I fancy a new computer - thoughts?

Keeping things quiet is important to me, so in general the weight is important, the heavier it is the quieter it is. I'm not interested in blue leds lighting up the interior or plastic panels on the side.
Nope, wrong again, heavier doesn't make it quieter, Lian Li's high end all aluminum cases use 120mm and 140mm fans and rubber grommets throughout, very quiet. No “blue leds lighting up the interior or plastic panels” either, that's something you usually find on the cheaper cases not high end all aluminum.


Again do your research -



http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13


http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=101




Aluminum cases are light in weight so nosier and more suited to carrying around and carry a premium price.
Wrong, a good quality all aluminum case is not nosier and I'd don't know anyone who would carry a Lian Li full tower case around. You get what you pay for, you buy a cheap case you get a cheap case.





There is a potential fire risk with Aluminum as well.

Lol, wow this response beats all, “a potential fire risk”. Boy you're really reaching with this excuse.


What was that comment you made on “limited knowledge and fixed ideas” again?
 
Mine will sit on the floor and not move for five years or so so I think I'll stick to a conventional case without a plastic panel on the side.

Antec then? Heavy, cold rolled steel and good magnetic shielding. I have 3 different cases of Antec, very nice precision and smart solutions inside makes it easy to mount everything. More conventional than hot. Works a charm down to atleast -30c. ;)

There are so many good brand cases, it's almost impossible to choose...
 
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There is a potential fire risk with Aluminum as well.

Lol, wow this response beats all, “a potential fire risk”. Boy you're really reaching with this excuse.


What was that comment you made on “limited knowledge and fixed ideas” again?

Rock on Tommy get in there with a strong sounding opinion!!:p

"Aluminium is a strongly reactive metal that forms a high-energy chemical bond with oxygen." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium

If you know differently then I'm certain the American Chemical Society would be delighted to receive a paper on the subject from you.

When you see it used in cases etc. it has a protective layer of Aluminum oxide which is essentially impervious to air on it. Dissolve the oxide layer and it is very reactive, and under the right circumstances can be used as an explosive.

I think the world is round by the way.:wave:

Cheerio John
 
Rock on Tommy get in there with a strong sounding opinion!!:p

"Aluminium is a strongly reactive metal that forms a high-energy chemical bond with oxygen." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium

If you know differently then I'm certain the American Chemical Society would be delighted to receive a paper on the subject from you.

When you see it used in cases etc. it has a protective layer of Aluminum oxide which is essentially impervious to air on it. Dissolve the oxide layer and it is very reactive, and under the right circumstances can be used as an explosive.

I think the world is round by the way.:wave:

Cheerio John



Yes boy wonder I've often sat up many a night wondering if my aluminum PC cases were going to “blow up”.


I'll be sure post your new revelations about what's a safe material to use in PC case construction, this like the previous information you've given here should go over good, lol.
 
Keeping things quiet is important to me, so in general the weight is important, the heavier it is the quieter it is. I'm not interested in blue leds lighting up the interior or plastic panels on the side.

Mine will sit on the floor and not move for five years or so so I think I'll stick to a conventional case without a plastic panel on the side.

There are two components to the price of a case the design and the cost to build. In general the larger the number of cases of a given design the lower the design cost per case and the lower the cost of production. So I prefer as mainstream as I can get provided it meets functional requirements.

Aluminum cases are light in weight so nosier and more suited to carrying around and carry a premium price.

There is a potential fire risk with Aluminum as well. Although its generally considered fairly safe its the layer of Aluminum oxide on the outside that keeps it that way. If you want a fairly effective explosive kitchen foil dropped into liquid oxygen is very effective. Don't try this at home and keep the quantities down to a few grams inside a cast iron pipe if you do so. I've seen it demonstrated and a few square inches was enough to lift a stool placed over the top about a foot in the air.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Cheerio John

John,

Cases were one of the things that I spent a very long time looking at. I always found some shortcomings with them when putting systems together. These problems ranged from front panels being loose and falling out to many with poor slot alignment, warpage, and hard to reach places on the inside. Among the worst things was the sharp edges on the inside. Over the years I've had quite a few battle scars from the sharp panels and interior mounting racks.

For the workstation class machine that you're looking at, try Intel or SuperMicro. They offer some really nice enclosures, but unfortunately they are way out of my budget.

