Building a new PC. Any comments on these parts?

On 2009-09-27, kony wrote:

?? That is a strange thing for someone to write, front case
fan is in front of HDD rack, maybe he meant he had to do
away with the front case fan to mount the hard drive further
towards the front of the case?

From the pic, it looks like the fan actually does mount between the HD
rack and the MB. I can see the 4 screw holes for the fan.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowIm...Power%20Supply

"Cons: Just a wee bit too short to put in an HD 4850 and a 120mm
mid-case fan. The card fits, but the power plug sticks out of the front
too far and butts up against the fan. Hopefully cooling will be okay
without the fan in there."
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ords=(keywords)

Ok, but I still think what is closer to your needs is a deep
case rather than a taller (than midtower) one. In the
typical full tower you have the upper rack and the PSU right
above the motherboard still so there isn't actually any more
clearance available, just more rack slots and an empty area
above the PSU where some accomodate a redundant 2nd PSU,
some allow putting in a fan there (unnecessary to have a fan
there).

With a traditional hard drive rack where the data cables
plug into the rearward facing edge of the drive, a case deep
enough to give you some wiggle room with a full length video
card and drives in the rack would be about 19" deep, a
little more if the front case bezel is a fancy shape that
bulges out for some reason. That depth includes space in
front of the drive rack for a typical 1" thick fan, but it
is only an average, case manufacturers can do strange
designs sometimes and if the drive rack is rotated 90' so
the drive plugs face the side panel instead of the back you
can go with an inch or two shorter case but two is pushing
it.

Actaully, I was eyeballin this one last night.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811517004

Cooling System
120mm Fans 1 x 120mm fan in rear
140mm Fans 2 x 140mm blue LED silent fan (19DBA) in front
230mm Fans 1 x 230mm blue LED silent fan (24DBA) on top
1 x 230mm blue LED silent fan (24DBA) on the side

lol

ShadowTek wrote:
On 2009-09-27, kony wrote:

?? That is a strange thing for someone to write, front case
fan is in front of HDD rack, maybe he meant he had to do
away with the front case fan to mount the hard drive further
towards the front of the case?

From the pic, it looks like the fan actually does mount between the HD
rack and the MB. I can see the 4 screw holes for the fan.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowIm...Power%20Supply

That is true--I have one of the cases here. For this case, and the
Antec Three Hundred, though, I can say they are roomy. I have not
installed the front fan, but there would still be room enough to pull
the motherboard if need be.

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:29:52 -0400, kony wrote:

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:39:33 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:26:17 +0000, ShadowTek wrote:

On 2009-09-26, Grinder wrote:
Then maybe I can recommend this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129024

That's a good deal, but I was really wanting a full ATX, and I was
also hoping for PSU fan larger than 80mm.

I'll have to think about it.

Take a look at Rosewill cases.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...E&N=2010090007
+50002177&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=F alse&Configurator=&Subcategory=7&description=&Ntk= &CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

I bought one to house my current system I built two years ago. Some
models come with a 120mm fan and room for a couple more with dust
filters. Some models even have a duct to vent the CPU heat directly to
the outside. Very nice.


The duct isn't all that useful. The typical intel retail heatsinks blow
down instead of up and most of the best heatsinks are now a heatpipe
design that blows up or rearward.

Whether it's useful or not depends on your system. With yours, no; but
with mine, an Athlon 64 X2 one, there is only a heatsink and fan (came
with the CPU), and it sucks air through the sink and exhausts the heat
out the top of the fan directly into the duct and to the outside. If you
hold your hand over the vent, you can feel the warm air. There is also a
low, side-mounted 120mm fan with an dust filter (I clean it frequently.)
that sucks in cool outside air and maintains slight positive pressure
inside the case with air exiting through front and rear vents as well as
the CPU ventilation duct. A PSU with a single 120mm fan efficiently
exhausts air from the "dead space" above the drive bays. If I really
needed to, there are two other places to mount case fans. All in all, a
fairly well designed case, I think, and very quiet.

I generally just take the ducts off and put a piece of plastic or
cardboard over the hole as it countermines good airflow by causing a
short loop where the exhaust fans just pull in air through there only to
exhaust it after a small # of inches travel without cooling anything...
better to have more of the exhausted air pulled in through the front
cooling the HDD rack, southbridge.

On the other hand I wish more cases had a fan hole lower across from the
video card AGP/PCIe slot, then you can put an intake fan there and in
front of the HDD rack and have the best of both worlds.

My case has that feature. That's where I remounted the 120mm fan that
came with the case. The fan was originally installed on the rear panel.
It blows directly on accessory cards, and, of course, the graphics card.
The air also blows on the motherboard itself and its heat pipe assembly.


Stef

ShadowTek wrote:

I've considered previous comments and modified the list a bit.

Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE GA-EP43-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel
Motherboard - Retail
+
Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale 2.93GHz LGA 775 65W
Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7500 - Retail
= $185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.253271

Got Fry's?
http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/...3L-Motherboard

On 2009-09-28, Fishface wrote:

Got Fry's?
http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/...3L-Motherboard

"The ad above is transformed from a local newspaper ad. Prices on some
items may be valid only in the newspaper geographical circulation area.
Please check the availability and prices with your local Fry's stores."

There aren't any local stores in my area, and I don't see that combo on
frys.com

I've never bought anything from them before.

ShadowTek wrote:

There aren't any local stores in my area, and I don't
see that combo on frys.com

I've never bought anything from them before.

