Touché on the distros. Don't use Windows? Are you talking about regular Windows or Windows Server 200x too? Are the Server 200x versions (mainly 2003) really that bad? Because I've heard lots of good stuff about many commercial seedboxes using Windows Server 2003 (and most hardware should have work...

I guess I was really trying to ascertain what drawbacks having a needlessly overpowered psu would bring. If you have a modest system and receive a coupon for a free psu of your choice, would you automatically choose the most recognized brand of 1,000 or 1300watt of unit - as long as its quiet and i...

Were there any display (DVI/HDMI) problems with the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H? Or are these problems isolated to the ASUS boards? Would you recommend ASUS or Gigabyte for a HD HTPC at this point? I suppose you wouldn't recommend ASUS due to the HDMI issues, correct?

Good, then the 2.5" will be perfect for silencers who don't want to void their warranties. Thanks for the input, Mike! In other words you're also saying that it shouldn't be necessary to enclose the VelociRaptor in a Scythe "Quiet Drive" as long as it's suspended and mechanically decoupled from the ...

Does anyone know if the 2.5" version of the VelociRaptor (sold without the IcePAK frame) is as quiet as the 3.5" version of the VelociRaptor with the IcePAK removed? I know they're all 2.5" drives. It's just that sometimes they use different firmwares and minor details can differ between SKUs. These...

Do you need 8 channel LPCM and/or bitstreaming? If you do, you can forget about 780G. Then you're "limited" to G45, 790GX and 8x00. And if I have understood things correctly, far from every board featuring these chipsets will ever support this. I think it requires PAP ( protected audio path ). Lots ...

I was wondering, with all this SLC vs MLC debate, what's the estimated read endurance of the drives? Essentially unlimited or?

(I'm certain most of our drives read considerably more than write.)

I still don't get it? You originally wanted the TX650. Now you realize it's out of stock and instead you can either get the VX550 or TX750 and they're the same price. Why wouldn't you get the upgraded version of the PSU you were going for anyway? I don't see any catch here. Isn't it obvious to go fo...

I buy most of my stuff from Komplett. They do charge three times as much for the Zalman 850 as the Corsair 550. Five years would be nice, sure. But unless the Corsair 1kW has the terrific noise levels of the Zalman 850W (and I really doubt it does), it doesn't really improve the situation. All the s...

If it can't deliver enough seek performance then it's not much to do quite frankly. Thus my question, what would be better F1 or GP? With a decent amount of cache (RAM dedicated to the BitTorrent client) the number of seeks should be kept down. While the actual fiber most likely will only display re...

If you were going for the TX650 anyway, why would you now consider the VX550?

I would definitely go E8400. Better value, lower power consumption (lower noise!), more cache (6MB per dual-core instead of 3MB per dual-core) and higher clock speeds. I'm personally going to wait till 32nm before going quad-core. As always, if you don't already know whether you're going to need a q...

Let's take the Zalman ZM850-HP 850W PSU. It's supposed to be very quiet at even 400w loads, but it costs maybe three times as much as your ordinary SPCR PSU (Enermax Pro/Modu82+, Seasonic and Corsair). [ Link to Zalman ZM850-HP ] This PSU (like most contemporary PSUs) is ATX12V v2.2 compliant. And i...

I read in here that ASUS P5Q (Pro) are a nightmare as far as quality goes, while the P5Q-E is much better. This worries me and makes me wonder whether the P43 version of P5Q-E called P5QL-E is a nightmare too? Simply looking at the board it obviously has worse cooling (and annoying placement of the ...

Will blocking air flow is always a bad thing (as it allows for heat to build up), there shouldn't be any components or heatsink surfaces on the back of the motherboard. Thus there should be no need for active airflow on the back.

What about the WD6400AACS "GP" then? Shouldn't it be even quieter? (Not that I've found it in stock.) And sorry for thread hijacking, but do you think I'd regret saving a few bucks and getting a 640GB WD Caviar or a 1TB Samsung F1 instead of the 300GB VelociRaptor? I think I'm going to buy a Scythe ...

(cut to conserve space) That was a very interesting read, thank you. I think I will avoid RAID-5 and the problems inherent in the technology then. And no, most of my data is not sensitive (my music collection - both lossy MP3 and lossless FLAC/APE - is really the only stuff that's difficult and ver...

Well, when I say Intel Atom I mean that you usually buy the Atom+mobo combo in the same box. And those combos (at least those my local distributors carry) lack RAID-5 (not to mention the four SATA slots). That's what I meant (ie I refer to Intel Atom as a platform rather than the mere CPU). Excuse t...

Well, for me saving a few bucks isn't worth taking any chances in regards to quality, so thanks to you Nick, I won't consider anything from ASUS below P45 P5Q-E. Would you happen to know if any Gigabyte boards should be avoided for the same reasons? As for MSI, the article you [vick1000] link to des...

Thank you both, you have answered my question.

I want to put together a low-power file server that will act as a BitTorrent seedbox (on a 100/100 Mbps connection) as well as NAS (Network Attached Storage) for streaming up to Blu-Ray (40 Mbps) content to my main PC. RAID-5 capability is a must. It will be put it in my closet. I guess the prioriti...

Thank you for your input everyone. I see, I have a reliability issue in that I like to share my storage and that may wear out the physical drives? Maybe I should put together my own little dedicated file server with RAID-5 or something? Using it as a combined seedbox (for sharing my "Linux distros")...

AMD Athlon X2 4450B vs 4450E?

My distributor has the 4450B 5% more expensive. But I can't seem to figure out what the actual difference is between the 4450B and 4450E? (Both appear to be AM2 CPUs rated at 45W.)

I'm about to move to a new apartment with 100 Mbit full-duplex fiber (hurrah! :D). And I like using BitTorrent to, uhm, share Linux distributions (and occasionally download new ones too). Which may mean that I will be using the full capacity of this fiber quite often while at the same time doing eve...

It appears the E8600 draws slightly less than the E8500 while being clocked almost 200 Mhz higher. It overclocks much better though. Still I don't think 9 W is enough to warrant the much higher price. http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9894/e8500vse8600va5.png Overclocked is at 4275 Mhz. I think an ...

In my experience, X-bit labs usually measure the actual power draw of the card, while other sites usually measure the power draw of the entire rig. With a better graphics card your entire system will be pushed further giving the impression that the better graphics card draws more than it actually do...

So anyone's got hands-on experience with the HD 4870 + S1 combo? Does it work well? What fans do you have at what speeds to make it work in what case? Btw of course it copes, the 4870 + S1 combo is officially supported by Arctic Cooling. http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=147 I can't see how...

sorry for digging up an old thread, but this story might be what you're looking for: http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=552 Something like that. But with more relevant cards (there were only two cards in that one out of which only the 9600GT is interesting). I've sorta decided to go t...

Here's one example: The Tech Report - Five flavors of Intel's P35 Express compared Actually, these graphs have it worse still. ASUS is 30-40W worse than the competition. http://techreport.com/r.x/p35-mobos/power-idle.gif http://techreport.com/r.x/p35-mobos/power-load.gif That's why I'm wondering. AS...

Looking around for alternatives to the IP4x Pro. I know the ASUS P35 boards were real power hogs (they drew like 20w more on average than the Gigabyte ones), but how are their P43/P45 siblings? I know quite a few users around here have been interested in (and I think bought?) them. So have they impr...