Case & PSU advice

[nekromantik]

Hi
I am thinking about building the PC below. Would you guys let me know what case and PSU would be best if I wanted to OC my system. I would like to spend max £60 on the case and £80 on the PSU.

Intel Quad Q6600
Xigmatek S1283
4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 RAM
Geforce GTX260 gfx
500 GB Western Digital SATA HD
SATA DVD Writer

My main choices atm are Coolermaster RealPower 620W Modular for the PSU and Coolermaster CM690 or Antec 300 cases. Are those good enough or which ones would you recommend.

Thanks

[djglenn]

Airflow is v. important.

I have a similar setup and my case is an Antec P182, but thats above your price range.

The P182 is brilliant though.

This would be good though:

Coolermaster CM690 Dominator Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU - £67.21
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131551

Corsair 520W HX Series Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC - £76.94
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114945

This combo may be cheaper elsewhere as I didnt check any other supplier.

[nekromantik]

would 520 watts be enough with the GTX260 and an OCed Q6600?
Would it leave much room for upgrades to gfx card?

[!TIMMY!]

I would check if the cases are big enough for the graphics card. I have a feeling that the 300 may be pushing it. That Coolermaster PSU should be able to oc that system easy.

If you are getting a good case, get some good fans! No point putting rubbish fans on a nice case. I have Scythe fans in mine, but Noctua are very good and Yate Loons are great price/performance.

Edit: Corsair make some nice PSU's!

[djglenn]

In my opinion the 520 corsair will be perfect for future applications unless you want to go multiple GPU's.

Try out their power supply calculator, it will tell you what you need.

http://www.corsair.com/psufinder/

Either way I would highly recommend a Corsair PSU, you could go for the 650W if you wanted extra juice?

Here is also a review for the case:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=10255

[nekromantik]

I take it the CM690 is a bigger case then?

I heard good things about the Coolermaster RealPower 620W Modular PSU but I know the 520 HX is better. Just need to make sure if I upgrade to the GTX285 then the case will have enough room and PSU be enough. Also might get a 2nd hard drive in the future too. I cant really afford the 620 coasir PSU.

[djglenn]

Actually there is a 550W non modular corsair psu for cheaper.

[djglenn]

Yeah I guess it would be slightly bigger than a regular case, but its worth it for the cooling....

Hot GPU = blue screen of death, reduced component life, reduced performance, etc.

Its not one of those huge cases though (like the cosmos, etc).

[lego batman]

See here for info on the gtx260 pssobily blocking a hard drive slot:
http://forums.hexus.net/antec-care-h...e-hundred.html

[nekromantik]

ok cheers
I think Il go for the CM690
Hopefully the cooler and GTX260 will fit in there.

Might go for the 520watt corsair PSU. Not decided if I think Il need more power or not.

[Pob255]

Couple of notes for you on the coolermaster 690

It is a nice case, there are some issues with it, all are fairly minor or don't directly effect you.

- Fans, the case comes with 3 x 120mm fans, 2 plane & 1 LED, they are not that bad, not slient but a good ballance of air flow vs noise.
It has mounting points for an additional 5 fans.
The points are as following
4 x 140mm or 120mm fans, two on the top + two side panel
3 x 120mm fans, One on the front + one on the back + one on the bottom
1 x 80mm fan, behind the motherboard tray

The issues here are the side panel fans, the upper of the two fan mounts is directly above the cpu which has 2 issues, if you use a tower cpu cooler blowing air down onto it has very little effect due to the way a tower cooler works and if you have a large 120mm fan based tower cooler you cannot fit a fan in this mount as the cooler will be too tall.
The 2nd issue is noise, the flat punched fan grills on the side panel adds quite a bit of noise to any fan mounted to them.
Partly as the large flat side panel makes an exellent sound board, amplifing any fan vibrations and flat grills create turblance increase the volume of the "woosh" the air makes as it's sucked through the grill.
Simple example is the stock fans, the rear fan and the side panel fan that come with the case are the same, but simply because of the differences between the grill on the rear and the grill on the side panel the side panel fan sounds louder, simply moveing the fan the come on the side panel to one of the two top panel fan mounts reduces the noise of the stock cooling.

