olssy wrote:Any reason you prefer the Samsung and Intel SSD drives to the Vertex 2?
Intel mostly out of being most reliable SSD back up by a company that been in the market for good amount of time, also their warranty is one of the best atm with 5 years. OCZ to me its dead, specially withe thier shaddy way of hiding they moved the Vertex2 to 25nm without warning new customers. Samsung does all, they do their own nad and controller, the 470 only has one downside, their firmware is destructive, so you have to backup your drive before updating, but performance is really good, specially for small ssd, in the 64gb range that would be my choice, in the 120/8 gb range it opens more into Intel 320/510 and Crucial M4.
olssy wrote:Great advice, thanks. I guess I'll try with the noiseblocker case fan to start with and see what the temperatures are like, I think I have Zlaman FanMate lying around somewhere. But I'm not sure the massive heatsink in the build you linked to will fit on the motherboard correctly. I'll google around later to see if anyone else has tried, I'm still not convinced the Zoltac motherboard is ideal for me because of the negative reviews...
The link that i provided for the build has the exact case you are looking for with micro atx mobo and massive coolers, he went for micro atx to have the cpu cocket a little separated from the PCIe 16x (a mini itx board has it right next to the cpu socket) that kinda allow him to place the Passive HR03 on the GPU and still clear enough to place the HR02 on the CPU, a little complicated but watch the thread you will see in the pictures what i mean.
Personally i favor Asus and MSI for 3rd party mobo manufacturers, but have read good things about ASrock, never personally use them though. The build that posted, is using a picoPSU 160XT if im not mistaken, but his dedicated GPU isnt exaclty top of the line. For good GPU i would skip the picoPSU, and go into a normal ATX PSU, like you wanted with the X460, but this will limit a lot what heatsinks you can use on the CPU (as the PSU will be on top of it). Here is where the SFF becomes fun =P .
Now i built on a Q08 which is very similar to Q11 (mine is deeper and not as tall but similar...), this is not your case but check the following thread,
Mini ITX H67 Silent Gaming System, btw i doubt its silent, but the purpose of directing you there, is he uses a Q08 with Normal ATX PSU with a Thermalright AXP 140, here is where it gets a little complicated, i believe the Q11 is a slightly less wide, so im not sure the AXP140 would fit on Q11 that for you to research, but that probably the best cooler you will be able to get into a Q11 with a normal ATX PSU. I would probably undervolt the stock fan it comes with or replace it with another Noiseblocker. Another reason to see this thread is that the AXP 140 with his Mobo has enough room to not obstruct the PCIe (its close) but as you continue seeing his thread you will see that he manages to install a GPU.
One last thing you should take into account is that Q11 isnt as deep as the Q08, so you probably wont be able to fit big gpus, my guess is GTX460 and below. If you still want to presue a passive cooled gpu, then check
PowerColor SCS3 AX6850 Passive
Some other coolers to look for are,
Scythe Big SHURIKEN and
Scythe Kozuti Low Profile, here crosscheck that will clear the memory and the placement will not obstruct the usage of the PCIe 16x slot, with the specific mobo of your choice.
Now one thing to take into account, is that you are wishing for a small case with with high end components, the inside will get hot, specially on load, so the more heat the more RPMs on the fans you will need to keep it cool, its a challenge, but personally i share HFAT view, first crosscheck what will your GF will use it, and build for that.
I'm going to look in to the Intel 320 drive later tonight but if you hadn't mentioned it I wouldn't have.