Help me Choose a New Case
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Did you check the recommended cases here at SPRC?
Hello:
My two favorites right now are also well regarded by many folks here:
Antec SLK3700-BQE
Evercase 5242
Both meet your basic requiements, and the BQE is more "stylish" and it has a door. However, it usually comes with a PS which is somewhat quiet, but not great. The Evercase's stock PS is noisier, so avoid buying the case with a PS, or plan on using another one anyway. The Evercase is less money and I think it has better air flow.
Four drive bays *was* standard on the Evercase, now it is often a very inexpensive option. Ditto for the HD suspension grommets -- though I think the stock mounting is quieter than other typical cages. The BQE comes standard with space for 4 drives and with suspension grommets for the HD.
The Evercase is slightly shorter, and has less places to hide wires. But, having better air flow is more important, IMO. Both take one or two 120mm fans.
My two favorites right now are also well regarded by many folks here:
Antec SLK3700-BQE
Evercase 5242
Both meet your basic requiements, and the BQE is more "stylish" and it has a door. However, it usually comes with a PS which is somewhat quiet, but not great. The Evercase's stock PS is noisier, so avoid buying the case with a PS, or plan on using another one anyway. The Evercase is less money and I think it has better air flow.
Four drive bays *was* standard on the Evercase, now it is often a very inexpensive option. Ditto for the HD suspension grommets -- though I think the stock mounting is quieter than other typical cages. The BQE comes standard with space for 4 drives and with suspension grommets for the HD.
The Evercase is slightly shorter, and has less places to hide wires. But, having better air flow is more important, IMO. Both take one or two 120mm fans.
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I haven't tried one, but the Ahanix Black Knight looks promising as well, and it's under $60. I think it looks snazzy; it uses dual 120mm fans, and it has the front door, and its door conveniently swings away if you're working the opticals a lot.
-Ed
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Antec SLK3700:
- 2x 120mm fan (front and rear)
- 5x internal 3.5" bays (with rubber mounting grommets)
- front door
- made of fairly thick steel
- quite stylish
review @ http://www.silentpcreview.com/article76-page1.html
- 2x 120mm fan (front and rear)
- 5x internal 3.5" bays (with rubber mounting grommets)
- front door
- made of fairly thick steel
- quite stylish
review @ http://www.silentpcreview.com/article76-page1.html
Writing about the BQE AcoustiProducts websitesays:Maxamus wrote:any idea when it will be for sale?
"We recommend that customers wait until we have released a pre-cut kit specifically for this case. It is likely to appear in late Spring 2004, and be called the 'AP AntecBQE'."
They are in Birmingham so drop them an e-mail and see what they say.
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I save 30-60% space on average by using FLAC and Monkey's Audio lossless compression for all my audio instead of WAVe...
I'm into high fidelity audio, so only lossless will do for me; I'm using an Echo Mia MIDI sound adapter with coax digital output to an Onkyo TX-SR501 receiver, powering a pair of Paradigm Studio/20 loudspeakers using silver speaker cabling.
You should see my dad's setup!
-Ed
I'm into high fidelity audio, so only lossless will do for me; I'm using an Echo Mia MIDI sound adapter with coax digital output to an Onkyo TX-SR501 receiver, powering a pair of Paradigm Studio/20 loudspeakers using silver speaker cabling.
You should see my dad's setup!
-Ed
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I second Ralf's suggestion of the ASUStek P4C800-E; it's a rock solid board that can o/c if you want to and the passive northbridge is automatically one step closer to acoustic nirvana.
I've seen many others state that the SATA drives from Seagate, with 8MB of cache, are locked for high performance seek mode. How quiet they are is a matter of subjectivity (compared to WD2500JDs, these things are quieter by an order of several magnitudes, but compared to laptop drives, they're louder by an order of several magnitudes). If your performance and capacity reference point was the WD2500JD, the ST3200822AS should at least match, if not exceed performance, it will easily exceed in terms of acoustics, and it comes with the same 3-year warranty.
Comparing the two Barracudas, the 200GB model should sound virtually the same (same spindle rate, same number of heads and platters, just higher density, same seek mode) as the 160GB model, but the 200GB will easily outperform the 160GB, due to its industry-first 100GB/platter technology.
-Ed
EDIT: Fixed formatting error.
EDIT 2: PS, as I said, do yourself a favor and consider storing some of your audio data in FLAC and/or Monkey's Audio format. It goes a long way towards fitting more audio data onto the same space, without any degradation in audio quality.
I've seen many others state that the SATA drives from Seagate, with 8MB of cache, are locked for high performance seek mode. How quiet they are is a matter of subjectivity (compared to WD2500JDs, these things are quieter by an order of several magnitudes, but compared to laptop drives, they're louder by an order of several magnitudes). If your performance and capacity reference point was the WD2500JD, the ST3200822AS should at least match, if not exceed performance, it will easily exceed in terms of acoustics, and it comes with the same 3-year warranty.
Comparing the two Barracudas, the 200GB model should sound virtually the same (same spindle rate, same number of heads and platters, just higher density, same seek mode) as the 160GB model, but the 200GB will easily outperform the 160GB, due to its industry-first 100GB/platter technology.
-Ed
EDIT: Fixed formatting error.
EDIT 2: PS, as I said, do yourself a favor and consider storing some of your audio data in FLAC and/or Monkey's Audio format. It goes a long way towards fitting more audio data onto the same space, without any degradation in audio quality.