A 600W PSU is probably not neccessary and Enermax is not a brand I trust. Go for Antec, Fortron/FSP or Sparkle. They'll probably be cheaper, too.
Really? I've never had a problem with Enermax. But Ace's Antec supply is cheaper.
A Thermalright XP120 would be a better heatsink (coupled with a decent 120mm fan) and it will fit on your motherboard.
Consider a 74GB Raptor for your boot/application drive and, say, a RAID1 array for data. The SATA drives should be faster than your current PATA drives but only because they are newer.
I'm going with your heatsink recommendation, and the fan that's almost the same one that Thermalright recommends for it. I'm going to pass on the Raptor.
I also changed the case over to the CM Stacker. It supports both ATX and BTX form factors. The manual for it needs work, but its still understandable. I'm hoping I can set it up to work with an ATX mobo in a BTX style set up - that would provide airflow for where I'm going to put the computer (the left side of the case will be facing a wall, while the right side is open).
An ATX/BTX crossover case is kinda useless, by the time the motherboard will be in BTX format you'll have to replace the RAM, GPU, heatsink etc. You can't just pick and choose the peices together. But your choice, though as far as I know, BTX cases have less fans.
Arrow Mk84 wrote:Really? I've never had a problem with Enermax. But Ace's Antec supply is cheaper.
Back in the day they had a lot of problems, though maybe today they've cleaned up their act. Still, Antec always provides good, clean power.
I'm going with your heatsink recommendation, and the fan that's almost the same one that Thermalright recommends for it. I'm going to pass on the Raptor.
The 120mm Panaflo L1A? It's an excellent match and rather quiet to boot. The M1A and H1A lines cool better but are louder.
I also changed the case over to the CM Stacker. It supports both ATX and BTX form factors. The manual for it needs work, but its still understandable. I'm hoping I can set it up to work with an ATX mobo in a BTX style set up - that would provide airflow for where I'm going to put the computer (the left side of the case will be facing a wall, while the right side is open).
The Coolermaster Stacker is neat, but also consider the Antec P180.
Tiger Ace wrote:An ATX/BTX crossover case is kinda useless, by the time the motherboard will be in BTX format you'll have to replace the RAM, GPU, heatsink etc. You can't just pick and choose the peices together. But your choice, though as far as I know, BTX cases have less fans.
Well, the idea is that won't have to replace the case when I do my next upgrade. My current case has lasted three upgrades - I'm just tired of looking at it, and its a bit cramped.
Also, if I can switch the motherboard to be on the other side, the side vent should get better airflow, because then it won't be facing a wall (not that is been a big problem for my current case, which has its side intake fans facing the wall).
Why have the side be an intake? Thats just messing with airflow unless theres something I'm missing here.
A BTX board would be best if you could get a case thats(forgot the name) thats horizontal and not vertical, but then you might run into clearance issues with the fans.
