does the video card need a 6-pin pci express connector, and if so, did you plug it in?

you want to use the third product you listed:
http://www.bigfootcomputers.com/Merchan ... y_Code=120

it means it has 2 pci-express connectors and the wattage to drive 2 VGA cards.

sort of.
Stack-Cool doesnt cool the processor or GPU or anything major, but it does help dissipate heat from things like mosfets and voltage regulators.

Correct. All of the power connectors are keyed so they will only go in one way.

Note however that some power supplies use 6pin PCI-Express Power Connectors for all of the lines, so you have to be very careful about making sure the cables get plugged in the right way.

any recent card should be able to set different orientations/resolutions/color depths/etc for the different monitors.

well focusing on the sweet spot for price/size, i'd say Western Digital, especially over at Monarch Computer (monarchcomputer.com).
They are currently carrying 200GB, 250GB, and 320GB Caviar SE drives for less the $.50 a gig.

the specs on it look good, but im wary seeing as how zalman's past power supplies and fans have been ok, but no nearly as good as seasonic's or the new antec's.

Dells work well and have a good value (i set my parents up with one with a long term warranty so they wouldnt have to worry while i was away at school). Personally i would never consider buying one for myself for a number of reasons (cost for the high end systems, i like to build my own, noise, etc)...

yes a 25mm fan will work. If you search the forums you will find someone who used a 80x25mm fan on their vf700.

Well it depends on how you mount it. But using it on the super soft mounts in a P180 or suspending it, it will be fairly quiet. Unless you are a hardcore silencer (who already has a very quiet system) the speed advantage will likely be worth the trade off for the slightly higher noise.

Also building a system with SATA HD's and Windows -- you have to have a floppy drive installed; at least temporarily... Not entirely correct. On my recent build (A8N SLI premium, with onboard RAID controller) no floppy drive action was required at all. I think it is board specific. More specificall...

awesome article. Im really glad to see that shuttle has finally made a good, quiet SFF (I didnt like the zen because of the lack of upgrade options and the ATI chipset). one thing though, the article hasnt been posted on the front page, its only accessible right now through this thread :lol: great j...

more specifically, this should be what you are looking for:
http://www.svc.com/4to3ad.html

I have a 320GB JD series Western Digital and it is basically silent in my current system. From what i can deduce from the SPCR reviews and user comments both the WD and Seagate are about the same. Given that, i think the WD is a better bet since it is less expensive. Any difference in sound between ...

SLI boards arent that much more expensive than non-sli (20 bucks maybe) so it isnt that big a difference. Plus you dont have to use the 2nd slot for graphics. You can put the board in dual x8 mode and put any card you want in the secod slot.

To my knowledge no such product exists. The best bet would be the Asus A8n-SLI Premium. The only specification it doesnt meet is that it has SLI. Even thoguh it has dual x16 slots it still has 3 PCI slots so you're fine in that area. Is there any particular reason you aren't willing to buy a board w...

Asus A8N-SLI Premium

instead of adding the compleixty of a northbridge waterblock i would simply add a 120mm nexus @ 5V blowing air onto the area around the CPU. It will give you better temps and add basically zero noise.

dont bother with a tc fan. Just slap in a trusty old panaflo 80mm. even at 12V it will be quieter than the other fans in the case.

natethegreat wrote:A link to this pic on anandtech: Click Here

that build is clearly an SPCR preview. Taking one look at that cable job its clear that Ralf did it. (not to mention i/ve seen that motherboard and RAM on other SPCR builds.

it'll work but in my experience AS drops the temps a few degrees.

unless you can go passive i would leave the stock cooler on the board. the dfi nf4 boards have a relatively good fan and fan control system built onto the board. you can customize the temperature at which the fan turns on and how long it take to ramp up.

Jab-tech.com has everything you need as far as computer power stuff goes. I modularize all of my stuff and get everything from there.

winguy wrote:

Shadowknight wrote:Also supposed to have some type of integrated cable management system as well.

Advanced cable management simply means the PSU is modular.

Also, according to the website, the case has channels for your wires to be laid in to keep them hidden.

wow, this new case and line of power supplies look amazing (Hard Drive Suspension built in to a case !?!?!?!.) I certainly hope an SPCR review is coming soon, i can hardly think of a product right now that is of more interest to the silencing community.

SPCR did a review of the powerstream here. As you guessed, it is not very quiet.

consider an antec smart power II 500W with a cool air tunnel from the top 5.25" bay.

if you look at spcr's slk-3000b review, they do a mini review of the tri-cool fan in which they find that the 25db spec is accurate for the fan on low speed. To get better combinations of cfm/noise you can also try wiring the fan for 5V or 7V and setting it to medium or high.

I'd second the Ceramique Recommendation. Its easy to apply, definately non-conductive, and cheaper than AS5