Cool new look for an old System

GWillow

GWillow

GWillow

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competed - 'Cooler' new look for an old System

Hi all,

quick summary of my setup

Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Athlon XP 3200 Barton
Zalman CNPS7000A CPU Cooler
Radeon 9800Pro
Audigy 2
2 * 512Mb Crucial PC3200 DDR
NEC ND-3520A DVD-RW
PlexWrite CD-RW 16/10/40
1 * Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 200Gb SATA 8mb Cache H/D
Enermax Noisetaker 485W PSU
Full tower case (can't remember name but iss bright blue)

Basically cooling is as above and both sides left off the case (which sits under an open window).

Just recently this has proved to much for the old girl so I'm looking at an upgrade (currently at 42C idle).

I quite like the look of the Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case and read some good writeups on it.

Would this be ok with my rig and with a future upgrade to a core2duo in a couple of months? I did read some posts about people saying there wasn't much space inside.

Any opinions ?

Also, would the Asrock 775DUAL-VSTA motherboard and an Intel CPU Core 2 Duo E6600 be good as a straight replacement for my m/b & cpu (is there a new version of the E6600 coming out soon?).

Thanks in advance for any advice, especially about the case.

Willow

P.S. I don't plan to overclock at all.
 
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I was kinda hoping on not spending too much (the wife doesn't know yet ;) ), the Antec would be towards the top end limit. What I liked about it was the fact that it came with the fans included so I didn't have to buy any extra to the case.
 
I see a case coming with fans as a waste, they are rarely much good compared to after market ones so end up being a little bit of a waste of money.

Zen comes with two decent fans, £30. ;)

Or the PC7+II comes with a set of fans and comes in at £60.

The Lian Li is built better and cools better than the 900 (going by reviews of the 900 compared to my PC7 experience, I have not ran my own rig in the 900 yet) and the Zen matches the 900's cooling potential at a fraction of the cost.

The 900 to me is a dead end upgrade case, come next system you will need to upgrade it to fit a graphics card the way things seem to be going, with a more tried and tested over 5+ years case design there is little risk, especially when there is much more room in them.

I am speculating of course, but if you buy a Zen or the PC7+ and keep the box, if you do not like the case you are looking at a loss of 5% or 10% worse case scenario on the value at retail. They hold their value exceptionally well and there always is a market for them.
 
By PC7 I assume you mean this

What fan setup would you recommend getting with this, are the ones that come with it suffient, and are they quiet. The reason I don't have fans on mine at the moment is that they were too noisy (having the sides off seems ok at the moment).
 
The fans are not brilliant, but for around £10 a fan you can get some Ambers or another brand of quiet fans, then hook each of them up to one of these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=OA-000-ZA

Then you have a fan speed controller allowing you to reduce the speed until you are happy with the noise levels. :)

Good cheap way to get a great cooling very quiet case that will last you for any imaginable upgrade.

If you search the forums for the PC7+ you will see lots of people are happy with them. (Exclusively loving them actually. The same goes for the Eclipse and on the rarer occasions the Zen. Three cases you literally can not go wrong with.)
 
OK, that gives me something to read up on on the forum tomorrow (the cases you mentioned and some fans (120mm?) - I don't know much about this side of PC's..

Thanks for your help
 
No problem, the fan load out is 120mm / 120mm with space for a 80mm in the roof but it is never needed. (Only adds noise.)

If you want to add me to MSN for a chat and some pictures you are welcome to do so, I will only be online in the evenings due to being tied up with some things for a few days.
 
Got pretty much same specs, and looking for a new case aswell. Something cheap, £40-50 max and quiet. Whats the zen like cooling wise?
 
begbo said:
Got pretty much same specs, and looking for a new case aswell. Something cheap, £40-50 max and quiet. Whats the zen like cooling wise?
Click to expand...
The Zen would be ok from what i've heard but if you can stretch to the PC7+ i'm sure you wouldn't regret it! Great build quality and impressive cooling! :)

gt
 
as far as I can see and from reading previous posts, build quality, looks and cooling is a bit better. Altough I think I may just go with the zen! ;)
 
I tend to agree with you, I think I'll go for the Zen and put the £30 saving towards a new m/b (Asrock dual PCI/AGP thingy).

