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Need advice on cases and cooling solutions

Boze

Boze

Senior member
Hello everyone! 🙂

I'm in the process of building a new PC and I've already ordered the following components:
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard
Kingston HyperX DDR400 memory (two 1GB kits, timings are: 2-3-2-6)
Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW Widescreen LCD monitor

Here's what's left to order:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor
BFG Tech GeForce 6800 GT OC 256 MB PCI-E video card (x2)
Western Digital 74 GB Raptor SATA hard drive
Hitachi 250 GB SATA hard drive 7200 rpm
Sony FDD (in case I choose to go RAID later on down the road with the Raptor drives)
NEC 3520A DVD+-R/RW drive
Power Supply (Right now considering Thermaltake's Silent PurePower 680W PS)

Here's what I'm not sure about:

Case - I was going to buy an Antec SuperLANBOY, but now I'm not so sure. I would love to hear case recommendations (under $125 please, and without PSes if possible)
CPU Fans - I was doing a little research and found an ARTIC COOLING Freezer 64 CPU Fan - that I was considering, but I don't know if it'll fit with 2 6800 cards installed into the motherboard?
Hard Disk Cooling - I'd really like to get some kind of cooling solutions for both hard disks because I'm just anal that way. 🙂

Sound is not a big consideration: I don't care if the PC is loud as hell, I really do not. All I care about is the best possible cooling solution that A) isn't water-based B) isn't passive.

I look forward to your feedback ladies & gentlemen, and thank you for your time. 🙂
 
You really should have some concern about sound, otherwise we will all reccomend the tornado fans that cool better than anything else... at the cost of your hearing after a week. 🙂

As for a case, look at any that comes with 120mm fans. Lian-Li, Antec, Thermaltake (naimly the tsunami) and Cooler Master all make good cases. With that price range, I would look elsewhere from Lian-Li as, in my opinion, their cases start to get really good in the $150+ range. The super-lanboy is a great case (love mine) but with SLI you might want to consider something bigger so you have room to move around. Others will have to help you here as my latest experience is limited to smaller cases.

CPU Fans/Coolers... well, I don't know much about the recent models of these because my Alpha PAL8045 still serves me well, but you might want to look at Zalman and Thermalright solutions, they seem to get the highest marks in reviews and user testimonies. There are 120mm versions that may or may not fit in your setup but I hear the 92mm versions work very well. If you want a good fan then look at Enermax, Panaflo, and Globe fans. For availability go with the Enermax or Panaflo (I reccomend the M1A version) though the Panaflos are kinda a crap shoot these days in terms of quaility.

Hard drive coolers... don't know anything about those. Just get a good case where the HDD's are mounted in front of a 120mm intake, that way they are cooled down with the normal intake fan instead of setting up seperate cooling.

BTW, it must be nice to just dump $2000+ on a new system like that, did you decide your current system finally needed to be sacked? 😉

-spike
 
No. You want an XP-120 with a 120mm high speed fan if you dont care about noise. However i would recommend a little quiet so a medium speed panaflo 120mm fan would do nicely.
That CPU cooler will not do crap.

DO NOT get the TT PSU. They are not for high end PC's they are for entry level only. With that system it deserves the best so here are the two choices i would look at:

1. PC Power and Cooling 510 Turbo- Louder than the OCZ but has better voltage management.

2. OCZ Powerstream 600 Watt (Or 520 if you want to save money) - Set world clock speed record, quiet, powerful. 600 Watt will have a bit more oomph than the PCP&C but the 520 will be a LITTLE behind.

One minor thing you have one helluva system there. Give it some decent RAM. Kingstons RAM cannot compete with OCZ and Corsair. Get some OCZ or Corsair and OC it. Kingston is also unstable in all my experiences with it.

