Just curious. Has anyone used Nvidia's feature of turning off/disconnecting drives? I know starting with the Nf4 chipset they had this ability but I never needed to use it myself. Just curious if that worked any better than using XP's options. I have and it worked great. The only problem was that I...

bkh, I have a few ?'s: - What kind of disk are you using? - Is it possible that it needs some sort of firmware upgrade? - Have you tried other SATA devices? - What drivers are you using for the SATA ports: the nVidia "accelerated" drivers or the standard MS ones? How about the drivers for the SiI ch...

If you're going to be OC'ing and doing a lot of media encoding or have your CPU under load for extended periods of time, I'd recommend the Thermalright ultra-120 extreme. It's a bit pricy, but it's the best cooler out there and should last you through a few systems. If you want more detail, SPCR jus...

I know the transistors are smaller, but 12MB of cache has to increase the transistor count to something ridiculously high.

Ah, I see. With an exhaust fan and a bit of airflow in the case, I'm sure the VRM's are fine. I was thinking of a situation where's there low airflow because of a lack of exhaust fan (I run my systems like that).

It all boils down to whether you want to pay 20 euros per GB for ddr2/800 or 200 eur per GB for ddr3/1333 I don't think (s)he meant DDR3-1333. (I could be wrong). Anyway... - What size hard disk are you looking for? If 320GB works, the Samsung 321KJ is highly recommended. Also, the Samsung 501LJ if...

But my point is that the airflow along the service of the board is still good. Seems like a big coincidence if it was only still good near those sensors but not near the VRM . . . My point is that airflow isn't distributed evenly along the surface of the board and that components that generate heat...

...with the 7200.11 drives, a read error is statistically certain for every 12TB read. I'm nit-picking, but it's not certain that you'll get an error at the exact rate given my the manufacturer any more than it is that your drive will fail at its rated MTBF. EDIT: Okay, you said "statistically cert...

This mobo is an option. It will allow you to reuse two sticks of DDR and your video card, but you'll need a new CPU.

Just stay with the DDR2-675. It's a perfect match for the Q6600 because you can still OC to 3 GHz with a synchronous mem clock. If you select a 1:1 or "DDR2-533" divider, you can raise the FSB to 337MHz without OC'ing the RAM, which gives you 3.03 GHz for the CPU (9x multiplier). As far as the ram g...

I just replaced a top-down cooler with a tower down cooler and neither the motherboard sensor nor (what I think is the) northbridge sensor registered any change in temperature. So, clearly the surface of the motherboard is still getting good airflow. I'm guessing that neither of those two mobo sens...

abit il-90mv
http://www.abit.com.tw/modt/il-90mv.htm

And like always in MSI's bios upgrade needs Dos boot-up floppy and floppy drive. I mean is MSI still heard that floppies haven't been supplied in package computers for like 2 or 3 years? And that is almost dead by now. They have a live update program that can be run (unfortunately, it requires Wind...

The Brisbanes are impressive. I'll be stress-testing my 4800 Brizzy this week now that I've figured out how to undervolt below the defaults with Ubuntu. Thanks to those Brizzy owners who've posted their results. This time, I have some guidelines. The last time I did this, with the Orleans core, it h...

Your PSU is overkill. The 520W will have more than enough power for any single-gpu setup you throw at it. If you're not set on the Corsair HX series, you could even use a Corsair 450VX or Seasonic S12II-430W

Looks like you have a good setup. One major issue I see is the Hitachi Drive. SPCR reviewed a 500GB model in that series and found it to be one of the louder (and hotter) drives available. A much better choice would be the Samsung 321KJ, or the WD 3200AAKS if you can't find that. I believe the P150 ...

About the stock fan.. I have two AMD systems running the stock fan (with AS5 TIM). One is an Athlon 3500 (AM2, Orleans core) and the other is my new Brisbane 4800. I have them undervolted to the point where the fan always runs at the 12.5% option. I'd say they're quiet. For reference, the only other...

morkys, I think you're putting way too much stock into the TDP rating of the chips. Remember, AMD uses TDP as a worst-case scenario. If you're building a system for gaming or some other heavy usage scenario, then you'd rely on those numbers to determine your power usage. If you're building for light...

Actually, there appears to be, or have been, a 35 watt AMD64 AM2 X2 3800+ version. If I could find one of those, that would be nice. Good luck with that. Those chips are hard to find. I was faced with the same situation you're in, only my old mobo didn't go below 1.18V, which is the main reason I w...

Just a thought: If you have money left over in the budget, and you plan on keeping this system for a while, 4 GB of RAM would be a nice upgrade while DDR2 is cheap.

I wouldn't sell a working PSU if I was happy with its performance. However, if you're still set on selling it, (and you live in the U.S.), PM me because I would be interested in buying it. Out of curiosity, why are you using an SLI board? Are you planning on going SLI? Interitus: My fan-modded SS-40...

I purchased the 330 recently and was disappointed by the fan noise - the loudest source in the case after stopping all other fans. Am I to take it that the 330 S12-II model doesn't have the beefier heatsinks of its higher wattage brethren, just as in the original S12 series? (thereby, requiring mor...

I believe they all run at 1.1V at idle.

Here's a good comparison between the BE-2350 and the X2 4000 Brisbane as well as a 90nm Windsor X2 3800.

If you're creative (search "cablegami"), you can keep PATA ribbon cables from hindering your airflow. So if you have CD/DVD drives that meet your needs, don't buy new ones just because of the cabling. A lot of people on SPCR tend to avoid the Nvidia chipsets because they run hot and they have featur...

You're devoting an entire 320 GB drive to cache? That seems very wasteful to me in terms of noise. Even though the 321KJ is very quiet, it does put out a good bit of vibration. I would look into a Gigabyte I-RAM drive if you really feel the need for a dedicated cache drive. It would be much quieter ...

About the HD... I've got 2 WD Scorpio's, both one-platter, 40GB w/8MB cache. One is a PATA and the other a SATA. The PATA model is extremely quiet, but the SATA model is a bit louder. In fact, the SATA model is louder than my Samsung 321KJ at idle. I would recommend you get the SpinPoint 321KJ becau...

Q1: Is this a good choice of motherboard or are there better one available ? Maybe GA-M55S-S3 with nForce 590 chipset ? I'd avoid the nForce 5x0 chipset, as it's known to run very hot (especially the 590). I'd actually recommend a motherboard with integrated graphics, based on AMD 690G or GeForce 7...

Newegg is running a $20-off coupon (code: EMC821CASE04) on Antec's EarthWatts 430W power supply. There's also a $20 mail-in rebate on the same power supply, so applying both the coupon and the rebate can shave its price down from $69.99 to just $29.99. Newegg offers free three-day shipping on the u...

-If you're focused on gaming, shift money from the CPU (a dual core instead of the quad, it'll be easier to cool quietly as well) to a better video card (8800 GTS as Max suggested) -Keep the 4GB of memory if you plan on running Vista. -If you can make do with 500GB, the Samsung SpinPoint 501LJ would...

I think you should take a look at this article and reconsider your choice of video card. (i.e. move to the 2600 or 8600 series)