Coolermaster Elite 100

[Xordium]

Anyone have any thoughts on these. I am planning to make a media player for my daughter for uni. If anyone has done one what bits did you plonk in there - if anyone has had problems what else did you go for? I have 4Gb of XMS and a copy of W7 knocking around so will utilise them but I guess I am wondering about noise levels on the specific boards - she'll be in halls so I doubt it will ever be that quiet that I would have to spec for a completely passive build but my understanding is that the PSU on this is loud. But I am also thinking not too expensive might be a good idea in halls also.

 

[Tute]

Personally it's not small enough for me, i'm building a quiet desktop browser/light WoW player for the missus and this is what I came up with:

- i3-2105 (cheap with HD3000 graphics)
- Intel DH61DL (hard to find stock, but around £60)
- 4GB DDR3
- 250GB WD Scorpio Black 2.5"
- Antec ISK100 case with 60W PSU

There's no optical drive but she has an external USB one that will work fine. I guess your daughter might want an optical drive but i'd suggest looking at the above case, putting a bigger HDD in, and ripping her CDs off onto the HDD in MP3/FLAC etc. and then only using the ODD if she really has to.

I actually don't run with an ODD in my Sugo SG05 and I don't find I really miss it at all.

 

[Xordium]

I was thinking of going external to be honest as I doubt it would ever get used if it was internal as everything data wise would be ripped across from our NAS. How's the dust build up in there - you know how students can be with cleaning stuff.

 

[Legion]

Anyone have any thoughts on these. I am planning to make a media player for my daughter for uni. If anyone has done one what bits did you plonk in there - if anyone has had problems what else did you go for? I have 4Gb of XMS and a copy of W7 knocking around so will utilise them but I guess I am wondering about noise levels on the specific boards - she'll be in halls so I doubt it will ever be that quiet that I would have to spec for a completely passive build but my understanding is that the PSU on this is loud. But I am also thinking not too expensive might be a good idea in halls also.

I've built few a systems into these cases now,for the money it's a cracking little case.
You'll be resricted to very low cooling potential,low profile coolers as standard ones wont fit in this case due to the height of it (69mm)

For this reason I'd suggest you stick to embedded boards such as E-350(Zacate) or Ion boards.

I had a Gigabyte H67N m-itx board and i5 2500k lying around waiting to go into another build I tried in this case.
The retail hsf supplied with the i5 was just a touch too big to get the top of this case back on (I don't know if the i3 coolers are smaller or not)

Trying to find coolers for other platforms to fit this case is something of a nightmare if you go with a standard m-atx/m-itx board and cpu setup.

The psu does have a small amount of whine to it,but it's certainly not bad by any means.
I've not had any complaints about the noise from people I've built them for.

Slimline optical drives all make noise on spinup and searching,while streaming(i.e. playing the media) they arent too bad though.
Noise is a subjective and personal issue,we are reading an enthusiasts site here,a lot of which are very noise intolerant and biased.

If you feel you need a system with more power,I'd look at a different case as the height of it really restricts what you can build into it.

 

[Xordium]

I've built few a systems into these cases now,for the money it's a cracking little case.
You'll be resricted to very low cooling potential,low profile coolers as standard ones wont fit in this case due to the height of it (69mm)

For this reason I'd suggest you stick to embedded boards such as E-350(Zacate) or Ion boards.

I had a Gigabyte H67N m-itx board and i5 2500k lying around waiting to go into another build I tried in this case.
The retail hsf supplied with the i5 was just a touch too big to get the top of this case back on (I don't know if the i3 coolers are smaller or not)

Trying to find coolers for other platforms to fit this case is something of a nightmare if you go with a standard m-atx/m-itx board and cpu setup.

The psu does have a small amount of whine to it,but it's certainly not bad by any means.
I've not had any complaints about the noise from people I've built them for.

Slimline optical drives all make noise on spinup and searching,while streaming(i.e. playing the media) they arent too bad though.
Noise is a subjective and personal issue,we are reading an enthusiasts site here,a lot of which are very noise intolerant and biased.

If you feel you need a system with more power,I'd look at a different case as the height of it really restricts what you can build into it.

Good point there really about the noise - some people on certain sites will expect no noise whatsoever but in the real world people will not notice at all when they are using at as a media player and therefore drowning everything else out with films and music playing.

And I could use a 3.5 inch HD I have going spare (WD 2TB Green) if I use an external DVD.

 

[Stephen B]

stock cooler on an i7 sandybridge fits fine, odd that the i5 doesn't, psu is louder than I'd like but not horrendous

I stuck a C300 SSD, Intel H67 mobo and 8 gig corsair dominator in mine before moving it all to a full sized case