My current (nearly finished) PC:
Superbox Aug 2011 -2 small.jpg
My current (nearly finished) PC:
Superbox Aug 2011 -2 small.jpg
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
Man... I wish I had the room for one of those behemoth CaseLabs cases.
Care to take one of the inside? Looks nice.
They aren't really that big, slimmer than two normal midtowers side to side. It doubles as a table too so it's room well used. I'll eventually put my printer on top of it to clear up space on the desk. Eventually I'll tidy up the insides with wire loom and ties once everything is installed.
Left side:
left side.JPG
Right side:
right side.JPG
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
Why did you get that case Ani? I really can't see a reason other than mounting a water-cooling unit within it.
As for the remark that it functions as a table, I'll say it's more correct to say it functions as a box. Might sound nitpicky, but the fact that you can't put your legs and knees underneath it and sit upright when you're writing etc instead of leaning over it makes a big difference for me.
In other news, a few hours ago I was informed that my SSD's finally been shipped. While I'm at it, I'm going to put my F: and C: onto that drive, cut all my anime/music from F: (500GB HDD) onto a new drive (I: 2TB), so I"ll end up with a 250GB SSD (C, F), 2TB HDD (I) and a 1.5TB HDD (H).
I'm also going to drill some holes into the HDD cage of my P182 and suspension-mount the HDDs with Stretch Magic. I'll just have to let my SSD arrive and take a look at it before I decide whether I want to mount that too, or just tape it to the case somewhere.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I like all of the space and functionality available with this larger case. I got tired of cramming and rerouting wires in my old Antec case, and airflow was poor because of the limited space, so temps weren't great. Now I have more room to work inside the computer, and a lot of options for upgrades/customizations.
I count it as a table because I can set stuff on it, not sit at it. I guess it's more like a shelf.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
Okay, Intel SSD has arrived and has been installed.
The difference is definitely noticable, though I'm not sure I can make the claim of "best upgrade you can get" right now. I'd agree with it in the sense that other PC parts don't (or shouldn't) bottleneck normal PC use anymore, so SSDs would bring out the most perceivable difference.
I changed over to AHCI mode, and shortly after I installed the SSD I noticed that music and sounds/keyboard/mouse was skipping a bit. DPC-checker confirms this with the highest latency recorded during the observation to be up to 5000 microseconds. It peaks whenever the SSD is moderately accessed. I nailed it down to the Intel Storage Matrix that I installed for my board's chipset, and uninstalling and replacing the AHCI driver with microsoft's default one fixed that. Maximum recorded in the last run was around 1000 microseconds. (<2000 is around the tolerable level). It normally hangs around the low 100s anyway. Reinstalling Intel's driver reproduces the problem, just to be thorough.
The reason I opted for the Intel driver in the first place is because they won't declare my HDDs as being inactive/unplugged if they don't spin up to full speed in 8 seconds when resuming from sleep (happens with large capacity, slow-spinning drives). If that drive was your primary, one would experience a hang or a BSOD soon after.
Microsoft does have a hotfix for the issue for anyone experiencing it though, which can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178
(I think I've talked about this the last time I played around with AHCI, but here it is again)
I replaced my Samsung F2 500GB drive with a WD20EARS 2TB as my media drive too, but the WD has much more vibration than the samsung, and I can hear the increased noise level even when it's mounted in the rubber knubs of the P182.
I've ordered the Stretch Magic from ebay already, so when it gets sent I'll have a play with suspension mounting my drives like this:
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I wonder if that makes any difference compared to the rubber mounts. But who knows. Even the rubber mounts still have screws. If you have only those elastic bands, in theory I guess it will only leave the HD's own noise. Plus the inevitable noise when those fail and the HD will drop and hit the chassis, followed by your loud cursing.
Why inevitable? Those were chosen due to their endurance + bounciness. Clothing elastic would have been a less than ideal choice, while bungee rope would have been a bit thick.Originally Posted by Kraco
They're way superior to rubber mounts in terms of the amount of vibration they can absorb. The only thing I have to do really is to stick a warning note on the back of the computer that says "Remove HDD Cage before moving", which I should hopefully see when I unplug the case prior to movement.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Just got all of the parts for new comp in.
Case: Cooler Master Storm Enforcer USB 3.0 Mid Tower ATX
CPU: I7 2600k
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H80
Motherboard: Gigabye Z68MA
PSU: Corsair AX 850W
Video Card: Nvidia GTX 560
Memory: Patriot G2 PC3-12800 8gig
Hard drive: 1TB Caviar Black
The motherboard isn't the greatest, but i got it for 20$ as a bundled deal with the CPU so it was hard to pass up. Still waiting for a good deal on a SSD before i finally pick one up.
I can't wait to put this thing together. Will post some pics after i'm done.
The PSU's a very solid performing one. Been very happy with mine.
Tell us how you find the CPU cooler, performance and noise-wise. I was going to get one of those, but it didn't seem like it was going to be as quiet as I would like it to be, so I opted for air cooling instead.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
My friend has the H50 model and i don't know if these are significantly more quiet or anything. But from my experience, they sound like screaming banshees at max speed. It is shipped with a resistor cable that reduce the sound however, but i think it still won't be very quiet. I personally think the cooling it gives over standard air cooling is significant enough though so i'll deal with a little noise.
Any specific reason why you got GTX 560 and not GTX 560 Ti?
It looks like you went pretty high end on everything besides the case. Any reason you got such a case to house such awesome components?
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
I am pretty lucky to have a Microcenter in Houston so i was able to get some pretty amazing deals. I got that 560 for 150$ US after rebates and it's EVGA, while the cheapest non-gigabyte TIs I've seen are at least 230$. The difference in performance isn't enough for me to justify the price increase.
As for the case, mostly because i don't have the space to support a full tower. As far as mid towers go, i generally didn't see anything that is significantly better than that case, just more expensive. I've been pretty impressed with most of the recent cooler master cases and this one is quite nice for the price (70$).
- It has great airflow
- Simple cables management
- Very roomy for a mid tower
- Designed to be mostly tool-less
- Has USB 3.0 build in
- It's very nice looking, the front cover really tie the case together (always a plus if it doesn't hinder performance)
The reviews for this thing have mostly been very positive, i really didn't see anything else that would've been significantly better.
@Animeniax: Did you have any case in particular that you would recommend over this one? Since i bought it from retail, it'll be a breeze to go return it if i find something better.
Last edited by Dark Dragon; Wed, 09-07-2011 at 08:02 AM.
That's certainly a good deal. I can see why you'd go for it.
No, as long as it's functional, then all that remains is personal taste as far as aesthetics. I like a more industrial look in a PC case.
Looking closer at the enlarged pictures, it looks larger and more spacious than I originally thought.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
What defines an "industrial" look?
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Industrial:
Superbox Aug 2011 -2 small.jpg
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
I figured that. I meant for you to describe features in words:
-big exposed fans?
-grills?
-dials and displays?
-Black?
These days I prefer a minimalist look I think, though I wouldn't pass up on the Raven Evolution II that looks like a Batmobile. Requirements for case must be: quiet, no lights (though I usually unplug the LEDs and any change the fans anyway), and no see-through side panels.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Any case that makes a PC look like a server/mainframe computer, and not like a kitchen appliance or console.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
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