One simple solution to both of these issues is to get the windowed Side panel CM make for the 690.
it only has a single fan and the punched grill is replaced by a far better mesh fan guard.
it's one thing I would seriously look, but at the same time this will add to the cost of the case. (or if you hunt around you may be able to find the cm690 with the window side panel as they did used to sell it as a single unit or the nvidia edition of the cm690, which again has the window side panel but also green nvidia styleing and logos)

The bottom fan, basically this fan is fairly pointless, with the amount of air vents in this case that air will be draw in by the only real reason for an intake fan is to focus incomming air flow by blowing it over hot components.
The front is a great example here, the whole front facing of the cm690 is mesh there by forming on large air vent that cool air from outside the case can be drawn in by, however there still is a front fan, this fan blows over the hard drives and is there to focus that air intake over the hot hard drives.
The issue with the bottom fan mount is that it points at nothing, air would be drawn in through the vent anyway.

- Hard drive trays, I really like the hard drive cage and trays in the cm690 they are exellent.
However you cannot use old IDE drives in them, while this is a non-issue for you or any one else with only SATA hard drives, it is an issue of this case.
(and the main reason why I never got one)

- Connector locations, what I mean here is the "front" USB, sound, firewire and e-SATA connectors being right in the middle of the top panel of the case.
Having them on the top instead of the front is a nice location with less chance of accidentally knocking anything pluged in to them (that's a very easy to break both a usb memory stick and the usb port)
However in the middle of the top panel is a pain as it's thurver to reach to plug stuff in and without any covering they are open to spills/falling debris.

- The cable management clips/guides need work.
They are a nice idea and are helpful esp. for thoes new to building a pc and cable management, but they are not the best system and can get in the way, but then again they are easily removed and leave you with some handy holes which you can use for other types of cable management.

Ripping the front off, the mesh front panel of the cm690 also acts as a giant washable air fliter to reduce the dust that get into you case, which is very nice, however removeing the front involves just grabbing it from underneath and literally ripping it off.
Not really the best of systems to remove the front.


That's about it for bad points, it is a very nice case all told and not that expensive.
If you're looking at this case then I would consider the cooler master 590 as well.
It's the same size and roughtly the same layout, the changes are:
-Front ports moved from the top panel to the front panel.
-Hard drive bay change, instaed if the seperate drive cage and tray system it uses a full case height 5.25" drive bay with drive caddy system (one caddy included additional caddies can be bought seperately)
-Cable tie cable management, gone are the U shaped guides, instead you get a bag of cable ties and holes in the motherboard tray to feed them through.
-More simple less flashy external looks
-Shorter standard case feet, not the large ones found on the 690
-No bottom fan mount

Here's a review http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...ion_590/1.html
PS the window side panel fits both the 590 and 690
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coole...for-CM690-Case

[spiral out]

Airflow is v. important.


Coolermaster CM690 Dominator Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU - £67.21
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131551

Corsair 520W HX Series Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC - £76.94
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/114945

This combo may be cheaper elsewhere as I didnt check any other supplier.

Been running this combo for over a year now and can highly recommend it.

It's true it could be a little noisy but i solved this by putting a zalman fan controller in, it's very quiet with 5 fans running and still keeps my overclocked Q6600 running nice and cool.

I'm using the fans that came with it the only noisy one is the one on the side plus i have a couple of the louder 2000rpm Sharkoon golf ball fans which are on halfway most of the time.

[nekromantik]

ok cheers guys
I really wanted a modular PSU so it would make things more tidy but cant afford the Coasir modular 620 watt and I think I need more then 550 for future upgrades. Is there any good modular PSU's 600w+ that are also good?

[djglenn]

Hiper 630W HPU-4M630-PE 85% Efficiency, w/8P PCI-E, UK + EU - £75 from Novatech...

Though I cannot comment on current Hiper range, can anyone offer advice?

***wait that aint Modular....Ignore me*****

[nekromantik]

is the Antec 650W Neopower Modular PSU any good?

[how1]

Thats a nice PSU. Got an Enermax Modular one myself.