The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

no sam when im able to do it, it will be a entire new build.


i was at microcenter today.. looking at he CM sniper. im likeing it more after seeing it and fooling with it... the haf might have some compation......lol

 

The Sniper probably has even more of an edge over the HAF, but ultimately was a bit out of my price range.

 

Price range? Really?
Not that big a difference to me. Why would you buy the Sniper over the HAF??? Other than the Fan/led controller, they're pretty similar. Though the HAF is larger in a couple ways! I like Large Computers
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...mpareItemList=N82E16811119194,N82E16811119160

 

The Sniper has more fans if you can believe it, including a pair of 230mm side fans as opposed to just the one with the HAF. The fans are also variable speed and have a much higher top speed, in short, they're much better fans. I may very well see if I can get hold of some for my HAF.

They may only be $20 apart in the US, but here I paid £98 for my HAF, a Sniper is £125. A lot of money for an extra fan, and in my opinion, not as nice a case (Styling wise)

 

Yah, I thought that that paticular sniper wasnt very pretty myself. I didnt wanna offend Rob. While I love the color purple, a lot of guys think its too feminine. To each his own! Besides, I can appreciate the looks of that tower for the most part. But since ive already fallen for my HAF, Im looking at the sniper from a different perspective. An objective critical standpoint!

Gonna have to look into more/better cooling when I OC again. Its not a good time for that for me LOL! I might consider, quad 120's on my side panel. HIGH VELOCITY fans!!! Noise is of no consequence to me. Besides, when I get setup in my future place, Ive visualized the tower in a separate area!

 

omega: the side fan on the HAF is VERY slow. Four 120mm silent fans will eclipse it, never mind fast ones. Go for maybe Antec TriCools or Scythe SFF21Gs if you want tonnes of airflow without any migraine-inducing nastiness. Both of those tend to produce a smooth roar.

 

Thanks buddy! I always appreciate others opinions. I'll definitely look into those!

 

the sniper has more fans then the HAF????? not the ones i have seen.
the HAF has 3 230mm fans one on top,1 in the side panel,1 in front and a 140mm in the rear... the sniper has 2 200mm 1 on top and 1 in the front. and a 120mm in the rear. and the sniper cant use fans on the side panel unless you rig them up, taken the mesh off and screwing into the frame then reinstalling the mesh.

just seeing the 2 next to each other i just like the looks of the sniper. dont get me wrong i still want the HAF but the sniper is growing on me.

sniper spec.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119194

HAF spec.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160

 

Sam,
Make that a smooth very annoying roar to my ears, even at 1600 RPM! The Silverstones I was using on my E6750 were much quieter and moved more air at 1300 RPM than the Antec did at 1600 RPM. The Antec went into my next customer build. The S-Flex I tried, moved about 67 CFM, but wasn't exactly quiet doing it at 1600 RPM. The Silverstone FM-123 moved more air at 1400 RPM and did it quieter. The Scythe moved on to a customer build too! LOL!! I haven't tested any others since, I'm more than pleased with the noise level and performance, and I loved my low temps! The FN-121 1200 RPM Blue LED 120mm I bought for my new case seems to be just the right CFM at 53 CFM and is almost silent doing it! And my low temps continue on!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

My mistake, I was obviously looking at a different version, claimed it came with two 200mm side fans, unless they were optional, but it even stated the speeds... odd.

Russ: I won't argue here, but recommend an FM121 in anyone's system and expect controversy. They're god-awful fans. You can do worse, but TriCool or S-Flex over them any day. No harsh vibrations, no need for the external fan controller and to an extent, less of the absurd price tag. I spent £40 on three of those when I was having a funny moment. Perhaps the 80mm ones are better, I truly hope they are.

 

Sam,
The only one who has a problem with the Stones is you! I've never heard a single other person here, complain about them, only you. I've yet to find a fan that moves as much air at any given RPM, and kept to reasonable RPM levels they are very quiet! My computer is not silent, and the noise level wouldn't suit you, but for most people it's very quiet. I've tried the TriCool and it's quiet enough at low speed, but doesn't cool very well. It cools much better at 1600 RPM medium speed I found it annoying. The Silver Stone moves as much air at 1400 RPM and is quieter doing it It's the same way with the Scythe, the Silverstone moves the same amount of air at 160 less RPM and is quieter doing it. When I test something I go by how it works in my system and report same! Ask fredbun how he likes his Silverstone FM-121 BL, cause the first thing he noticed was how quiet it was, and it moves 53 CFM at 1200 RPM.

