I've had it up to here with my girlfriend's computer (/points at forehead :p). Her last setup had tons of buggy drivers, a motherboard that didn't like to work with certain hardware, and very noisy hard drives and fans. So I took it upon myself to build her a new computer - the noise is bad enough, but add a girlfriend nagging to fix it every day and it'll drive you insane! (don't tell her I said that lol ) The MB and RAM were taken out of my HTPC - she needed 8GB of RAM which it had, and I needed to reduce the HTPC's power consumption. So I gave her those two parts and got a DDR3 board for the HTPC. And the PSU was supposed to be for my server but the cables weren't long enough, so I just used it for hers instead (and that's why it's abnormally large for this build).

Case: Mini P180
Fans: 2x Nexus 120mm, Stock 200mm
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212+
GPU Cooler: Accelero S1 Rev 2

CPU: Phenom II x2 545
MB: Asus M4A785-M (785G)
GPU: EVGA GTS 450
RAM: 8GB DDR2-800
SSD: OCZ Vertex 30GB
PSU: Seasonic X650

The three case fans (four if you count the never-running PSU one) are the only moving parts. I'm loving the silence - from both the computer and my girlfriend . It's not totally silent, but it's quiet enough that you can't hear it except when sitting at her desk in the middle of the night, when ambient noise is at it's least.

Good looking build !
What OS do you have installed and how much space is left on the SSD ? I'm guessing you have some network storage device somewhere ?

Thanks

Windows 7, and there's about 12 gigs free IIRC. I dropped the pagefile down to 256MB and disabled hibernation

And yup, my server is running active directory and all profile folders are redirected to it.

I have the same mainboard and looking into buying the same CPU cooler.
Was the horizontal orientation your choice or is it the only way it can be installed?

You can install it either way

The temps came out pretty good like this though:

With the 200 mm top fan on the Antec Mini P180, one can usually run the CPU cooler without a fan if installed in the orientation shown, since hot air naturally rises. I have a similar setup on a Mini P180 and AMD 240e chip and no CPU fan on my Xigmatek 1283. The 200 mm Tri-Cool (tri-speed) fan is pretty quiet at low speed, especially if the PC is under a desk (but within reach).

Nice decent build.
Graphics cooler saggy?
Were you able to unlock the two cores?

Nope that's how the cooler is designed, for whatever reason. It curves downward.

And nope, the CPU didn't unlock .

You are supposed to put those plastic clips that came with the cooler on it so it will not curve.

From SPCR's review:

"Arctic Cooling's instructions dictate that the two screws nearest the gold contacts of the card should be partially installed, then the opposite end of the card be lifted up to install two L-shaped plastic clips.The top side of the "L" clip grasps the edge of the card while a limb on the bottom side is inserted through the fins. On the other side, T-shaped clips go in between the same fins and latch on. These clips act as spacers, maintaining a set distance between the card and the fins of the heatsink. This prevents the heatsink bending downward (say if you decide to attach a fan to it) and also keeps board components away from the fins. "

Just a question though: why would she ever need 8GB of ram..? I can't even use my 2GB's....

Sometimes I use 1.3GB just for browsing.

No no, I said "curved" not "bent". Like, the heatpipes aren't perfectly straight, and weren't even when I took it out of the box. I guess I might have gotten a faulty one, but it seems to work fine so ???

No big deal as long as the temps are fine.