It doesn't really make any significant difference unless the parts make direct contact.

Concerning that PSU:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=317192
It's a Seasonic. Great buy, especially since it's $45. The 400CX is $30 and remarkably similar in design, however you have to deal with a rebate and 100W less max (no, not 120). It's about the same as a VX450 and an Antec Earthwatts 500W (they are identical), but they both cost a whole lot more. Much better than the basiq Ex linked (how that is, IDK).
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/954/1

Also, Ex, if overclocked, AMD's incompetence can be slightly overlooked (it's actually their competence that makes tri cores exist, since they're selling sub par products at a discounted price, and the "par" is incredibly high). The AMD tri core can be overclocked to a quad propus at 3 GHz with ease. To be safe, let's underclock it to a 2.8 GHz, and call the 3300 celeron an e6300 @2.8 (even though it can hit 3.3 on stocks, it still doesn't have the same cache as the 6300). The wolfdale's much better in gaming, but the propus wins in everything else. Bump in the max theoretical OC, and you've got a heated debate on what's better. Still though, $50 vs $70? Celeron wins in price efficiency, hands down. If you get a Callisto, however, the l3 cache helps out a bunch, and you can unlock it to a heka (apparently) or deneb with ease. Not to mention, the callisto can keep up with the celeron, but the deneb will decimate it. Why xbit labs didn't get ANY numbers at 3.3 or 4 GHz on the celeron, I don't know, but that would help a lot in comparing.

As for cases: it's a matter of opinion. What makes a good case? It's a very difficult question that has to be answered on a person to person basis. After all, a case IS an optional component to a computer. You don't need a case to get the computer to work. A good case to me depends on what you want out of it. My preferences are:
-Aluminum panels for heat dissipation/weight. This is actually pretty negligible, and I'm not sure if airflow has a significant impact on cooling. If it does (and is a positive impact) then that adds a whole other section:
-Airflow. What's better? More holes and fans, or a good and constant stream of low turbulence (laminar would be ideal, but air has a really small kinematic viscosity, making it only laminar at REALLY slow velocities). This is also difficult to say what's better. If more fans are good, then why bother with a case at all? Just leave it out of the case, or do some crazy case fan mods. Personally, I think that a closed positive pressure system is the best. That means no vents except where you want them (the back and front of the case) where you can put fans to create good airflow. Most importantly, you know where the air is coming from, so you can put in filters and keep your case relatively clean. This is harder to do if you have vents on the side, a plastic unremovable front cover, or holes everywhere.
-Amount of plastic. A good case IMO shouldn't have plastic on it except for holding stuff like drives. The front cover should be made out of metal (but can be held there by plastic).
-Access. A good case needs to be able to be disassembled with ease, to allow easy access to all parts of the system. This includes removable motherboard tray (helps tons when building), easily removable front covers, removable back side panel, removable HDD bracket, etc...
-Amount of rice. I dislike anything ricer like LEDs. There was a time I thought it was nice, and indeed some things are cool. My DFI board has funky colors designed for a UV light to be placed in the case with a see through panel (I don't use it however, and it's unobtrusive. LEDs, especially blue ones are very annoying in a dark room). However, I wouldn't ever want to have something that looks like this:

Seriously, looks are important, possibly the most important part, and simple yet elegant is the way to go.

Of the cases, I can't say I hate the Antec 300. In fact, it's a good case. Decent worksmanship, excellent design, good airflow, little rice. However, it was designed to be cheap, and it is. It lacks many things I mentioned above. The Antec cases which HAVE those things usually have lots of rice attached. On top of that, the Antec case price is far too high. The antec 300 would be a killer deal at $30. It would be THE case to get. But not at $50, and if it ever hits $30, there will be a much better case at $50 which you can buy. I don't think even Ex would disagree with me that the 300 is the best hundred series case, all things considered.

