[Nuke]

And yeah, you could easily do that. Or alternatively, if you plan to hang on to the old one for any reason (I hate retiring systems until they're entirely toasted) you could grab a cheap generic one to let it live on, at least as a spare box/htpc or something.

Admittedly, I nearly fried a 450w in this system once. EDIT: It started giving off a hot electronics smell while I was gaming, caught it before it fried, ended up reusing it elsewhere) Of course, that was an old CoolMax, and a piece of junk.

And I mean I hate retiring systems. The 1.8 ghz (OC'd to 1.9/2.0, can't remember exactly) Northwood P4 system, with USB1.1 and 1 GB of RAM, Radeon 2400 Pro AGP, 40 gb HD and (believe it or not) Win7 I replaced when I built this one is still acting as a basic HTPC for my aunt. The 2400 can do at least some DXVAing, which lets it handle most 720p x264 files.

yea i like to keep my rigs operable. the rig i built back in 2003 still runs quite well with almost all of its original parts (though i think i gave the grforce 6 to my brother in law), exept the stock psu which was making whining noises and had to be replaced. i had a c2d rig too which got its mobo fried after a power outage. i got a new psu and mobo and made it work, but then i moved and couldnt take it with me so i gave that to my brother in law who at the time was gaming on p4 era celerons. both these rigs still run great. i think i want to have a second rig capable of gaming around the house for lan parties, and perhaps also to use for electronics stuff.

i want to explore another avenue here. and that is trying to go for a smaller form factor that microatx. i like some of the microatx slim, or mini-itx mini cases, but the low profile slots come at a cost, you need a lower end graphics card because the high end ones just dont fit. many of these cases use low profile card slots, and have less space for drives. of course i could just comprimize and get this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192087
i looked at it yesterday. and the only problems i have with it is it has a low rating and may present cooling issues. but im going to look at other small cases and see what the system would look like budget wise. the other 2 issues would be power supply and available graphics cards that would fit in a half height bay.

*edit*
power supply reqs seem to make mini-itx non-viable. so im just gonna look at microatx slim.

[KyadCK]

I hate retiring PC's too, to the point of being unhealthy.  My computer is a frankenstein which uses parts from 3 different computers and no longer has its original processor.  And even that change is so old that I'm still using a Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz single core.

oh come on, the P4 rig I keep around has literaly no original parts in it, not even the case or motherboard, let alone the cpu. 3.2 northwood with DDR2 667 ram, pci-e, sata 2... theres quite an upgrade path to be had.

It always pains me whenever a customer tells me they replaced their laptop or PC because it 'broke down'.

I love it if it means I get the 'broken' computer. I've gotten 3 dimension 8300s (among other various computers) that work perfectly that were replaced because the owners said they broke. I now use them to fix thing that actually do break in the other 2 8300s whos owners are too cheap to replace them. Really, worst case I could take the hdd from theirs, put it in one of mine, and give it back.

of course i could just comprimize and get this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192087

I can buy a CM HAF 912 for less, a full feature mid-tower, not to mention the poor reviews. If you are going to go mini-tower, then this wins in price, and has almost no bad reviews at all. It doesnt come with a PSU, but you said you had one in mind already.

[Nuke]

yea that case is horrible, after reading the reviews. il take a look at that one. part of the reason i want a smallish case is so i dont get jacked on shipping. they were more alaska friendly last time i ordered from them, so im hoping they dont screw me over too bad with that. ive only allocated $100 for shipping so if that goes over then it cuts into may rig budget.

taking that case under advisement, going with a $30 case saves money for accessories i would not have been able to get otherwise (like better fans and the sata hot swap bay). i was also looking at this one. i like where the front fan is, it can push air right into the grapics card intakes, something that my current rig has trouble with. most cases place their fans for cooling the hard drives which is silly unless your using 10k rpm drives (i seldom use drives over 7.2k). its short an egg but most of the problems people describe look impossible from looking at the pics or are so common as to be almost not worth pointing out (i used to be a professional system builder and can compensate for every case issue ive ever had).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147123
and yours, which im putting here so i can find it later.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147112
and theres this one, mesh front that i like, is nearly the same size and price, has a full rating and the same traverse airflow characteristics.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352009

[LHN91]

Was going to suggest the same CM Elite 342 I'm using, but apparently newegg doesn't carry it. Nice case though, for the most part.

[Nuke]

its likely newegg will charge me different shipping for the case than the rest of the guts (which last time they managed to fit into one fairly small box). so im not going to exclude the possibility of getting my case elsewhere. they just have to have good shipping policies to ak. they like to lock into an exclusive contract with a shipping provider, and some of them (especially ups) really gouge alaska. fedex isnt so bad, but its still double what the post office charges to ship a similar sized box. we also dont have postal delivery which kinda sucks because carrying home a box of computer parts a mile and a half sucks. add to that that neither of the major shipping companies have an office here, so the shipping from those comes through a contractor. its actually quite tedious.

[LHN91]

In all honesty, I'm not sure where else to even get it beyond CanadaComputers here in southern Ontario. It looks like the 343 or 341 are more or less identical internally, though I prefer the 343 in terms of looks.

