generation SSDs are much faster than spinning SATA drives in almost every way . For a production rig, the Intel SSDs are the best choice because of their reliability claims. The drives (specifically: flash write cycle numbers, the part that makes flash memory deteriorate) are rated for long ...

Regarding positive pressure, actually I have tried (due to insane during first installation, both case fan and CPU fan are reversed, and the case fan pulls air from outside) but the temperature is not as good as negative (~5C difference especially VGA card). But is it deadly for the card? Did it ca...

Fingers crossed for a fanless "5850", then.

Have you tried opening slot covers below the graphics card? This should allow for more air to come in not through the PSU.

Also, maybe positive pressure is the way to go with this setup. By that I mean turning the back fan around. (And still creating a vent near the graphics card.)

The Antec Fusion is just about right IMO (big case for an mATX board). It could use some room at the top for larger CPU and GPU heatsinks (many designs are not compatible by less than an inch), but I guess that's how they sell the Fusion Max...

The demo (DX9 version) runs fine on my rig with maximum settings (Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, Radeon HD 4850). A 5770 should be more than enough, and many cheaper cards will do good as well (just turn the settings down). I'd take more care with the CPU and OS. Tere's a lot to compute, especially later ...

The Silent Cell models can safely operate with GPU temperatures reaching 100 C. Solid caps and all that. There's no need to put a fan on it. You can open a slot cover below the graphics card to provide more fresh air, but AFAIR the Solo has half-open covers there, so it should be fine without any ch...

Looks like we know what to get, if the SeaSonic X-series doesn't provide enough power.

It's the same thing with GPUs and CPUs: Model names change, but you get more and more computing power at any given TDP (i.e. without increased cooling requirements). So yeah, I'm pretty sure a more powerfull while still fanless 5770 is around the corner, no matter what they'll call it. If it's a coo...

AFAIK 58xx series cards come with dual PCI-E 6 pin connectors. I don't think this kind of load can be handled with a fanless cooler. And I think the power consumption on 67xx to provide this level of performance will not be dramatically lower. You're ignoring the fact that we'll almost certainly se...

If you want to go fanless, you need a heatsink with enough space between the fins to let the air move. Like a HR-02 or Ninja (Ninja with a proper bolt-through kit, of course). Speaking from experience, the SI-128 SE is not the best choice for fanless operation. And judging by SPCR reviews, neither a...

Meh... I say just get 3.5" 2TB drive. Superbiz (aka ewiz) has 2TB F4 drive for only $95 which is a terrific value for what you get, Maybe it's not obvious, but not everyone is trying to make a backup of the Internet, and music collections don't tend to grow exponentially. If only 1/6 of that 2 TB i...

If silence is a goal, then the slight price premium on a 2.5" vs 3.5" 500 GB drive (like 20$ at the moment?) is well worth it. You might consider getting a 2.5" 5400rpm drive for additional reduction in noise as well as a big reduction in power/self heating. And a massive hit on capacity and price/G...

Unless you need a lot of disk space, a 2.5" hard disk will be better—much less noisy than a 3.5" model. There are various 7200 rpm models out there, so the performance difference should be small (and not very important when it's a data drive anyway). Is it not possible to simply attach one or two ...