Sizegrade advice
Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:09 pm
Good evening!
I'm putting pen to paper towards a sizegrade of my desktop pc.
Currently it's sitting in a large Corsair 600T case, but I'd really like to trim it down and move it into a Hadron Air case.
I'm keeping as many current components as possible, except for my stock Intel CPU fan which turned out to be fairly loud.
Obviously I also need a new mini-itx motherboard.
There seems to be a shortage of Ivy bridge Mini-ITX motherboards at most online Canadian vendors.
I'm looking at either:
the ASUS P8Z77-I deluxe (180$) with a cpu socket above the north bridge in a more standard cooling spot,
the GIGABYTE GA-H77N-WIFI (120$) with the cpu socket cornered between the pcie slot and the ram slots.
I'm running a stock Xeon E3-1240 v2 (LGA 1155 Ivy), I'm looking for some cpu cooling suggestions.
With the Asus, I could use something larger, like a big shuriken, and benefit from extra collateral air flow across the board.
This is the more expensive overkill option.
With the Gigabyte, I'm kind of scratching my head. I don't know which cooler to use that would be more effective and quiet than the stock. My stock cooler is definitely NOT quiet, which is why I want to chuck it. Perhaps if the Zamlan CNPS 8900 is good enough for a valve steam box, it might work out for me? But online reviews of it vary quite a bit towards both it's efficiency and audibility.
Either case, the end results would be a small form factor PC that I can move around from desktop to living room depending on my mood.
Any thoughts on the subject would be very appreciated!
I'm putting pen to paper towards a sizegrade of my desktop pc.
Currently it's sitting in a large Corsair 600T case, but I'd really like to trim it down and move it into a Hadron Air case.
I'm keeping as many current components as possible, except for my stock Intel CPU fan which turned out to be fairly loud.
Obviously I also need a new mini-itx motherboard.
There seems to be a shortage of Ivy bridge Mini-ITX motherboards at most online Canadian vendors.
I'm looking at either:
the ASUS P8Z77-I deluxe (180$) with a cpu socket above the north bridge in a more standard cooling spot,
the GIGABYTE GA-H77N-WIFI (120$) with the cpu socket cornered between the pcie slot and the ram slots.
I'm running a stock Xeon E3-1240 v2 (LGA 1155 Ivy), I'm looking for some cpu cooling suggestions.
With the Asus, I could use something larger, like a big shuriken, and benefit from extra collateral air flow across the board.
This is the more expensive overkill option.
With the Gigabyte, I'm kind of scratching my head. I don't know which cooler to use that would be more effective and quiet than the stock. My stock cooler is definitely NOT quiet, which is why I want to chuck it. Perhaps if the Zamlan CNPS 8900 is good enough for a valve steam box, it might work out for me? But online reviews of it vary quite a bit towards both it's efficiency and audibility.
Either case, the end results would be a small form factor PC that I can move around from desktop to living room depending on my mood.
Any thoughts on the subject would be very appreciated!