Recent content by Chubbbs

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    In need of new speakers

    I'm confident you will be more than pleased with the Klipsch 2.1s. They're the best PC speakers for listening to regular stereo music. You might want a set of 5.1s if you game or watch movies. In this case, the Klipsch 5.1s are the best if you can afford them. If not, Logitech's THX...
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    What will replace 975X and how soon?

    Title pretty much sums it up. The 975X chipset is getting long in the tooth. Is the P965 the way forward for high-end 775 boards, or is there a new chipset coming down the pipe? I haven't seen any AT articles about this.
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    Silent PC?

    Those passive heatpipe cases (by Zalman) are ridiculous. With a little care, you can build an actively cooled system that falls below the ~22dBA@1m ambient levels in even the most quiet residential environments--without sacrificing performance. Here's how: Antec P180 - the gold standard in...
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    HDD enclosure for several disks?

    Bingo!! I found what I'm looking for, and it was on Newegg the whole time (under the server category). Norco DS-500e. 5 hot-swappable SATAIIs with an eSATA interface via an included PCI-e 1x card and cooled by a 92mm fan. Implements RAID 0/1/0+1/5 and JBOD in hardware or lets you handle...
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    HDD enclosure for several disks?

    Is this internal or external? I was previously considering putting all the disks (6 including the system disks) in the case (probably a Silverstone GD01), but I'm worried about cooling them. I would like to keep at least the data disks outside the case in their own box, hopefully with a 120mm...
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    HDD enclosure for several disks?

    4x 500GB disks running software RAID on Linux (MD driver via the EVMS storage management framework). I'll first try RAID-5, do some benchmarking, and if I don't like the performance, redo as RAID-10 (stripes over mirrors). So 1-1.5TB with at least single-disk redundancy (sometimes double with...
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    First HTPC Build

    I agree that you should try to stay away from the Pentium D. I get the feeling you're going to be disappointed at this price point for a media PC. Especially if you plan on moving to Vista in the next year or so, it's gunna get marginal before you're ready to upgrade. You should consider that...
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    HDD enclosure for several disks?

    I'm looking for an external HDD enclosure for my HTPC. I'd like to put 4 or more SATA disks in a single enclosure, preferably connecting via eSATA. I looked on Newegg and only found one enclosure that holds 4 disks, and it's for IDE disks only. There's got to be larger enclosures on the...
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    HTPC for digital cable: set-top boxes, captures, and encoders

    I'm building an HTPC for use with digital cable (time warner). As far as I can tell, all of those TV tuner cards (i.e. Haupauge) are pointless. I can only tune and decode channels using a set-top box with the CableCard (right?), so all I need is a capture device and an MPEG-2 encoder for...
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    Motherboards, pros and cons: 975 vs 965 vs 680?

    I'm in a similar position, non-gamer looking for rock-solid LGA-775 board, distressed by the horrible quality these days. My plans call for 6 SATA hard disks plus a SATA optical drive (it's a MythTV and pro audio box). 975X only offers 4 SATAs, and 650/680i looks disastrously unstable, so P965...
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    newfangled power connectors

    With my pants hiked-up nearly to my neck, I say to you that my last build was an Athlon T-bird, and it was the sweet hotness at the time. There was one power plug on the motherboard for the ATX 20-pin, and life was simple, minus the uphills both ways in the snow part... Fast forward to...
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    DFI Lanparty and Thermaltake issue

    Really? I was just over newegg searching for a PSU and it came down to Thermaltake Toughpower or OCZ GameXStream... They're about the same price for most wattages, do the OCZ PSUs seem more reliable? I trust the folk here at AT more than the idiotic comments at newegg...
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    quality mb for massive I/O: HTPC and multi-track recording

    I'm spec-ing a new build, which is a weird feeling considering my last build was an Athlon T-bird rig. Things have changed a bit... This will be a monster. HTPC, pro audio multi-track recording, and software development, running on Linux of course. I will have two or three 1920x1200 LCDs...
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    Dell 2005FPW & 2405FPW vs. 1905FP & 2001FP

    Oh, and where should I look for these widely reported deep discounts that Dell often runs on their displays? Thanks... I finally have a reason to be back in the good ole AT forums.
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    Dell 2005FPW & 2405FPW vs. 1905FP & 2001FP

    OK, so this might be akin to heresy in these forums, but I don't game. At all. I'm a developer looking for a large LCD with high resolution (1600x1200 or higher) and reasonable image quality (brightness consistency across the display would be my primary concern) in the <$600 price range...