My last case, which still houses my old components, is from CoolMaster. This is all fans and grill in the front. It is quite noisy though and vibrates way too much although ti was fairly easy to work on inside and kept the components quite cool.

My current case is from Corsair. This is their 800D series, which cost $300 US. There's unfortunately a clear panel on the side, which I don't care about, but the cooling is excellent. There are places to mount at the minimum 8 fans, not counting internal ones for the removable hard drives and power supply area.

The power supply is mounted on the bottom, and all wires are routed through grometted holes to keep them away from the boards and allow for good air flow.

The chassis is nearly 100% tooless, and there are no sharp edges. After spending about a day putting it together, I had no cuts in my hands, or any blood blisters from any pinch points, which was always the issue before.

Begin a solid aluminum case, there is little noise other than my hard drives crunching away, and a slight noise of the fans. The temperature of my mobo, by the way, remains at 33C even under the worst load. I haven't looked at the CPUs or the VC while running any applications, by they remain in the 45C range most of the time. This is with stock cooling and no overclocking.

The Liam Li cases the DJT mentions are okay, but I've read different reviews about them on various tech sites, and the some of the complaints about them are sharp edges on the inside. This is also the same with the new ThermalTake cases. I had looked at both of these and turned them down mainly for this reason.

Good luck on your project.

John
 
My current case is from Corsair. This is their 800D series, which cost $300 US. There's unfortunately a clear panel on the side, which I don't care about, but the cooling is excellent.
John


Corsair makes a full aluminum replacement panel (without the window) for the 800D.


I was looking at this case very closely during it's development but the responses from users after it became available about poor air flow (due to only one intake fan located on the bottom of the case) turned me off.


In addition there has been some mention about quality issues involving the drive bay door.


It does look like an excellent case for liquid cooling though.
 
Corsair makes a full aluminum replacement panel (without the window) for the 800D.


I was looking at this case very closely during it's development but the responses from users after it became available about poor air flow (due to only one intake fan located on the bottom of the case) turned me off.


In addition there has been some mention about quality issues involving the drive bay door.


It does look like an excellent case for liquid cooling though.

Thanks for the info on the solid door. I may get one once I pay down my pc build expenses. ;) . The air flow seems to be okay with the intake on the bottom, the large out fan on the back, and space at the top for more fans.

There's a video on their website about the water cooling option. It's a pretty interesting.

I had no problems with the drive bays, Perhaps there were a few snafus in the beginning, or people didn't like how the drives clipped in.

John
 
Thanks for the info on the solid door. I may get one once I pay down my pc build expenses. ;) . The air flow seems to be okay with the intake on the bottom, the large out fan on the back, and space at the top for more fans.

There's a video on their website about the water cooling option. It's a pretty interesting.

I had no problems with the drive bays, Perhaps there were a few snafus in the beginning, or people didn't like how the drives clipped in.

John


Without a doubt Corsair did a great job considering it was their first try at manufacturing a PC case. I see that they already have new models on the drawing board.


I've always gone for cases that have a removable motherboard tray, but this is the first case that I considered without it and it was because of the excellent wire management. Wire “cleanup” is a cinch with that thing.


One question for you, is the power button on the D800 aluminum?
 
Without a doubt Corsair did a great job considering it was their first try at manufacturing a PC case. I see that they already have new models on the drawing board.


I've always gone for cases that have a removable motherboard tray, but this is the first case that I considered without it and it was because of the excellent wire management. Wire “cleanup” is a cinch with that thing.


One question for you, is the power button on the D800 aluminum?

The button is black and lights up white. I think it's aluminum, but I can't really tell at the moment. I never thought about it. ;)

I too have always gone with the removable motherboard tray so this too is a new attached tray on the inside. This was no big deal though because the case is so open on the inside it was really easy to work on. Besides I attached the CPU and memory before I put the board in. The only things that required connecting, besides the wires was my single video card and my sound card.

John
 
The button is black and lights up white. I think it's aluminum, but I can't really tell at the moment. I never thought about it.
John

Thanks John, I'm always interested in the quality of the power and reset buttons when choosing a case. Both the SilverStone and Lian Li cases I'm using now have solid aluminum billet reset and power buttons that why I asked.



