The main cost in silencing is the fanless psu, the fan swap, the novibes brackets. Maybe $200 in total. If you're willing to swap a PS fan you can get by with a lot less. The main cost in HD vs non is a minuscule surcharge on higher speed CPU and 780 vs 740 or 690 chipset motherboard. Probably no m...

Don't buy a crappy PS, but there are decent <$25 PS with 120mm fans that benefit from a fan swap. My In-Win IP-P300AJ2-0 with a $6 Global Win NCB fan is probably quieter than the $50 power supplies, and the fact that it is 79% instead of maybe ~85% efficient is not going to make a noticeable differe...

Roundup: Hard Disk Drives with 640GB Storage Capacity Samsung SpinPoint F1 DT, 640GB: HD642JJ Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, 640GB: ST3640323AS Western Digital Caviar Green, 640GB: WD6400AACS Western Digital Caviar Blue, 640GB: WD6400AAKS Western Digital Caviar Black, 640GB: WD6401AALS http://www.xbitl...

There is this thread.

I also am drawn to the Mac OSX... There is the hackintosh route of course, but personally I don't want to be constantly fiddling with the bios, doing hacks and work-arounds for all the glitches that keep popping up. I don't particularly like OSX, probably since I actually work with it everyday, but...

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini?mco=MTE3MDI Apple is claiming that it's the lowest power desktop in the world and uses less than 13w at idle. That sounds way too low, no? Has anyone been able to reach those sort of numbers with a custom build? I'd love to see their cl...

So do you think the extra processing power of Intel is worth the extra watts of its FSB, or will AMD be a better bang for the buck in this application? Since your system won't be able to really idle, Intel will be more power efficient and offer more performance. The cheaper Intel Wolfdales don't of...

Your thoughts? Memory speed matters more than capacity. Even 256MB is not too limiting and 512MB is plenty. I would get a GDDR4 equipped 4670 since they don't have one with GDDR5 yet. 1GB on a 4670 might be helpful for a three way Crossfire setup, but your money would be better spent on a single fa...

thejamppa wrote:Apple is affraid if they start to make "cheap" computer they will lose their brand what htey have been building since 2nd iMac...

My company (and probably a lot of professionals) tends to view the iMacs as junk. I have one of the few in a company with lots of Apple hardware.

an Eee Box uses only a couple of watts more, is just as quiet and is half the price. Hmm. but it less than half the CPU performance too. My Eee PC 1000HA has been annoying me by pausing and having other glitches on websites--I probably need to overclock it to 2GHz again. The current Atom just doesn...

Macs are shiny. That's it. They offer absolutely no advantage over regular PCs and are, in fact, worse in everything. Apple is a PC OEM like all the others except they have their own unique OS. Their hardware components are okay and their chassis are quite nice. As a low budget overclocker I can't ...

And I won't have Registry corruptions, and it will probably never get a virus or have malware installed w/o my knowledge. I also have a previous model 24" iMac I use professionally, and the machine is okay, but OSX is less reliable for me than Vista. These new iMacs are a little underwhelming. The ...

Can you help me understand how you're calculating RAM clocks? I always thought you did it by multiplying FSB by the right-hand number, and then dividing by the left-hand number. It seems to me that the DDR2 533 standard should have 3:4 divider: 3:4 divider, (200 x 4) / 3 = 267 MHz (DDR2 533) Your p...

Are you sure about that 4:5 divider? I thought the 3:4 divider was DDR2-533. @ FSB200, a 3:4 divider = 200:267. 267x2 = DDR2-533 @ FSB300, a 3:4 divider = 300:400. 400x2 = DDR2-800 Unless my math is off, your 4:5 divider: @ FSB200 = 200:250. 250x2 = DDR2-500 (not sure this is a DDR2 standard) @ FSB...

I'm curious about your comments about the Bios wrongly reporting CPU multiplier. Did any BIOS updates correct this? It reports CPU mulipliers correctly. The RAM dividers are reported wrong. Also, did you have to BSEL mode the E5200 to unlock the additional memory dividers? In other words, are they ...

nyonya wrote:Where are you getting the Global Win fans so cheap?

