1. Not sure. Here in Canada, the basic mobile processors are $300+. 2. On a lot of Intel systems, the board will idle higher than the CPU. Here you can see that some chipsets will idle at three times what a C2D (as low as 4 W) will. You're kind of out of luck here though, as mobile chipset options a...

Sweet stuff. Still though, for a slight performance drop, a 4670 will draw a lot less power. Its idle draw seems to be more in line with the ATI card though. When you look at the graph, it shows that the previous 9600GTs are drawing 20 W more at load and 30 W more at idle than a 4850. Something does...

Too bad about the motherboard. Yes, the 65 nm part is going to be a lot better. I would still expect to notice a difference in idle and load temps with the same cooling, but it should be pretty manageable.

The X2 6000+ and 6400+ are very power hungry chips. You would be doubling the CPU's power usage in you system - both at idle and load. I think you would be fine with that XP-90, as long as you don't mind noticeably higher load temperatures. From a power standpoint, you would be better off buying a P...

I've always thought that the L5420 would make for an awesome build. The L5520 seems to be its replacement, at a TDP of only 10 W higher. I hadn't heard of the processor before you mentioned it, but my curiosity has been piqued. 60W is less than half of a i7 9x0, but Xeons have always had much more i...

I'm happy with my WD 500 GB drive (which now is part of their blue line). SPCR's review said that the 640 GB Blue is slightly quieter than the 500GB Blue. Assuming the same relationship between the Black versions, go for the 640 GB drive.

This article shows a partial list of things that can be turned off. Clearly Microsoft won't actually uninstall these things, else they would be setting themselves up for large amounts of users who mess around and then whine when they have to reinstall. Personally, it is good enough for me. If the O...

Looks great except for one thing - RAM. Why bother getting 3x1 GB? I know that you are using a 32 bit OS right now, but 3x2 GB gives you the option of having 12 GB of RAM once you do switch over. There are a lot of people out there that are going to be using Vista or 7 64 bit too. The G-Skill 3x2 GB...

Your GPU choice really depends on your needs. Performance per watt you aren't going to beat a 4670, but you haven't mentioned what you are going to be using this build for. Also a E8400 is only noticeably faster than a E7400 under certain circumstances. An explanation of what your plans are for this...

There aren't any reliable tests, as it is all hardware dependent. As lm said, if something isn't put in a low power state it throws everything off. My own tests on my desktop resulted in these power consumptions at idle: Vista > XP Pro > Ubuntu The difference was only a couple of watts though. Overa...

They're still listed on the Thermalright website.
On the other hand, if there simply was low supply, they would just say so.
My vote is that newegg won't be carrying Thermalright for a while.

Search on newegg for case fans that are 50+ dBA. I saw a cheap 3800 RPM 120 mm fan on there. Five or six of those and you are good to go.

Welcome to SPCR! You've come to the right place for silent computing advice. Before you get any further in planning your build, I would suggest you have a read through of the Reference/ recommended articles. They should be able to give you a pretty good picture of what you can do to keep your build...

1.5 V means you have some leeway if the manufacturer isn't being perfectly honest, and will vastly reduce the chances of you CPU frying due to a too high voltage for the memory controller. On the subject of which CPU to use, it is really up to you. I've always been an advocate of only getting the co...

Just a quick remark on what stgsmith said, you would be better off buying the reference graphics card put a aftermarket cooler on, if you don't care about the warranty. There are a couple of manufacturers (EVGA and possilby BFG?) that allow you to put a new cooler on it and not void the warranty. Ju...

Looks pretty good. Add a silent fan each for the CPU cooler, graphics card and case exhaust and the build should be pretty quiet. Right now Nocuas seem to be the favorite around here, but you won't go wrong with a Scythe, Yate Loon or Nexus fan. One thing to remember is that the RAM you have chosen ...

You have a couple of options if you want to tweak the or replace system. - Underclocking and undervolting the CPU should yield some noticeable results at load, and a couple of watts at idle. You might want to check to see that everything is working by measuring power at load and idle, with and witho...

I'd like to second everything Strid said. Both builds will work great for what you want them to do.

Ubuntu will run fine on much less, but with either build there, you're set until the hardware starts to fall apart.

That's too bad. I was really hoping that it was a new revision that dropped 5+ watts off load, or something useful like that. Just using up any undervolting headroom isn't helping at all.

Sweet stuff. I'm looking foreward to see the Q9550s benchmarked against the Q9550, both power and performance-wise. I wonder if the managed to make a real improvement in the power: performance ratio?

The forum search turns up 180 hits for "dynamat" not including this thread. If you look at the results in the System Advice and General Gallery, you should have loads of info on what SPCR forum member think about sound reducing materials, and how they have been applied. This is a particularly pertin...

People tend to fall into one of three categories when it comes to Vista: 1. It does what they want 2. It does most of what they want it to do, but they have complaints 3. It doesn't do what they want, and therefore use another operating system I'm sincerely glad that you fall into the first category...

morglum, You've come across an aspect of the problem that doesn't make sense to me either. The general consensus of the studies that had read was that about two thirds of the total energy use of a computer occurred before it was turned on for the first time (I still can't find them - google scholar ...

Yes, you take the fan and heatsink that is on the card right off. You just need to clean off the chip before mounting the Accelero onto the video card.

I'll second what angelkiller said - a pair of Accelero S2s will make quite a difference. You should be able to run them passive as long as there is enough airflow in your case. For silent fans, have a look here for the SPCR recommendations. The Scythe S-flex fans are particularly popular because the...

Strid, One kilogram of sheet aluminum has an embodied energy of ~89 kWh, and steel is about a fifth of that. Glass and plastic are an order of magnitude smaller again. You could do a rough estimate by estimating how much of your computer is each of those basic components, and then adding what you th...

Figuring out the embodied energy and other resource use of any computer part is exceedingly difficult. There are so many manufacturers producing so many different components, all using slightly different methods. On top of this, a lot of steps of manufacturing processes that the details of which are...

I know this isn't quite what you are looking for, but if watercooled RAM doesn't pan out, have a look at coolers along the lines of these[thermalright.com].

Oh man, that's awesome. Thanks so much - you've just made my life a lot easier!

Depending on how many hard drives you want to add, I would either get a cheap 8 SATA port P45 (a Gigabyte GA-EP-45-UD3R is ~$120 USD) or the cheapest 6 SATA port AM2 motherboard you can find (the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM is ~$60 USD), couple that with either a 4850e (~$50 USD) or an undervolted E7200 (~$1...