NCIX USA carries the 343, $36.21 USD. I don't really know what their shipping policies are like, but I know people who use their Canadian branch and have been thoroughly pleased with the service.

http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=63283&vpn=RC-343-KKN1&manufacture=COOLERMASTER

It's not a particularly flashy case, but it's very sturdy, and gave me enough space for 2 Hard drives, the 4870, and the freezer pro.  I swapped the front fan it comes with with a blue LED Lian Li one, makes it a bit more shiny, though the one it came with was a fine performer in terms of airflow.

[LHN91]

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/LHN91/IMAG0085.jpg

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/LHN91/IMAG0088.jpg

pardon the awful picture quality, but this is my set up. All the stuff fits in quite nicely, despite the relatively small case dimensions

EDIT: For lvlshot fail. Never could get it to work right.

[KyadCK]

Ah, I recognize the CM Elite 341, used it to build my mom a comp. Phenom II 965BE @ stock with stock cooler and it stays cold as ice. Very good case, but the hdd mounts are lacking. Can easily shove unused power cables in the extra 5.25 bays. The side door has spots to put a cpu fan -and- a gpu fan on it btw.

The 342 seems to solve the hdd issue and otherwise looks the same, so I'd recommend it too.

EDIT: That fractal only has one 120mm and its in the front, just a heads up.

EDIT 2: For newegg ratings I tend to look at total % of each vote, 4-5 egg good, 3 egg null, 1-2 egg bad, and try to stick to 75-80% good or better. Perhaps I'm a tad paranoid, but I find its a good standard to set.

[Nuke]

i like the way the airflow traverses the case having a large fan in the lower part of the front panel. you really need to think about airflow. ive seen setups where the airflow from the front fans were greater than the back fans and forced air out of the passive vents (these are typically meant as intakes to draw air into the cpu fan and power supply), preventing that air from cooling anything. so typically the power supply and rear panel fans need to be more powerful than the front panel and side panel intake fans. if there are no passive vents and fans cover all  holes, its generally a good idea to have equal airflow between intake and exhaust fans. ive seen situations where fans were installed backwords or worked against each other or generally configured inefficiently. case manufacturers like to add more fan hardpoints and passive vents than the specs call for, and this can lead to builders do really dumb things with them. my current case has a lot of intake power and not so much exaust power and no passive vents what so ever and it has cooling problems despite monstorous intake power.

[Nuke]

i changed power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016

this one is $10 cheaper, 550w instead of 500w, 3 12v rails instead of 2, and has a lot of 5 egg ratings, and on top of that modular cabling 4tw!

[KyadCK]

Good find, I'll have to keep that one in mind for comps I make in the future.

[Nuke]

so here is what im looking at now:
case
psu
cpu
mobo
ram
video card
hard drive
rear exhaust fan
side intake fan

and thats it, i decided i couldn't justify buying another optical drive or flash card reader since i barely use the ones i have. im also like 50 bucks under budget. i also decided to put my current wireless nic into the new rig, and use a usb wifi dongle that i have sitting around doing nothing for this rig (although it will be in the same room as my router and i might just hard wire it in to the router instead).

i like the traverse airflow characteristics of this case. the mobo was selected for its support for ddr3 @ 1600, and ram accordingly. i decided to go with a new to me brand, so i hope i wont get screwed over here.  couldn't pass up that psu, which has features i didnt think i could afford. video card was the best i could afford. fans were chosen for high cfm and low noise. the hard drive shortage as seriously killed my aspirations for a 1tb hard disk, so a 750gb will have to do. probably will throw a copy of rage on top of all that with the surplus funds.

i kinda jumped the gun here, i dont get mu check for another 2 weeks, so i have plenty of time to look for anything which might pose a problem.

[KyadCK]

It's all good, but Caviar Green? I know HDDs are in shortage and expensive now, but couldn't you use the extra $50 to bump it up to a Blue at least? Greens are power savers, and slow even by HDD standards.

Other (admittedly more expensive) options:
750GB Caviar Black: $150
1TB Caviar Blue: $150
1TB Barracuda: $140
1TB Deskstar: $150


EDIT: Don't worry about the G.Skill, they're a good brand.
EDIT 2: RAM selection page says $55, but details page says $70, could be worth looking into.

[Nuke]

why did i pick that one. i think i meant to get the one that was listed under it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

looks like im gonna get a tb after all.

[KyadCK]

Oh. Well if the $50 extra includes the HDD, you could upgrade to a 560 If you wanted with the $25 mail-in-rebate.

EDIT: Quite the gap between the 550ti and 560... If you dont mind ATI, the 6850 slips in nicely to fill it both cost and performance wise.

[LHN91]

I've somewhat lost any faith I had in Seagate hard drives. Last one I bought had to be sent in for an RMA 2 weeks in. Now admittedly, since it came back from RMA it's been totally fine, but still. Ended up grabbing a 500gb Caviar Black, and several months later a 1tb Green (EDIT: as a media drive in another box), and been quite happy with them.

[Nuke]

this damn hard drive price hike is really pissing me off. i had intended to spend no more than $100 as i usually do. im already $40 on top of that and for a mediocre 1tb drive.

[KyadCK]

I managed to get a good 2TB 64MB cache WD Caviar Black for $140 the day before Fry's kicked up the prices, Talk about luck.

Speaking of luck, How does a 1TB 64MB cache WD Caviar Black for $150 sound?

[Nuke]

maybe if they dont rape me on shipping.

[KyadCK]

First Alaskan zipcode I could find. Big state, but might give a general idea.