It's upgrade time!

[Bonebreaker777]

Wouldn't be more beneficial for you to have non-green drives in a RAID? Those WD have reduced RPM (5400-5900 RPM).
I think you would see better performance specially in a RAID with any other standard 7200 RPM drive.
Like the Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB and you don't even have to pre-order it.

[mycarsavw]

My theory was that the reduced power consumption, noise and single platter speed would more than compensate for the initial slower speeds of the drives themselves.

Edit: I've got three 750Gb greens in my NAS which have been running non-stop for ~3 years now, no detectable speed issues so far with 10/15 users accessing their documents.

My budget has been raised to £500 exc now, so I'll have to start again anyway

[MrJim]

Any reason?

Several niggles really. 1) I prefer the 200R's asthaetics, especially the black painted interior (my Antec Three Hundred Two is grey inside). 2) Although longer graphics cards are supported on the Antec, there is a limit to the length that it can take. 3) The Antec doesn't have any front fans (I added two I had already), 4) the cable on the rear fan was ridiculously short; I had to unscrew the fan & rotate it in order to plug it into my motherboard, & even then it only just made it, 5) there is only a tiny hole through which to pass the 8-pin power cable behind the motherboard; luckily my plug could be split into 4+4 plugs, and by passing half the plug through at a time, I got it through the hole! Apart from those small points, I think it's great! Very quiet on the low fan setting, and very solidly built for a cheap case

[mycarsavw]

Apart from those small points, I think it's great!

Those are the type of 'small points' that'd drive me nuts, so thanks for sharing - I think I'll pass on that case altogether now.

Tempted to stick with my 900 because I already know the foibles, what fits and what doesn't and it'll mean the budget can be better spent on stuff I need rather than stuff I want.

Edit Just noticed that the P8B75 doesn't support RAID - waiting for TO to change before getting final prices but updated spec is;

i5 3570 - £131
P8Z77-V - £103
8Gb XMS3 - £29
2 x 1Tb EZRX - £92
IHOS104-6 - £25

Total - £380

I need a fitting kit (Noctua NM-I3) to enable me to carry across my current CPU cooler - £6

Leaves ~ £120 to play with

[Pob255]

Just want to address some f these niggles
1) I prefer the 200R's asthaetics, especially the black painted interior (my Antec Three Hundred Two is grey inside).
looks are personal, the interior colour? Does it matter so much when you don't have a side pannel window?

2) Although longer graphics cards are supported on the Antec, there is a limit to the length that it can take.
The max length is 12.5" seeing as the gtx680 is 10" and the 7970 is 11" (just for reference the 8800gtx was 10.6", gtx285 was 10.5" the HD2900 was 10.6" and 5870 was 11"
So as you can see there hasn't been a great deal of growth in card length since the move to dx10, the longest commercial card recently was the 4850x2 at 11.3" and now replaced by the 7990 at around 12" but these are both dual gpu cards so they will always be longer, still you can see card length isn't zooming up and 12.5" of clearance will be fine.

3) The Antec doesn't have any front fans (I added two I had already)
But the corsair doesn't have any top fans, both the 200r and 302 come with just two fans so this is a total non-issue.
Infact as people are more likely to have spare 120mm fans to use in the front than spare 140mm fans for the top I'd say the 302 is slightly better than the 200r here

4) the cable on the rear fan was ridiculously short; I had to unscrew the fan & rotate it in order to plug it into my motherboard, & even then it only just made it
Define "ridiculously short" please, AFAIK it's just a standard antec TwoCool 120mm fan so it shouldn't be.
If it's under 10cm then yes that's very short, if it's between 25-30cm then no that's pretty standard length.

5) there is only a tiny hole through which to pass the 8-pin power cable behind the motherboard; luckily my plug could be split into 4+4 plugs, and by passing half the plug through at a time, I got it through the hole! The hole is an odd one, it's very wide but not very tall, it's just an extension to the cpu backplate cutout, I agree with that one.

But at the same time sticking with the antec 900 would be fine, it does the job and is still a good case, cable management was it's one weak area

[MrJim]

Just want to address some f these niggles
1) I prefer the 200R's asthaetics, especially the black painted interior (my Antec Three Hundred Two is grey inside).
looks are personal, the interior colour? Does it matter so much when you don't have a side pannel window?

Aesthetics are individual of course. I agree the internal colour is less important on a case without a window, but each to their own.

2) Although longer graphics cards are supported on the Antec, there is a limit to the length that it can take.
The max length is 12.5" seeing as the gtx680 is 10" and the 7970 is 11" (just for reference the 8800gtx was 10.6", gtx285 was 10.5" the HD2900 was 10.6" and 5870 was 11"
So as you can see there hasn't been a great deal of growth in card length since the move to dx10, the longest commercial card recently was the 4850x2 at 11.3" and now replaced by the 7990 at around 12" but these are both dual gpu cards so they will always be longer, still you can see card length isn't zooming up and 12.5" of clearance will be fine.