Yep, just in stores. Too bad, good deal.

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:59:16 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:


The duct isn't all that useful. The typical intel retail heatsinks blow
down instead of up and most of the best heatsinks are now a heatpipe
design that blows up or rearward.

Whether it's useful or not depends on your system. With yours, no; but
with mine, an Athlon 64 X2 one, there is only a heatsink and fan (came
with the CPU), and it sucks air through the sink and exhausts the heat
out the top of the fan directly into the duct and to the outside.

Is the duct direclty coupled to the heatsink fan? If not,
it isn't making much difference but in the majority of cases
and motherboards they aren't directly lined up both on the
plane parallel to the motherboard and due to distance
between the fan and side wall of the case. Sometimes the
ducts are extendable to reach, but ultimately there is one
main thing that caused the duct trend, that Intel had an
excessively hot (for it's performance) P4 Prescott CPU that
it refused to ship with quality heatsinks using all copper
base and heatpipes.

Intel then tried to shift the industry to BTX, but some
thought the side duct was a concession instead of moving
because yet another fan hole seems a "feature".

If you
hold your hand over the vent, you can feel the warm air. There is also a
low, side-mounted 120mm fan with an dust filter (I clean it frequently.)
that sucks in cool outside air and maintains slight positive pressure
inside the case with air exiting through front and rear vents as well as
the CPU ventilation duct.

In that case, you could say the same about cutting a hole
anywhere. So long as you maintain the positive pressure I
agree it reduces the negative impact of a duct and it may
even slightly help, but it is one of the least important
features in case ventilation and all the factors have to be
just right to see any benefit, which with the typical case
they usually aren't.

A PSU with a single 120mm fan efficiently
exhausts air from the "dead space" above the drive bays. If I really
needed to, there are two other places to mount case fans. All in all, a
fairly well designed case, I think, and very quiet.

?? What case are you talking about? PSU exhausts out the
back and draws from any higher pressure area. Is is best to
avoid drawing air from dead space, rather keeping airflow
across hot parts.




I generally just take the ducts off and put a piece of plastic or
cardboard over the hole as it countermines good airflow by causing a
short loop where the exhaust fans just pull in air through there only to
exhaust it after a small # of inches travel without cooling anything...
better to have more of the exhausted air pulled in through the front
cooling the HDD rack, southbridge.

On the other hand I wish more cases had a fan hole lower across from the
video card AGP/PCIe slot, then you can put an intake fan there and in
front of the HDD rack and have the best of both worlds.

My case has that feature. That's where I remounted the 120mm fan that
came with the case. The fan was originally installed on the rear panel.
It blows directly on accessory cards, and, of course, the graphics card.
The air also blows on the motherboard itself and its heat pipe assembly.


Stef


You took the rear panel fan and moved it, but didn't put a
fan on the rear to replace it? If that is correct the case
is not cooling optimally unless you have the rear end butted
up against a wall or furniture so it blocks the fan hole in
the rear.

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:44:38 -0400, kony wrote:

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:59:16 GMT, Stefan Patric
wrote:

[snip]

A PSU with a single 120mm fan efficiently exhausts air from the "dead
space" above the drive bays. If I really needed to, there are two other
places to mount case fans. All in all, a fairly well designed case, I
think, and very quiet.

?? What case are you talking about? PSU exhausts out the back and
draws from any higher pressure area. Is is best to avoid drawing air
from dead space, rather keeping airflow across hot parts.

It's a Rosewill case. Don't recall the model number. Probably been
discontinued, anyway. Got it from Newegg.

The PSU exhaust out the back, too, but where traditionally one would find
a 75 or 80mm fan, there is only a vent. The PSU cooling fan is on the
bottom, a 120mm one, at least. It pulls air from inside the case and
blows it out the rear vent. Different arrangement, but effective; and
QUIET! That's one of the reasons I got that particular PSU. The system
is in my bedroom, and runs 24/7. The last system I had roared like a
freight train trying to make up lost time. I had no intentions of living
with another system that noisy.

On the other hand I wish more cases had a fan hole lower across from
the video card AGP/PCIe slot, then you can put an intake fan there and
in front of the HDD rack and have the best of both worlds.

My case has that feature. That's where I remounted the 120mm fan that
came with the case. The fan was originally installed on the rear panel.
It blows directly on accessory cards, and, of course, the graphics card.
The air also blows on the motherboard itself and its heat pipe assembly.

You took the rear panel fan and moved it, but didn't put a fan on the
rear to replace it? If that is correct the case is not cooling
optimally unless you have the rear end butted up against a wall or
furniture so it blocks the fan hole in the rear.

The case has several places to mount fans that also double as vents, if
there is no fan there. That is, no gaping holes. The fan that came with
the case, a 120mm one, was mounted initially on the rear, and setup to
suck air out the back, but I wanted to BLOW cool, outside air directly on
the accessory cards, graphics card, and heatpipe. There was a filtered
vent on the side panel with fan mounting holes that was in exactly the
correct position to do that. So, I moved the fan.

I had intended to put another fan at the front of the case--there's a
mount for one--to pull in outside air, blow it across the hard drives,
etc., but I found that the PSU fan, a low speed, high volume one,
provided enough additional air flow that I didn't need to do that.
Serendipity strikes, again.

I monitor the temps, and even when it gets up to 90F in the room,
everything is still in the stated safe ranges.


Stef