I know that you had problems with noise and vibration with yours, and that some of the problems you did have were caused by using a universal fan controller, instead of the controller that came with them, but based on that experience, to say that they are "God awful Fans" is simply not true. The FM-121 is one of the most popular fans you can get on this side of the pond, and they sell quite well! They wouldn't do that if they were "God Awful Fans"! Not at $17 per!

Respectfully,
Russ

 

Yes, more air for the same speed, but more blades, and therefore more noise! The SFF21F at a given speed performs the same as any other good fan at 29% above that speed, due to the higher blade count, Noise, airflow, the lot. 1200rpm on an FM121 is the same in all regards as 1550rpm on any other fan, which is basically the same speed as an SFF21F or Tricool on medium, and having tested them both, I can't tell much difference between their airflow. The Antec is the weakest from the airflow perspective, but produces the least vibration. The Silverstone produces about as much air as the S-Flex, but with the most vibration. The S-Flex is not vibration-free, but overall the top performer. It can be run directly from a 3-pin outlet with no extra cable clutter with no requirement from an extra fan controller. In the UK at least, the S-Flexes sit middle ground on price, the FM121s and S-FLexes are the expensive ones, and the Tricools are the cheapest. With the SFF21F already down on two fronts, the last test is performance under strict low noise conditions. Here, the S-Flex drops to inaudibility around 800-850rpm with a smooth background roar that any good 120mm fan should produce at such a speed. The Antec disappears at about the same speed, slightly lower, but produces very little air at this speed, whereas the S-Flex still performs well. The SFF21F's bearings are clearly audible at the equivalent 620rpm, and they have to be cut right down to 400rpm to eliminate the nasty noises, at which point they are all but useless.
On top of that, Nexus RealSilent fans win on every front at their 1050rpm and below and cost £4 versus the £10 of the Silverstones. Their downside is they do not have detachable 4-pin connectors like the Scythes, but still do not require an external fan controller for every fan. It's an absolute nightmare setting up multiple FM121s in a system without them running at full speed, whereas I have rigged up five 120mms (four Nexus and one Scythe) to a fan controller with minimal effort, and it cost me all of £29 to do so.
I really don't see what people's attraction to a run of the mill fan that has a mandatory 3.5" bay fan controller or similar to use without melting your face from the noise. For the benefit you get from a Silverstone, you may as well buy a cheap Akasa Amber or Xilence Redwing fan and have done with it.

 

Hi Guys,have not had a chance to post, I,m in the UK, and this is the first chanceon a PC, its a labtop and it is slow and frezzes all the time, hope this post works, Ive seen some intersting PC and Electronic stores, will post when I get home, will be back tursday.

Just about everybody builds thier own PC,s here, buying a new one is almost double what we pay in the states, more later before this labtop crashes, Russ will call you when I get home.

 

Sam,
What is it with you. You constantly make broad statements about products you don't like for whatever reason, real or imagined! I've had all sorts of fans in the Anechoic Chamber, and I can tell you that half of what you are saying is nonsense, and the rest of it, I could fertilize my garden with! You also tend to forget that with your quirky hearing, you hear things no one else hears, because it sure doesn't show when I test them in the sound Chamber. It clearly shows that the TriCool is the loudest. The SFF21F, is almost as loud, and as you say is prone to vibrations. The FM-121, moving the same amount of air, is quieter than either of them.

I'm terribly sorry that it was such a nightmare for you to to set up multiple FM-121s without having to run them at full speed. I've been running multiple Silverstones for about 2 1/2 years now, and while the tiny little pot that controls the fan is a little bit of a pain, it takes me just a few minutes to find the best settings, and I basically just set them and forget them!

It's also far from a "run of the mill" fan, that people are attracted to because they do the job better than most others, and as far as the "Mandatory" controller goes, if you don't want a fan controller with your fan, then buy a different fan without one! No one is forcing you to buy one! Lets face facts here! If it was as bad as you try to make other people believe, no one would buy them, especially not at $16.99! I won't even bring up the wiring, as that's absolutely the silliest thing I've ever heard. There's a zillion wires inside a computer, and you are worried about running the wires for a couple of fan controllers? Thanks to the small sized plug on the end of the control, and the wire being shrink wrapped, it slips pretty easily under the motherboard and is long enough to reach the fan. What more do you need or want?

