LiquidRain
03-06-2009, 05:38 PM
I spent way too much money doing this and I know it, but here goes, my experiences and such with building two new rigs at almost the exact same time!
Up first is my new home file/router/web/ server and home theatre PC, hostname Substream, following the same naming I use for all my servers. (Beatmania IIDX games) Here's what the guts look like (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/htpc-1.jpg) - lying down in its intended position, with the DVD drives facing the front. The outside is nothing special to look at.
Apevia Master-X HTPC Case (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144231)
ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce4 Motherboard
Athlon64 X2 3800+
2GB DDR-400 Mushkin RAM 3-3-3-8
Sparkle brand nVidia GeForce 9400GT, passively cooled
380W Antec NeoHE Modular PSU (I had it laying around)
80GB Seagate Momentus 5200.2 as the system drive
1TB Hitachi as the storage/media driver
What else did I do with it? A Scythe Ninja Mini CPU cooler that relies on the case fans around it for cooling (and it does a damn fine job), two undervolted 80mm Nexus fans, one motherboard controlled 120mm Nexus fan by the CPU cooler, and a full-speed Nexus fan at the other side. And finally a rinky-dink 100Mb network card for DSL, leaving the 1Gb onboard network for the LAN. I'm using onboard audio.
The system itself is simply my old PC, which I've written many a love letter to and probably will continue to! :) It'd still be serving me well as my primary desktop had my old server not started to give me trouble, thus prompting this spending spree.
The only notable thing in this is the wonderfully designed Apevia case. I was hesitant buying from a relative unknown, but after I started working with it for a while, I realized how brilliantly designed the case is. First off - it's a full ATX motherboard case, yet it is smaller than many MicroATX cases I have seen. When on its side in HTPC form, it's quite svelte (for a full size PC) - about the height of 3 DVD drives, or about 1 inch short of a DVD case. The depth of the case is full-length 17.5" though, that's not something that can really be worked around.
The width of the case is very drastically reduced, though, by the curious placement of the power supply. I thought this was odd at first, but by sacrificing the extra drive cages, the PSU is able to live and breathe very well over there - there's a masked vent going out the front of the case that looks good and serves its function very well. The gap underneath the power supply allows some (very limited) cable routing to be done as well. It's good to note that a modular PSU is almost a requirement for this case.
Everything in the case was measured down to the millimeter - the fans barely touch the top of the case, the case is absolutely no higher than a PCI card in a motherboard, everything was precision designed to be the smallest full-size ATX case possible.
Even the drive rail design was peculiar and interesting. They didn't screw in, they just had unthreaded sticks of steel that pop into the screw holes on the drive, and you slide it right in. The default position of the screws put my generic Samsung burner in precisely the right spot to be hidden behind the drive door mask. (another feature of expensive cases carried down to this affordable one)
Most HTPC cases cost $150 or upwards, especially for quality ones. This was $90, "500W" power supply included. (that I didn't use, naturally) No sharp edges, no weak parts of the case, piano black finish, and it's not too shabby looking. Antec Fusion or Antec NSK series this isn't, but it doesn't look too out of place except for the unbelievably bright blue power LED. (which I unhooked)
It runs Linux, and I use Xbox Media Centre to run the HTPC part of things.
And here's the way the airflow goes through (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/htpc-airflow.jpg), with arrows indicating relative air flow amounts. The system is virtually silent when the 1TB drive is off, only a faint whisper of the quiet Nexus fans can be heard, and every component stays nice and cool. The warmest exhaust is the power supply, the CPU exhaust is usually about room temperature. (well, the 9400GT can get pushed to what I consider very high - about 60-70, but it *is* passively cooled.) I am very impressed by the air flow design by this case, and the ability to have 120mm fans as intakes. I may experiment by sealing off either the 80mm or the CPU 120mm fans and having the system just run without it. (not that it is entirely necessary - the fans are all barely audible as it is)
-------
Now, for my new beast of a gaming rig, that CPU upgrade I've wanted for the past year, I present Empress: the last name I haven't used in the IIDX series, so I was kinda stuck with that name, but I'm growing to like it. Here's the guts (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/pc.jpg) - I've since added an intake fan infront of the graphics card. What are the specs?