I too have always gone with the removable motherboard tray so this too is a new attached tray on the inside. This was no big deal though because the case is so open on the inside it was really easy to work on. Besides I attached the CPU and memory before I put the board in. The only things that required connecting, besides the wires was my single video card and my sound card.
It looks like the only difference between the 800D and the 700D is the hot-swap-able SATA drive bays. I was thinking that they might revise the air intake with the 700D but it's just about identical to the 800D.


The Lian Li PC-A70B I'm using now with the i7 has 4x 120mm fans for intake and 4x 120mm fans (1 in back of the motherboard and three on top) for exhaust. I also swapped the stock fans for Scythe "S-FLEX” fans when I got the case so as far as keeping things cool goes it's hard to beat.


This might be the next replacement when I get sick of the PC-A70B, talk about “high quality” -


http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61




http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=d




http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=f




http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=s
 
Thanks John, I'm always interested in the quality of the power and reset buttons when choosing a case. Both the SilverStone and Lian Li cases I'm using now have solid aluminum billet reset and power buttons that why I asked.



It looks like the only difference between the 800D and the 700D is the hot-swap-able SATA drive bays. I was thinking that they might revise the air intake with the 700D but it's just about identical to the 800D.


The Lian Li PC-A70B I'm using now with the i7 has 4x 120mm fans for intake and 4x 120mm fans (1 in back of the motherboard and three on top) for exhaust. I also swapped the stock fans for Scythe "S-FLEX” fans when I got the case so as far as keeping things cool goes it's hard to beat.


This might be the next replacement when I get sick of the PC-A70B, talk about “high quality” -


http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61


http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=d


http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=f


http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/produc...ex=336&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=61&g=s

I had looked at these also, but opted for the new Corsair. Nice cases! :D I opted for the stock cooler for now, and so far the system is very stable with it. Eventually I'll get one of those ThermalTake or CoolMaster turbo-type coolers. I have one of these on my older QuadCore system, and it kept the temps very low and stable even as the system got older. This older system is 4 years old, and finally developed motherboard technical difficulties. I really can't complain though because most systems don't last that long due to product life-cycles.

John
 
Eventually I'll get one of those ThermalTake or CoolMaster turbo-type coolers. John

I'm still using the old king of air coolers, the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme. I've been using variations of this heatsink going back to the Core 2 duo days.


The Noctua NH-D14 is one of the latest top performers now but I wouldn't be surprised if Thermalright doesn't come back with something new.



This older system is 4 years old, and finally developed motherboard technical difficulties. I really can't complain though because most systems don't last that long due to product life-cycles.
It's funny you bring this up as I just upgraded some computers for a relatives business. One of the upgrades was on a machine that I originally built in 2002, an old Pentium 4 machine with an Asus/SIS 645 chipset based motherboard and a gig of Mushkin RAM, a real dog.


My uncle didn't want the old components back so I took them home and cleaned them up. The components got reassembled in an old aluminum CoolerMaster (ATC) case and I installed an Nvidia 5900 Ultra video card I had laying around. I reformatted the drive with Ubuntu (Linux) and the machine has been trouble free and has made a great Internet surfing/backup PC.
 
The GTX 470 and 480 reviews are out.

Over thirty years ago my father-in-law made the comment the biggest problem ho had designing computers was heat. He designed mainframes and his comment about programmers was that computers worked fine when they left the factory it was only when programmers started writing programs on them that the problems started.

Just looking at the GTX 470 the power requirement is roughly a third greater than an ATI 3850, 370 watts rather than 280.

This would mean a bigger power supply and high hydro bills especially as Ontario is raising the tax on hydro from 5% to 13% from July 1st.

Using an ATI 3850 means I think I can get away with a 500 watt power supply. I'd prefer an 85% 550 watt but whilst I can buy an Antec Sonata III here in Canada for $150 complete with power supply the Sonata plus is not readily available.

Disk drives, I like the idea of something big for storage so a 2t Samsung hard drive sounds good. I prefer a separate partition for the operating system in case I want to reformat it, but separate partitions mean head movement from one drive letter to another. SSDs seem favoured but I really want 150 gigs for Trainz seeing as I'm currently looking at 75 gigs of storage. So the choice is either a 160 SSD for Trainz or possibly a raptor. If I go with a 5 yr warranty 300 gig Raptor I can afford a 40 gig boot SSD for the operating system. I think Kingston's some one or other thought that is where SSDs made most sense it didn't make that much difference to most games and thinking back to using perfmon on Trainz some years ago there wasn't that much disk activity.

