Spec me a case and a psu

Ice213

Ice213

Ice213

Associate
Joined
30 Mar 2012
Posts
427
Hi everyone,

I've made a bit of a boo boo. Picked myself up a Sapphire 7970 with the Arctic Accelero Xtreme attached to it (along with a new mobo, ram, cpu), came to install it all, and it looked as though it was all going to fine when I realised the 7970 wasn't going to fit my case :(.

I've got an antec 300 case, and where the HDD bays are, the card goes into them, but the cooler comes into contact with the back of the HDD bays, and rests there, making it impossible to actually plug the card into the board :(.

So I need a new case asap because I've got a 7970 just sitting there in a box right now. Also, during installation I realised just how rubbish it is having a non modular PSU, my case is literally worse than spaghetti junction right now! So I'm thinking a new one of those is in order too :). One that will make my new case look all neat, tidy and sexy inside :D.

As far as what I would like in each of these? Well the case, I don't need anything fancy, something with good cooling/cooling options, and plenty of room (looks wouldn't go amiss either :p). And the psu, well the capacity to go crossfire with my 7970 in the future at some point, and also modular too please :).

Thanks in advance people!
 
Oh yeah, forgot about that :p. Erm, I would say I haven't got a strict budget, but I've already spent a lot on the upgrade, so the cheaper the better really to be honest. Max I'd say £150-200. But cheaper than that would be good :D

Also, I should probably say that the 7970's length with the cooler attached is I think a little over 30cm, if that makes a difference for the case suggestions
 
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I was looking at possibly this for the case:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-034-NX&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=35

Anyone have any idea if this will accommodate my card and cooler? Also stretches the budget a little for the psu to be included too

Also does anyone know if that case has dust guards where the intake fans are? Because my room is rather dusty at times and my current antec's dust guards do a stand up job of keeping a lot of the dust out.

Thanks again
 
Yes very good case.

Accelero cards in the Phantom (not mine, just google-fu).

slilh.jpg


Dunno about dust filters.
 
Ooooh, that does look good :). Thanks for the pic. Wish I had 2 of them :p. Maybe one day.

In terms of my PSU then, if I wanted to go crossfire one day with the 7970's one day in the future, what sort of wattage am I looking at?

My spec is currently:

i5 3570k
Gigabyte z77x-ud5h
8gb of corsair vengeance ram
kingston hyperx 240gb ssd
spinpoint F1 1tb from my old system
and the 7970

I've currently got a non modular 850w, but as my budget is tight for these 2 parts, would a 750w be ok if i decided to overclock and crossfire in the future?

Thanks again everyone
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M High Performance 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020003-UK) £89.99
Total : £201.97 (includes shipping : £10.00).



Fully overclocked, 650W power consumption. 750W will be fine. Worth spending £10 if you can.

If your current PSU is any good, it should be OK.

Case + PSU, £200.

You can keep your current PSU for a while. Use the bottom HDD cage to hide the cables you don't need.
 
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I liked the look of that xfx one myself to be honest, but one of the reviewers on the ocuk page seemed to slate it because it is semi modular and not fully modular, and that it looks a mess inside the case because of this.

Although the rest of the reviews seem fairly positive...
 
semi modular have the cables needed like the 24 pin and 8 pin. the xfx one is a very good one. i'd say the only prob to semi is that its harder to braid the cables if you wanted to
 
Ah right, well I don't really have the intention to braid them so that wouldn't be a problem for me :). I think I will go for the xfx one suggested above, and the nzxt phantom (although I'm in a dilemma as to which colour between the black and orange and plain black...though at the moment black/orange is a tenner cheaper so it makes sense :p).
 
reviews of the PSU (P1-850B-NLG9).

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page625.htm

It's an offshoot of the original XFX 850 Black (which had a weird glo-green fan), but exactly the same unit, based on the Seasonic M12D.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=165

So there you go. The only redundant cable in the bundle is a secondary 8 pin EPS12V connector (for dual-CPU xeon motherboard, it's exactly the same as the 4+4 CPU power connector, just different name). So you won't have to worry about cable mess.
 
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I'd suggest seeing how your current PSU goes with your new case. I know when I upgraded to a larger case, static cables were easy to hide and look good with the help of just a few cable ties, totally different to how it looked in my smaller case.
 
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