Is it really that hard? I just see money for nothing... Well that is what i am trying to determine, if it indeed is money for nothing, or just money for a little. When you start on a Haswell-E build you already know you are not exactly getting the best value for money :) I do want to OC (but not wi...

AIO are simply for those, who need the performance and do not care much about noise. As said in the SPCR review, you can get nearly the same performance with an equal noise level or even better for half the money. If you have the room in your case and do not want to do extreme oc, that is. The firs...

Was just reading http://www.overclock.net/t/1499418/cpu-cooling-showdown-air-ph-tc14pe-vs-water-nepton-280l . Makes me wonder if perhaps it is not worth the bother with an AIO CLC cooler after all, but it seems no matter what good cooling causes clearance issues, especially with regard to RAM. I fou...

Abula wrote: Personally i would go with the 440, specially since you can ask NZXT if the 440 can support X61, since its the same manufacturer they should know.

Unfortunately the window is a dealbreaker for me. I dont want to be able to see the "guts" of my PC

For AIO, if i ever go that route defently would be with SPCR silver award NZXT Kraken X61 28cm Liquid Cooler Either of the cases you are considering is a good choice, i like R4 more into 140mm fans, but the NZXT i like because of the looks/design and no optiocal into triple frontal fan.... but its ...

Hi, I am planning an upgrade to an i7 5820k with a gtx980 and a single SSD as the only drive (no normal HDD or optical drives, so no real use for drive cages at all). I plan to OC (not in the extreme, but a good solid 24/7 OC so that the single threaded performance doesnt fall behind the 4790k). I w...

According to Intel: The chipset must be using one of the following controllers: Intel® PCHM SATA RAID/AHCI controller hub Intel® PCH SATA RAID/AHCI controller hub Intel® ICH10R/DO SATA RAID/AHCI controller hub Intel® ICH10D SATA AHCI controller hub Intel® ICH9M-E SATA AHCI/RAID controller hub I...

Try not to use the drivers on the included CD if you can. They are usually outdated. Grab the latest drivers here . You can also download and install the latest BIOS as well as the Rapid Storage Manager (the Matrix Storage Manager has been renamed). Thanks, i am aware that its a good idea to use th...

I recently built a (home) server based on Windows Server 2008 R2, Core i3-530 and an Intel DH55TC. I installed most of the drivers on the included DVD, but i noticed that Intel Storage Matrix manager wasnt included. Im wondering what drivers others have installed to ensure everything is running corr...

I just ordered parts for a Core i3 530 / Intel DH55TC based home server. As to the Core i3 being more expensive, it should also be noted that its alot faster. The Core i3 530 has a passmark score of 2662. The AMD 240e has a passmark score of 1739. The Core i3 530 costs ~50% more than the AMD (830DKK...

psyopper wrote:I'm using the stock cooler on my i3-530 and at idle with the case panel on I can't even hear the fan. With the panel off I hear the PWM clicking at about 12" and actual air turbulence at about 6".

Thanks for the response. I will stick with the stock cooler then.

Im just about to upgrade my home server to a Core i3 530 / Intel DH55TC based system. The server is needs to be relative quiet as it will be placed on a deep shelf near the ceiling in our office. As such it will be about 2-3m away from where we work. Does it make sense just to use the stocker cooler?

(You don't need a core i3 either...) Not for playing HD video perhaps, but many HTPC programs uses the CPU for scaling cover shots up and down, sorting collections etc in which case its nice to have a fast CPU. Ive seen for example MediaPortal running on an Atom/ION system, its horribly slow in the...

AOpen MP45-DR minipc: Unknown Mini-itx motherboard Intel X9100 3.06Ghz mobile CPU 4GB DDR2 SO-DIMM Intel X4500MHD IGP Mtron SSD Idle in Win7: 19W I think its rather impressive that the system uses so little power if you compare to Atom based systems (of course they have much lower load power consump...

