The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Even with the plethora of new cases released, it's not going anywhere any time soon, put it that way. Still, when I've bought cases in the past, build quality plays a minimal role really, as my feature needs are usually specific enough to limit me to a small number of choices. The only case that's really built to a decent standard that I've owned is the 4U rackmount, and even that's not 100% perfect, with the occasional rough panel edge here and there on the inside. It does, however, all work, no faulty LEDs or incorrectly wired ports/switches, which various NZXT and Coolermaster cases I've owned has suffered.
Really if you want cases that are actually built properly, it's pretty much just down to Antec and Lian Li. Not a lot to choose from there in the styling department...

 

Well, here's hoping we don't get any zombie apocalypse anytime soon - however with the spike bayonet you'll be in good shape to noiselessly scramble their little zombie brains without attracting the horde. Good luck on getting that 1400 round package for more fun with that rifle.

Russ, congrats on your new graphic card. I would guess your new sli capabilities bring a lot of potential gaming titles into range if you wanted to move beyond games like Angry Birds or Walking Dead the video game. Speaking of new titles, Medal of Honor unlocks tonight, so tomorrow I'll configure it with max graphics and see how graphically challenging it is for 30" gaming.

Regarding computer cases, I have only had personal experience with maybe 15-20 cases total. Until I was gifted with the beautiful $200 Antec Sonata - one of the nicest mid-tower cases I have ever seen - but not a gaming case - my prior experience had been with $30-40 midtower cases used by my PC builder friend, Mo, from whom I have bought over the last 8 years. He showed me that my first case from a builder in 1998, was seriously weak and flexed way too much, causing expansion board seating problems.

ANTEC SONATA AND DELL
But the Antec Sonata put his cheap cases to shame, since over the years, those cases also have demonstrated that they flex too much. On one of Mo's cases, my former main business desktop prior to my current Dell Raid 1 machine (on which the original left 4 dead animation was created) I had a lot of problems with my scsi card and tabletop scanner due to case flexing - I thought it was driver problems or scanner problems - all the time it was the very thick scsi cable pushing back on the card and unseating it - due to case flex. So that computer is in mothballs, and the much more solidly built Dell, with the Raid 1 mirror, is the new workhorse for real estate and general business, and that has put an end to any scsi scanner problems.

The Dell appears to have zero flex. The Antec Sonata, which Sam mentioned is built as well as Lian Li, also of course has zero flex, and for me, it had set a new standard for mid-tower case quality.

SPEDO FULL TOWER CASE
But more recently, having finally put the full tower Thermaltake spedo into use, as a bottom-psu case that cost me $180 at microcenter 4 years ago, I would say it's pretty good as a fairly solidly built tower case - it too does not seem to flex at all - and it has allowed me to place fans all over the place. Plus it has good cable management. Like Jeff's case, virtually all my cables are out of the way and don't interfere with airflow.

But yes, the spedo does come with cheap plastic - laughably cheap in fact. The screwless 5.25" optical mounts virtually all immediately broke, lol. But what the heck, you don't even see them unless you take off the door and try to impress somebody.

Here's a picture from a forum - very similar to my case. He has the bottom middle hdd cage removed. I have all the cages removed, except for the top optical cage, where I used an optical to hdd converter that came with the spedo to install 3 hard drives, in front of which I have custom-mounted a 120mm intake fan, and I left the 4th optical tray intact for my DVD reader/writer.



As a full tower, besides the cpu hsf and the psu fans, it takes 11 fans, and virtually all of those are 140s except for three 120s and one 200mm ceiling exhaust. There is a bottom 140mm intake bringing in air from underneath the case, 3 front intakes, and two side intakes, balanced by 2 rear exhaust fans, the ceiling 200mm exhaust slightly slowed down to maintain positive case pressure to keep dust out, and a 120mm exhaust BEHIND the motherboard, where I put a slow 800 rpm scythe fdb.

If you're counting, that's 6 intakes, 4 exhausts - where's fan #11? That one is in the middle - a 120 mounted on a swivel - which I have pointed slightly up at the cpu hsf.

