Upgrading season

Hm... hit me up if you decide to sell that TJ08. :D Built a system for a friend of mine in the newer TJ08E revision, and I really liked it.

Go with the TJ08E revision instead of the original TJ08. I had to buy those hot-swap drive bays for a reason.

Hell, now that it's out, I may go with the TJ08E soon.
 
Go with the TJ08E revision instead of the original TJ08. I had to buy those hot-swap drive bays for a reason.

Hell, now that it's out, I may go with the TJ08E soon.

Know a place where I can order one of these? Everyone seems to be out of stock on this particular case.
 
Know a place where I can order one of these? Everyone seems to be out of stock on this particular case.

Every legit retailer I know of doesn't have it in stock.

I'm personally waiting for Amazon to restock as I have Amazon Prime.
 
Eh, I'm just tryin to save money. :D
We'll talk later, as soon as I receive the E model case.

nice new toy! :p
Thanks! (I think.)

I offloaded some old lenses that I wasn't using to drop the final price on the body. But I'll recoup the rest of the cost by selling the D90 and a couple of lenses to my younger brother.

(Sorry, Danny. But I heard that the D5100 is a great, relatively cheap camera with the same senor as the D7000.)

EDIT: I just realized that the floods in Thailand that are affecting HDD prices also hit Nikon's camera and lens-production facilities there. It looks like I lucked out again; this is the second instance this year (the first was when I bought the DX 35mm 1.8 lens) that I obtained something before stock ran out and prices went up. (I took a look at the bottom of my D7000 and... yep, made in Thailand.)
 
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Well, it looks like a new upgrading season for me here in 2012.

I'm still mulling over two builds that I've been planning for a while now. One is the oft-mentioned-but-never-started mini ITX firewall and the other is a "shoebox" gaming rig based on a good mini ITX board. For the latter, I'm thinking towards:

Silverstone SG08 (comes with a 600W PSU... is it standard ATX or proprietary?)
Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processor (holdover: reuse my i7-2600K)
Socket 1155 mITX motherboard (no, I haven't found a good Z68 model -- and P67 doesn't exist)
2x8GB DDR3 memory
256GB SSD
2-3TB HDD
High-end video card (holdover: reuse my EVGA GTX 570)
Slim (laptop/notebook) slot-feed Blu-ray combo drive

I wanted to start that build last fall, but I used a large portion of the money that I saved up towards the Nikon D7000. Now, I want to buy some better lenses for it... and the cheapest one that I want costs about $500 new. (I'll spare you all from the shameless plug this time.)

Remember the other computers that I built earlier? Well, only my computer is running fine, but it wasn't what I originally started off with. My younger brother, who received my old Socket 755 build, is still using his computer -- and even has an older one that I built him for his high school graduation present that he uses as a retro gaming machine -- but he's itching for a new system. My youngest brother, who received the "el cheapo refresh," broke his system. And my mother never was able to get her machine, or my gift to her, running. The long story short: a lot of swapping parts, and a little (possible) "interference" from the "el cheapo" youngest brother.

... So I just came back from Micro Center, where I picked up the following:

Intel Core i5-2500K, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus, and Asus P8Z68-V LX for my mother
Crucial M4 256GB SSD for me
Refurbished Westinghouse 46" LED HDTV... also for me :D

I also have a bunch of other goodies that I've bought over the past few weeks. I'll talk about them a little later, after I take a few pictures of them....
 
46"!! NICE!!! your first hdtv-as-monitor? if so, welcome to the cub. M4 256GB? i'm jealous.

You'll have a PM soon about those 640 scorpios.

2500K for the mom, eh? nice. I'm giving my mom my i7-920 cuz I just have way too many computers, lol. she does a lot of video/photo editing, so it'll get put to work.
 
So I broke down and bought some parts over the past week or two for a mini ITX build. And this is my new primary system:

Silverstone SG08B (with proprietary 600W power supply)
Intel Core i7-2600K (reused)
Intel DH67CF H67 mini ITX motherboard
G.Skill Ripjaws X 2x8GB DDR3 1333 kit (no, that's not a typo)
Crucial M4 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD
Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB SATA 6Gb/s HDD
EVGA GeForce GTX 570 (reused)
Sony Optiarc BC-5650H-01 BD-ROM/DVD burner slim combo drive (yes, I remembered the adapter cable)

It's still in the burn-in phase, so the pictures will have to wait until this weekend. (Maybe then, I'll finally have that new TV set up.)
 
heard you had an influx of cash... :rolleyes: :D

H67?! boo! :(

that ram may seem expensive, but i remember paying a lot more for 2x1GB of some DDR-500 for my Opty 165 system back in '04, IIRC.
 
You do know that 2600k is useless in the H67 right?

Shit, just realized it's a reused CPU. Nevermind!
 
The H67 board was a cop-out; as I mentioned earlier, P67 mITX boards don't exist and the few Z68 boards available all have some major flaws. (Then again, this board didn't have any internal USB 3.0 headers. :mad: ) Hopefully, Ivy Bridge and the new 7-series chipset will have something nice in mITX form.

Yeah, I spent a lot on 16GB of RAM... but with only two RAM slots to work with, I figured that I should "go big" now. (... Which is why I also went with a 256GB SSD and a 2TB HDD -- that, and I wasn't really satisfied with what I had. :p )
 
... I aborted my "original" plans... and then the TJ08-E arrived....

I realized that I could get away with a mini ITX build, but I had to do it right. Speaking of which, I chose the wrong board -- gee, what a surprise! Another SNAFU! Yay! :rolleyes: -- for the i7-2600K stability-wise. So now, I get to wait until this weekend before I can do anything fun (like, say, play games on my new system), so the pictures are to be postponed for yet another week.

