Scythe heat sinks with push pins are a pain to install. All of these cases are pretty tall and the optical drives don't overlap the CPU area. A mid size tower heat sink like the Xigmatek HDT-SD964 should fit. The Silverstone and Zalman have fan grill next to the CPU area and exhaust fans behind it. ...

The CFI A7879 has 4 hot-swap bays. (Scroll way down)
Lian Li will bring out the Q25 with 5 hot-swap bays, not accessible from the front.

The TDP of the P67 chip set is 6.1 watts, I doubt you need a different cooler at all. If still want to use one, the Thermalright HR-05 is the best. The mounting hasn't changed from older chip sets, so it should be compatible. The chip doesn't effect OC at all. Almost everything is integrated into th...

CPU Cooler - can get a Coolermaster 212 Plus for 22 GBP, is this significantly worst than a Mugen2 at half the price? Not too much, if you want quiet you should get a different fan, Scythe PWM maybe. I don't understand why you want to buy a 600W PSU for your system. Without a dedicated graphics car...

Lintx has a 12V 150W FSP power brick coming in. with a 12V 150w Pico PSU, that should be a great combination.
For a better price performance ratio this 90W FSP bundle caught my eye.

Full review at HT4U of the Sapphire 6950 Dirt3.
[edit] oops wrong thread, sorry [/edit]

Full review at HT4U of the Sapphire 6950 Dirt3.

Which Sapphire design are you referring to?
They have two own designs, with one fan or two. The newer two fan version should be one of the quietest 6950 models you can get without changing the cooler yourself. There's a thread on this topic you might find interesting

There are several ITX cases which include a Pico style PSU: an external power brick an an internal DC/DC board. Akasa Crypto , nice and small, has a grill over the CPU area. 80 watts should be okay for dual core One slim optical and one 2,5" HDD. Lian Li Q09 , nice aluminum case available in silver,...

The height of the 6850 to the top of the cooler is 145mm (source HT4U).
99 degrees load! I think you need to strap a slow running fan on that thing.

Are you game for a little modding? I prefer to have the PSU inside the case, too. So I modded a Q11 with a small 1U PSU (not quite done yet). The FSP 150-50TNF is quite small. I would put the PSU in place of one of the hard drives and either cut a hole in the back for a power connector (and cable) o...

Commel LV-67H
Socket G2, 2X So-Dimm up to 16GB, 6x SATA, SPDIF out, 2x Intel GB Lan, PCIe 16x, 2X Mini PCIe
Very nice, very expensive.

I would recommend against the Intel DH61AG.
The CPU placement is odd and the CPU cooler might interfere with an optical drive in the Moncaso 320 case.

Why would you want buy a Socket 775 system? Take a look at SPCR's LLano review . Comparing a low-end Sandy Bridge 2100 dual core to a high-end LLano 3850, Intel wins raw CPU performance and power consumption, AMD wins 3D performance. Either one will be better than your current list and neither requi...

In the bios all the idle states, that make the Atom so power efficient don't work.
Don't worry about 40 deg in the bios.

Looks good, mostly. I wouldn't put a hot, Passive GPU in the Solo. The MSI 6870 Twin Frozr II is very quiet. If you want to OC you need a K CPU (2500K/2600K) and a mainboard with the P67 or Z68 chipset. MSI and Asus boards have better fan controllers than Gigabyte's. The difference in IDLE power bet...

With all those fans and a 7200 rpm hard drive, a passive video card is the definition of pointless. I agree. 3. Disable/remove the stock cooler's fan and strap a decent 80mm fan in its place. 4. Use literally any after-market heatsink instead of the stock one. --> Collermaster TX3: decent, not grea...

The only option for a fully passive system in such a small space is a "heatsink case" like the one you linked. Other options are: HFX mini case SPCR review , or a pre-built system from Hush . Any of these options is very quiet and very expensive. Assembling a HFX System is more time consuming and a ...

Antec Solo, if you use hard drives. Because the Solo has a build-in hard drive suspension.
For DAW work you don't need a hot graphics card, so one 92mm in the front and another fan on the CPU cooler, maybe one in the PSU should do.

Judging from the pictures in fudzilla's review it just clears the ram in height, but touches it on the side.
I was surprised it's wider than the keep-out area around the CPU socket.

Why don't you read the review of the case ? Thanks for your input boost. RAM: 8GB DDR3 SODIMM (Do heat-spreaders help at all?) They help very little, but they are not needed. Fans: Scythe Samurai ZZ (Saw examples of it in this case) How about a SilverStone Nitrogon NT06 Evolution? It would sit right...

Antec NSK-3480 (SPCR review) . Without optical drive(s) installation should be a breeze. An aftermarket CPU cooler will reduce the noise level. Take a look at the recommended list . The Scythe Mugen 2 usually has the best price/performance ratio, but I can't say for shure if that holds true in NZ. ...

Silverstone ML-03 (Silverstone's page doesn't look right atm) Pros: cheap, ventilation above CPU and whole side. Cons: no vibration dampening for HDD Moneual MonCaso 312/320 , SPCR review of 301 Pros: looks (aluminum), build quality, remote and iMon media software (320 only) Cons: expensive Antec N...

To get the fitpc2 power level you need fitpc2 level hardware: MSI IM-US15WP The mainboard has a 1.6GHz Atom with an ultra low power chipset and 12V in port. It's completely fanless, just a very small heatspreader on the CPU and chipset. Add 30 watt high quality power brick and you should get the 10 ...

Lukewarm VRMs shouldn't be a problem. MSI Kombuster, like Furmark, is a stress test, which your card passed if you ran it for more than a few minutes. How hot is the card when play a game? If the PCB gets extremely hot when you play a game I would consider lowering the voltage. Random heat sinks wil...

Assuming the chip is RoHS compliant, this is probably not accurate. I did a bit of solder rework station design in college (~3 years ago), and most lead free solders were 210C - 230C reflow temperatures. This actually makes it a lot harder to remove a device without damaging it (or the PCB). I doub...

HFat wrote:What's wrong with simply using the SS4200 if you already got one?

The mainboard broke and the standoffs are non-standard. I didn't have the time yet to fit the new board in the case.

A little how-to on IHS removal . The IHS on most CPUs is soldered on. To remove it you have to cut the rubber and heat it to 85 Celsius. Then you have to take the mounting bracket apart since you removed the extra height of the CPU. Gently reseat your heatsink and, viola! Temps should improve by 5-...

There is a way to improve the VRM cooling:
In Russia VRM mods you.
With the Thermalright VRM-R4 there's a 35 degree drop in temps.

The price for what looks like the Thermaltake version of the Apex MI-008 (the Apex whose power supply is known to be fairly quiet is not available here), a D410PT and RAM is about 100 euros here. Even if you need to buy a fan on top of that, that's less than 120 euros and no hacking is needed to in...