I don't own the 200R, I'm just going on what I've seen in reviews & photos. Yes the Antec can take longer cards like the 7990, but it would be a squeeze. Of course you'd wonder why someone spending upwards of £700 on a graphics card would choose to install it in a £45 case, but it can be done. According to Hardware Secrets the 200R can fit a 16.9" first video card, should you wish to. Yes, it's unlikely you'll ever want to, but it's good to know it's possible!

3) The Antec doesn't have any front fans (I added two I had already)
But the corsair doesn't have any top fans, both the 200r and 302 come with just two fans so this is a total non-issue.
Infact as people are more likely to have spare 120mm fans to use in the front than spare 140mm fans for the top I'd say the 302 is slightly better than the 200r here

The stock cooling for the Antec has been recognised as pretty poor. HardOCP stated:

"The biggest issue by far is the extremely high case temperatures we saw during testing. We are aware that adding a couple intake fans would help keep temperatures in check but the current out-of-the-box performance is simply abysmal."

In contrast, HardOCP described the cooling performance of the 200R:

"The performance of the Corsair 200R, running our standard hardware configuration, is surprisingly good. Both the CPU and GPU temperatures were better than what we've seen from other compact mid-tower ATX cases and well within the range of other mid-tower ATX cases."

In fact, they went on to say:

"Compared to other compact mid-tower ATX cases, such as the Enermax Hoplite ST and the Antec 300 Two, the 200R's performance is exceptionally good."

It's also worth noting that even if you fit front fans in the Antec, the airflow is somewhat impeded by the 3.5" hard-disk mounts. In the Corsair, at least the top fan is able to blow air directly onto the graphics card area, without any such hindrance.

4) the cable on the rear fan was ridiculously short; I had to unscrew the fan & rotate it in order to plug it into my motherboard, & even then it only just made it
Define "ridiculously short" please, AFAIK it's just a standard antec TwoCool 120mm fan so it shouldn't be.
If it's under 10cm then yes that's very short, if it's between 25-30cm then no that's pretty standard length.

Without taking my system apart to measure it, I would estimate it to be about 8cm. The fan was orientated so that the cable was at the uppermost corner, so its farthest distance from the motherboard. By unscrewing the fan & rotating it 90 degrees, I just had enough slack cable to reach the fan header on my motherboard. As ever in life, a few cm more would have made all the difference!

5) there is only a tiny hole through which to pass the 8-pin power cable behind the motherboard; luckily my plug could be split into 4+4 plugs, and by passing half the plug through at a time, I got it through the hole! The hole is an odd one, it's very wide but not very tall, it's just an extension to the cpu backplate cutout, I agree with that one.

This was the biggest irritation for me too. I'm not saying the Antec is a bad case, far from it; I liked it enough to buy it after all. I just think that the 200R is better, that's all.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Why are you spending so much on the motherboard?? All H77 and Z77 motherboards have 4 SATA2.0 and 2 SATA3.0 ports and support RAID and you can even get 8 SATA ports on this motherboard via an additional controller:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asroc...dvi-d-hdmi-atx

If you are getting a Core i5 I would get this:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...dmi-69w-retail

The Core i5 3570 is not going to be much faster,and if you are going for the former,I would spend the extra cash and get a Xeon E3 1230 V2 anyway.

[mycarsavw]

Why are you spending so much on the motherboard??

I'd like to pretend it's because I bought my last PC in 2007, spent a lot on the mobo at the time and I haven't had any issues with the mobo until now, but in all honesty it's because I haven't got a clue any more, I like Asus, I picked one in the middle that appeared to do everything I wanted it to do and it also had Q Connect which saves me 40 seconds of fannying around with the front panel connections trying to make things light up like they're supposed to

I'd prefer to stick with Asus, so how's this one stack up for £70 (Scan's TO)

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=54678

I don't foresee any major issues with the cooler not fitting, Noctua claim all I need is the different mounting kit - I may opt for low profile RAM though, just in case there's any fouling.

If you are getting a Core i5 I would get this:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...dmi-69w-retail

The Core i5 3570 is not going to be much faster,and if you are going for the former,I would spend the extra cash and get a Xeon E3 1230 V2 anyway.

