I would personally never put those fans on just because it would ruin the look for me. They are always made of plastic and the metallic look is just so awesome. That xanuser's rig looks pretty sweet though in its rough metal construction with that fan, but it also looks like it loves the outdoors :D...

I had written a reply and the forum had logged me out and I couldn't get back to my text. In short: Bitfenix Prodigy wants to be on a desk or a surface because it is a mobile device (it has handles) it has very colourful, attractive design and it has the feel of something you plug and unplug often. ...

Yeah, it was not really necessary or up to me to start criticizing someone else's design. Perhaps in another context that would be warranted but not in this. My apologies to the people concerned, if any. I would simply have said this instead: "I personally think the dimensions or proportions are off...

On the topic of double-blind tests: I personally interpret these tests as a way of questioning your own perception and your own intuition and placing formalized "doubt" into it. You are simply doubting your self. You are doubting what you see, hear, feel. And you think that by doubting you can come ...

In my personal opinion Windows 7 looks okay and many of the visuals are nice, but some are not. I hate ribbon, I hate the search function for files, I hate the redesign for the multi-window explorer for files, I hate a lot of things. But I would not go back ever to Windows XP probably, simply becaus...

Yeah, no need to start talking about SSDs here.

It looks fabulous like I said, and perhaps at a certain point you will start to acquire a taste for doing the details.

Where will you place it? I bet it is a living room thing?

I think the reasons for designing this case are not very sound. It is intended to be placed on a desk or table-like surface, but it's height and shape are not suitable for such a thing. It is being designed as an ATX tower case that you can put on your desk. However, I would never ever put such a th...

I have no experience with high-power transformers or the like producing a coil whine or something similar under high load. So I'm not sure what I'm saying here is useful. But I have had a few power supplies / adapters that were badly built apparently and which caused the device itself (the unit itse...

That looks lovely, you know that? :) With these pretty heatsinks it is definitely something that grabs attention and looks nice in your home, probably. Although keeping it dust free would be important (to me at least). Btw: you think the SSD does not make noise, but I don't think that's true. I have...

I'm busy changing certain things in my life and that includes my living room, hallway and eventually bedroom. As part of my living room I am having to first make sure my electronic device needs are being met. I'm doing that first because it is easier for me and it's less hassle and I don't need othe...

Right. It was getting hot to the touch though.

well I am a slight bit because my Windows XP installation NEVER crashed unless some game decided to hang everything. but I hardly doubt it has anything to do with GPU temps. SPCR reported temperatures of over 100 degrees with no instability. actually, the system shut me down the very instant I was e...

Are you asking that of me?

My temps are fine, I don't need to change anything.

Hi Folks, I just bought a ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 ZONE Edition fanless GPU. It's a card that was not reviewed well by SPCR. It was said to run over 100° C. when given a torture test. ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 ZONE Edition fanless GPU review by SPCR, September 2012 My system contains one exhaust fan 92mm run...

I would think so too - that the Red drive would give no problems in desktop. I just read that thread. Makes sense. The worst thing that can happen is that a sector goes bad a little faster than usual and your application gets an I/O error. Perhaps this results in a sector lost and a file corrupt. Mo...

In Synology Hybrid Raid you probably won't be able to make use of that 1TB extra space. But it's strange, the Synology software puts a small (~9GB) partition in the beginning of each drive where it stores the system software. Changes to the system are written to all disks concurrently, so it could b...

This thread http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=63055 mentions the following: "It's upped the platter capacity to 750GB and rotation speed to 6600rpm over the previous model." I definitely want a 5400 model. The Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 is 5940RPM. The Seagate Barracuda Green spo...

My eye-sight! My eye-sight!

Seriously, I was seeing 2010 everywhere.

Maybe I didn't reload the page for 2 years :P.

Okay - relief. Yes I read this thread and I knew it read POSTPONED but I couldn't be sure :-/

My apologies ;-).

I'm looking to build a Synology DS213 NAS with 2 5400 drives. It seems WD Reds [WD20EFRX] are the best for this purpose? The SPCR article for that article had a pretty quiet recording [ this one ], but I'm wondering what other options exist? The WD Red is built for NAS; it has some kind of RAID feat...

I never knew the site was closed - abandoned. I haven't been on the forums for a while. Something started to irk when all of the latest reviews were dated 2010. I'm still benefiting from acoustics measurements such as those for the Samsung F4 Ecogreen and the WD Red. This information will be impossi...

Gigabyte's answer wasn't very illuminating: Whether the system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the system cooler you install. According to the System Fan pin definition the Pin 2 has Speed Control. So basically this support tech is saying that only voltage control is supported...

Hm that's not such a bad idea, Cistron. I wanted to have TV-out on my card, so that I can watch anime and film on my tv until such time that I buy a new TV, ..but, given that I've hardly made use of my tv out until now (my monitor actually gives a better picture than my tv), I think I can wait the t...

Double lifetime, so my warranty is always twice the lifetime of the product. If it breaks after 3 years, my warranty is 6. Ingenious. The Club3d card has dual output over either of the three outputs; vga, dvi and tv-out. The XFX card has dual output over dvi+tv-out or dvi+vga only, but you can do vg...

My fan header pinouts are slightly different as well: Mainbord: Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-UD2H CPU header pin 1: GND pin 2: +12V/speed control pin 3: Sense pin 4: Speed control Sys fan header pin 1: GND pin 2: +12V/speed control pin 3: Sense pin 4: Reserve Because it is a 4-pin header, I would think the Sy...

If I save 2 watt @ idle, it would take me approx. 3,5 year, to gain those 10 kWh back... Now there's an intelligent remark! However, 3.5 years seems long, but I'm planning to use my new computer for at least 10 years, unless i kill it again. My current computer has been in use since 2001. We are re...

TRUE - that's one of the coolest acronyms I've ever seen .

It seems my plan to use onboard video for my primary display, and the TV-out on the discrete card as the secondary display, will not come to fruition. The motherbord I have in mind, the GigaByte GA-MA78GM-UD2H, only allows "Surround View" support from the BIOS when "Init Display First" is set to the...

My main drive is a 2.5" 5400 that is perfectly inaudible compared to the fans spinning in my system. My data disk is a 640GB external Spinpoint F1 over USB-soon-to-be-eSATA that is much louder than anything else, even on foam. It is bliss when it is turned off, but normally I don't notice it. I can ...

Does anyone have any experience with the new Katana3?

Is it still possible (as with the Katana 1) to choose the mounting direction on any platform? (My concern is Socket AM2)

Incidentally,

would a 3450 doing Hybrid Crossfire with the onboard 3200 have comparable performance compared to 4350?

edit: I see now that the hybrid graphics gain is minor if you don't have a quad core Phenom in your system... Not a viable option.