1st Impressions of New System
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:05 pm
Here's a List of the Hardware:
Silverstone SST-TJ08B Matx Case
FSP 300GN PSU
Biostar K8M800-AM2 Motherboard
Sempron 3000+ Manilla Core
2x Kingston DDR2 533 Ram
Saphire Radeon 9600 Pro 4x/8x AGP w/256 megs.
Samsung SH-S182D/BEBE DVD Burner
Seagate 7200.10 320GB Sata Drive
1st Impressions. Silverstone really has created a damn sweet case here but it's not perfect. For example, the front drive plates are screw mounted, meaning installing a drive can be a real PITA. Another complaint is the use of BLUE LED's for the Power and Drive (I hate blue LED's).
Now internally, the front connections (4x USB2, 1x Firewire, Mic/Spkr, Pwr/Reset) are nicely done up. About the only complaint I have there is the length of the USB/Firewire cables as it they're too damn long. They could be about half the length and reach they'd still reach any Matx board you'll be able to install.
The two 120mm Case fans move a fair amount of air while being damn near silent at 12v. minimal need to mod em. In fact the HSF on the CPU makes more noise then the Case or PSU fans as it spins as 2800+ but it doesn't have to ramp up since the Sempron is rated at 62 watts of heat.
One feature that's very nice is the removable motherboard tray. Another thing is the use of screwed in slot covers instead of the breakoff types. This means that once you mount the motherboard, installed memory and any add-on cards, you can simply connect all of the front leads (remember they're pretty long) and simply slide the tray back in and then anchor your add-on cards and lock the tray down with it's retainer screw.
Now the big thing for those like me who can't seem to work on anything w/o bleeding, all edges are rolled and you'll be damn pressed to even find a sharp edge during normal assembly.
Now onto the rest of the system.
The Saphire card does have a HSF but the fan is inaudiable. Simply put it happens to run at about 500 rpm. Very low speed and is only to ensure that if you overclock it doesn't overheat. Other then that the card performs nicely.
Now the Samnsung drive is much quieter then the Lite-on series while offering much faster access to a disk. Compared to my Lite-On dvd burner, it starts reading a disk under XP in less then 2 seconds while the Lite-On seems to take anywheres from 4-6 seconds to even detect a DVD is in the drive. Now it's not quite as fast as the Lite-on but it does burn DVD's at a nice 8x plus it can handle DVD-Ram Disks.
I have to say that Seagate really got things right with the 320 GB Sata drives because the only noise you even hear is the occaisional seek noise. As to other noise, the drive is silent to me and that's w/o isolating the drive from the case.
The overall noise quality is very smooth. There are no pulsing/annoying whines from anything except the CPU Fan and very little work will be required to actually get the system down to silent (CPU HSF replacement/mod) is about it.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the level of silence already offered by this setup and I expect to have the CPU HSF silenced in the next couple of months, when I'll be updating this after living with it for a while and yes I expect the quest for silence to start driving me completely around the bend very soon.
Silverstone SST-TJ08B Matx Case
FSP 300GN PSU
Biostar K8M800-AM2 Motherboard
Sempron 3000+ Manilla Core
2x Kingston DDR2 533 Ram
Saphire Radeon 9600 Pro 4x/8x AGP w/256 megs.
Samsung SH-S182D/BEBE DVD Burner
Seagate 7200.10 320GB Sata Drive
1st Impressions. Silverstone really has created a damn sweet case here but it's not perfect. For example, the front drive plates are screw mounted, meaning installing a drive can be a real PITA. Another complaint is the use of BLUE LED's for the Power and Drive (I hate blue LED's).
Now internally, the front connections (4x USB2, 1x Firewire, Mic/Spkr, Pwr/Reset) are nicely done up. About the only complaint I have there is the length of the USB/Firewire cables as it they're too damn long. They could be about half the length and reach they'd still reach any Matx board you'll be able to install.
The two 120mm Case fans move a fair amount of air while being damn near silent at 12v. minimal need to mod em. In fact the HSF on the CPU makes more noise then the Case or PSU fans as it spins as 2800+ but it doesn't have to ramp up since the Sempron is rated at 62 watts of heat.
One feature that's very nice is the removable motherboard tray. Another thing is the use of screwed in slot covers instead of the breakoff types. This means that once you mount the motherboard, installed memory and any add-on cards, you can simply connect all of the front leads (remember they're pretty long) and simply slide the tray back in and then anchor your add-on cards and lock the tray down with it's retainer screw.
Now the big thing for those like me who can't seem to work on anything w/o bleeding, all edges are rolled and you'll be damn pressed to even find a sharp edge during normal assembly.
Now onto the rest of the system.
The Saphire card does have a HSF but the fan is inaudiable. Simply put it happens to run at about 500 rpm. Very low speed and is only to ensure that if you overclock it doesn't overheat. Other then that the card performs nicely.
Now the Samnsung drive is much quieter then the Lite-on series while offering much faster access to a disk. Compared to my Lite-On dvd burner, it starts reading a disk under XP in less then 2 seconds while the Lite-On seems to take anywheres from 4-6 seconds to even detect a DVD is in the drive. Now it's not quite as fast as the Lite-on but it does burn DVD's at a nice 8x plus it can handle DVD-Ram Disks.
I have to say that Seagate really got things right with the 320 GB Sata drives because the only noise you even hear is the occaisional seek noise. As to other noise, the drive is silent to me and that's w/o isolating the drive from the case.
The overall noise quality is very smooth. There are no pulsing/annoying whines from anything except the CPU Fan and very little work will be required to actually get the system down to silent (CPU HSF replacement/mod) is about it.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the level of silence already offered by this setup and I expect to have the CPU HSF silenced in the next couple of months, when I'll be updating this after living with it for a while and yes I expect the quest for silence to start driving me completely around the bend very soon.