Antec Mini P180 (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article810-page1.html)
ASUS M3N78-VM MicroATX Socket AM2+ GeForce 8200 board
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 RAM 5-6-6-18
eVGA GeForce GTX 260
ASUS Xonar D2X
Enermax Modu82+ 500W Power Supply
Western Digital 640GB
Here are some quick thoughts on the P180, point form or I could go all day:
- I can't trust that gigantic 200mm fan at the top of the case to be silent, and it's probably not necessary
- The whole black internals thing is very annoying - it makes it difficult to see
- LIES, LIES AND ENRON, THERE'S NO WAY TO PUT A FAN IN FRONT OF THE HDD. This, to me, is a serious sin of case design. HDDs should be actively cooled by air flow.
- The rubber grommets for HDD mounting have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the HDD suspension afforded by the Antec Sonata Plus / Solo / P150 line. The suspension completely silences a HDD, the grommets are simply there because they are better than nothing.
- It feels cheap. I've never had Antec cases bend on me, but the back of the case (steel, not plastic) was bending on me during construction.
- There's not a whole lot of breathing room for my power supply to take air from its fan. (which is on the top of the PSU, with the air being guided out the back)
- There's not much room for routing cables in the back of the case. (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article810-page3.html) For all the cable management ties and holes they give you, if so much as 1 molex connector is trapped behind the motherboard, you're going to have a hard time closing the back of this thing. And for a cable routing/management nut like me, that's a big deal. I had great difficulty in the end.
My biggest gripes were the lack of HDD cooling, and the lack of cable space in the back. Extremely disappointing, perhaps I didn't read the reviews as much as I should have. I still like the case - as you can see it provides for a clean build, and the sexiness of the Antec P180 without the ridiculous proportions.
It provided me with two essential things, though. The first was room for the GTX 260. As you can see it dominates the lower half of the case, and there's trouble fitting it in most standard cases, so the Mini P180 really came through for me here. It also afforded me to make a mistake I missed when reading reviews. See my heatsink? See how the fan is pointed up? Yeah, that's a design..... feature of a lot of AM2 motherboards, coupled with the mounting method of the Thermalright HR-01 heatsink I bought. If I bought a square Scythe Ninja 2, this would not have been a problem. Alas, it was not to be. However, the vent at the top of the case allowed me this mistake, since I simply mounted the CPU heatsink in a manner to also act as an exhaust fan!
I got a big beef with the CPU fan control here, though. I love using ASUS Q-Fan to undervolt fans automatically. But apparently now, it needs to be a 4-pin PWM fan in order to do this. The Scythe Slipstream I bought is only a 3-pin, and does not do PWM, so I'm SOL and had to undervolt the fan on my own. A huge pain in the ass. (it's way too loud for my liking at full speed)
I had actually already built the machine with my previous power supply, a Seasonic S12-II 500W. But that PSU screeched like banshee at all times, just moving the mouse would drastically increase the sound it made, and it would completely dwarf even the GTX 260's mighty leaf blower. The Enermax Modu82+, in comparison, emits extremely low noise. It also doesn't shut off when the GTX 260 overloads, thanks to very smart 12V rail design. (The two PCIe connectors are part of the same harness, yet each PCIe plug has its own 12V rail, with a 3rd 12V rail going to the motherboard) My only complaint was the lack of an ATX 12V harness that would really work well in the Mini P180, but I blame that more on Antec's design than I do on Enermax. I bought an ATX 12V extender (the 4 wire cable and plug at the top left of every motherboard) to make sure the Enermax had enough room. It wasn't necessary, but it made a tense cable into one that had extra room to move around the tight cable management in the back.
