Antec P180 Mini - C2D - 4870 - SSD
Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 7:08 am
Friend of mine asked me to do a build for him a few weeks ago.
He wanted the following from this build:
*Gaming, old and new games
*Something that isn't to big, his current Antec P150 was to tall
*Something that is as quiet as possible
*SSD drive (not sure why but he fancied one, and I wouldn't mind having it)
Originally the case of choice was an Antec NSK 3480, what we ended up with was a Antec P180 Mini.
I had most/all parts chosen, ready to order when he changed the case. Different case lead to me having to make sure that the cooler would fit, how many fans do I need now and some other issue's.
I might add here that I'm out of the loop as to what's hot these days, my own pc was built about 3-4 yrs ago as can be seen in my sig.
The final shopping list ended up as follows:
*Antec P180 Mini
*Asus P5E-VM HDMI SKT-775 MATX
*Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Wolfdale Skt1775 1333FSB : BX80570E8200
*Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU-Cooler, Socket 775/AM2/939/940
*Corsair HX520W 520w Modular PSU
*GeIL 4gb Black Dragon DDR2 PC2-6400 (5-5-5-15) Dual Channel kit (2x2GB) - GB24GB6400C5DC
*Radeon HD 4870
*Samsung Spin Point F1 1tb SATA2 7200rpm 32mb cache HD103UJ
*Samsung 32gb Sata2 SLC 2.5" Solid State Drive
*Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S DVD±RW/DL 20x6x20x8 S-ATA - Black OEM
*120mm Noctua NF-S12 1200 RPM Quiet Case Fan X3
*Logitech G15 Keyboard
*Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
So the build started with having a good look at this case. It's quite nice, I like the chamber separation although it's not ideal having the psu in the bottom if the cables aren't long enough
Mounted the Cooler on the mobo 1st. This thing is massive, I thought the cooler I had was big a few years ago, mounting it on the mobo went seamlessly, no problems here.
On to the case...
PSU in 1st, fan up seemed like the best choice for some breathing room.
In with the mobo, or not, case fan in the way Was going to replace case fans anyway so no harm taking it out now. I was glad later on I put the fan in later cause it was some hassle getting the Noctua in with the rubber grommets.
I was originally going to hid the front panel cables under the mobo but deemed it to much hassle (just don't tell my mate).
Trial fitted the GFX card, it covered most of the SATA ports, who ever designed this mobo must not build pc's!
Once the mobo was screwed in i started with the fans.
The exhaust fan was a pain to get in with the grommets. Not a lot of room in the case to work with with the heatsink. Had to remove the top fan to get at the top rear grommet.
In take fan was as much hassle. The HHD cage rails had to come out to make room for the fan. Still a very tight spot
At the time of ordering I didn't think about how I was going to mount the SSD drive, which btw is light as a feather and feels flimsy but boots windows much quicker. It's the same size as a laptop drive and i didn't have a cage for it Some double sided foam tape later and it's fixed in the top HDD cage next to the normal HDD.
Getting all the cables for the drives, mobo & gfx power, fans was a little tricky, it easily took me the most time.
I wasn't sure what to do with the fanmates, inside or outside the case....
As can be seen in the pics I went for outside so they are more easily accessible than in the case. Had to mess a little with all the fan cables to get it some what neat.
I wanted to route some cables differently but that didn't work cause they where to short. In the end I think I managed quite well, there aren't to many obstructions it only took me about 3-4Hrs to put it all together It's a little messy behind the mobo tray, got it closed without to much pushing..... on the 4 try!
And here's the case with keyboard on it, I left the plastic on so my mate can take it of (give him a sense of newness) and not to damage it. The monitor beside it is my old one.
I just got a new one today.
And here's a pic of my own setup as in my sig:
I know some will want to know how silent it is
As of right now the noise from it is louder than that of my Solo!
As can be seen in the images I'm stressing the pc for the last 2hrs with Prime95, FurMark and rthdribl and the gfx fans (there's 2) are going mental. Fan speed is around 52%-58% at 66Ëš Celsius.
The rest of the system is as follows:
System: 40Ëš Celsius
CPU: 57Ëš Celsius
HDD1 27Ëš Celsius (not sure which drive this is of the 2)
Core 0: 60Ëš Celsius
Core 1: 60Ëš Celsius
Thats with all the case fans at it's slowest setting. Turning them up drops the case temp mostly as well as the gfx card and the cpu.
I'll post back with idle temps if people are interested.