(Sadly, my camera is being put to use... but if I say anything more, I may get the urge to run out into traffic again. I'll see you all this weekend.)
 
I'm planning a two-part "upgrade" to my SG08 system (already? :rolleyes:) within the next couple of weeks. Don't worry, there will be pictures this time. (I think....)

But I need help on another matter: I was thinking of building a mini ITX file server around either the Lian Li PC-Q25 or the Fractal Design Array R2. I currently have two Samsung "green" 2TB drive in a two-bay NAS, and I'll transfer those and the Intel H67 board over to the file server. I figure that I'll need a new processor, RAM, possibly a modular PSU (should I go with the PC-Q25), and an SSD to serve as the primary drive. I'll grab more 2TB+ drives and a 6+ drive RAID card in due time.

Micro Center currently has the Array R2 (which comes with a 300W SFX PSU) on sale for $180 plus tax until this weekend. I figured that the PC-Q25 plus the modular PSU would cost about that much (not counting the time it would take to receive everything). The Intel board can handle 95W Sandy Bridge processors, but it creates a warning the first time you use one. (The manual doesn't tell you to press Y and then Enter to override the warning screen; that was annoying the first few times that I tried.) Of course, being Intel, it can also support Ivy Bridge processors with a BIOS/UEFI update.

Should I go with the PC-Q25 or the Array R2? Should I go with any "specialized parts," like a low-wattage processor or a passive (no fan) PSU? Should I seek help for my PC building addiction?
 
Goddang man, ever happy with your PC? :D

Anyway for the server, I'd go with the Lian Li PC-Q25 out of those two choices. The Fractal Design Array R2 got really low ratings over Bit-Tech.net. As for "specialized parts", see if there is a PSU extender available for that Lian Li case just in case the modular PSU you choose is too long for it. Someone used a CX430 in their PC-Q25 case so a modular PSU is just extra gravy.

And nah, you don't need help for that addiction :)
 
there is no cure for this addiction, you just learn to control it. ;)

thats one expensive case (R2)!
 
Once again, Danny's recent upgrades finally prompted me to revive this thread.

Recently, I haven't made any significant upgrades on the hardware front. All of my "upgrades" have been towards my home theater setup and my collection of camera lenses.

In the last couple of weeks, however, I picked up a few parts for a personal project that I'll start working on next week. I also took advantage of a Black Friday deal and went to my "local" Micro Center store to pick up some more storage (times two).

So yeah, it's probably time to work on that mini-ITX file server I mentioned earlier. Here's what I'm thinking:

-- I picked up an Antec NEO ECO 520C during one of those under-$50 NewEgg sales... should I use it?

-- I still need to buy a case, but I've settled on the Lian Li PC-Q25.

-- I'll probably reuse my Intel H67 mITX board. I may reuse my i7-2600K, but I was thinking of selling that and buying/using either an i5-2400 or an i5-2400S instead.

-- Do I really need 16GB of RAM for a file server? I'm thinking of a RAM "downgrade" there as well.

-- Should I use an SSD (likely a cheap 64GB SSD) as the primary drive for this server?

-- I have a Windows desktop and a Windows laptop. (My phone runs Android; naturally, Jelly Bean.) Should I choose Windows Home Server for the file server?

-- Given the Intel board's lack of RAM slots, I was thinking of a PCI-E SATA/RAID add-on card. However, the good ones are pretty expensive. Should I instead scrap the add-on card idea, sell the board, RAM, and processor, and go with the i5-3450/3470, the Asus P8H77-I, and a cheap 8GB RAM kit?

(Are you looking at all of this and going, "This guy is nuts!"?)
 
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-- I picked up an Antec NEO ECO 520C during one of those under-$50 NewEgg sales... should I use it?
Might as well. Though a modular PSU would really help with an mITX case.

-- Do I really need 16GB of RAM for a file server? I'm thinking of a RAM "downgrade" there as well.
If you're going with any server OS that uses ZFS, then yeah you're gonna need all that RAM. If you're planning on running multiple VMs off this server, then yeah keep that 16GB of RAM. Otherwise for a simple file server, 16GB of RAM is overkill.
-- Should I use an SSD (likely a cheap 64GB SSD) as the primary drive for this server?
IMO no unless you can get an add-on SATA controller since that SSD would take up a very valuable SATA port.
-- I have a Windows desktop and a Windows laptop. (My phone runs Android; naturally, Jelly Bean.) Should I choose Windows Home Server for the file server?
If you're the most comfortable with Windows, then yeah go for it. I also recommend buying DriveBender as a fill-in for the drive pool feature that WHS 2012 lacks. There's currently a BF deal for $10 for a license:
http://www.drivebender.com/drive-bender-buy-sn

-- Given the Intel board's lack of RAM slots, I was thinking of a PCI-E SATA/RAID add-on card. However, the good ones are pretty expensive. Should I instead scrap the add-on card idea, sell the board, RAM, and processor, and go with the i5-3450/3470, the Asus P8H77-I, and a cheap 8GB RAM kit?
I'm assuming you meant SATA ports and not RAM slots. You definitely don't need a quad-core with WHS 2012. But yeah, switching mobos would be a tad more cost-effective than buying a new storage controller.
(Are you looking at all of this and going, "This guy is nuts!"?)
Very much so.
 
I have another crazy thought: It's time for some more upgrades. But I need help. (No, Danny, not that kind of help.)

Should I go for two 24" 1920x1200 monitors or one 27" 2560x1440 monitor?

I also need to downgrade my storage. Should I keep my NAS (Synology DS212J) or my file server (based off the i5-3470 and Lian Li Q25B)? The winner gets two brand-new Western Digital Red 3TB drives. (The loser... gets sold off... I guess?)
 
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