Of those I would vote the HAF. The Antec has the best build quality of the lot. The HAF & Sniper are middle, the XClio is bottom. The HAF is one of the best cooled, and is quieter than some. The XClio is the worst cooled.
Looks like the DVD you listed was "deactivated". I suspect you would chose this one. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152
Ok so thanks for all the tips. I have purchased most everything now I think (I purchase a bunch of it yesterday though some stuff was not a good deal and other stuff was a little better - but I only have like $30 in MIR for each machine which means even if I lose out I am only out at max $60 which is ok. So for the run down this is what I got, where I got it from (Quantity in brackets) Arctic 5, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007 Samsung DVD, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168271511 ANTEC 1200 Case, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043 Intel core i7 920, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 Corsair 750, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006 WD 1TB black, Newegg (4) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006 OCZ 6 GB RAM, Newegg (2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365 Gigabyte MTHRBRD, Lagoom (2) http://www.lagoom.com/585585/gigabyte-ga-ex58-ud4p-intel-core-i7.html Zalman 9900, Lagoom (2) http://www.lagoom.com/586598/zalman-cnps9900led-cpu-cooler-for.html EVGA Video GTX 285, zipzoomfly (2) http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10010384&prodlist=celebros Total including shipping pre-rebates is $3,063 or $1,531.5 plus $30 in Fatwallet cashback bonus plus 2x$30 MIR on Vid Card, 2X$20 MIR on OCZ + 2x$10 on PSU for a Total of $2913 or $1,456.50 per machine. None I did not get any additional case fans b/c it looked like the Antec had sufficient. Plus I only got one set of 6 GB of RAM for each machine. Reason: Windows XP can only support 4 GB and one of the machines will run windows xp (while I am going to be a Windows 7 RC on my build) What do you guys think? Good deal - stuff should arrive in the next couple days.
Having not posted in this thread earlier, it seems nobody else noticed the graphics card choice was poor, so apologies for not telling you in advance about that. The GTX285 performs like a $220 card but costs $350. Zalman coolers also cost three times what they're worth, and OCZ RAM is relatively poor these days. The rest of the stuff is fine.
What RAM would you suggest? Of all the pieces that is what I was debating on the most. I used http://www.techspot.com/review/164-radeon-4890-vs-geforce-gtx275/ to review all the cards and it seemed for $300 (extra $50 on the GTX275s I could get what appeared to be a different card. If you could do it over again what Vid card would you go with Sammy? Also the Zalman looked like it had good reviews and some of the best cooling - I was hoping to get it for $54 on zipzoomfly but they are out of stock. If you could recommend a different one what would it be - there is always returns - JK Probably won't change now cause I hit the price range I had to stay in.
BTW I heard that win xp only supports up to 3.25 gb. I know its a little too late but just thought you'd like to know. It's definitely ready anytime you go to win vista/7
madbone: The best Zalman coolers cool scarcely better than Arctic's Freezer 7 Pro, which is a little quieter (and makes a much nicer noise) and costs half as much. It is also smaller, simpler to install and lighter. For the GPU, the GTX285 is indeed faster than the GTX275 and HD4890, but a GTX285 is at least $320, a GTX275 is $250 and about 5-10% slower at best, and the HD4890 is cheaper still, at $230. j24: 3.5GB with a 512MB GPU, 3.25 with something bigger, but generally, something will suffer regardless. Unless you regularly need 3GB+ of RAM there's little need to use Vista as VIsta typically uses 1GB more RAM than XP for the same applications, which of course negates its 64-bit abilities with 4GB of RAM.
