Yes, the PSU you picked out is deffinately overkill....BUT, if you found a deal on it, I'd say go for it. Here are SPCR's words right off the editors choice list: Antec CP-850: An innovative PSU with 120mm in-line fan only compatible with three large Antec cases, the CP-850 is just about as quiet as...

Graphics cards are one of the fastest changing components in the modern computer. I can't think of another sole component that changes faster, with such huge perofrmance increases and price decreses / obsolescence. My advice to you is, don't even consider Crossfire for this build. It's overkill, and...

I'm not sure if you understand how noise cancelation works.. You can't just put a little box in the bottom of your PC case and expect it to effectively cancel out all sound being produced within the case. Noise canceling headphones work so well for two reasons: A) they "know" where your ears are. In...

moar pics!

do you plan on making this out of sheetmetal? If so, you have a bunch of missing radii, and no reliefs for the corners. Maybe this is just a preliminary model tho.. Also, if your school has solidworks or Pro/E, the sheetmetal tools within those are much more desirable for putting together a sheetmet...

the AC reading at the plug will always tell you slightly more than your DC power draw. So yes, because it is consistent, it is very useful. Say you know your PSU is 80% efficient roughly. If your Kill-a-watt is measuring 100W for example, you know that your components are eating 80W of that. There r...

You asked earlier what you could buy to measure power draw..not sure if you got an answer, but here's one.. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&cm_re=kill_a_watt-_-82-715-001-_-Product I own one..it's a great tool to add to the arsenal. Ill probably have it for my whole l...

Yeah, I think ultimately Mr. Evil is right in that it will make VERY little difference between the two speeds. And in that case, I would get the 1333 to save money. When building computers, always try to get the highest performance/cost ratio...you wanna spend money on bottlenecks. Save a little mon...

honestly I dont know a whole lot about DDR3 ram, but basically, that latency time does affect performance. 1333/7 = 190 and 1600/9 = 177. If I were a betting man, I would say the 1333 would perform better? That is, if it can hold up to it's advertised latency times. I could be wrong..can someone wit...

Monkeh is right, after 6 years, it works or it doesn't..there's really no mechanical deterioration untill many many more years, and by then we will all be riding SSD's :D Taking care of your OS is another story. There are programs that will delete old registry items, cookies, etc. My favorite is "Ad...

"every 20 min when I'm offline" I don't understand this..how can it check email if you are offline? Also, the little mail icon should be showing up when you get mail. Try playing around with the mail "unread" settings. I have win 7 x64 and 2007 outlook with no problems. However, it does have issues ...

I'm too lazy right now to provide any real critisism of your build and stuff... but I will ask you this... why do you feel you need to prepare sound levels for prime 95 tests? Few games are completely multi threaded, and you didn't say anything about serious encoding or video editing etc. So my ques...

To get an idea of how much power the CPU actually requires, we measured the current flowing directly ATX12V connector as well as the voltage with the system in various load states. *page 5 Technically not a complete sentence. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% In that quote above, did you use a wrap-around current...

It took me hours to get my speedfan config to my liking. (i now have it backed up in 3 places cause it's that valuable to me). You are correct in your hearing that Speedfan has no problem controlling 3-pin, non pwm fans. I have it controlling my chassis fans, it works very well. I have never ever be...

You can fit two, 5.25" drives in this case. Lengths are somewhat standardized..there's rarely a need to perform measurements for a component like a PSU or DVD drive. Graphics cards are not so standardized in size, so some are too long for many older cases. You will be fine to install up to two optic...

Memory: the more, the merrier. :lol: 2GB is minimum, 4GB is recommended for smooth Win7 experience. Ehh...I beg to differ loimlo. If you aren't running anything that's memory intensive, 64-bit windows with a couple applications open uses almost exactly 1gb of ram. Im looking at it as I type this. E...

If you plan on putting the OS on an SSD, don't install x64. It is a larger OS than the 32-bit, and it won't be giving you any benefit in terms of responsiveness, load speeds etc. I personally think getting an SSD for an HTPC is a little silly while prices are still astronomical. Are you really going...

please ignore: server had issues when I was submitting.

please ignore: server had issues when I was submitting.

please ignore: server had issues when I was submitting.

If you choose a 32-bit OS (a fine choice for this application), than I would recommend 2gb of ram. In this application, you won't overfill the 2gb if you try. You can certainly buy 2x2gb, but when you load up the OS and media, you will see it will be sitting at around 1gb of usage. Just tryin to sav...

now THATS more like it. Just enough power to get the job done well, but not so much extra that you're throwing money out the window. With all the money savings you can route some more money into making this thing more quiet. Like how about some soft mounts for your fans? http://www.acousticpc.com/im...

Nice, thorough review. Looks like a great PSU.

bone, that's a nice board. It seems perfect for his needs. Yeah, even though he may be recording and playing at the same time, even a 5400 RPM drive's seek/transfer rates are more than enough to handle that. That's where the system memory takes over..when the drive is busy, his 4gb of memory will st...

Glad I could help, and glad you like your new quiet system.

yeah..deffinately don't get a 7200 rpm drive for an HTPC.

getting a ddr3 platform for this task is complete overkill, and quite frankly, a waste of your money. You will not notice a single performance gain in using the more expensive memory. If you want my advice, pick out a modest ddr2 platform and don't look back. AMD does offer a nicer price/performance...

yeah.

I turn off the splash screen on all my computers...it actually speeds up boot time slightly believe it or not.

OP, let me ask you something... Are you a "desk" person? or are you a couch/bed person? That is, when you're surfin the web, checkin email, etc...do you prefer to hang out on a couch or sit in a comfy chair at a desk. I am BY FAR a desk person..I just fit better in a desk chair. When my laptop was m...

what made you want to go with an 80mm fan on the side? 120 moves way more air, and by the looks of it your dad just used a jigsaw to make the cut..would have been same amount of work to cut a 120mm hole. oh well nice home theater u got there! i want! The 120mm fan does not fit in there, there is a ...