So I had my girlfriend pick out a case

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: jaqie
No kidding. That enlight server case I mentioned earlier was so heavy I could barely even pick it up (mostly that was from the 10 SCSI drives and the case itself). I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't have come with caster wheels on it.
My old workstation showing the case

lol someone was a FF7 fan, i see a wallpaper of ares on your old setup. <grin>


Ack jaqie your starting to sound like ruby. In fact, ruby thats not your sister by any chance is it? LOL...


notice how all the guys are probably going what the??? and staying quiet.

 

[jaqie]

Unless there's something my parents never told me, my only sister knows jack about computers and runs an early childhood development business in Illinois, so no, that couldn't be her there.

Actually, although it's hidden, the picture also shows Tifa, and is available with a bit of searching all over the net (or was years ago). And yes, I am an FF7 fan, still play FF7 for PC once in a while, but not much anymore.

And back onto the cases: The only real reasons I don't have SFF computers exclusively are that 1) it's more expensive to get gamer parts into an SFF and 2) to cool them properly without getting a loud fan is next to impossible. The ultra wizard I got specifically for creating a quiet yet high bang for the buck PC. It has a pcp&c silencer 360, a scythe S-FLEX SFDB 1500RPM 120MM fan, and a 7volted OEM CPUfan (which is actually enough to cool the x2 3800+ just fine). Here is an outdated pic of the airflow in the case (outdated because I no longer use that mobo or video card and now have more HDDs in it). The airflow arrows are my rough interpretation of a smoke test I did on it (I used to live with a DJ, and used a smoke machine to see how the airflow worked in it). As you can see, I have totally minimized the number and noise of the included fans, and bought this case specifically for it's airflow characteristics, although I like it's looks too. And before you say it, no this is not an antec case, I hate antec cases because of the caddy system they use. IMO caddies are flimsy, floppy, nasty little pieces of junk that have no business holding $50 worth of electronics much less hundreds of dollars worth of very sensetive electronics.

 

[Rubycon]

LOL another smoke tester!

We have tons of fog gennies onboard and they do come in handy. Now if I could just make that fog uv reactive so it would respond nicely to my blue ray burner laser...

I was the only child - lost both parents in early childhood.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
*Whistles*

Yes it is.. I took that pic just for you aigomorla. There's going to be more stuff done to it, hopefully this weekend.

Why would you put a miniITX inside a mid tower ? Oh wait...that's a microATX inside a monstrous full tower. Again - why?

I needed a mobo to access the hard drives in the case. That mobo is temporary until after we move, but it works for now. It's only temporarily there, but I had to take a pic.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: jaqie
And yes, I am an FF7 fan, still play FF7 for PC once in a while, but not much anymore.

okey this i need to know how. Expecially when it crashes til no tomorrow on DX9.

And it wont even load on vista. I still have that box sitting in storage.

Ah wait nevermind you emulate.

Dayam i miss that game.



And ive had a passive system b4. Ran on a Aopen X975 with a Yonah and a passive 7900GT, with the craptastic antec phanthom i think i butchered that spelling.

Was a great htpc box until i wanted to play games on it. Now after i finish my main's build, im starting her little sister.

Wolfdale, most likely a E7300 (im an overclocking junkie) 780i + 8800GT SLI. should be enough to game on a HDTV.

 

[Jax Omen]

How sad that FFVII emulated runs better on a PC than the PC version does.

If you wanna play it on PC that badly, aigo, why not set up a VM with win98 and run it on that? Wouldn't that work?

 

[jaqie]

NO!
http://www.ff7-universe.com/Download.html
get the patch to make it run native on xp (and IIRC, vista).
Just when you install install it to a non-windows directory (c:\games\whatever) which vista doesn't "protect", and even if that fails, just install it to an older system and then copy it to the new one to run. You would be amazed at how many games run like that, and how many more if you just find and extract their registry entry (usually just the cd key) and make a .reg file to click on after copying the files to another box.

I used to be OC crazy as well even back to the 8088 days (had mine running at 12Mhz), but nowadays I don't OC anything but my vidcard which came OC'd from BFG (BFG 7900GS/OCE 256MB PCIe)

 

[v8envy]

Imagine a 10 disk SCSI raid array of http://www.sun3zoo.de/en/specs.html these babies. Fujitsu Eagles, for those of you too lazy to click.

Luckily I've never seen more than two in a full rack, ever. And watching the replacement or install of one of those was an event I always looked forward to with extreme glee. Nothing like standing around watching a 140 pound tech wrestling with a 150 pound hard drive.

BTW, my wife (girlfriend at the time) had no problems maintaining water cooled equipment. One time I was busy at work upstairs and she got bored of waiting for me to come join her for wrenching on our Bronco. She replaced the heater core all by herself! She let me do all the 'fun' work like replacing the water pump (3 hours scraping 6+ layers of 20 year old gasket ftw) and half the fuel system though. X(

 

[jaqie]

That's not a SCSI drive, silly
Ive seen one of these being used as a doorstop in a used computer parts store. Pure insanity.

As for watercooling, I built my own waterblock once, but it just isn't financially sensible on the hardware I have to get WC, or I would run all swiftech parts.