Can someone tell me should I be tying the heatsink to the top of the case?
Jozi
He wanted the following from this build:
*Gaming, old and new games
*Something that isn't to big, his current Antec P150 was to tall
*Something that is as quiet as possible
*SSD drive (not sure why but he fancied one, and I wouldn't mind having it)
Originally the case of choice was an Antec NSK 3480, what we ended up with was a Antec P180 Mini.
I had most/all parts chosen, ready to order when he changed the case. Different case lead to me having to make sure that the cooler would fit, how many fans do I need now and some other issue's.
I might add here that I'm out of the loop as to what's hot these days, my own pc was built about 3-4 yrs ago as can be seen in my sig.
The final shopping list ended up as follows:
*Antec P180 Mini
*Asus P5E-VM HDMI SKT-775 MATX
*Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Wolfdale Skt1775 1333FSB : BX80570E8200
*Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU-Cooler, Socket 775/AM2/939/940
*Corsair HX520W 520w Modular PSU
*GeIL 4gb Black Dragon DDR2 PC2-6400 (5-5-5-15) Dual Channel kit (2x2GB) - GB24GB6400C5DC
*Radeon HD 4870
*Samsung Spin Point F1 1tb SATA2 7200rpm 32mb cache HD103UJ
*Samsung 32gb Sata2 SLC 2.5" Solid State Drive
*Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S DVD±RW/DL 20x6x20x8 S-ATA - Black OEM
*120mm Noctua NF-S12 1200 RPM Quiet Case Fan X3
*Logitech G15 Keyboard
*Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
So the build started with having a good look at this case. It's quite nice, I like the chamber separation although it's not ideal having the psu in the bottom if the cables aren't long enough
Mounted the Cooler on the mobo 1st. This thing is massive, I thought the cooler I had was big a few years ago, mounting it on the mobo went seamlessly, no problems here.
On to the case...
PSU in 1st, fan up seemed like the best choice for some breathing room.
In with the mobo, or not, case fan in the way Was going to replace case fans anyway so no harm taking it out now. I was glad later on I put the fan in later cause it was some hassle getting the Noctua in with the rubber grommets.
I was originally going to hid the front panel cables under the mobo but deemed it to much hassle (just don't tell my mate).
Trial fitted the GFX card, it covered most of the SATA ports, who ever designed this mobo must not build pc's!
Once the mobo was screwed in i started with the fans.
The exhaust fan was a pain to get in with the grommets. Not a lot of room in the case to work with with the heatsink. Had to remove the top fan to get at the top rear grommet.
In take fan was as much hassle. The HHD cage rails had to come out to make room for the fan. Still a very tight spot
At the time of ordering I didn't think about how I was going to mount the SSD drive, which btw is light as a feather and feels flimsy but boots windows much quicker. It's the same size as a laptop drive and i didn't have a cage for it Some double sided foam tape later and it's fixed in the top HDD cage next to the normal HDD.
Getting all the cables for the drives, mobo & gfx power, fans was a little tricky, it easily took me the most time.
I wasn't sure what to do with the fanmates, inside or outside the case....
As can be seen in the pics I went for outside so they are more easily accessible than in the case. Had to mess a little with all the fan cables to get it some what neat.
I wanted to route some cables differently but that didn't work cause they where to short. In the end I think I managed quite well, there aren't to many obstructions it only took me about 3-4Hrs to put it all together It's a little messy behind the mobo tray, got it closed without to much pushing..... on the 4 try!
And here's the case with keyboard on it, I left the plastic on so my mate can take it of (give him a sense of newness) and not to damage it. The monitor beside it is my old one.
I just got a new one today.
And here's a pic of my own setup as in my sig:
I know some will want to know how silent it is
As of right now the noise from it is louder than that of my Solo!
As can be seen in the images I'm stressing the pc for the last 2hrs with Prime95, FurMark and rthdribl and the gfx fans (there's 2) are going mental. Fan speed is around 52%-58% at 66Ëš Celsius.
The rest of the system is as follows:
System: 40Ëš Celsius
CPU: 57Ëš Celsius
HDD1 27Ëš Celsius (not sure which drive this is of the 2)
Core 0: 60Ëš Celsius
Core 1: 60Ëš Celsius
Thats with all the case fans at it's slowest setting. Turning them up drops the case temp mostly as well as the gfx card and the cpu.
I'll post back with idle temps if people are interested.
Can someone tell me should I be tying the heatsink to the top of the case?
Jozi