It actually looks pretty nice, with two main plastic parts that cover the top, and the front. They both snap off, so in the front I can get to my intake filters. I am pleased with the case - its solidity, and the ability to add all those fans. I had to cover up several extra vent areas, such as a large area on the side door - they weren't thinking in terms of a positive pressure case when they designed it. But I give it high marks, despite the cheap plastic, and I don't think I overpaid. I would guess it is roughly equivalent to a HAF in airflow.

Rich

 

That case is laid out well and Fred's wife would be impressed with the expertise of the photographer! Unlike some of the other pictures posted here.... LOL

Good job all the way around!

 

Well, point and shoot cameras(Or camera phones) really just can't amount to a good SLR Which Is my current largest desire! The one I want is very expensive though. Take me a few more weeks to save funds.

Jeff, I too wanna probably wait until the post christmas sales. Though I don't know. Black friday might tempt me too. Last year was pretty disappointing though

 

Actually if you know what you are doing a point-and-shoot will work just fine but a good DSLR is much better of course.

The Cannon EOS T4 is the lowest I would consider but the one I'd like is the 3D or 60D. Great body, high megapixels, fast shutter speeds, and great program modes.

 

I've been considering both the 60D and a T3i. The 60D is slightly better in build quality, and a few other capabilities.

Yah, my point and shoot is agreeable in good lighting. But one does notice the noise even with a decent point and shoot. Skill definitely helps with the camera. But some cameras are only SO capable I've seen some cameras that just don't amount to crap. I suppose its CMOS or CCD (which ever the case may be) sensor could have been faulty though.

 

Some use plastic lenses that are poor quality like Kodak PAS's that tends to be the biggest problem with cheap cameras but as you pointed out there are other issues. The T3i is OK but slow and not as good for action or video as the 60D or T4's and higher that is why I use the T4/60D as my base although I'm sure I'd be happy enough with the T3's.

 

I really would like the 60D. I'm trying to justify the price I am aware of the 60D being quicker. I probably will opt for it. The price difference... well, you get what you pay for! And I'd like my first real camera to be something I can be happy with for a while.

So are there any PC cases that are significantly larger than the HAF 932, and do a good job cooling? I have a thing for big PC's I could turn my Haf into a very wonderful secondary/media server

 

Larger still than the HAF 932? how large do you want?
The biggest Corsair case comes to mind, the 800D, but it's not up to the same spec as the HAF932. What do you need a bigger case for? If it's for more disks, perhaps you should consider a server case...

In all honesty, about 6 fans is plenty in a case really, you don't really need any more than that.

I think lighting is really the enemy of point and shoot cameras, my £70 Canon takes decent pictures in daylight, but indoor photos with poor lighting are understandably where it falls down.

 

Mmmm, I've seen the 800D go through work. I like the reviews, other than the power switch. It makes me laugh that people call it heavy. I like that My Haf 932 currently weighs 60+ pounds. I could easily handle it @twice that. It's a sharp case too. Rather spendy, but I think I could justify that price for the beastly case that it is. I may strongly consider it around tax time.

No, it's not about more hard drive space. I could be content with a server case for that purpose, or just be happy with a Sata dock like I currently have. Cooling, and looks are important. My tower generally resides at eye level, off to the left or right(currently left).

Yes, lighting is VERY important when shooting. I had an old point and shoot, that could take excellent outdoor pics nearly every time, but indoors it fell on its face

 

Piledriver benchmarks out today. The FX-8350 is 10% faster than the FX-8150. That doesn't sound too bad, until you realise that the FX-8350 is a 4.0Ghz chip, when the FX-8150 was 3.6Ghz.
Taking that into account the new architecture seems identical to Bulldozer, just allowing for slightly higher clock speeds perhaps.
The new chip brings the already fairly reasonable idle wattage down further, but load power consumption is identical, so no real improvement there.
Although the required voltage is slightly lower (not by much, 0.025V in it), the resultant clockspeed from overclocking the chip seems much the same as before, so to an enthusiast, the FX-8150 and FX-8350 are also identical.

Sorry, but this seems like another Ivy Bridge, although at least they didn't make the CPU any worse. Quite frankly they may as well have just changed the default multiplier on an FX-8150 and put a different number on the box. Or did they?

