Jackylman is right. If you aren't planning to overclock, there is no real performance gain apart from on synthetic benchmarks that test the ram only. Here's a couple of quick tests I ran just now using SuperPi 1.5 XS and wPrime. EIST was disabled because SuperPi wasn't computationally demanding enou...

Viewed strictly from static benchmarks like Sandra and Everest, PC2-6400 has better performance for read / writes than PC2-4200 or PC2-5300. I have two 1GB sticks of CL4-4-4-12 PC2-800 (PC2-6400) that runs CL3-3-3-8 as PC2-533. I get better performance with static benchmarks, but there is really no ...

My impressions are pretty much on par with most people here who have one. It is well constructed and easy to work with apart from cable management.

I have the xfx7950gt and it idles 44-47c and is usually around 50-55c under load with GRAW AND Oblivion being the exceptions that cause it to run up to 68c after a few hours. This is in a room with an ambient temperature of ~21-24c depending whether the door is opened or closed. I have a 120mm nexus...

It is more costly, but you could get a 2,4, or 8GB sandisk ultra IV, and a firewire reader and get close to 4x the performance you would from a usb flash key. I'm sure there are good internal IDE based cf readers too.

I have the same card, and it is quite nice. It is cool up here right now (the forced air heater only heats the main floor), and I am using a P180B with a 120mm blowing across it to help heat dissipation. The card idles at 45c and has yet to go about 65c under load according to the monitor in the nvi...

My new machine is up and running after a few weeks of waiting and everything is running smoothly. It did bring up a question about how long heat pipes are supposed to last. On my old machine, my 6800gt idles at 60c where it used to idle at 45c when new. There is no dust or debris in the fins and the...

BFG is releasing a water cooled version.

The height of the Ninja is 150mm and the height of that case is 163mm. With barely 1cm to spare, I doubt it will fit. You need height for the risers, the motherboard, the socket, and cpu which is bound to be more than that.

The ninja is nowhere near the capacitors on the motherboard. The retention plate that screws onto the heatsink might, depending on the height of the capacitors. Don't judge by the retention clip alone, but by actually seating the heatsink attached to the retention plate (minus thermal paste since yo...

If you are going Seagate for the hdd, the 7200.10 320GB drives are the best value for the money (<$.30/GB) I think the OP is using a smaller drive for the OS/apps and a larger drive (the WD 3200) for storage. The 7200.10 series is too loud anyway, price per GB notwithstanding. I completely missed t...

The new setup is definitely not pet or child friendly. It wouldn't take too much to fabricate it so that the wires aren't exposed like that.

If you are going Seagate for the hdd, the 7200.10 320GB drives are the best value for the money (<$.30/GB) and considering it is for an htpc, you might enjoy the extra space.

Did you clean and re-apply thermal paste? It sounds like there isn't good contact between the hsf and the cpu. I'm not entirely sure all systems use 100% load in the bios. I have a Venice 3000+ that sits at 33c in the bios, and that definitely isn't full load as it can hit 52c while gaming. I have a...

The lower portion of the heatsink, just above the heatpipes and before the Aluminum fins, is not symmetrical. The air can only flow two ways through the fins.