Dropping power consumption in half on a server that's on 24/7 and currently using 70w sounds pretty good. However, the new low powered server doesn't start paying for itself until sometime in its fourth year (based on your $3/w power cost and only replacing the CPU, MB and RAM). If it was only a ma...

For the life of me, I don't understand this obsession with CPU idle power consumption. It's somewhere on the order of only 15% of the power draw of the system at idle (with a low power system). Furthermore, your getting all hot and bothered about 2 - 3w; that's like $0.25 worth of electricity in a ...

You want to look only at the test results on the first table on page 5 then which were acquired using integrated graphics, notebook hard drive, and an idle optical drive. A notebook hard drive uses less than 1W idle, similar to a SSD. The first column is system power measured from the wall then con...

Would a 44cm high case fit, or is that 42cm height restriction strict? (It sounds like it is...) Its pretty strict. There is less than 43cm of clearance. Finding a case that is under 42cm high with room for 8HDDs would be hard for a typical ATX case, given the need to fit an ATX PSU (approx 10cm hi...

All these different measurement of power consumption are making me a bit confused. The SPCR mentions measuring on the 12V connector, does that mean it is not representative of the total power consumption? (i realize it doesnt dont take into account PSU (in)efficient, but apart from that). Lets say y...

My guess is your noise floor (background noise) must be higher than some SPCR members. ;) I guess so :) There are two other computers in the room, at least one of which is usually on when we are in the room. Since they are much close than the server the noise from them are much more noticeable. The...

Silencing 8+ spinning hard drives ? -put in the garage or ventilated closet where a server should be, and skip the silent part. Servers are great way to remove noise from the living space...by removing the noisy equipment out of earshot of end users. I don't have a garage, I live in an apartment :)...

Im intending to upgrade my home server. I need a case that will make it easy to add and remove drives and provides space and sufficient (and silent) cooling for at least 8 hard drives (Caviar GP or similar, not 15k rpm SCSI drives ;). Preferably the case shouldnt be tall, but rather flat (though i s...

I intend to upgrade my current home storage server (Athlon64 3000+ based) which is too slow and uses too much power (70W idle back when it had 2 drives, it has 4 now). The current system causes streaming stutter just by doing a remote desktop to it. Primary requirements for server: 1.The server need...

Hi, I currently use an AOpen MP45-DR mini-pc as an HTPC. I will soon be replacing it with an HDI Prime 3.0 network player. My current media server is an old PC based on an Athlon 64 3000+ with 1.5GB ram, a discrete video card and 6TB worth of storage (2x1TB + 2x2TB). The old media server is used for...

I found out that the nvidia driver control panel had an option to add a fan control rule. I set the fan to 25% and then added such a rule. It seems to work.

Hi, I have a GTX 275 with a twin fan cooler. Its always been pretty noisy (jumbojet when booting, and annoying in windows). In the Nvidia control panel i can choose between "Automatic" and "Manual" control of the cooling. By selecting manual and turning the control up and down i have determined that...

I just setup my new system yesterday with a Core i7 860 CPU and a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 pro cooler. My case is a P180 mini with the fans that came with the case (set to low). In both idle and load there seems to be up to 7C temperature difference between the hottest and the coolest core. For exampl...

After reading about the P180 mini (and realizing how small it actually was) i think i might go for that instead. It is sure to work with my video card (and has a nice airflow for it if i remove the bottom hdd cage) and doesnt have any heatsink limitations i have heard about. But thanks alot for your...

Thanks, i guess i missed where they listed the supported video card length.

Do you think that the case will provide sufficient cooling with such a tight fit?

I am planning an upgrade where i will reuse my GTX 275 video card. I have been looking at the Thermal Take Lanbox Lite VF6000BNS, which have gotten some nice reviews. However, i have read that the box has problems fitting long video cards unless the HDD card cage is removed. Since a GTX275 is pretty...