 

[aigomorla]

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.c...ID=80000476-1193855169

This is thanks to ruby.

Imagine this and LOOK! its on sale!

Dang i should pick one up its only $199,500.00

 

[Jax Omen]

WTF $200k just for 2TB SSD array? why would anyone spend that kind of money on that? It'd be cheaper to run a ridiculous array of "traditional" HDDs where the same data is being copied across like 6 arrays of HDD for data security!

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: Jax Omen
WTF $200k just for 2TB SSD array? why would anyone spend that kind of money on that? It'd be cheaper to run a ridiculous array of "traditional" HDDs where the same data is being copied across like 6 arrays of HDD for data security!

Hare meet tortoise.

Of course unlike the fable mister speedy gives mister tortoise a major smackdown.

 

[Jax Omen]

Ok, then, Ms. Highly Technical... what?

Are SSDs that much faster than traditional HDDs?

I thought SSDs were gaining in popularity because they are harder to break

 

[Rubycon]

SSD's have lots of other advantages other than sheer speed. They can withstand shock that will render a mechanical drive useless in an instant. They also feature the ability to operate at extremely high altitudes including running in outer space. Traditional hard drives are not reliable above 10,000 feet due to lack of sufficient air pressure to maintain head flying distance.

Of course most people that are spending this kind of money on their computers are not beating them around but then again you never know.

 

[jaqie]

IIRC they are also more tolerant of high temperatures because they don't generate much heat (well that one would with all that cache... or is that cache SRAM? if it is, wow...)

 

[Rubycon]

The cache is DRAM. SSD's will give off heat but nothing like a 15k spindle does. Unlike the former they can operate at much higher temps too and can even be potted for severe conditions like operating underwater if needed.

 

[AmberClad]

So, my current short list for a replacement case:

CM Elite 340
Silverstone TJ08

Same frame in both cases, just different outer shells. I still really like the Antec Mini P180, especially the build quality and the internal design, but at that size, I might as well just get a small mid tower (which isn't totally out of question...). Aigo - you'll appreciate the fact that both of those little cases can mount two 120mm rads internally (as in two separate ones, not one 2x120mm rad - one goes in front, and one in the back).

The cube-style SFFs might not be cutting it for me for much longer - it's getting harder and harder to fit large video cards in them, especially the ones with big aftermarket coolers with heatpipes protruding from the top, or ones with the Accelero S2.

 

[jaqie]

If I went SFF with high end video, you can bet it would be inline style watercool, because in my experience any gamer SFF is inherently extremely loud to be cooled properly (and IMO properly for ANY cooling method means never, ever getting over 70c on any core be it video, cpu, chipset, et al).
I have an in-win slim microATX case (linked to above) and since I set it to PVR duties (M780 and GBPVR with xvid auto recompress) I had to put in a high CFM 80MM panaflo to keep it from auto powering down when 70C core is reached. I really wish I could afford to water cool it or perhaps put it into another (ATX midtower) ultra wizard case and beef it up into a combo PVR and fileserver.

As for those cube style SFFs, I always hated how they looked - except the ones based off of the shuttle XPC style cases, such as the morex venus...but those aren't even uATX, they are mini ITX, and as for PVR duties and such, that's another whole ball of wax performance and cooling-wise then uATX stuffers.

I actually do like the silverstone cases (the ones I have seen, which are basically desktop style midtower size full atx PVR cases) but they are a little rich for my blood.

To be honest, I am actually considering dumping the whole ball of wax, selling off every computer part I have, and getting that new alienware 15" laptop, but I seriously doubt all my comps will sell for enough to get the one with the parts I want in it. The new 15" alienware is very impressive for price, performance, and for once actual decent looks.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Are the girlz talking about hard drive based e-peen?

My RAID can kill your RAID; oh wait, this isn't World of Warcrack......

I gotta say though, 12drive SAS for my home server does sound quite nice after sneeking a peek inside rubys rig.

 

[aigomorla]

watercooling = bad...

Watercooling makes you too comfortable with its performance, so you cant stand air.

And also since your spoiled, you cant settle for base water, so you need at least medium tier. No compromise expecially the second time around and you realize the larger radiator is only 15-20 dollars more. :X

And *sigh* you soon notice you have a very big hole in your bank account. :T



Ewwww i dont think this avatar suits me.

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Ewwww i dont think this avatar suits me.

It really confused me for a second. I saw that you were the last post then saw this avatar and actually said WTF aloud.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Needs more asian dude

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Needs more asian dude

booooooo! Dragon FTW!

And unless your primary OS is a good distro, pengy FTL.

I kinda miss my gateway laptop with arch, I'll have to dig it out of storage.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12

Originally posted by: BlueAcolyte
Needs more asian dude

booooooo! Dragon FTW!

And unless your primary OS is a good distro, pengy FTL.

I kinda miss my gateway laptop with arch, I'll have to dig it out of storage.

Sounding like a dragon attack here. :laugh:

 

[Jax Omen]

I'm at work and can't listen to music, but I'm hoping that's a link to the Queen song.