Apart from this "risk assessment," I wonder whether the choice of a more powerful or advanced component simply serves to gratify the ego and not much else. There are people who buy fast cars and fast computers in a misdirected attempt to satisfy psychological needs that these things can't truly sat...

So your next question probably would be: how many and which fans are useful in my case? Maybe a current owner of your planned case can help. Good question. Guess I'll message MikeC to see how many fans the case he's (hopefully) selling me actually has. EDIT: Answer: (yes, I'm paraphrasing, he was u...

You can take the power load off the motherboard with a $5 splitter cable, so I really don't know why anyone would pay $20-50 for a panel now aside from looks. It makes sense if your mobo doesn't have enough control channels and the panel you buy has RPM/temp displays. I've been tempted to buy an NZ...

With regards to SSD lifespan - until recently I worried a bit about it. Now, I don't. I'm still looking for more evidence, and I'm willing to be shown that I should worry, but two articles stand out right now: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html and http://www.corsair.com/blog/force...

Das_Saunamies wrote:You can take the power load off the motherboard with a $5 splitter cable, so I really don't know why anyone would pay $20-50 for a panel now aside from looks.

That's sort of what I figured, but thanks for giving the technical reasons behind that opinion.

I've tried to re-create a (modern?) equivalent of this build in late 2012: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/user/sge/saved/#plname_190215 When I couldn't find a part, I picked a part from the same manufacturer with about the same price. Comments? Build as of 2012-10-26 20:51: PCPartPicker saved build (upd...

Question prompted by Das_Saunamies comment about Xpert+ (which I had no idea existed): are external fan controllers such as the Aerocool touch worth their cost at keeping thing quiet? Or are they just pretty toys with questionable function? ps: 7) If you're still out of money, downgrade the SSD to a...

With regards to the monitor, I'm afraid I've been spoiled. I currently have a 24" iMac, and I love the resolution. I recently got myself a "widescreen" 27" monitor thinking it would be a step up - only to realize after it arrived that it was a 1920x1080 resolution (I really need to learn to do my re...

Checkpoint time. I think I've addressed most of the issues with this version. As I might be getting a nice deal on the Inwin case it's staying - the cost of this build is starting to make me go "eeek" - I've discovered that the magic number under which I don't go "eek" is $2000. I may wait for some ...

My background: 30 years of I.T. (as of this year, I started in 1982). Worked for companies such as Honeywell Bull, Monenco, BNR, Nortel, Veritas, as well as complete unknowns and even myself. I've seen future-proofing actually work, where a 5 and even 7 year predictions happily came true. I've also ...

Question: Is it better to try to build only to a given specification, picking the parts that are best for the current specification, at the current time, with current technology? Or is better to try to pick parts that will "future proof" the build by picking some things - like bigger case, PSU, moth...

OK, more detailed reply: (and please, feel free to tell me to RTFM there's an article somewhere that covers the issue.) I've put lots of build comments and thoughts on my saved build on pcpartpicker as well. Something that might affect future comments: not stated in original post were plans to event...

Thanks for all the comments! I'm currently re-working the build and will post results a bit later. I'm afraid I have NO idea how some of those parts got in there (two HD? what was I thinking?) and other parts that "seemed like a good idea" at the time... no longer do now that I've had some sleep. So...

OK, I realize this won't be as quiet as it CAN be, but it's about as close as I can here on the west coast of Canada, dependent as I am on Canadian retailers who will ship things. I don't have stores with rare bits near me, and I can't get things shipped from the US (because apparently the world end...