1 intake fan? I'd rather stab myself in the nuts than have your case. I truly feel for your 8800GT. All that hot air in their just swirling around and no way to escape.

Why do you think so many people buy Antec 900/1200 cases, or Thermatake Armor cases? HEAT IS BAD. VERY BAD. If it wasn't for condensation people would have refrigerated PC cases.

WDT-BlackKat

People have those wide-open cases either because they have seroius needs for one (Tri-SLI + Quad-Core, or maybe a 12-disk file server), because they THINK they need them, or because someone told them to get one (or, because they think the case is cool). For typical gaming machines, any ol' mid-tower with decent exhaust is sufficient.

I'm not sure exactly which components are going to suffer from slightly elevated heat. CPUs have high tolerances, GPUs are even more heat resistent (and get replaced more often), and even HDDs last for several years, from what I've seen. Why in the world do you think case ambient should equal room ambient? Unless you have watercooling or peltier, that's impossible. Chips create heat; hard drives create heat; every active component in your case creates heat. Some of that is going to stay in your case, no matter how hard you try.

If I turn off all intake fans in my Rocketfish case, leaving only the exhaust fan, CPU fan and PSU, idle temps for a Phenom X4 and passively cooled HD3850 are 40C ambient, 35C core, and 46C GPU. All of these temperatures are well within the specs of these components, and should have no appreciable effect on their lifespans - the typical gaming PC gets upgraded often, compared to other PCs.

wtf is so great about this?air_wolf_cubed

It's like an extended HR cartoon. What can I say? I like those cartoons.

http://www.telltalegames.com/strongbad/

Of course, this assumes Nintendo doesn't change the release date for some arbitrary reason. Anyway, this is the WiiWare game for which I've been saving my remaining 1100 Points. Adventure games aren't usually my thing, but I can't say no to Homestar Runner!

User reviews aren't worth much for power supplies, except maybe determining if the supplies are of consistent quality. It takes proper testing to determine if the supply is quality or crap, and even those are hard to get on the typical review site. I could find only one review of the Xigmatek, over at Anadtech. They recommend it, though they seem to think it's loud. Anadtech is one of the few sites I'd trust with power supply reviews (along with SilentPCReview and JonnyGURU), so I'd think the Xigmatek is a good choice. In this case, the user reviews are mostly positive, suggesting that the supply is consistently good.

You could do worse than the Xigmatek.

Here's the thing about fan speeds, I always have mine on 100 percent. I thought everyone did that o.O

Does that tiny noise really annoy people that much, or are there other issues that having 100 percent fan power would present.

holmes88777

There's usually not a good reason to run your fans at full blast all the time. I have three case fans, and one of them I turn on only when playing a game (it's on the graphics card). They are hooked to a fan controller, and usually spin at about 750RPM. My CPU cooler's fan spins constantly at ~1000RPM, and could be replaced with a fan that runs slower with no serious effect on temps. Speedfan lists my CPU at 35C idle, "case" temp at 40C, and something else (probably northbridge) at 50C. Everything except my power supply (which I'm replacing) is essentially inaudible, and my temperatures are just fine.

It's incredibly freeing to have a computer that is both powerful and quiet, and better for the long-term health of your hearing. Although the typical computer is probably not loud enough, long-term exposure to loud noise can lead to tinnitus or hearing loss. (The iPod generation is finding this out the hard way.) And, yes, I do find the whiny noise of a stock VGA cooler to be very annoying - I hate my old 7600GT :)

Sorry to take over your thread but I have a quick question. Will my PS in my sig be enough to run a 4870/4870X2/260GTX/280GTX??? just curious because when I bought it it was a very good PS at the time.

Just realized it was hard to see in my sig. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341001

So heres a link to the PS I have.

Killfox

Yes that should be good enough, OCZ is a pretty good brand. However, you may need an 8-pin PCI-E adapter of some kind if you want to use the X2 or the 280, since your PSU doesn' seem to have one.

Can anyone list unbiased disadvantages of both cards ? The 4870 may be slightly faster but i have heard a lot abt heating issues and power consumption. have those been fixed yet ? also does the gtx 260 heat up the inside of your cabinet /Mtnes

At stock settings, the 260 has a lower temperature and lower idle power consumption. Additionally, it exhausts heat out of the back of the case like the 4870, so it reduces potential problems to other components. ATI doesn't seem to be doing much about either of those two problems you mentioned, which is unfortunate. However, it's possible to increas the speed of the fan on the 4870 (Google "4870 fan fix" for more info) and even possibly lower power consumption. If you're unsatisfied with either of the stock cooling options, you can easily replace the 4870's with anything that fits on a 3870, whereas nothing fits over the 260's massive die right now. If you manage your airflow well enough, neither of these cards will heat up your PC very much.

By the way i have a 450 watt power supply...will it be enough? knowing that i got 2 hd and one dvd burner...lepilon

That depends on what quality/brand your supply is. Even 650W is too little if it sucks enough...