who's getting the zalman case?

Graphite · Post by **Graphite** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:46 am

http://www.directron.com/tnn500a.html

i want to see the nut who gets it

bigred · Post by **bigred** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:07 am

lol, I'd love one, but the price is way too high.
Also I'd imagine that someone would get the Silentmaxx one first. So long as it performs as well, it seems to be the same case for less money.

Morpheusman · Post by **Morpheusman** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:08 am

This looks like a great case for a sever installation.

No Fans = No Moving Parts = Great Reliability

I'd never spend that much on a case for a home system, but if you've got money to blow---go for it.

My current rig cost about 1/3 the price of this case.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:19 am

This thing - great as a server? Not really.

Servers (the "real" ones anyway) all have redundancy enough to not worry about losing a fan or so.

It'd be an interesting project for home (though it must weigh a TON).

I am surprised to see it being more expensive in the US ($ 1200) than in the UK (ca. £ 700 at http://www.quietpc.com/uk/tnn500a.php), which is roughly $ 1100.

I suspect it's more of a "concept win", an experiment shaping the way of things to come (once they go down from that astronomical price).

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:20 am

Morpheusman wrote:No Fans = No Moving Parts = Great Reliability

.
So long as you use a hard drive, you will always have a moving part.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:28 am

One day, mayhap, we'll have flash-memory in the GB range and then have TRULY quite HD's?

Albeit, certainly quite darn slow, but quiet

.

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:42 am

You can already buy SS drives at sizes up into the 200 GByte range. And their performance blows away even the fastest SCSI drives. (no spinning disk=virtually no latency) The IDE versions are probably the only IDE disks made that are actually limited by the throughput of the cable, instead of by the HDD itself.

The downside.....

They cost more than your car. (or your house, depending upon your neighborhood

)

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 12:20 pm

Rusty075 wrote:You can already buy SS drives at sizes up into the 200 GByte range. And their performance blows away even the fastest SCSI drives. (no spinning disk=virtually no latency) The IDE versions are probably the only IDE disks made that are actually limited by the throughput of the cable, instead of by the HDD itself.

SS drives? I've done a google but couldn't quite find them. What's them then? I'm guessing solid state, but I've not found any for sale...

Rusty075 wrote: The downside.....

They cost more than your car. (or your house, depending upon your neighborhood )

Heh - that's OK. You've offered to give me one, right?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 12:31 pm

shathal wrote:
Rusty075 wrote:You can already buy SS drives at sizes up into the 200 GByte range. And their performance blows away even the fastest SCSI drives. (no spinning disk=virtually no latency) The IDE versions are probably the only IDE disks made that are actually limited by the throughput of the cable, instead of by the HDD itself.
SS drives? I've done a google but couldn't quite find them. What's them then? I'm guessing solid state, but I've not found any for sale...

Here. Someone here at SPCR has a system with one of them in it.

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:14 pm

shathal wrote:Heh - that's OK. You've offered to give me one, right?

You send me a P4EE and a 6800Ultra, and I'll send you a solid state drive.

Seems fair.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:26 pm

Hmmm ... I could call in a few favours I'm owed and get ahold of a P4EE easily enough.

But mailing it to the US and getting ahold of the 6800 Ultra ... (esp. since I'm in need of one FIRST...) ....

... mhhmmm ... I'll think about it... come to think about it - I think I'll rather keep a 6800 Ultra for myself

.

Putz · Post by **Putz** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:39 pm

Rusty075 wrote:
shathal wrote:Heh - that's OK. You've offered to give me one, right?
You send me a P4EE and a 6800Ultra, and I'll send you a solid state drive.

Seems fair.

Doesn't seem too fair to me... especially for an SPCR regular!

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 2:42 pm

Putz wrote:Doesn't seem too fair to me... especially for an SPCR regular!

Sure it is....I get the P4EE and the 6800, and I'll send over the 800meg SS HDD I've got lying around. Seems perrrrfecctly fair.

loren_brothers · Post by **loren_brothers** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:38 pm

Maxamus:

I will bet you a 'ten bob' that someone here will buy it in the next six months! Obsession has no boundries!

(That is a real bet! Remind me at the end of October!)

Pate · Post by **Pate** » Thu Apr 22, 2004 9:49 pm

A friend of mine just ordered the case from QuietPC. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out.

Pate

loren_brothers · Post by **loren_brothers** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:30 pm

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:04 pm

Maxamus wrote:£800 retail in the UK!!!

i am not paying that much for a case!
I dont care how silent it is, at that price its way too steep.
Damn if i bought that along with all the other good hardware it would cost me £2000!!!!

Who they kidding..........

Maxamus - actually, http://www.quietpc.com/uk/tnn500a.php offers that thing at £ 700 retail, and nearly £ 600 pre-order.

Not that this is MUCH better (let alone affordable), but it's still 100 - 200 quid you don't have to fork out.

loren_brothers · Post by **loren_brothers** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:28 pm

shathal,

I think you need to change those numbers to 765 and 675

(remember: in these tests accuracy counts)

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 2:48 pm

Gordon Benett!!!!

