On the test bench with ambient room temperature at 23°C, the fan in the Seasonic X-650 started at about 340W load. I've just begun building a system with an X-750, and it's currently running Memtest on a bench in the basement without a case. With load at 175-180W AC & ambient below 20C, the fan tu...

Wow, some heated discussion here :lol: It seems strange to me when you guys are given higher end products to review that clearly don't cater towards the low-noise expectations or requirements of the average SPCR reader :? Does the name of the site not give it away? Anyway, I'm hoping you guys get a ...

My main concern here is that although having a discrete low-end graphics card will undoubtedly result in greater overall system power consumption, it means that it isn't all lumped in one place. I'd rather have a passive card pumping out heat slightly away from the CPU than the CPU putting out more ...

For the life of me, I don't understand this obsession with CPU idle power consumption. It's somewhere on the order of only 15% of the power draw of the system at idle (with a low power system). Furthermore, your getting all hot and bothered about 2 - 3w; that's like $0.25 worth of electricity in a ...

When I first got into silencing it was very rare for a PC enthusiast to be interested in anything other than overclocking and using extreme cooling solutions to do so. There weren't that many off-the-shelf products aimed at lowering noise levels out there and Zalman were just finding their feet (wit...

Any high pitch whine in the upper hearing frequencies reported by the SPL meter? I remember discussing with you in the past, Mike, after I'd had a few problems with 7200RPM 2.5" drives whining while your experiences with the same drive models didn't show up any such noise. We agreed it could have co...

When do proprietary fans ever prove a good option these days? I kinda wish manufacturers would just ditch the idea and let us choose which fan we want to use.

If my Phantom 500 ever dies (something I worry about occasionally) I can rest safe in the knowledge I can just replace it with this

Thanks folks. My screen res will be 1680 x 1050 (x2) and my only requirement really is that it'll play StarCraft 2 - I just wish we knew at this stage exactly how demanding it is going to really be. Other than that it's purely a work PC. I've been looking at 5750 reviews and it has impressive idle d...

edit: misread something

I currently have a passive 7300GT (DVI + VGA outputs) but I now need a card with 2 digital outputs. I don't play any games currently, but I will be buying StarCraft 2 when it comes out ( rumoured system specs here ) so if I might need a better card to play see it at it's best(?) I'd rather kill two ...

Links to said reviews would have been useful

The use of the laptop CPU put me in mind of the XPM days when you could just drop the laptop chip in a desktop mobo with a the heatsink of your choice :cry: The keyboard looks great I thought, unlike Lenovo to get the usability wrong here. croddie, the problem is aesthetics will always be subjective...

I really like the idea of the gun/trigger ball-heads

I know the existing ones have a limited weight capacity, but I'm just using the kit lens and primes.

Excellent, thanks for the detailed info :D Been a "serious" hobby photographer since I was a young teen -- O so long ago, sigh... :lol: Cut my teeth on Canon & Leica 35mm rangefinders, Minolta/Minox 16mm minis, Minolta/Canon 35mm SLRs, a Mamiya 120/220, messed with chemicals and an enlarger in a dar...

Jordan wrote:I've always wondered, what's the lab photography equipment like?

You get very decent, professional results. Good job

Any insight, Mike? This was a genuine question

I enjoy the SPCR lab insider coverage but I don't think you've ever covered what camera and lighting you use?

I've always wondered, what's the lab photography equipment like?

You get very decent, professional results. Good job

I keep it on the desk to access the power switch :lol: I only switch it on once every fortnight or so to perform a back-up. It's also useful to have easy access in case I need to take it with me. I guess I'll just have to get this one in SATA form... it's just ugly compared to the likes of the sleek...

Not really. You could disconnect the USB cable at any point if you wanted to, what's the difference between doing that and using a power switch? The difference for me is ease of doing this because I have it connected to a desktop PC, which sits under my desk. A power switch means the device wouldn't...

Anyone?

Anyone know of a 2.5" external drive or enclosure (SATA) that has a power switch?

There's the Icy Box IB-250 enclosure but it's ugly compared to the likes of the WD Passport, which I don't believe has a power switch...

Would have been interesting to see the figures for running an Atom set-up in there completely fanless to see if it was possible, and if not how low you could have the Noctua and safely cool it.

Would fanless Atom be doable?

I'm really organised with my folder structure so using search seems like a step backwards. Would also be useless for searching for photos when the still have their DSC*** number, for example. SSDs are still to expensive for me and while I'm tempted by the VR I'm worried about the high pitched whine ...

I got a Samsung F1 500GB a little while back and installed Vista 64-bit for the first time. I just thought Vista was slow/laggy i.e. when I open folders it can take a second or two to actually show the contents of the folder. I was looking at PC Pro website and they did a HD labs test back in April....

What thickness of bungee chord and what size of P-Clips are people using?

I can only find 3mm thick bungee chord on ebay - is this enough?

It's P965, earlier rev and won't take newer chips - I checked - even with a flash and/or by OCing.

I believe the EP Gigabyte boards are the ones with extra power saving features also? Again, mine is not one of these

I currently have an E4300 and while my system is just a web browser 90% of the time, I am a web designer and need extra power on tap for Illustrator, Photoshop etc. Can I upgrade the CPU and still have better idle temps/power draw? E7500? E8400? Lower idle power draw is most important to me. When I'...

I'm thinking about getting a laptop with a riser stand but space is at a premium as I need to have a very shallow desk. It will also be up against the wall so I need to get a ballpark figure of how much space I'll have for a keyboard in front of it. I am interested to know the depth of the whole uni...

Will you be using the case fan on the P180 mini?

They've been selling it forever. People just didn't know about it until everybody has become aware of push pin issues. Well, if you go to their website it's only fourth down on their "new release" list and it was only very recently featured in a press release email newsletter, so that's more likely...