recommend a mini-itx case?

[yetidaddy]

Wow, two of your friend's gpu died because of poor air circulation? That makes me a little worried, do you think the evercase-E0528-Z4S have decent vent? I guess that's why they don't mix lcd mount to small cases with pcie. The 4650 died in the case so I'm hesitating whether I should get the 5450, or 5570 to put in mine.

 

[cbn]

Ok, so is this an inherent trait of CULV's, that they have to be soldered into motherboards, or is that just how Intel is doing it right now? I realize the how well full-on Lynnfield and Clarkdale cpu's do at low power/idle situations, however if that was the entire story, they wouldn't be releasing ULV cpu's for said architecture, which they are. In other words, yes, we can get lower. And the lower power draw we can get, the more intriguing the current mini-ITX cases become with smaller and/or external power supplies.

I noticed in an earlier post you mentioned "quiet" as a reason for wanting CULV.

Does an ITX case exist that allows someone to forgo an internal 5.25" drive in order to mount a larger tower style cooler?

This should allow a person to use a regular desktop CPU plus IGP while maintaining low noise levels. The trade-off, of course, would be the need for an external DVD drive when a disc needs to be loaded.

 

[cbn]

Two friends of mine use the Apex cases for their LAN rigs and I think both of them had graphics cards die in them - one for sure because it just happened this week, a single slot Radeon 4650.

I just looked up the specifications of these Apex cases on Newegg and noticed they don't have provisions for a case fan of any kind.

I guess those single slot cards (even if the 320 stream processors are down clocked to 600 Mhz) need good airflow.

 

[Zap]

How does Micro ATX compare to Mini-ITX as far as overclocking goes?

Mini ITX is still behind in overclockability, and part of that is the lack of space for more power circuitry to be able to feed an overclocked CPU.

Micro ATX is probably close to ATX. There's nothing super extreme, but there are micro ATX boards with most of the BIOS options and people have been known to hit good clock speeds with micro ATX. Heck, in the early days of socket AM2 I had purchased an Abit NF-M2 nView micro ATX motherboard (GeForce6150 chipset) that had awesome overclocking. It had a BIOS limit of 400MHz HTT and was known to be able to hit that. I personally was able to benchmark at around 370MHz HTT on a Sempron with locked multiplier. This was back when people thought hitting near 300MHz HTT was fantastic. These days we have overclockable P55 and X58 chipset micro ATX motherboards that can give great results.

How about 4.3GHz overclock on a micro ATX socket 1156 Core i7?

How about 4.6GHz overclocks on two micro ATX socket 1366 boards?

That makes me a little worried, do you think the evercase-E0528-Z4S have decent vent?

I am not familiar with that case and I wasn't able to find good pictures online, so I'm unable to comment.

I noticed in an earlier post you mentioned "quiet" as a reason for wanting CULV.

Does an ITX case exist that allows someone to forgo an internal 5.25" drive in order to mount a larger tower style cooler?

This should allow a person to use a regular desktop CPU plus IGP while maintaining low noise levels. The trade-off, of course, would be the need for an external DVD drive when a disc needs to be loaded.

For a low noise non-gaming machine, you don't need a huge heatsink. You do have to make a change in your beliefs, and that is to believe that it is okay for the CPU to run at higher temperatures, especially if it isn't overclocked. I see threads like this quite often, where people are expecting unrealistically low temperatures.

Seriously. Leave power management running. Enable "Smart Fan" and set it to Quiet mode if given the option. Even the stock Intel cooler will be reasonably quiet. CPU running 85°C under load? That's fine. Most people don't run Prime95 or OCCT as productivity software. Idling at 60°C? That's fine. If the CPU gets borderline on temperatures, it will throttle and thus save itself.

I just looked up the specifications of these Apex cases on Newegg and noticed they don't have provisions for a case fan of any kind.

Nope. No case fan and the graphics card side (at least on the ones that I own) don't have any vents, so a graphics card would have sheet metal almost against the fan.

 

[cbn]

For a low noise non-gaming machine, you don't need a huge heatsink. You do have to make a change in your beliefs, and that is to believe that it is okay for the CPU to run at higher temperatures, especially if it isn't overclocked. I see threads like this quite often, where people are expecting unrealistically low temperatures.

Seriously. Leave power management running. Enable "Smart Fan" and set it to Quiet mode if given the option. Even the stock Intel cooler will be reasonably quiet. CPU running 85°C under load? That's fine. Most people don't run Prime95 or OCCT as productivity software. Idling at 60°C? That's fine. If the CPU gets borderline on temperatures, it will throttle and thus save itself.

4 Ghz AMD 1090T hexcore running 35C to 40C at "normal load" with the stock HSF sounds pretty amazing to me. I guess AMD EO silicon is that good now.

In contrast, my stock speed 65nm Core 2 duo idles at 44C with the stock heatsink fan running ~1400 rpm.

P.S. I just enabled "Intel QST" in my bios, but it looks like the idle fan speed and idle temps are still unchanged. Right now I am using a HD4350 so I would think the reduction in CPU fan speed you are talking about would be noticeable if I can only get the settings right. Thanks for the ideas. I will try and play with this more.

 

[cbn]

I was going to pick an inexpensive case but most of the brands I never heard of them.
This one seem to be a good brand. I'm stuck between these two brands.

IN WIN BP655
http://www.in-win.us/products_pccase_series.php?cat_id=1&series_id=47

Apex
http://www.apextechusa.com/products.asp?pID=115

Rosewill don't cost a lot but i don't like shuttle form type cases.
The main requirement are, it has to have low bracket pci-express, regular size dvd and enough power.

I plan to throw a T2600 cpu, the laptop one, my mb support it
4gb of ram
120gb 2.5 HDD
5450 ati video. I was wondering if 150w will be enough.

If you know other cases in the 30-80 range let me know thanks.

http://www.logicsupply.com/

You also might want to take a look here. If you look in the upper right hand corner you will see tools "mainboard matrix" and "case matrix" under "knowledge base". Clicking on options will let you compare different cases as well as check mainboard compatibility.

 

[cbn]

Nope. No case fan and the graphics card side (at least on the ones that I own) don't have any vents, so a graphics card would have sheet metal almost against the fan.

http://www.logicsupply.com/blog/2010/04/15/not-your-typical-mini-itx-rackmount/

What about something like this, but instead with a PCI-E riser card mounting a double slot video card.

Could an intake vent for the video card be added to the case? Maybe a moveable duct similiar to the one shown @ 0:52 into this video.What would be the best location for mounting? Behind the LCD monitor using VESA or vertical on the desk for unobstructed airflow to the video card intake fan?

Zap, also notice what is said under "Make it your own" (at the bottom of the page). Apparently Logic supply can provide manufacturing for a case designer and the product can be sold "rebranded".

 

[poofyhairguy]

If you are going to go the riser card route, I have this case for my HTPC and it rocks:

http://www.e-itx.com/g-alantic-ga620ibk-a-120w.html