You also gave me crap the other day about my CM PSU, claiming that it was a really a 250w PSU, which is nonsense. I've taken mine apart, looked over the design, and I'm very happy with what I found inside, as it was much better than I expected for $40. You didn't like my Thermaltake either, yet you never owned either of them! The Thermaltake you had so many problems with, while it may have looked pretty much the same, was a mistake on Thermaltake's part. A case of something looking good on paper, that just didn't work as designed in a real world environment. It didn't take Thermaltake very long to realize this and replace them with Rev. 2.0, which cured all the headaches that you experienced. You, sound like a car salesman!

It's not like I don't apply all of this to my own builds either! I do practice what I preach! I think I pretty much proved that someone could build a budget higher end computer and still came away with a quality build in a good looking case, that's well made, tooless and well designed. Every single component in it is better than average quality and was well thought out before I bought them. Even with adding the 9500-GT and the Kama Bay fan, my final cost after MIR (one $20 one is still outstanding), including tax and shipping was $517. It's reasonably future proofed through the coming AM2+/AM3 Phenom II, and the 9500-GT is quite an impressive card for the casual gamer like me! In fact, I find myself playing more games now than I have for a very long time! I have absolutely no problem recommending any of the components I used in the build, regardless of what you think of them, they all work together exactly the way I though they would!

Russ

 

I'm going to gloss over this post, but remark that I never could quite explain why you will latch on to standard-fare unexemplary hardware and latch onto it thinking there's nothing else quite like it. Silverstone case fans, Thermaltake & Coolermaster PSUs, Pentium Ds, the original Phenoms. None of it makes much sense to me. As someone that's been taught most of the lessons there are to learn in PC hardware the hard way, one of the golden rules I sit above all else is to buy what is best, not what is cheap. That goes as much now as it did in the more prosperous era. If you can't afford to do the job right, scale down your ideas to match what you can afford to do properly. Every time I have broken this rule I have paid for it. Three failed cheap Asus motherboards in 2 years, two destroyed hard disks and a mains electrical safety hazard due to the cabling supplied with what should have been a reasonably high end (Hiper) PSU, I can go on and on. Ultimately, the Thermaltake and Coolermaster PSUs cost no less up front than proper units, and the extra cost of not getting a rebate or as much from the rebate is no more than a large lunch, for the benefit of a significantly lower electricity bill, lower noise, better long term reliability, and more scope for future upgrades. The Silverstone fans at $17 a pop are of negligible superiority over standard value fans, and as I've proven, for more advanced systems are a real pain to use. An Antec Tricool, Akasa Amber, any of those have equal build quality, do the same job but for half the price or less and without the hassle.
The only Thermaltake PSU I've owned is a unit entirely different to yours. It's a genuine Channel Well unit to the same design as the Corsair TX, and as a result I had no problems running high end gear off it. The only bad bit was the Thermaltake side - a poor choice of fan - sleeve bearings in a hot environment placed horizontally do not last. Other than that mediocre design for the fan, it shows a product you choose on merit for build quality where it counts, will do what you ask of it, rather than one you buy because "it'll do" and you can afford it.
Lastly, there are at least seven brands of fan I will happily pass a system through for as being 'high quality', and likewise at least six brands of Power Supply (within certain product lines). Unfortunately, Silverstone do not appear in the former and Thermaltake and Coolermaster do not appear in the latter. FYI though, Silverstone do appear in the PSU list...

 

Is this a fair deal
Intel® Boxed Core 2 Quad Processor Q8200
Original Price: $189.99
You Save: $90.00
$99.99

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0298864

 

Very fair, that's incredible. That chip is $165 at the egg, and it's rival, the Phenom II 920 is $195.

 

Good grief man!!! Buy that thing up and do yourself a little budget QUAD build. Good thing I have other hobbies and NO job right now. Geez... I'd be all over that thing and replace me E6850.

....gm

 

Must B a suckers draw, can't find it at any of their stores

Intel® Boxed Core 2 Quad Processor Q8200
Original Price: $189.99
You Save: $90.00
$99.99

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produc...0298864

Well I called them direct, seems they're stores don't have any
1-800-634-3478