I am planning on building the following system:

- Asus P5N32-E SLI 680i mobo
- Intel E6600 Dual Core with stock cooling
- 4Gb RAM (4 x 1Gb OCZ Dual Channel DDR2's)
- Nexus Breeze 500 case
- GeForce 8800GTX 780Mb (don't intend to go SLI)
- 2 x Samsung SpinPoint 500Mb SATA
- Pinnacle 350i PCTV card
- Sony DVD/RW

I've chosen the Nexus case as I've used one before any they're beautifully made and very quiet. My first concern was that the stock 500W PSU that comes with the Nexus case won't quite cut it, so I'm considering an Enermax Liberty 620W modular PSU in its place, but my main concern is whether the 8800GTX card will get too hot in this setup?

The Nexus case sports a single 120mm intake fan on the bottom of the case and relies on the PSU fan for exhaust which I am hoping will create sufficient airflow. To make sure the HDs don't run too hot I would probably go with a pair of Nexus Frizzbee's as they're pretty much silent and at least they'll move the air in the case around a bit more.

Any thoughts on the above would be most appreciated.

IMO yes. At high loads all ~180W of the GPU will be going through the PSU; there's no PSU in the world that won't ramp up under those kind of conditions. A quality 500W PSU should be fine btw.

Hi, I really don't like the idea of all the heat from inside the case having to go through the PSU. With ~200w of heat having to go that way the PSU fan will have to run really fast. I'd suggest you look for a different case with 120mm exhaust fan and, preferably, relatively open intake. If you find a case you like but with poor ventilation could always cut holes in it to improve it, maybe can fit rear fan to Nexus Breeze, the pictures I found didn't make it clear how possible this would be.
I would sugest an Antec P150 / Solo as nice case for quiet PC but I believe the 8800GTX is too long to fit so you'd need something else.
Seb

Mmm, that's a good point. The Nexus case doesn't have any other way of shifting air to the outside, also as its very solidly made (layers of metal, plastic & soundproofing) it's pretty much impossible to cut any additional vents.

Think maybe I'll switch to getting something like the Antec P180B to be on the safe side - at least I can fit a second exhaust fan and if I go for one of the Nexus 12cm fans it should still be a fairly quiet setup. Also it should be big enough to house the 8800 card.

Thanks for the advice.

I have a P180 with just one case fan (120mm Noctua 1200rpm at 850rpm) And a moderatly overclocked AMD64 With a Ninja Plus cooler. Ducted to the exhaust Noctua). + a Leadtek 8800GTs.

And I have good temperatures ( 33C case idle and 35C cpu idle. In 19 C room temp). And above all a silent rig.

The 8800GTS is actually quite silent. I dont know if Leadteks version is more silent than other brands though?. It does'nt make much more noise than the previous X1800GTO with a Zalman VF 900CU at low speed.

But from what I have heard, Gainward, have the most silent GF 8800 card stock cooling.

The 8800GTX card I've gone for is actually from Novatech (spec here) so I'm not sure what it'll be like noise-wise, hence why I want to wrap it all up in a pretty well damped case. With the likelihood that the Nexus case wouldn't allow enough air to be shifted (shame as they're really nice cases), or that the PSU fan would have to run flat-out, the Antec sounds like just the ticket. Fingers crossed...

Overclocked E6600@3.2ghz in a P180B with an 8800GTX.

CPU idling at 33, Case at 46, Drives at 38 and 41, GPU at 72!! browsing SPCR.

This is with a 1200RPM S-FLEX on CPU, 800 RPM S-FLEX on exhaust and 800RPM S-FLEX in the drive/PSU corridor. I have (disabled via fan controller) an 800RPM S-FLEX on the top vent and front intake too.

GTX is very long. You'll need to dremel the case if you go for the 150.

The advice I got was that the 680i's were to be avoided unless you were going SLI, as they are less stable and feature rich than the intel boards and more spendy; their only upside is the SLI.

Seasonic 500w modular PSU is both quiet and adequate (so far) for the draw on it. Voltage reported in system is stable and close to spec.