I ordered them 3 years ago from SVC for $5.99 each. It doesn't look like they are currently stocking them, however.

Thanks. That may be another face of the QC issues that others had with this model (I recall reading about clicking). I might give the S-Flex another go with the F model because it starts reliably at 5V. I originally chose the S-Flex over the Slipstream for longevity because I am still not sure what...

It losses the BIOS settings a lot on reboot. Yikes - seriously? That sounds like a major defect. Which settings? Does your TUL board lose settings too? It looses the CPU settings. Probably some overclocking "protection" not working right. I have to fix it right now, because it is running on the 333...

My first build back in 1998 was with an Abit BX6 (440BX P2 board). It was rock solid and will still be in use in a couple weeks when I rebuild a machine for my mother using a 650MHz Coppermine P3... It's amazing what you can do with old systems if you choose your OS and software carefully. You migh...

I'm looking at 2 or 3 Abit AX78 (HT3.0 5200MT/s, dual-channel DDR 1066) to replace my Compaq 1850R servers (home electric bill=$250/mo) and plan to use one as a workstation until I can afford to build four identical (simplifies maintenance) desktops for the entire family. Any negatives on (this) Ab...

I must confirm 1 thing. Amd it's maybe better for idle, but under load you cann't make low consumption like with Penryn. You can make AMD chips load power extremely low at low clockspeeds (<2GHZ). The only reason to go with Intel is for performance. The ~20W load power of the low end Wolfdales is g...

QuietOC - are you still happy with the GA-G31M-ES2L? You commented in my "System Advice" thread regarding 9300 IGP vs dedicated 9400 . I just found this thread of yours about the MB I'm looking to buy! So, having owned it for some time now, what are your thoughts? I'd also be using this for my gami...

Rebellious, HD Tune has a problem on your system. It isn't measuring any of those rates correctly--you might have a non standard FSB clock. I know on my Eee PC setting the FSB slower makes drives appear much faster in these simple drive bench marking tools. But even if HD Tune was measuring accurate...

If you are going to return both of them and you in fact need to have HDDs for a desktop system, why not simply go for Western Digital Green Power? I know they are 5400RPM, but look at this information reported by Ramses: As you can see, the ultra-speedy Scorpio Black isn't that speedy. The Green Po...

mr_plow_king wrote:Now I am stuck with a slower and noisier drive. Is there anything I can do ?

Is the dual platter actually noisier? My old one was pretty quiet. It is basically physically indentical to the new WD6400AAKS (same case at least) and that drive seems to be quieter than the single platter WD3200AAKS.

Here the TRUE is better than the Megahalems: Sample variation? The TRUE? The more appropiate comparison should be to an IFX-14 or Ninja Cu. I am guessing those aren't Nehalem compatible. I once splurged on a ~$95 Swiftech MC462A for the fastest CPU then available (a ~$120 Athlon 1400), but I am ver...

alleycat wrote:Apart from the Velociraptor, are there any 2.5" drives which are faster than a WD GP?

My 320GB Scorpio Black is definitely faster than any WD GP/Green.

A *very* long time ago, when SPCR was still a yahoo message group board thingy, I tested various ducts and came to the conclusion that there is little difference in *how* you go from one diameter to a smaller one (or being square) I.e. over a short or long distance didn't matter. That was many year...

From what I've read, it sounds like it will all fit, but I'd like to know if anyone has tried to run these components before in this case? Specifically, that giant heatsink. Sure, it will fit. That's still a huge case (8.26'' x 15'' x 19.3''). My Ninja has plenty of room in my little eMachine Etowe...

Duct looks good, though you're probably not using the fan at full efficiency because of the reduction in cross-section area. No different than using one of those funnel adapters for using a large fan on a small mount. You end up making things worse by adding backpressure onto a slower moving fan. I...