Oh yeah, as far as CF goes, your best bet right now is Intel. 965i or 975X; AMD won't be rolling out their CF/enthusiast chipset for. . .an amount of time. Actually, I'd say I'd heard a rumor, but to tell you the truth, I don't know if the release date is set internally. In any case I honestly don't...

I personally don't like Gigabyte, as they are unreliable (break often) and full of not thought-out solutions. Asus or Abit do better, so seek for them. Oh, and this simply is no longer the case. I have had more problems with ASUS recently than Gigabyte. There's a reason ASUS hasn't fully incorporat...

You'd be surprised how quiet the 8800-series fans are. It's probably more of a hassle to set up HR-03s on both than to use the very good stock coolers. To give you an idea, I have on my open-air testbench currently: passive motherboard X2 6000 cooled by a Scythe Mine, with C'N'Q running 8800-series ...

Yeah, 600W is way more than you need for two 7900GSs. I have had much more demanding systems run on lesser wattage PSUs. Is it a fan pitch noise or is the sound electronic? Because if you're going to remove the PSU, you might as well void the warranty; if it's the fan, replace it. If you're not comf...

That's not true in all cases. My Ninja touches a couple caps on my K8NGM2-FID. Fortunately the caps appear to be insulated and I haven't had any stability problems. I follow. I still haven't stuck a Ninja to a board and have it be incompatible , though I've touched the clips on the old revision Nin...

Oh yeah, and they're probably gonna cost less.

ATI is probably going to hard-launch their HD 2000 series in a little over a week. The cards are probably 65nm parts, and the mid-range cards probably run cool and at low power (unlike the HD 2900 XT). The stock cooler is probably going to be passive on the HD 2400s, and the HD 2600s are probably go...

Why don't you wait a few days and see what happens when ATI releases their HD 2000 video cards? It's right around the corner.

Make sure onboard audio is enabled in the BIOS.

I'll repeat it: you don't need an audio cable from the optical drive.

Yeah, any good 965i board should do it for you. I like Gigabyte and abit. Asus usually has the best bundle, but is expensive.

The Gigabyte DS3 is universally agreed upon as the best overclocker.

What do you have in mind for video?

Man, I need to talk to people about getting me some love from Biostar. That sounds great.

By all accounts the DS3 is _the best_ overclocking motherboard for C2D. It's also nice and cheap.

I think abit's AB9 Pro 965 board is really nice, too. All 965 boards support DDR2-800 out of the box, so if you're looking for hassle-free memory configurations, that's a bonus.

One thing that's easier to buy than build is the motherboard tray. If you've never scratch-built a case before, it's a good idea to buy a cheap steel case with a removable motherboard tray (for you, two identical cases) and use the hard drive cages* and maybe even the optical drive cage. And of cour...

AMD 690-series supports two monitors, but one digital and one analog connection. Some boards support two digital connections, one DVI-D and one HDMI; you can get HDMI-DVI cables for less than $15. They're all mATX now but Gigabyte is working on a full ATX board. All the boards are passive, and are t...

1. I don't mind having a PC case that is 5 times larger than a normal pc case. I will even custom build this. To me, this means that I should be able to build an exterior case and fill it with accoustic foam. So I had a Thermaltake Mozart TX a while back: http://www.thetechlounge.com/article/320/The...

It's safe to say most people here like the Scythe Ninja better for passive cooling. I have, like, three of them. . .

Tall caps aren't even an issue, because the heatsink is very straight and narrow at the base.

I dunno if I'd say "struggle", since I'm currently using a single-link cable to drive a 1920x1200 display at native res. There are some artifacts, but I'm pretty sure they're related to the Gateway monitor. I really want to RMA it but I need it for just a couple more weeks to review some ATi hardware.

Wait a couple of weeks. If the Internet rumors are to be believed, uh, wait until 6:00AM EST May 15th.

ATi was giving them away with their upcoming video card reviews. Now I have two :)

They're freaking loud. . .

Have you considered on-board graphics? The only really good one is AMD's 690, but it's all passive, and does good video acceleration. Vista goodness and all that.

1. Motherboard / processor: is AM2 or C2D better for a silent PC? which of the two is cooler? They are both equally silent. From a power consumption perspective, if it spends time at idle, go AM2. If it's going to do a lot of crunching, C2D. Bottom line, if this is going to be a workstation, you do...

From Wikipedia: * Minimum clock frequency: 21.76 MHz * Maximum clock frequency in single link mode: Capped at 165 MHz (3.7 Gbit/s) * Maximum clock frequency in dual link mode: Limited only by cable quality (more than 7.4 Gbit/s) * Pixels per clock cycle: 1 (single link) or 2 (dual link) * Bits per p...

I use the Samsung 18xDVD SATA drives with my HTPC. They're cheap, they don't burn coasters, and they rarely make more noise than the hard drives.

Plus, SATA cables manage so much neater.

It's not overkill, it's surprisingly good at gaming. I wouldn't go for the 7600; a little hotter, a little louder, and not as fast. Also, the video processing is half that what the 8-series cards have, so if you like movies, go 8. About fitting the stuff in the case, don't worry about it. Only the 8...

Here's your blueprint :)

Wait a week and a day or so, 'cause prices will drop and you're likely to be able to get ATi DX10 cards.

Web rumors and all that.

What OS are you planning on using? By the way, I don't think AM2 is overkill; you get a lot of stuff with a 690 chipset that you won't get with a three year old motherboard. Better NIC, better RAID, major performance gains. . .all said and done you spend, what $20 more? Plus if you retire it, you ca...

Thermaltake makes cheap stuff; most everyone here would direct you to Scythe or Thermalright. AnandTech just reviewed this one: http://www.anandtech.com/casecooling/showdoc.aspx?i=2981 I have two of those Samsung drives /specifically/ because of how quiet they are, so you're pretty good there. Thoug...

Something else to keep in mind is that the air blowing out of the fan is cone-shaped, and will blow past the sides of the Ninja, cooling the heatsink on the video card. Still, that card only uses <50 watts at load, and passive cooling is realistically adequate. In the end, if you think it's too hot,...

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/05/04/ ... power_draw

AMD seems to take this one, even though the peak load is still higher. Good news for HTPC folks.

I still look forward to playing with Barcelona core stuff.