It's up and running! Thanks everyone

[TheNewGuy8]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that gave me advice and pointed me in this or that direction along the way. The computer is up and running and *crosses fingers* hopefully won't give me any surprises in the near future.

For those curious:

Asus A8n32-SLI Deluxe
Opty 165
2gb OCZ HP DDR500
HIS X1900XT
Enermax Liberty 500w
Antec P180
NEC 3550A


First impressions - at the advice of others I left all fans and heatsinks stock just to see how things go before I wasted money. I think this was a great idea - the system is really dead quiet. YES, even the X1900XT is almost silent on its lowest mode. I haven't had a chance to game alot yet, but I played Quake4 for about 30 minutes and I think it MAY have stepped up the 2nd level of fan speed, but I barely noticed since I had my speakers on.

I'm sure the P180 is helping this alot - this case rocks and is super silent. Cable management is a bitch, I still need to work that out, but overall it is very clean and slick.

This weekend I'll work on OCing the Opty. I'm a tad worried aobut temps - after being on and idle overnight I'm getting CPU temps around 40 degrees C. I've heard that the A8n32-SLI measures things a bit hot, so it may be OK, but I never like seeing that. We'll see what happens when I stress test some stuff.

So thanks everyone - you were all very helpful!

 

[CraKaJaX]

If you want some ideas for cable management you can search this forum. I know for sure my P180 cable management job is on here, Dynamix3D, Xarius, and some others.

 

[TheNewGuy8]

I'll definitely look into it. I'm not terribly worried about it at this point - as I at least got the cables out of the main airflow paths. However, I plan on modding the side to have a window (I'm planning it now, and I think I'll do 2 pains of plexi with a layer of air in between so i dont bust the noise dampening, plus sealant around all edges) at some point in the future. So at that point I'll make it pretty.