I was swaying toward the P5N32-E board as I've used Asus nVidia boards in the past and they've always been pretty rock solid. I appreciate something like the P5W64 has the edge and it was really just a case of drawing a line somewhere in terms of cost, but heck - I started off spec'ing an 8800GTS 320Mb card and now I'm looking at a 748Mb GTX (and maybe a new Samsung 22" to partner it with).

72 degrees just browsing? Looks like 'm really going to have to watch that GPU... As for the case, I think it's most likely going to be the P180 as the budget just won't stretch to a Dremmel as well!

Well, cutting out the stamped / honeycombed fan grilles, will improve airflow and make the rig more silent. Just be careful when cutting the grilles on the intakes. So you does'nt accidently cut away the holes holding the filters.

And if you are using just 1 CD or DVD drive? Then use the upper 3 X 5.25 bays as an extra passive air intake.

Just tape some foam strips into the opening, using double sided tape. Then wedge a 120mm, washable, fan filter in there.

And seal all the holes on the sides of the cd cage, to prevent air leakage.

This works very well!

The problem with the 8800GTX stock cooler is that it does not exhaust all hot air out the back of the chassis. For some reason there are some vents on the air duct that exhaust hot air towards the bottom of the chassis. I overcame this by making a little duct (2 pci slots wide, although i think 1 slot wide would suffice) that directs the air from the vents out the back through the pci slots.
I also put a front intake fan (noctua 120mm spinning at about 600) in the bottom of the chassis, ducted straight to the air intake on the card. Can't hear the front fan and this made about 5-7 degree difference on gfx temps, now running below 80 under full load

There are also some aftermarket pci slot coolers available that do pretty much the same thing but not sure how loud these are.

The problem now is I can still hear my GFX fan, although it is not loud at all. Am considering a HR-03 Plus... This quiet bug is really contagious!

Yeah, I have been wondering about those openings.

Good idea with duct / fan. I will try that on the 88000GTS I just got.

Yep, my aim is to keep this system as quiet as possible. I've been spoiled up until now because the Nexus Breeze system I was using was barely audible, mainly because it had a single 120mm intake plus the PSU exhaust and no other vents plus the whole chassis was soundproofed to within an inch of its life!

The additional PCI cooler sounds interesting. Even so, I'm worried that this new rig is going to resemble a couple of spitfires on a fly-by... The P180 case is a lot more 'open' and with a 120mm intake, 120mm exhaust, PSU fan, the stock E6600 fan and the GTX fan... well that's a lot of air being shifted around.

While I'm here, there's also a couple of things that are new to me - the 8800GTX card has two 6-pin power sockets on it. The Enermax 620W PSU I'm planning to use has two corresponding 6-pin plugs from what I can make out. If I'm not planning on going SLI at this point, do I need to feed the GTX card extra power via these inputs or will the standard 24-pin ATX m/board connection off the PSU be sufficient?

Similarly, the P5N32-E board has 2 x 4-pin ATX12V sockets in addition to the 24-pin one. Would either of these 4-pin sockets need to be connected up for a Dual Core E6600 + 8800GTX system? (My concern there is that those sockets are right at the top edge of the m/board and with the P180 design of having the PSU at the bottom of the case, the cables might not reach! Hmmm, wonder if you can get 4-pin ATX extension cables with those funny shaped plugs on them??).

This is a surprisingly low case temp given the 8800GTS and no modification for gpu exhaust!! The Leadtek uses a stock fan, which is reasonably quiet but at 100% is audible to many quiet PC enthusiasts. And many users find it necessary to run the fan at 100% just to keep case temps reasonable. The GTX steps up the heat by at least another 6-7 degrees. The Thermalright HR-03 Plus has been discussed here; http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=38636
Not only does it take up a lot of slot space, but a 92mm fan is highly recommended and even with that there is little or no provision for exhausting heat from the case! I'd love to know what where?wolf is doing right because his experience is not typical.It might be helpful if where?wolf could provide gpu temps and a fuller system specs.( Also, an ambient temp of 19C might be helping a lot!)

Something like the recommended video card ducting and some additional source of exhaust is the only potential cool and quiet air cooling solution that makes sense to me so far. Many users have turned to water cooling because of the challenge this card presents. I've been spending a lot of time researching this because I've purchased an EVGA 8800GTX and have not yet read about a truly satisfactory quiet air cooling method that will also properly exhaust the heat from the GTX out of the case.