How did the performance feel on the flash HDD? That seems like an odd choice..pretty small noise gain, but expensive ($350 for that 8gb model), and slow. I'd rather have seen them put a 2.5" drive in one of their enclosures.

That would be my preference as well, and it seems to be the reason why Puget is offering the system without it. My sources say the flash drive was an experiment, and will probably be available by special request.

With the OS on the flash drive, opening new Windows was occasionally a little sluggish, but the effect was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. There was a benefit as well: No seek noise. I expect that it would do better than a normal drive for seek intensive operations (file searches/databases?) as well.

For noise, I don't know that even an enclosure would be better than the bare drive. I meant what I said when I mentioned that the noise character was better with the drive running. If possible, the system needs to be even quieter to benefit from a no-noise drive.

I'm somewhat surprised by the airflow configuration as tested. With anything other than a cool-running CPU, and laptop drives, that system is an almost guarantee of thermal problems......and even then in a high ambient temp, you'll likely have problems.

I'd probably have to add a front fan with the filter removed. Why have a front filter without an intake fan, when most of the air will be entering from the side(unfiltered) vent opening? Hard to figure....

I think they should have used a less restrictive filter in front, and another filter on the side, to balance things out.

The packaging... Excellent!

Interesting, I'd have the exact opposite approach as Bluefront.

My approach would be to block off the front intake entirely, and fashion a partition to extend the video card to the full width of the case. That way, the airflow from the PCI slots and side intake is forced to go forward and will keep the CPU cool.

How much of a gap is there between the video card and the side of the case?

My guess at the reason they left the front filter is that without the filter you can see straight into the case, and you'd see the cables and stuff. Some people don't like that.

Apart from that it's a weird machine: SODIMMs, solid-state drive, etc... but then with a 500W PSU. Some odd decisions on their behalf, but what matters is the result I guess.

Most of the oddity is really the result of Aopen's odd motherboard, there's not really anything Puget could do about the sodimms and unusal CPU placement. From a noise standpoint, I don't have a problem with the 500watt PSU. Compared to the cost of hte rest of the system the money they could have saved by stepping down to one of Seasonic's lower PSU's is really pretty trivial.

More is less?

It's not unusual. A tonal sound is nearly always more noticeable than a broadband sound. In this case, the notebook drive added just enough white/pink noise to help mask tonal sounds a bit more, making the end result preferable.

looks like an ideal candidate for a picoPSU... that should make the system even more efficient, especially compared to a PSU operating at the bottom of its efficiency curve.

are SODIMMS more electrically frugal than their desktop counterparts?

Sure, if you wanted to run off DC, it seems a PicoPSU would be able to handle it! Or do they make AC versions as well?

I found it pretty diffictult to find hard numbers on SODIMM vs desktop memory power draw, but it would certainly make sense that SODIMMs would be lower, since they are designed for laptops where power draw is a very large issue.

Thanks for the great review, SPCR!

Hi Jon,

you can use it with AC too - here's SPCRs typically thorough review. The main advantage being very high efficiency at the kind of power draws that this system would experience (as opposed to the S12-500, which reaches it's peak between 200-300W), though it'd probably cost more.

cool system though (literally!)

All other things being equal, would a Thermalright Ultra-90 or Noctua NH-U9 work better passively?

They will work almost equally poorly. Both have 'way too many fins, meaning they have to be spaced closely to "fit" a 92mm fan. But the Noctua "only" has 38 fins, so it will work merely exceptionally poorly as a passive cooler, while the Ultra-90 will work abominably passively, if the word "work" can be used at all.

Looking at the photo, it seems there isn't room for anything larger
than a "90" (Ultra-90, XP-90, etc.). Maybe an XP-120 if you hacked
out some of the bottom of the 3.5" cage. I'm considering a system
with the same mobo & case & have concluded that passive won't
cut it, esp. in summer (ambient 25-30C); an undervolted fan shouldn't
add much noise.