getting a new Box and buying Parts.

nadir

Im getting a new box, I want to know what people think, I want something for gaming, laning, and something that's not too big.
Ideally I wanted to build my own Micro ATX box, but I cant find what I'm looking for on komplett, I've looked at the list Khannie posted, but I'm not sure, there are alot and I'm not sure what people find a good choice for buying mobos.
If I'm stuck with komplett I'll prolly go for something like this.

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=308559
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=300358
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309861
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122785
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=122429 X 2
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=317389

If I go for this setup, Im worried about two things, Can I actually fit that much stuff inside this shuttle, anyone got opinions? and secondly, how noisy is this going to be, I need something that's not going to blow me out of it, cause my flatmate will flip out, if I have a really noisy box on all the time in the corner.
I found in the past alot of this 'silent cooling' stuff aint really that silent at all.
should I cut my losses and go for a small ATX box with water cooling?
One other thing, Bear in mind, ill be running mainly linux, might Dual boot windows for Armed Assault, but mostly I'll be using it for Gaming / Encoding / and Coding, in Linux.

Edit: I'm also in the Market to buy a kick ass LCD next month, advice on this would also be appreciated. My Budget is around 1000, but ideally I'd like something that can do HDTV natively,
i.e that's 1920x1080 , although I'd settle for 1680x* if I cant afford it.

andy1249

That cooler you have there will have trouble fitting in the box , also the setup may be unstable with a 350W power supply , a minimum requirement is going to be a 400W and personally I wouldnt even be comfortable with that as a 7800 card eats power . My X2 7800 GTX runs with 500W , it wouldnt run with a 400W , I had to change it. ( I did have 4 hard drives as well though )

If you must stick with the box then use the stock fan with the processor , it should be in the box , this should fit .
Alternatively , why not have a look at the HTPC cases available. ( you'll have to buy a motherboard and a power supply but that should work out no more expensive than the barebones ). Obviously now Im talking around the 130 mark here and not the more expensive ones with the displays. Silverstones are nice and theres also a couple of nice coolermasters in there also.

Good luck with the build.

nadir

Yeah, cool thanks for the fast response. I had a look at those HTPC Cases ok, but I couldnt fid an mATX board on Komplett that I was interested in, they seem to be a bit basic. I think the Asus one was about the best of em. I could go for an ATX HTPC, that could be good I guess, I'll have a look at it.

http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=304112
this black Silverstone looks pretty nice ok, yeah ok, cool, that's another angle on it ok.

uberpixie

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Silverstone.html

Have a look at the silverstone sugo M-ATX case.

Has gotten good reviews from what I have seen.

Prolly a bit more suitable in size,shape and weight(3kg) for lanning than a HDPC box.

uberpixie

Oh and also just go for x1 150 gig raptor. (raid is pointless unless you spend 300e on a proper hardware raid card)

Go for a modular psu like the enermax liberty series.

nadir

Mmmm, yeah ok
so good advice I think , although I might still go for the dual raptors.

so revised it looks like this

Case: Silverstone Sugo SG01 €155
Power: Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower €63
Board: MSI K8NGM2-IL €83
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz €385
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower €52
Memory: Corsair 2048MB Kit w/two matched €215.00
GFX Capd: Gainward GeForce 7800GT 512MB,1,4ns DDR3 ,PCI-Express €439
HD: 74G Raptor X 2 €340

that's €1732 in total. the exact same as teh shuttle give or take 20yoyos.

One thing that worries me about it is the mobo, I mean it looks great, and MSI are v.good indeed, but its so cheap, only 83 , normally a real good mobo is something I don't economise on. I guess it's just a good deal. Seems to have alot more than the shuttle mobo had to offer, Shuttle mobo had no regular PCI for example.
Also would putting in 4 Gigs of RAM be taking the piss? or would it actually make a difference playing Quake4 for example.

andy1249

Dont worry about the price of the motherboard , thats about normal for a matx board I would have said ,
All that looks fine anyway , the motherboard is an nforce 4 board so thats fine , the case looks good , the power supply should do ,

Watch out for that cooler , I didnt see dimensions on overclockers site , and the case spec specifically says that you are limited to 78mm so check this.

All in all , a nice system , should be cool ,
Another tip , I dont know if you have built an X2 before but be aware , you must have the latest AMD drivers installed ( yes the processor has drivers for a X2 !! ) and you must have XP service pack 2 , multi processor systems are unstable in XP without Service pack 2 .

nadir

yeah, ok so did the deed is done, I went for basically the same as above.

Case: Silverstone Sugo SG01 €155
Power: Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 €50
Board: MSI K8NGM2-IL €83
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz €385
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS7700-CU Ultra-Quiet CPU €52
Memory: Corsair 2048MB Kit w/two matched €215.00
GFX Capd: Gainward GeForce 7800GT 512MB,1,4ns DDR3 ,PCI-Express €439
HD: 74G Raptor X 2 €340

except for the PSU , now getting a Seasonic S12 430W Silent , and the CPU Cooler, I decided to take your advice and go for a lower profile one.
The Zalman CNPS7700-CU Ultra-Quiet CPU.
All in all its 1800 for the box. I guess thats ok.

B00MSTICK

If your getting the case from overclockers you may as well get the gfx card, its €380. €60 saving. Probably cheaper if you go all overclockers actually.

nadir

I threw it all together last night, couldn't have gone better, everything fit perfectly, and the box temps are about 40 cpu 35 case with no processes running.
I still have to put an OS on, and check out the performance but so far so good, if anyone else is thinking of building a similar system, this setup works well.
One thing I man change is the GPU cooler, it's fairly noisy. All the rest is well quiet.