Old to New - i7 into a Wavemaster - Will it fit?

[Vimeous]

Howdy Peeps
Parental unit PC rebuild time and I'd like your thoughts.

The plan is to replace the aging contents of their current PC with fun and new.
For now it will run their current 32-bit XP Home until the Windows 7 pre-order becomes available at which point it'll changed to 64-bit.
Originally parental unit wanted an HD4870 or 4890. Together with an E8400 and Asus P5Q3 an a chunk of DDR3 it would have been well balanced. That came to about £570 using Sapphire's Vapor-X HD4870.

However a review of Today Only at Scan has yielded the following interesting equivalent:



As you can see there's a significant shift in emphasis with more future-proofing (i7) but pared back gfx. While it is overkill in the processing department my arguement is that the 4670 is easily enough for now to drive their 19" 1280x1024 TFT. It's also a good way to tide them over until DirectX 11 cards appear later or they want to swap to a 22/24" screen.


First off what do you think or the spec?
Second and most important, will this fit in a Coolermaster Wavemaster case?

I can't think why it won't be fine but as you can see from the fans in the purchase, I do wonder if the two 80mm front intake and single rear will be enough to cool the i7?

As always your thoughts are most welcome!

[Pob255]

fitting shouldn't be an issu if you're sticking with a stock heatsink
the motherboard is still atx format, the hd4670 is not a long card so shouldn't have any issues there.
You could knock £20 off the total with a corsair 450HX psu, which would be fine for that system.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...-year-Warranty

Big question is do they need the power of an i7 system?
if they are not doing any thing cpu heavy then a core 2 duo, p43 and ddr2 would probably be a better option.
or and AMD Phenon 2

main issue size wise will be from tall 120mm fan based cpu coolers (as the case is probably not wide enough) and long graphics cards.

[Vimeous]

Big question is do they need the power of an i7 system?
if they are not doing any thing cpu heavy then a core 2 duo, p43 and ddr2 would probably be a better option.
or and AMD Phenon 2

Not really! lol
Parental unit would like the security of a level of future proofing even if it's just in case things go pop later. Hence the DDR3 board in the original spec as I expect DDR3 prices to be more acceptable in 2yrs time than DDR2. The opportunity to go i7 now for £30 more than the original budget is too tempting to ignore, especially as the 1366 socket will again give a lot of perceived if not actual lifespan.
Besides the gfx is the one thing that can't be future proofed at the moment with no directx 11 boards available that I know.

On the power front I had suggested the 450W HX but there wouldn't be budget in the future to swap it if a directx 11 card needed more juice.

Funny really. I'm really pleased the machine I build for them 5yrs ago is still going strong. The fact they've only now started to perceive it as slow shows they're using it more and more and I never thought I'd ever say that!
Even better is that the other build I was about to start for t'other-halfs parental units will get the core of this machine (Athlon64 3400/S939) rather than the 2600XP/SocketA that was going them.


Glad to here it should fit. This will be my first i7 build so I can't wait!