I very much needed to upgrade my P4 Prescott 3.2 gig machine. I wanted to move from a mid tower-ATX to a micro-ATX because I realized that I just did not need all of that space, and I did not want a big case. This build is meant to last me for a long time, so I probably went with more powerful components than I needed I tried to save money where I could, so it is not an all out build. I will be playing some games occasionally, photo editing, and movie editing possibly, so I wanted to go with a quad core. Thanks to many members of the forum whose ideas made this build possible.
Specs
- Case - Silverstone TJ08: I was debating for a long time between this case, the Lian Li V350, and the Antec 3480. I decided against the Lian Li because I did not like the lack of exhaust. I did not like that the Antec looked so plastically, even though it is definitely the superior case in terms of quality. Finally, I found a used TJ08 on ebay that had a minor cosmetic blemish, so I picked it up. I like the traditional layout, but the quality is lacking.
MB - Asus P5E-VM HDMI: A great MicroATX M/B with excellent ability to overclock. Got it openbox from newegg.
CPU - OEM Q6600 off ebay
GPU - EVGA 9800GTX+: I wanted a GTX260, but they are too expensive still, the price to power ratio was right for this one. I may "step-up" later.
HD - Samsung Spinpoint 1TB
CPU Cooler - NINJA Rev B reused from previous system
Fans - Scythe Slip Stream 1200 x2
PSU - Corsair HX520: bought used from hardforum.com
This case is really flimsy, and makes and unpleasant *twang* when tapped. The previous owner made a little improvement by putting some dynamat xtreme on some of the panels. I left those on as it was too much of a hassle to remove it. I further lined the top, bottom, and left panels with eDead 45 for weight and eDead v4 Teklite for high frequency (http://www.edesignaudio.com). It looks good, and definitely makes the case feel more sturdy. I also lined the right panel m/b tray with the eDead45. I could not put the TekLite on the right panel because the clearance is too tight.
I built 2 of these like rebellious did in his TJ08 build.
Pencil-MOD for VDropp. Starting to come together. There is NO place to hide wiring in this place. You cannot run cables behind the mobo try because the rigth panel sits right against a bare used for the mb-tray and strucural integrity. It cannot be dremeled. You have to be creative to made the wiring neat. A modular PSU is a must! BTW, the I/O plate is missing because it was a NewEgg open box mobo, a replacement is coming thanks to ebay:
Hard drive suspension using Stretch Magic. I had to mod the SATA cable to clear the Ninja. I have a few milimeters of clearance in front and in the rear of the drive. There is piece of the TekLite foam in front of the drive which helps protect the drive a bit when moving the case around:
Ninja installed. You can see how the HD barely the clears the Ninja, but it does. Actually, the photo makes the clearance look a bit worse than it actually is:
All done! Ignore the HD's on top of the case, I forgot that I was transferring files from the old drives when I took that picture.
As for at setup. There are 3 fan headers on the board. 1 PWM for CPU, which I am not using, and 2 case fan headers. Only one header is adjustable by the mobo. The front fan is therefore slowed down to about 760rpms using a Zalman resistor (http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/ ... s_id=23976). The rear fan is adjusted by SpeedFan and connected the the CPU core temps. It idles at about 750 rpms also. The GTX9800+ is the loudest component in the case. I plan to upgrade to a S1rev2 when I can. I think I could run it fanless without issues as there is good flow in the case.
The CPU is overclocked to 3.2ghz=400x8 @ 1.27v idle and 1.25-1.26 on load (I am pencil modded). The temps and good, and the system is stable for 24hrs using Prime95.
I am happy
Thanks everyone,
Ross
EDIT: Pics should work now!