So 40 gig SSD to boot from, plus a 300 gig Raptor for Trainz and a 2 terra byte whatever for everything else.

Motherboards and cpus, I'm limited in what I can get in Canada especially with ecc memory. The Intel motherboard I'd like doesn't seem to be available so it comes down to an ASUS P6T WS PROFESSIONAL or an ASUS M4A79XTD EVO. One takes an Intel Xeon processor the other an AMD processor. This variant of the P6T motherboard was the only one that Crucial listed for ecc memory although I suspect other boards would work. Looking at the total cost and difference in cont I made a guess that the P6T board would be of a higher quality than the M4A79XTD and I happen to like Crucial memory so the ASUS P6T becomes the motherboard, 6 gigs of memory and a w3250 the cpu.

DVD writer - two LG whatevers different models to min any driver problems.

Floppy, no floppy this time round.

UPS APC backup 800 va

Monitor reuse existing 1440 by 900.

Have I missed anything? I'll probably drop the order in tomorrow some time.

Thanks for all the thoughts.

Cheerio John
 
John.

I think you're all set with the parts.

There's no need to worry about input voltage/current load on your power supply. The input values are still the same. It's the output that is the higher value and is developed through switching technology and SCR circuits. So consider getting the Nvidia 480/470 serires if you wish.

EVGA has some nice information on their new offerings. www.evga.com


These switching power supplies are pretty interesting devices. Way back in the ancient times, when things like this would actually be repairable, I used to fix them. The switch circuit was controlled through custom high-power transistors, some huge capacitors, and some really nasty looking things with huge heatsinks. The components probably have changed over the years, but the theory is the same. What's interesting too is they will not produce power unless there's a load on them. This is actually a safety issue because without a load, the switching circuit will go "out of control" and actually burn up.

It's too bad you don't have the same component offerings we have in the states. I don't know why and I don't see the justificaton for it. It's not like Canada is an undeveloped country that might harbor extremists. ;)

John
 
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There's no need to worry about input voltage/current load on your power supply. The input values are still the same. It's the output that is the higher value and is developed through switching technology and SCR circuits. So consider getting the Nvidia 480/470 serires if you wish.

It's too bad you don't have the same component offerings we have in the states. I don't know why and I don't see the justificaton for it. It's not like Canada is an undeveloped country that might harbor extremists. ;)

John

I think the power demands for the GTX 470 and GTX 480 are just too high so I'll go with the ATI 5850, I can always change it if nVidia come out with a more reasonable part.

If you'd like to take a trip to Quebec some time, we still have some extremists and its not that long ago we thought about sending in the army to deal with them.

Cheerio John
 
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I think the power demands for the GTX 470 and GTX 480 are just too high so I'll go with the ATI 3850, I can always change it if nVidia come out with a more reasonable part.

If you'd like to take a trip to Quebec some time, we still have some extremists and its not that long ago we thought about sending in the army to deal with them.

Cheerio John

We've go them up there in the "north" too. Maybe we should let them all join together then send them off the NB! I have family up in Halifax and the feelings about QB and NB weren't too nice. :)

I'm sure later on the power requirements of the new boards will drop with other models that come out later on. Right now the latest, first out of the gate, are aimed at the overclockers and nerds that like to show off how much they can spend on their atomic powered rigs that will make their entire neighborhood glow every time they turn them on. :)

John
 
I think the power demands for the GTX 470 and GTX 480 are just too high so I'll go with the ATI 3850, I can always change it if nVidia come out with a more reasonable part.


Why would anyone build a new system (for gaming purposes anyway) with a 3850?, that's if you can still find one.



Competition from AMD/ATI for the new GTX 470/480 are the “5850” and “5870” by the way.
 
If I remember, his current card is said ATI 3850 (not sure if it's PCI-Express or AGP, though. Better be PCI-E!)


Thanks saintjimmy, I missed that.


The 3850 certainly isn't going to set the world on fire but if he already has one then obviously you can't beat the price.
 
I think the power demands for the GTX 470 and GTX 480 are just too high so I'll go with the ATI 5850, I can always change it if nVidia come out with a more reasonable part.
Could you not push to a 5870 John? I've got one and, touch wood, it works great. That said, there are ATI 'issues' with Trainz. There are 'pop-up' issues with draw distances in TS10 and I'm still not sure whether this is linked to ATI cards or not.

Paul
 
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