I appreciate how cleanly organized and straightforward this calculator is, but it's either poorly explained or hilariously wrong. If the final number, "Recommended PSU Wattage", is intended to represent the actual wattage of PSU you should buy, then you should make that very clear. Otherwise, many p...

Please don't bump threads until they've been ignored for a day or two. Everybody on here has a life away from the forums and can't be expected to respond immediately to requests. Ranting aside, I think you're going to have some problems, and they're all centered around your choice of case. If you'd ...

I really feel sorry for the engineers at ThermalTake. They seem to have some genuine creativity going on, but just can't quite make the connection between that and effectiveness. I'm curious, though, to try pulling out the radial fan and plugging up one end, then installing an 80mm box fan on the ot...

I'm definitely going to use noise-damping material on my next build. From everything I've heard, it's essentially ineffective if you've done everything else right for silence, but it just looks too good to pass up. When you add damping material, the results always look so clean and perfect. This is ...

33°C, also in an SQD and also with no specially forced airflow. My computer room is a bit chilly at the moment, though; this summer I had a slow intake fan to help keep the drive cool.

jessekopelman wrote:1) You play a game can make good use of EAX
2) You need high quality analog inputs or outputs
3) You need S/PDIF in or out and your motherboard doesn't have it

This is exactly what I was trying to say, but I didn't manage it nearly so succinctly. There's really nothing else to it.

I always appreciate seeing someone post a big, comprehensive guide like this, but I'm not sure I agree with some of your conclusions. Initially, you talk about hiss. This is totally accurate, and many on-board sound systems are extraordinarily noisy. This is because the inside of a computer has a wh...

Can anyone confirm that this is only a problem under Linux? I've got a friend with four or five GP drives on Vista, and want to know whether I need to warn him about the problem.

It's very much a situational decision. If you need airflow in the PCI area, for a warm video card (especially a passive one) or something else, then you should leave the slots open. If you don't need that airflow, then blocking them off will force more air through the other vents in the case, which ...

I swear by Garmin GPS units. I've used both their aircraft and automotive units, and been extremely impressed with both. The speed and accuracy seem quite good, and the menus are well-planned and sensible. Looking through the features list on their website, it looks like the very cheapest unit, the ...

I was getting my numbers from this chart:
http://www.techarp.com/article/Desktop_ ... ntel_2.png

Which can be found in full, along with some other information, on this page.

I have a 450 MHz Pentium 3, and with a single 3.5" 5400 RPM drive and no expansion cards, it idles at 36 watts AC (since your server will be spending most of its time idle, that's what really matters). Full load is around 56 watts AC, but I doubt your server will hit that very often or for more than...

I'm not really sure at what point component life starts to drop, but I believe it's got to be so hot that the system is unstable before the lifespan will decrease noticeably. I've seen cards idling at more than 70°C or so which provided stable service well into obsolescence. I usually try to keep m...

(I'd heard that to open a laptop and start replacing things is bad for the laptop) It's difficult to change things like the processor, and even harder to replace video cards and wireless cards (on the computers where these are expansion cards, not on-board), but replacing hard drives, RAM, and opti...

The old parts for any recently-abandoned socket get expensive. It's because many people already have a motherboard and don't want to change it, but still want to upgrade their processor. Buying an overpriced 939 processor is still cheaper than replacing your motherboard, processor, and RAM, and cons...

The more I read about installing an AC S1 on a 4850... the more I just want to spend the extra money on the gigabyte. Why? Buying an installing an S1 saves you $15, but that's not really why it's being suggested so much. The real benefit is that the S1 is significantly better than the Gigabyte pass...

No. If there's a discrete graphics card in the system, there is absolutely no way to fully disable it without uninstalling the drivers and pulling the computer apart to remove the card. Both big graphics manufacturers are currently working on technologies that allow exactly what you're looking to do...

What type of water-cooling do you use? If you have an entirely external radiator, you still need to have at least a single slow case fan installed to cool off all the random little chips in the system (the RAM probably isn't the hottest thing in there if you feel around).

What are you currently using? If you're upgrading from something fairly powerful already, then your spec looks pretty good as it stands, but if you've got ancient hardware right now you'll be blown away by an E5200 and HD4670. Whether a 4670 is fast enough for your monitor depends a great deal on wh...

I'd go with a NoVibes bungee cradle: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7851/noi-15/NoiseMagic_NoVibes_25_Silent_Hard_Drive_Mounting_System.html The Scythe Quiet Drive mentioned earlier is excellent for dropping higher-pitched tonal noise, but doesn't do much for vibrations, which I'm pretty sure are...

i was always under the impression the clock speed of your processor doesnt effect power drain... If you look at the equation further up, and try a few sample cases, you'll find that that's almost true. Raising the clock speed does bring the power demands up slightly, but it's a small difference. Cl...

Nobody knows, because it's not available for purchase yet. However, if it's a 5400 RPM GreenPower drive, it's probably fairly quiet. If it's a standard desktop drive, it ought to be reasonable (most drives lately aren't completely ridiculous) but won't compete with the very best.

I almost bought one when I came across this post, but I'm really wary of rebates. I ultimately decided a 425 watt Pro82+ would be the safer choice, and should still be brilliant. I haven't bought it yet, but my Seasonic S12-II is by far the loudest thing in my computer. It shouldn't take me too long...

If you want to determine roughly how much a chip consumes at stock settings, you can calculate that using the equation I posted and the numbers for the fastest chip in the same series - just put the top-end chip in for the Stock values, and your frequency in for the Actual values. This is because an...

Mine's enclosed in an SQD and suspended, and is inaudible at one meter. When I had it removed from the standard IcePak and suspended, but not enclosed, it was intolerable. The high-pitched whine was so loud that I could hear it from anywhere in the room (up to 5 meters away). There are no doubt lots...

Awesome job! BTW, where did you get those rubber grommets/rings for the holes and those cable holders? I was under the impression that he already said where he got them: OMAR-2092 1 1/8" x 1/16" x 1 1/2" x 1 7/8" x 3/8" rubber grommets http://cableorganizer.com/grommet/ However, it doesn't look lik...

I was actually looking at this very same barebones system a few weeks ago. I figured it looked like a good deal, and the case is pretty attractive, but I just assumed it couldn't be quiet with the PSU handling all the ventilation. It's nice to be proven wrong, this time! It's a shame none of these c...

I've always liked the NSK 3480, but have had a lot of trouble with cable management. You've given me a lot to think about for my next build, because this is one of the best-looking setups I've seen.

Voltage has a much more significant effect than frequency. There's no simple equation to calculate direct power draw, but there is a simple equation to calculate changes in power draw: http://crazybob.travisbsd.org/files/powercalc.png As you can see, power changes linearly with frequency but quadrat...

I'd suggest an HD4670. According to the SPCR review, it consumes 3 watts at idle and 40 watts at full load. It's probably the best performance-to-heat ratio of any card on the planet, and they aren't even very expensive. You'll probably want an Accelero S2 to keep things quiet, though, because I und...