Sound-wise, the case loses against my old box, the Antec Solo. The lack of HDD suspension is the real killer here. I really do miss that feature, as well as the shiny white looks and sturdiness of the case. And the active HDD cooling. I really did like the airflow design of my Antec Solo, which allowed me to run the Athlon64 X2 I had passively when it was idle. (the Scythe Ninja Mini in the Apevia HTPC case do not seem able to do the same, but very low airflow keeps temps solid) All that said, the Mini P180 is still a very quiet case, it's just not the panacea I thought it would be.
Hybrid SLI doesn't appear to be working on my motherboard, though, which severely pisses me off as it was a big selling point. I want that noisy graphics fan off when I'm not using it dammit!
---
If this post seems a bit jumbled, it's because I've actually been working on my PC build for weeks. I've had a lot of trouble with my main desktop - problem turns out to be the Thermalright heatsink in the picture there not doing its job at all. Something's wrong with it, and temps are way higher than the stock cooler. (and far beyond the maximum temp this chip should ever reach, according to AMD) I've reformatted twice two restructure the HDD partitions how I need them (and they're still suboptimal), fiddling with trying to get Hybrid SLI working, etc. etc. Just a whole laundry list of issues.
It's not really my dream PC. At all. Which bums me out because I don't buy these things very often. If I had a chance to go back and re-buy everything, I'd likely pick up either the Phenom II X3 or an E8400, kept my Antec Solo (and modded it [again] to fit the graphics card), gotten a Scythe Ninja instead of the Thermalright HR-01 (to point the fan in any direction), and not counted on Hybrid Power SLI working and instead gotten a Thermalright HR-03 GTX to silence my graphics card. (that GPU heatsink will not fit in my Mini P180)
Oh well. Next time I'll get it right.
I do, however, really love my HTPC. XBMC is absolutely wonderful and was perfect for unwinding after getting extremely frustrated putting my desktop together.
Up first is my new home file/router/web/ server and home theatre PC, hostname Substream, following the same naming I use for all my servers. (Beatmania IIDX games) Here's what the guts look like (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/htpc-1.jpg) - lying down in its intended position, with the DVD drives facing the front. The outside is nothing special to look at.
Apevia Master-X HTPC Case (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144231)
ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939 nForce4 Motherboard
Athlon64 X2 3800+
2GB DDR-400 Mushkin RAM 3-3-3-8
Sparkle brand nVidia GeForce 9400GT, passively cooled
380W Antec NeoHE Modular PSU (I had it laying around)
80GB Seagate Momentus 5200.2 as the system drive
1TB Hitachi as the storage/media driver
What else did I do with it? A Scythe Ninja Mini CPU cooler that relies on the case fans around it for cooling (and it does a damn fine job), two undervolted 80mm Nexus fans, one motherboard controlled 120mm Nexus fan by the CPU cooler, and a full-speed Nexus fan at the other side. And finally a rinky-dink 100Mb network card for DSL, leaving the 1Gb onboard network for the LAN. I'm using onboard audio.
The system itself is simply my old PC, which I've written many a love letter to and probably will continue to! :) It'd still be serving me well as my primary desktop had my old server not started to give me trouble, thus prompting this spending spree.
The only notable thing in this is the wonderfully designed Apevia case. I was hesitant buying from a relative unknown, but after I started working with it for a while, I realized how brilliantly designed the case is. First off - it's a full ATX motherboard case, yet it is smaller than many MicroATX cases I have seen. When on its side in HTPC form, it's quite svelte (for a full size PC) - about the height of 3 DVD drives, or about 1 inch short of a DVD case. The depth of the case is full-length 17.5" though, that's not something that can really be worked around.