However, I'm still willing to be convinced into a different direction.
 
OK, if I was to push the boat out and go for the PC7 would I need to buy any fans or are the ones that come with it adequate?
 
Just go for the 900. It is very quiet and has cooled the internals by 10c compared to previous case. That's with the fans that come with it.

As far as space for the graphics card is concerned there are 2 HD cages, as long as you don't have 6 HDs just remove the bottom one and you can fit a card of whatever length you like.
 
Alex R said:
Just go for the 900. It is very quiet and has cooled the internals by 10c compared to previous case. That's with the fans that come with it.

As far as space for the graphics card is concerned there are 2 HD cages, as long as you don't have 6 HDs just remove the bottom one and you can fit a card of whatever length you like.
Click to expand...

Yes but what case are you comparing it to?

The one I have seen was tiny internally, the Zen in my opinion is a much better case all round.

OK, if I was to push the boat out and go for the PC7 would I need to buy any fans or are the ones that come with it adequate?
Click to expand...

If you went with arguably the best case around it does indeed come with two fans, adequate cooling but they are slightly more noisey than the Zen's. Enough to cool an SLI rig easily at stock.

The Zen is the same, run anything you throw at it, the fans one the Zen have the same moulding as the Akasa Amber fans it is just the motor that is slightly worse, gives about 3CFM less per dB.

The PC7+ is a taste of the high end cases, it competes with £200 cases and loses. That is why it is such a good case, side by side the Zen looks like a £30/40 case to the normal eye, nothing that special yet it performs in a class of its own for the money.

The PC7+ on the other hand looks special, its brushed aluminium that just does not photograph and internals with the plastic covers to prevent cuts amongst other things just scream quality to you, as I said above it competes with cases such as the TJ09, S80b and G70 and loses out in everything marginally with them all, S80b is built better / G70 is better for watercooling etc.

The thing is, the PC7+ does not lose out by much, maybe warranting the S80 costing £5 more and the G70 £7/8 more, when they cost 3x the price! That is where the PC7+ shines, does not look out of place against any case, even an old ATCs 110-SX1.

For £60 it is THE best thing you can buy for your PC, its the same as a low end graphics card performing like the best one out for the next 5 years yet only costing £60.

The Zen is the same, but consider it performing for 5 years yet it still saying on the box its the low end, it is just the feel good factor you get of owning a high quality case that will last quite literally the lifetime of as many computers as you throw at it before you buy a Lian Li V series or better. :p

Once you buy Lian Li it is rare for someone to stand buying anything less than their high standards, it says something.
 
Thanks Yewen, that was a superb post and really made things clear.

It certainly sounds like the Zen will cater for my needs, as I'm used to a 'normal' tower with currently no cooling (and has been this way for a few years now) I don't think I need to spend the extra money on the ultimate low cost case (PC7+).

My setup is never going to be state of the art and I'm not into overclocking so I just need something to house and cool a stock PC which will, in time, have more powerful components in it (just probably not leading edge components)

In fact the £30 saving will go towards my slow upgrade to the big world of 64bit, the saving will almost buy me an Asrock Dual-VSTA m/b (needed as I can't afford to upgrade my AGP graphics card yet).

Thanks everyone for all your valuable input on this, this 'newby' has been well and truely educated in this area.

Willow
 
You can tell I was tired, do not think I have posted this yet!

http://www.yewen.co.uk/overclockers/zen/

Should get some pictures in there of one, just ignore the first picture. :D

The case pictured is now sold on, but it ended up being a silent office machine with a 4200xp and 7800GT SLI in it. 5v the fans (volt mod or use these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=OA-000-ZA) and buy a low noise CPU cooler and graphics card and you are laughing in silence.

If you need any help getting your CD rom drive into the Zen let me know, there is a slight nack with some brands to getting them to fit. :)

Just get back to us with how you find the case, getting feedback on things you have recommend people allows you to advise others that little bit better next time. :)
 
The deed is done, I've ordered the Zen, won't turn up till next week unfortunately.

Yewen, I'll let you know how I get on. This time I might even try to tidy the cabling away a bit. My current machine is a bit like a birds nest inside at the moment.

Thanks for the offer of help (hopefully I won't need it :D ).

What's wrong with the first picture then?
 
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