They have GTX 260 and GTX 280 as "real" upgrades. And some people (myself included) are happy to see a slightly better performing and slightly more power efficient 8800gt. I might even get one eventually. :) To be fair, though, not a lot of people are trying to get maximum performance from a 200W p...

vertex: what will happen when their cache run out? what will happen when you lose power when the system wrote to cache and assumed it was successfully writen but the drive itself has still not commited it to the flash memory I'm pretty sure it works the exact same way it does for that cache on your...

TooNice wrote:So you are complaining that a multiGPU setup is.. too powerful?

How is loosing framerates in certain software applications while only gaining a fractional amount in others an excess of power in your book? All it is, is excess. Pointless excess.

I really dont know how nvidia does it. We went from 8800gt, to 9800gt, to a die shrink with 9800gtx+ to now another die shrink with gtx250. All being the exact same card. Sure lower power consumption is great but cmon, can we get a REAL upgrade to the 8800gt sometime this decade?

jhhoffma wrote: Proper cable management skillz is a more valuable asset than a modular PSU.

QFT

a passive 400w psu is more than enough for that system. The only reason you normally want to get a higher rated psu than what you actually need is so the fan speed doesnt ramp up and cause too much noise at load. But since the one linked has no fan, this is a non issue. If on the other hand you DO w...

This reminds me of the time i glued a zalman heatsink to my northbridge with some AS ceramique, just to find out 10min later that now my VGA card bumped into it and couldnt be inserted any longer. So i had to dremel off half the flanges with it still attatched to the motherboard. I taped a bunch of ...

Stop playing futuremark all day, and just stick to crysis.

I mean honestly, your complaining about heat issues when using synthetic benchmark utilities?

Uninstall synthetic benchmark utilities, install PC games. Play PC Games. Problem Solved.

CNPS7000 is about as good as your going to get for a low profile CPU cooler. IF the fan is too loud you can swap it out for a quieter one. Theres a post around here somewhere on how to do it. Or use a fan controller to slow it down until it is quiet enough.

You can get a completley passive 400w 80+ certified psu from newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817104035

you can modify the drive cage in a solo to accomidate longer cards. If you dont mind going with a mAtx motherboard, the Antec NSK3480 is probably the best case on the market right now. Any VGA card length will work in it without modification, and it has a thermally separated PSU zone like the P180 s...

fyleow wrote:The Corsair SSD seems to be the hidden gem.

I see no mention of a warrenty on this item whatsoever. Corsairs warrenty page doesnt even list this product.
http://www.corsair.com/warranty/default.aspx

No warrenty = Crap, in my book.

Why bother getting 3x1 GB? Because only vista really needs anything more than 3gb because its a resource hog. If your running any other OS including a flavor of linux, then 3 is plenty. As it stands right now i dont recommend Vista to anyone. You dont really gain anything by "upgrading" to it from ...

I always see people posting in these forums "look at this system, tell me what you think", and of course everyone has their personal viewpoint on what the perfect "silent" rig would look like, so they all tell them. Over and over and over to every new post looking for advice. Well here is my full sy...

(32-bit XP won't see more than 3GB even if you fit more). 32-bit XP will see 4gb. The reason you "see" less is because it takes into account the amount of shared memory for onboard graphics as well as memory on dedicated graphics cards. So if you have a 512mb graphics card and 4gb of memory, window...

I had not realized how close 3.5" drives had come to the noise level of 2.5" drives. Its almost to the point that traditional 2.5" spinning drives are quickly becomming a niche market. You've got 3.5" drives with a better price/GB that are just as quiet for mass storage, and you've got SSD's with be...

I've seen cases that try to do cable management, but i've never actually seen it done well. Typically if cable management bothers you at all, then its already well beyond what any built in case features have to offer. I prefer to use hole-saw's on a drill bit. Gives a nice round circle as apposed to...

Its already been stated that the new westmeres will use the same x58 northbridge, but intel has had a habbit of forcing users to upgrade motherboards when they release new processors. So i wouldnt hold your breath for future compatability. Generally if your going with intel, you need a new motherboa...

Sometimes i wonder why people come to the "Silent PC" review forum to post about how great their non silent products are. I could understand if this was a post about how horrible this PSU was.

The AC PSU was only tested at 240v, this is why it looks so much better than everything else. Performance wise, the BFG looked the best. Now if only they put a good fan controller in it. Though if your willing to void your PSU's warrenty and do a fan swap, this is likely the best option in the bunc...

I don't know, but it was much praised by AnandTech: http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3516 Praised for performance, but was one of the loudest units in the roundup. Not much, but I admit that it was not the best in terms of acoustics. Here, the AC Fusion was better. Is the AC ...

Also, there is always the non modular cable version. Its not like having modular cables is a make or break option on a quality PSU. It was the reason I wanted the HX in the first place. For SFF machines, modular cabling is mighty nice to have. It can be done without modular cables, it just takes mo...

To all those posting about them being loud, its likely because of the speed they are spinning at, and in that case ANY optical drive will be loud at those speeds.

Use software to lower the drive speed. You only need 1x on a DVD drive to play a movie.

drive enclosures dont really help all that much. suspension is really the only way to make them truely quiet.

Do a search of this forum. I've seen this come up in the past. There is a way to disable the auto parking of heads on the WD drives.

Jay_S wrote:And I want to cram it all into my new NSK 3480 - going for most power per cubic ft .

I'm putting it in the exact same case. I love this little enclosure. Best i've ever owned so far.

~El~Jefe~ wrote:I havent seen a good sli combo since...

Since my 3DFX Voodoo II 12MB in SLI.

As long as you arnt getting artifacts on screen i wouldnt worry about the temps. I've had an 8800gt running completely passive with an AC S1 for years now with no issue whatsoever. I dont even have intake fans at the front of the case blowing in that general direction like you do. VGA cards work a b...

But, how do we KNOW that PWM makes fans noisier? There have been fan reviews in the past at other sites pitting PWM and non PWM fans up against each other. Some fans on PWM do not exhibit increased noises over voltage regulation, but then on the other side of things fans on voltage regulatioin neve...

lb_felipe wrote:I don't know, but it was much praised by AnandTech: http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsu ... spx?i=3516

Praised for performance, but was one of the loudest units in the roundup.