-Kevin
 
Spike,

Thanks for all the valuable input, I'll check out the Lian-Li, Thermaltake, & Cooler Master cases. I've always been impressed with the looks of Lian-Li cases, and I didn't even know Cooler Master made cases; thanks for the new information. 🙂

As far as dumping $2000+ on a new system, my current main computer is a Sony VAIO PCG-GRT170 (laptop), which I upgraded in RAM to 768 MB, and purchased a SB Extigy for. It has been quite a good computer, as far as laptops go, even after two seperate trips to the factory, one for failed hard disk, the other for failed motherboard, however, Sony was quite responsive about getting the machine fixed and shipped back in a timely manner, plus it gave me time to catch up on some Xbox and GC games. 🙂 One of the advantages of being in the Navy is that my room & board don't actually come out of my salary, and I have pre-set amounts taken directly out and put into investment funds, so I don't actually 'miss' that money (or have to force myself to save it, since that comes out with an allotment as well). I also don't mind flat out saying my salary since anyone with Internet access and a browser can go to Defense Finance & Accounting Service and immediately tabulate the exact dollar amount I earn to the cent, but let me say that having $1600 a month, every month, with only a cell phone & internet access bill means when its time to build a new PC, you can really go all out. 🙂

Not bragging, just saying that life in the military is a lot nicer than it used to be, say, 20 years ago. Plus since our submarine is going into drydock, we get commuter rations, which is an extra $254 a month... time to survive on PB&J sandwiches so I can justify another Raptor 74GB and another 250 GB Hitachi next month for more storage! 🙂
 
Kevin,

Thanks for the input about the Kingston RAM - I might try to trade it later on the Trade forums, but for now its going to have to do. I got quite a deal on it at $169.00 each 1GB kit because of the 43% off coupon bundled with the EQ2 collector's edition. Which I hate... so glad I bought World of Warcraft instead. I couldn't pass up RAM that inexpensive, but I will take heed of your warnings and look into OCZ and Corsair memories for future upgrades, also, thanks for recommending a power supply.
 
Kevin is correct that TT PSU's are not for the highest end systems, but they are much better than the generic entry level crap that come with alot of cases. My TT 480 watt is super-stable (now, after I installed my 6800 GT... strange...) and does a good job cooling. OCZ and PCP&C are great PSU's but, IMO, not worth the money unless you are, well, trying to beat the world speed record 🙂 I would look into the 500+ watt Antecs and Enermax's, they are usually a little cheaper than the OCZ's and have very good performance.

I am not sure about the high end rams with a A64, I keep hearing mixed messages on whether agressive timings actually do anything for a A64 setup. As far as I know, the only benefit you may get from the pricier ram is better FSB overclocking, though my Giel value ram OC's very well and it was freaking cheap. I actually tried a gig of corsair XMS but after playing some games and benchmarks I returned it and went back to my cheapo Giel because I saw only minimal increases in performance (a few fps, no actual noticable difference) and it did not OC any better.

-spike
 
I should probably mention two things:

1. I have absolutely positively no desire or intention to overclock anything in this system (minus the factory overclocked BFG video cards).

2. I intend to use Windows XP Home Edition w/ SP2 (let the stoning begin 🙂) Should I consider using Windows XP Professional Edition instead? I really don't see much more benefit going from Home to Pro with a gaming system, but I am open to counterpoints.
 
Boze, man I remember those days! I was in the Air Force over in Germany/Texas and can remember always having $$ to spend on cool stuff... being overseas helped a ton (COLA). The "real world" kinda sucks 😉

Good luck with your system... that thing is going to kick a$$.

<-- jealous.
 
NEVER get XP home, pony up the extra $50 and get XP Pro... The main benefit of going with Pro is you get more control over aspects of the OS that home won't let you into. Plus, networking is improved, as is stability (from every system I've touched with home on it compared to others with Pro on it). I won't build a system with XP home, I'll use XP Pro or win2k on it before home.
 
So I looked at about fourty different cases, and I decided to go with the Cooler Master CM Stacker case. I don't like the way the Thermaltake cases look... too... I dunno, outlandish, I guess is the best word. At any rate, I like all the features of this case, and I think its the best investment. I did decide to take Kevin's advice to heart about power supplies, and am going with the OCZ Powerstream 600. The best part is, I can buy another OCZ Powerstream 600 in the future and mount it in the bottom of the CM Stacker so only one PS had to power each video card in the future.

Thanks for all the good advice folks.
 
