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It should be a good design but after saw some bad reviews online(e.g rust, vibration), I start to doubt the quality of Cooler Master case overall. I would recommend Lian Li Lancool, K56/K58/K62. They're slightly different. The K62 is a K58 paint dark inside and K56 is a K58 without top vent.

How about a Lian Li Lancool K58? It is new and designed for latest hardware.

How about a Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H and AMD Phenom II X2 550 combo? http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.240747 DDR3 sticks are still very expensive. Why not DDR2? After one or two years, when you decide to upgrade, they will be much cheaper.

Thank you. I'm still debating between external power supply and built in power supply. It seems that the pico psu will meet my need. But I'm also looking for a case that is large enough for at least one 3.5" hard drive. When I factor this into my build, it seems there are not many tiny cases...

Mine shows $124. They fix the price error?

DDR3 might help but I don't think the mobo alone will improve the performance. If you don't use SLI, I don't see any reason to upgrade on a platform that is soon to be phased out. Save your money and grab a P55 motherboard!

Now comes to the pico itself. Will it produce any noise during usage?

Thank you. I've read that some high watt adapters have fans built in. How do I know if it is silent?

I'm also leaning toward this. There seems to be a 150w model on the market but I cannot find a suitable power brick. The largest I can find is the 120w one.

I've considering to build a mini itx system using desktop components, maybe a dual core on G45, NVidia 9300 or AMD 780g. I check power consumption of similar systems first and it seems the system will run at 50-60w most of the time and 100-120w under heavy stress. Therefore I'm looking for some...

You mean C rise or C? I wonder where are you living:)

Yes, you're correct. Additional power phases doesn't directly improve oc ability. They exist for two reasons: First, they help reduce ripples. Ripples are harmful to the stability of the system, especially for high frequency circuits. Secondly, currents are now distributed more evenly...

You need to be very careful when replace stock chipset heatsinks. They use plastic push pins and there are circuits near holes. The last time I try to remove these push pins, I accidentally smeared (at least cosmetically) some of these circuits and it showed me BSOD right after that.

I use Noctua P12 and NExus 1000rpm and I prefer the Nexus because it is quieter. If you don't make your i7@4ghz under 100% load 24/7, I believe Nexus is good enough. But if you're very sensitive to temperature, try some faster fans. Gentle Typhoon is said to be great.

Any tower heatsink that uses 120mm fan will be good. OCZ Vendetta 2. For example: OCZ Vendetta 2 http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008593 Zerotherm FZ120 http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008565 Buy the combo with 1366 kit to save more...

I didn't know that Biostar only offers one year warranty. I suppose all mobo manufacturers give three year warranty at least. So no Biostar then.

But currently there are $30 off the Gigabyte mobo and selected AMD AM3 CPU combos, which makes it very attractive.

I guess they'll be around $100-$120 to compete with the Q7600 and low end Q8xxx.

Yes, they're coming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_future_AMD_Phenom_microprocessors

How can you overclock a cpu on a Intel motherboard? I thought only third party mobo manufacturers give you overclocking features.

Thank you for the info. The life span of a sleeve fan is highly YMMV. It could be as short as several months or as long as a couple of years. It also depends on the working temperature and rpm. Any way, I don't like any fans larger than 120mm. Choices are few and it is also more expensive...

But it has one big problem. You have to replace all horizontal fans with some ball bearing fans, including the cpu fan, the bottom case fans and the exhaust fans. Those which are designed to be ball bearing fans now no longer need to be so, such as the PSU fan and the video card fan.

I'm considering to build a small system for daily use. The cpu will be either an Athlon X2 II or a Phenom X2 II. The mobo must be mATX size. I prefer DDR2 memory since they're much cheaper. With all these preferences, I narrow down the choice to two mobos: Biostar 790GX XE...

Frankly speaking, I don't like the design. All of a sudden, all you fans are positioned at awkward directions. Better cooling? Not sure. Heat is not dissipated like in a cooling tower, heat is carried away by moving air.

That is handy. But I doubt you will need any high speed fan. Maybe a fan around 1200rpm will be enough. High rpm doesn't mean much lower temperature at low to medium loads.

Mine is normal. But I don't like the cdrom bezel so I replace them with normal black bezels.

This is caused by two things: First, during the game play, cpu and gpu generate a lot of heat. They make the air around the psu hotter. This is even worse if your PSU has a large intake facing directly toward the motherboard. Secondly, psu fans rotate faster when loads are up. The higher...

How about Scythe Kama Bay? You can mount it in two directions, either horizontally or vertically.

Xigmatek S1283, Noctua U12P, OCZ Vendetta 2, Zerotherm FZ120, Sunbeam CCTF, ...These 120mm tower heatsinks are so similar and their performance are actually very close. The only difference is the fan they use. If you use the same fan on all of them, apply the same thermal paste and test the...

If fans are changing speed, probably the system is trying booting but there is no output to the video card. Try to unplug everything, remove the battery and clean the bios to see if it helps. With no memory at all, the system will not boot and all fan will stay at top speed. By the way, you...

I would like to recommend those 120mm tower heatsinks. But if you don' want to mount any back plate, chances are your mobo will bends and malfunctions over the time. Most of them are over 600g.

Try avoid Foxconn. Its board is nice, but the bios is crappy. MSI used to be good, but now has some poor low-end boards. Finally, I believe all Gigabyte DS series have already been replaced by UD series.

My PSU is in the lower chamber so I cannot use it as an exhaust. Besides, the problem with my previous case (an Antec Sonata III, whose PSU is on the top) is that the drive bay and cables block the intake of the PSU and force it to get air from the cpu and memory area, which is much hotter...

It's really depend on your mobo. I used to use the Gigabyte EP35-DS3L mobo and it is not the standard ATX format. My Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro keeps blocking the first memory socket. I later replaced it with a Gigabyte EP35-DS4 mobo which has a standard ATX format and everything is fine. You...

My cpu is a Q6600 and currently the load is 25%. The gpu temperature doesn't change much whether or not I'm running any programs, as long as they're not 3D applications. I don't want to add a fan because now the system is almost silent. I use a 800rpm Scythe Slipstream as the cpu fan and a...

The room temperature is about 27C/81F and my 8600gt video card is 71C/160F under light tasks. It used to be 55C/131F in the winter in another case, but with a second case fan blowing from the drives bay. Now I only have one cpu fan and one rear exhaust fan. So far it seems to be ok and I...

I like the design.

The internal design of the PC Power & Cooling 370w PSU is here: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3487&p=24 Maybe you can try both and decide which one you want to keep. But I think PC Power & Cooling is better since they offer 5 years warranty.

I have the Nexus 1000rpm and Scythe Slipstream 800rpm. Both of them are very quiet. I guess the 800rpm is quieter. I compare them against the Noctua P12. At 1300rpm the P12 is not that quiet. But at 900-1100rpm they are similar. The bad thing is that my P12 will not auto start at 7v with its own...

I thought you want a low profile case with no mesh, only a few fans. But it seems that you prefer a case with better ventilation but minimal logos and windows. Yes, Antec 300 is a good choice. Lian Li Lancools are the newest babies from Lian Li. K58 and K62 is already on newegg and I believe...