Both are going to be faster than the Q6600 I currently have and if there's no obvious difference between the 3350P and the 3570, I'll take your advice.

i5 3350P - £110
P8H77 M Pro - £70
8Gb Vengeance Low Pro - £30
2 x 1Tb EZRX - £92
IHOS104-6 - £25

~£330

Looks as though there's space for a GPU now too.... damn you

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The CPU has no IGP,so actually has a slightly lower TDP than many IB Core i5 CPUs. The Core i5 3570 does run at a higher clockspeed,but at most it might be around 10% to 15% faster for around a 22% higher price.

If you are going with an mATX motherboard have you considered a smaller case??

This one can gets good reviews:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/ss-tj08e

It costs around £65 on Scan ATM:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...m-steel-with-u

You can save some money going for one of these motherboards:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...hdmi-micro-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...hdmi-micro-atx

[mycarsavw]

I thought about a smaller case, but was concerned with trying to fit everything into it.

2 HDDs, 1 SSD, 1 ODD, 1 card reader, an HD5770 and a giant cooler - it's going to get hot and/or cramped?

[Pob255]

An SSD produces very little heat.
Hard drive produce little heat, it's only when you get large numbers under near constant heavy load (ie server arrays) that the heat start to build up, ideally you do want some air flow over the drives simply because they are the part most sensitive to heat in a pc, ideally they never want to go above 40c
ODD and card reader produce almost nothing.

cramped doesn't have to be hot as long as it's got good air through put, it's cramped with no air flow that you get real issues.

TJ08e is one of the best matx cases for an air cooled system well designed to create a constant focused through flow of air.
ps also look at the PS07b http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...icro-atx-black it's slightly cheaper, same internal frame just a different bezel, plastic not aluminium, but with a door to increase noise reduction and two 120mm fans instead of the single 180mm air pen

[Willzzz]

The bigger issue with the i5 3350P is the low turbo clock.
Personally I'd consider the 3470 the best compromise.

[mycarsavw]

An SSD produces very little heat.
Hard drive produce little heat, it's only when you get large numbers under near constant heavy load (ie server arrays) that the heat start to build up, ideally you do want some air flow over the drives simply because they are the part most sensitive to heat in a pc, ideally they never want to go above 40c
ODD and card reader produce almost nothing.

cramped doesn't have to be hot as long as it's got good air through put, it's cramped with no air flow that you get real issues.

TJ08e is one of the best matx cases for an air cooled system well designed to create a constant focused through flow of air.
ps also look at the PS07b http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...icro-atx-black it's slightly cheaper, same internal frame just a different bezel, plastic not aluminium, but with a door to increase noise reduction and two 120mm fans instead of the single 180mm air pen

Cheers Pob, that helps.

I've been looking at smaller cases on and off since last night, mainly scanning this page over on SCPR and then comparing with posts here and there to see if what I aim to fit will actually fit.

So far it's a close contest between the two Silverstones and the Fractal Design Mini mATX.

The bigger issue with the i5 3350P is the low turbo clock.
Personally I'd consider the 3470 the best compromise.

Is the low turbo clock only an issue when overclocking?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is the low turbo clock only an issue when overclocking?

The non-K parts cannot be overclocked that much. Regarding the Core i5 3570 and the Core i5 3350P,the 10% to 15% greater performance I mentioned is down to the Turbo clockspeeds due to the 300MHZ to 500MHZ higher Turbo clockspeeds. However,you pay 22% more for the the Core i5 3570.

I have a Xeon E3 1220 which has the same clockspeeds as a Core i5 2400,ie,3.1GHZ to 3.4GHZ and with the IPC increases I would expect the Core i5 3350P probably to be around Core i5 2500 level performance. The Core i5 3470 runs at between 3.2GHZ to 3.6GHZ,which is around 100MHZ to 200MHZ higher than a Core i5 3350P.

How the P series CPUs have the IGP deactivated though and have a lower TDP,so I would expect them to be more like be at the maximum Turbo clockspeeds anyway with the stock cooler. My Xeon E3 1220 tends to be more or less at maximum Turbo clockspeeds even in a SFF PC,and like the P series has a deactivated IGP.

[Willzzz]

You can't overclock either, overclocking is irrelevant here.

The 3350P only turbos 200mhz above base, the 3450 and above have the full 400mhz turbo.
For £7.50 you get the IGP and extra 200mhz turbo.
Even if you don't need an IGP as such, it's handy for diagnostics and fault finding (or if your GPU dies).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Core i5 3470 is £15 more expensive on the Scan site:

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-...8ivy-bridge%29

The Core i5 3350 is £138 and has lower clockspeeds than the Core i5 3350P which is cheaper at around £130:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...tio-77w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...dmi-69w-retail

The Core i5 3350 has 200MHZ Turbo and lower base clockspeed.

Non-K CPUs can be overclocked marginally due to the additional multiplier bins available for Turbo,but it is more like Turbo on steroids if anything.