 

Man... I think I'm holding out for the 10 core cpu's Or maybe I'll consider this "Piledriver", if I can get a Mobo I can trust at super high clocks! I guess I'm not too concerned about power consumption. My electrical scheme should take care of ANY demand

 

Again though, the performance is identical per mhz, and they both overclock to the same level, so why wouldn't you just buy a cheaper Bulldozer?
Also, to get the full performance out of a Bulldozer overclocked and have the board last more than a few weeks you need a custom water-cooled voltage regulation circuit on the motherboard, or a full 100mm+ tower heatsink hooked up, to deal with the 300W+ running through what are sadly on AMD hardware, poorer quality voltage regulators. I don't consider this AMD's fault and never have, but board manufacturers always provide weaker voltage regulation on AMD systems despite the fact that they draw more power - this results in many board burning out after weeks/months even with stock CPUs. Running the world's most power hungry overclocked CPU in many years through such a board terrifies me.

 

You did say there were better voltage regulations for the chip. So depending on price, the 8350 could be a smart decision. The stock voltage is down, and the idle is also down. Sounds like a better chip. Not by much, but still.

My heatsink tower is probably reasonable for the cpu. Probably not super high overclocks, but probably enough for me. I'd probably be content with 4.2 - 4.5Ghz. Since I've never really ran consistently at those speeds I ran the 965 @ 4.0Ghz for a time. I deemed the northbridge too hot, so I backed it off. Oddly, that CPU preferred lower Volts, and higher NB volts. Rather strange.

I probably would prefer elect for a good water cooled setup though. Not in my current environment though. My next watercooled solution is gonna be rigged to warn of failure! Essentially I'd like to get a unit that detects moisture and/or leakage. We use such units at my secondary job. I'm sure there's a dumbed down smaller unit somewhere, available to the public.

 

The idle wattage I'll concede but the difference in required volts at overclocked is well within statistical error margin / sample variance / motherboard variance.

I still refuse to touch watercooling, having seen a fair few of the 'sealed' units leak. As far as I'm concerned if you want bleeding edge performance and are willing to pay more for heavy-duty cooling, you're better off just buying a more powerful CPU that either doesn't need to be overclocked to deliver the same level of performance, or can overclock to near the peak of its ability on air. For enthusiasts I can understand it, but outside the enthusiast community, people who really do need the highest level of performance should be buying the high-end i7s instead of throwing money at cooling solutions. Beyond that, enterprise multi-CPU machines.

 

I agree. Water cooling is more of a 'fun' side project than anything. I was wrong to trust the Coolit Eco. Since it didn't leak initially, or for a very long time, I figured I was safe. I was wrong. DEAD wrong. My GTX 260 resides in my desk, until I gather the courage to see if it's dead or not. The odds are against it though. But there is a slight chance that it suffered no ill effects. Given what the PSU looked like when I caught it. It's possible, that the PCI-e power cables/ports were sooo saturated, that it caused a problem.

Apparently 8350 draws roughly the same power as 8150 while clocked 11% higher. Sounds like an improvement, however tiny. It's a step. I just hope to see huge steps next time I may consider piledriver. Tax return time will tell.
http://www.techspot.com/review/586-amd-fx-8350-fx-6300/page7.html

 

That's true at stock, but of course, you could probably overclock the FX-8150 11% without raising the voltage, and therefore not affect the power consumption a great deal.

 

Exactly right and I saw the new chip on sale for ~$240 so higher based clock cycle, lower voltage required equates to a much better, faster, and more headroom chip.

One would think that they have to totally change everything to impress some these days and that is normally not a good route to go.

 

If I'm into saving a buck, I may consider 8150. But I'd like to see more statistics about power usage first

 

This test runs a board, CPU and basic efficient GPU left idle while benching the CPU in a non-burntest environment.

'Full System' loading - DC output (Assume 90% efficient UK PSU)
i5 2500K Stock (3300): 115W
i7 2600K Stock (3400): 131W
i7 3960K Stock (3200): 192W
FX-8350 Stock (4000): 208W
FX-8150 Stock (3600): 216W

i5 2600 OC'ed (4600): 185W
i7 3770KOC'ed (4800): 205W
i7 2600 OC'ed (4600): 208W
FX-8150 OC'ed (4600): 365W

No comparable site will disclose the power consumption figures for overclocking the FX-8350, so there is insufficient data to evaluate.