Nice choice on the Stacker - I was just about to recommend it. It should be great for keeping those 6800 GTs nice and cool. But seriously, 2 600W PSUs is just plain rediculous. Just one will be more than enough to handle anything you throw at it. And I mean anything - I reckon you could even run a 200W Peltier off that and still have wattage to spare.
 
Buy a fortron 300w and hook your fans up to it that way you can run them when the pc shuts off to continue cooling 🙂 Or if you're gonna use cathodes you can hook them up and keep them on all the time for nightlight purposes 😵
 
Originally posted by: Boze
So I looked at about fourty different cases, and I decided to go with the Cooler Master CM Stacker case. I don't like the way the Thermaltake cases look... too... I dunno, outlandish, I guess is the best word. At any rate, I like all the features of this case, and I think its the best investment. I did decide to take Kevin's advice to heart about power supplies, and am going with the OCZ Powerstream 600. The best part is, I can buy another OCZ Powerstream 600 in the future and mount it in the bottom of the CM Stacker so only one PS had to power each video card in the future.

Thanks for all the good advice folks.
Click to expand...

The Stacker is a nice case. I agree that most of the Thermaltake cases are too gawdy, the only one I like the looks of is the Tsunami.
 
good choice on case. you really only need one 600w powersupply. the ram timings aren't the reason he suggested better ram but that regardless of setting better ram will overclock higher. yes i know your not overclocking it now but if you hang out here long enough you will try it, trust me. It;s like hanging out with a hundred crack addicts, eventually you will try it. HDD cooling is un-necessary with that case so just go ahead and scratch that off the list. CPU cooling, if your not overclockin you don't really need the xp-120 but it certainly won't hurty anything either, plus you can run a 120mm fan at a lower speed than a 92 and get the same performance. I'd say your off to a good start. personally i am waiting for the DFI sli to come out but that is becaseu i overclock and am a genuine DFi fanboy anymore.
 
Great minds, TheGeek, great minds... 🙂

Unfortunately I've run into a snag in the building of my ultimate PC. Newegg completely FUBAR'ed my shipping address - for some reason they selected APO on the shipping of all my components, so now I hafta reorder and then call them to ensure they're going to be shipping to the right address. Meanwhile, my checking account is still out over $1500 as my account hasn't been credited the amount back. The lady on the phone suggested I just reorder everything, but I told her she was crazy if she thought I was going to shell another $1500 for a total of $3000. Once my bank gets the funds back from Newegg and my account is credited, then I might do business with them again; on the bright side she said she could take off $25 from my shipping fees. $25 whole dollars... Needless to say I am less than impressed with Newegg right now. :disgust:
 
They do refund very quickly but your bank won't process it till monday at the soonest. As for the $25 off shiping, newegg has pretty low shipping costs so that is probably half of the shipping, if your gonna do fedex saver.

Oh, and if you call them again while your re-ordering i wouldn't be surprised if you could ask them to bump up your shipping to 2 day, they've done it for me before. Then again i am usually ordering about $4k worth of stuff at a time.
 
Well everything got sorted out right proper with Newegg and my order has been placed and should ship sometime late this week to Hawaii. With luck it'll be here by Tuesday of next week. Here's what I decided on as final components of the system, and by the way, I did decide to go RAID 0 with the two Western Digital Raptors, so I'm gonna probably need a little information on what I should set the striping size to and all that good stuff that I'm sure you true tech gurus know all about. Here's that detailed parts list, so you can all tell me how much I screwed up on parts choices (by the way, I haven't bought a video card yet, mainly because the BFG cards I want aren't in stock anywhere, or if they are, they are ridiculous prices like $600+):

CoolerMaster CM Stacker Case
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor
Western Digital Raptor 74 GB OEM x2 (RAID 0)
Sony 3.5" FDD Black<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=35-126-003&amp;depa=0">
OCZ Ultra 5+ Silver Thermal Compound</a>
OCZ Powerstream 600
Vantec "HDC-502A" Aluminum Hard Disk Drive Cooler
NEC 16X Double Layer DVD±RW Drive, Black w/ Software
Microsoft Windows XP Professional With Service Pack 2 -OEM
CoolerMaster Blue 120mm Neon LED Fan x2
Cooler Master Purple 80mm Neon LED Fan
 
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