You're right...

I'd thought the 675 was the "normal" price, and had a vague recollection of them lowering the price by "a lot" for introduction/pre-order.

To show my emotions on reading the QuietPC article, they went something like this:

Aha ...
...
Interesting ...
...
Really...
...
Ohhh...
...
...

HOW MUCH???

<At this point, I didn't quite know whether to crack up, or considering writing an e-mail to Zalman, stating that people who buy chassis for that sort of money are usually talking Servers, and spending a LOT more than "mere mortals" can afford.>

I'll be impressed if they sell more than a dozen (to some rich kids who want to show off). I certainly don't just have 700-800 (seeee - revised (!) prices

) quid lying around like that.

Not YET at any rate...

.

lm · Post by lm » Fri Apr 23, 2004 5:27 pm

Well, there are rolls royces, there are rolexes, etc... damn expensive but people buy them. Well, not all people, but anyway. So, probably those people might like this case also.

limee · Post by **limee** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 6:42 pm

eh, I think it's pretty cool, even with the high cost. I mean, how many times do you upgrade your case compared to your system? I still have an old mid tower case from 10 years back that's still in use, just pretend you upgraded your whole system and wait 2 years

I still don't see why there are so many complaints about the price in those hardware forums where there are ppl buying new video cards for like $400 all the while knowing it'll drop to $100 in like 6 months

However, with BTX supposedly rolling around this year, might want to consider plopping that much on a case whose standard is about to change soon.

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 2:01 am

I suspect that part of the answer to your question, limee, is conditioning / psychological in nature.

Over time, we (I suspect we all) have come to accept the sorry fact that a "high-end" graphics card costs ~400 USD (or whatever your local currency might be).

Most chassis tend to be somewhat rather under the 300 USD mark, I'd dare claim, with most hovering around/under 100 USD.

For Zalman to now come out with a chassis that costs 4x - 10x more than "the usual price", it's of course a bit of a shock to the system.

It's not so much the fact on its own that it's also that you can get an entire system for the price of the chassis, but also the LEAP in price

.

Think that might be at least PART of the reason for the relative shock to the community

.

(NOT that this is meant as encouragement for chassis-prices to be going up now...)

Post by **Rusty075** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:12 am

I don't really think that selling boatloads of these things was ever Zalman's goal. They're smart guys, they did the market research, they know what the pricepoints are. For Zalman, it serves two useful purposes, even if it doesn't sell:

1. Technology demonstration. You will see trickle-down from this thing into other products. The heatpipe CPU/GPU cooler and the new PSU form factor at least will see the light again in other products.

2. Advertising. Nearly every PC site has splashed a big picture of this case across their front page. And that's without Zalman even sending 99% of them a sample!

As for the price, it's really not that high. Do the math:
High quality aluminum case: $200-ish.
Fanless PSU: $150-250
CPU cooler, GPU cooler: $100-ish total, if you went with something like a 7000a and an 80C-HP, but even the best aircooling wouldn't match the fanless cooling of this case. A watercooled setup is probably a more accurate comparison. For something comparable you're probably talking in the $300 range.

So a high-end watercooled setup, in a quality case, with a fanless PSU could total $750. Now how much of a premium would you pay to get all of that in one box, from one source, with warranty support, and the knowledge that it will all work without tinkering?

Those of us here like to tinker, so we're probably less willing to fork out extra cash for an all-in-one system, but for some people, the appeal is there.

limee · Post by **limee** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:01 am

shathal: Point taken

One thing about this case, though, is that regardless, there will be some heat being generated, and so when it rises/leaves the case, cooler air from the outside will be drawn in. So, I'm guessing that it still doesn't prevent dust build up overtime will it? It would be minimal, but would, say, the nexus/bluefront case prevent that sort of build up?

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:35 am

I don't think even Blueftont's setup will remove ALL dust. If you think about the difficulties fab's such as Intel's/AMD's and that sort go through, to have "clean" air ...

... you'll realize that the best we can hope for is "cleanish" / noticably less gunk in the system. So, you'd reduce the burden of dust/gunk in your system, but you'd still GET it.

Short of working in a perfect vacuum, you're always going to get SOME kind of impurities.

Pate · Post by **Pate** » Tue May 11, 2004 8:34 pm

The friend of mine who ordered the Zalman TNN-500A from QuietPC got email stating that they are about to ship the case, expected delivery date is May 17th.

I managed to get myself invited to go visit my friend and help him install the case when he gets it (I'm very interested to see the case up close!).

I'm wondering if I should try taking some pictures about the install process and put them on the web...

Pate

boardsportsrule · Post by **boardsportsrule** » Wed May 12, 2004 8:12 am

YES!!! and post temps

luminous · Post by **luminous** » Wed May 12, 2004 12:29 pm

Ask your mate if you can post the pics (we don't want you to loose a friend in the quest for silence). Try and take as many pics as you can so that you have plenty to choose from when it comes to posting them

Taking temps would be a really big plus. If it really can keep a machine both quiet and cool I'm sure there will be a few of us mad enough to buy one