The width of the case is very drastically reduced, though, by the curious placement of the power supply. I thought this was odd at first, but by sacrificing the extra drive cages, the PSU is able to live and breathe very well over there - there's a masked vent going out the front of the case that looks good and serves its function very well. The gap underneath the power supply allows some (very limited) cable routing to be done as well. It's good to note that a modular PSU is almost a requirement for this case.
Everything in the case was measured down to the millimeter - the fans barely touch the top of the case, the case is absolutely no higher than a PCI card in a motherboard, everything was precision designed to be the smallest full-size ATX case possible.
Even the drive rail design was peculiar and interesting. They didn't screw in, they just had unthreaded sticks of steel that pop into the screw holes on the drive, and you slide it right in. The default position of the screws put my generic Samsung burner in precisely the right spot to be hidden behind the drive door mask. (another feature of expensive cases carried down to this affordable one)
Most HTPC cases cost $150 or upwards, especially for quality ones. This was $90, "500W" power supply included. (that I didn't use, naturally) No sharp edges, no weak parts of the case, piano black finish, and it's not too shabby looking. Antec Fusion or Antec NSK series this isn't, but it doesn't look too out of place except for the unbelievably bright blue power LED. (which I unhooked)
It runs Linux, and I use Xbox Media Centre to run the HTPC part of things.
And here's the way the airflow goes through (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/htpc-airflow.jpg), with arrows indicating relative air flow amounts. The system is virtually silent when the 1TB drive is off, only a faint whisper of the quiet Nexus fans can be heard, and every component stays nice and cool. The warmest exhaust is the power supply, the CPU exhaust is usually about room temperature. (well, the 9400GT can get pushed to what I consider very high - about 60-70, but it *is* passively cooled.) I am very impressed by the air flow design by this case, and the ability to have 120mm fans as intakes. I may experiment by sealing off either the 80mm or the CPU 120mm fans and having the system just run without it. (not that it is entirely necessary - the fans are all barely audible as it is)
-------
Now, for my new beast of a gaming rig, that CPU upgrade I've wanted for the past year, I present Empress: the last name I haven't used in the IIDX series, so I was kinda stuck with that name, but I'm growing to like it. Here's the guts (http://substream.rainwave.cc/~rain/newpc/pc.jpg) - I've since added an intake fan infront of the graphics card. What are the specs?
Antec Mini P180 (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article810-page1.html)
ASUS M3N78-VM MicroATX Socket AM2+ GeForce 8200 board
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition
4GB OCZ DDR2-1066 RAM 5-6-6-18
eVGA GeForce GTX 260
ASUS Xonar D2X
Enermax Modu82+ 500W Power Supply
Western Digital 640GB
Here are some quick thoughts on the P180, point form or I could go all day:
- I can't trust that gigantic 200mm fan at the top of the case to be silent, and it's probably not necessary
- The whole black internals thing is very annoying - it makes it difficult to see
- LIES, LIES AND ENRON, THERE'S NO WAY TO PUT A FAN IN FRONT OF THE HDD. This, to me, is a serious sin of case design. HDDs should be actively cooled by air flow.
- The rubber grommets for HDD mounting have nothing, absolutely nothing, on the HDD suspension afforded by the Antec Sonata Plus / Solo / P150 line. The suspension completely silences a HDD, the grommets are simply there because they are better than nothing.
- It feels cheap. I've never had Antec cases bend on me, but the back of the case (steel, not plastic) was bending on me during construction.
- There's not a whole lot of breathing room for my power supply to take air from its fan. (which is on the top of the PSU, with the air being guided out the back)
- There's not much room for routing cables in the back of the case. (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article810-page3.html) For all the cable management ties and holes they give you, if so much as 1 molex connector is trapped behind the motherboard, you're going to have a hard time closing the back of this thing. And for a cable routing/management nut like me, that's a big deal. I had great difficulty in the end.
My biggest gripes were the lack of HDD cooling, and the lack of cable space in the back. Extremely disappointing, perhaps I didn't read the reviews as much as I should have. I still like the case - as you can see it provides for a clean build, and the sexiness of the Antec P180 without the ridiculous proportions.
It provided me with two essential things, though. The first was room for the GTX 260. As you can see it dominates the lower half of the case, and there's trouble fitting it in most standard cases, so the Mini P180 really came through for me here. It also afforded me to make a mistake I missed when reading reviews. See my heatsink? See how the fan is pointed up? Yeah, that's a design..... feature of a lot of AM2 motherboards, coupled with the mounting method of the Thermalright HR-01 heatsink I bought. If I bought a square Scythe Ninja 2, this would not have been a problem. Alas, it was not to be. However, the vent at the top of the case allowed me this mistake, since I simply mounted the CPU heatsink in a manner to also act as an exhaust fan!
I got a big beef with the CPU fan control here, though. I love using ASUS Q-Fan to undervolt fans automatically. But apparently now, it needs to be a 4-pin PWM fan in order to do this. The Scythe Slipstream I bought is only a 3-pin, and does not do PWM, so I'm SOL and had to undervolt the fan on my own. A huge pain in the ass. (it's way too loud for my liking at full speed)
I had actually already built the machine with my previous power supply, a Seasonic S12-II 500W. But that PSU screeched like banshee at all times, just moving the mouse would drastically increase the sound it made, and it would completely dwarf even the GTX 260's mighty leaf blower. The Enermax Modu82+, in comparison, emits extremely low noise. It also doesn't shut off when the GTX 260 overloads, thanks to very smart 12V rail design. (The two PCIe connectors are part of the same harness, yet each PCIe plug has its own 12V rail, with a 3rd 12V rail going to the motherboard) My only complaint was the lack of an ATX 12V harness that would really work well in the Mini P180, but I blame that more on Antec's design than I do on Enermax. I bought an ATX 12V extender (the 4 wire cable and plug at the top left of every motherboard) to make sure the Enermax had enough room. It wasn't necessary, but it made a tense cable into one that had extra room to move around the tight cable management in the back.
Sound-wise, the case loses against my old box, the Antec Solo. The lack of HDD suspension is the real killer here. I really do miss that feature, as well as the shiny white looks and sturdiness of the case. And the active HDD cooling. I really did like the airflow design of my Antec Solo, which allowed me to run the Athlon64 X2 I had passively when it was idle. (the Scythe Ninja Mini in the Apevia HTPC case do not seem able to do the same, but very low airflow keeps temps solid) All that said, the Mini P180 is still a very quiet case, it's just not the panacea I thought it would be.
Hybrid SLI doesn't appear to be working on my motherboard, though, which severely pisses me off as it was a big selling point. I want that noisy graphics fan off when I'm not using it dammit!
---
If this post seems a bit jumbled, it's because I've actually been working on my PC build for weeks. I've had a lot of trouble with my main desktop - problem turns out to be the Thermalright heatsink in the picture there not doing its job at all. Something's wrong with it, and temps are way higher than the stock cooler. (and far beyond the maximum temp this chip should ever reach, according to AMD) I've reformatted twice two restructure the HDD partitions how I need them (and they're still suboptimal), fiddling with trying to get Hybrid SLI working, etc. etc. Just a whole laundry list of issues.
It's not really my dream PC. At all. Which bums me out because I don't buy these things very often. If I had a chance to go back and re-buy everything, I'd likely pick up either the Phenom II X3 or an E8400, kept my Antec Solo (and modded it [again] to fit the graphics card), gotten a Scythe Ninja instead of the Thermalright HR-01 (to point the fan in any direction), and not counted on Hybrid Power SLI working and instead gotten a Thermalright HR-03 GTX to silence my graphics card. (that GPU heatsink will not fit in my Mini P180)
Oh well. Next time I'll get it right.
I do, however, really love my HTPC. XBMC is absolutely wonderful and was perfect for unwinding after getting extremely frustrated putting my desktop together.