@ShadowFlare
IMO, a case doesn't help much with sound. If you want a quiet system, you have to build your parts quiet, and optimize your airflow with low decibel fans. If I were to build a seriously nice quiet computer, I'd get this: LL A05NB. Airflow is good right at the CPU (the intake is in the back, vents through the front). If you get a good graphics card, you'll probably want a nice big passive cooler with an extra pcie dual fan blowing down on it, as the graphics are in a poor location (but they're meant to run much hotter than the CPU.

Quality is different on cases. A cheap case isn't going to break. It will, however cut you. It might bend a little if you accidentally hit it with something. I accidentally bent my $10 case's door cover, and it never fit on properly again. My lancool case has a much better method of attaching the case, so that even if it did bend, I would be able to fit it back on easily.

Probably the most important facet of a case is its longevity. If you buy a case, you can reuse it practically forever.

Also, ex, I feel this is an excellent case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112184
Your opinions?
There are only a few problems that immediately jump out at me:
Blue LEDs (sorta fixable)
Dust from HUGE SEE THROUGH VENT on side.
80 mm top fan (not included)
no eSATA
$110 on a case, plus the money for new replacement fans
top mounted PSU (I don't find that much of a problem, because if it's bottom mounted, your GPU is going to be at the top where it's hot, plus you get to use the PSU fan for cooling too)
Other than that, I'm amazed.

Its a Lian Li, if it wasn't quality it would not have their name on it. That being said I'm not sure if its a case I'd use personally.

In terms of what I like, my next case is probably going to be the NZXT Whisper: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146051
Its about time I moved up to a full tower, the LEDs are minimal, it dampens sound, and it just has a sleek simple elegance to it that I can't help but love.

That's the same make as the one you recommended to me - the quality of which I was very impressed with. It was also huge (although my incompetence means that I've still got cables trailing all over the insides).

Surface area/volume is 1/depth, lol.
Let's say stainless steel has a k of 20, and aluminum has a k of 150. You also have 2 thicknesses: 1.5 mm and 3 mm. Still air has an R value of 0.12, and moving air is about 0.044. We'll assume the inside of the case is moving, and the outside of the case is not.

To convert k (W/mK) to R (m^2K/W) we need to divide the thickness by k:
20, 1.5 =0.000075
20, 3 =0.00015
150, 1.5 =0.00001
150, 3 =0.00002
As you see, very small R values.
Now compare it to the R value of still air: 0.12 and moving air: 0.044.

Quite frankly, the material and thickness don't matter much. Moving the air around is the best thing. If you don't understand the concept, and you understand electronics, think of it this way: The R value (m^2K/W) is just like resistance in electronics. Temperature is the same as Voltage. Heat flux (q") is current. That means V=I*R, and T=q"*R.

It's hard to get exact numbers without testing though, since the temperatures would change based on the amount of heat being put out inside the computer. Suffice it to say, convective heat transfer is the way to cool your computer.

@Ex, it seemed like it fit your requirements almost perfectly, and had one hell of a side fan. However, the whisper does look nice, and is definitely in a different category altogether.

No need to get snappy. I was simply suggesting that you should go the am3 route because then you have the possibility of upgrading.

$500, and gaming build shouldn't really ever be used in the same sentence, so I was just offering alternatives.
Second, Antec cases are not bad cases. Your Raidmax case in your build is in no way better then the antec 300, in fact it has 3 eggs while the antec 300 has 5. And if 87 people out of 150 gave your case 3 eggs or lower, there must be problems.
I'm seeing a trend with your case you suggested.

Lastly, I would agree ddr2 isn't the way to go with am3 but really he should be looking to spend at least $600-$700 for a decent build so he won't be hating life in 6 months, my suggestion isn't any worse then yours except mine allows an upgrade of the CPU before scrapping everything but the GPU and doing a new build.

First of all thanks for taking the time to answer my questions in full detail.

I can see myself discarding that.
But yeah of course passion always plays a role in tech buys but that wasn't what my question was about, since I know already what I like and what I don't like.

This is basically my main concern. My technical intuition tells me what rockz said. For a good flow of the air it should be optimal to have only one intake and one outtake. Any more and you get turbulences which lead to no air flow in a form of one constant stream of air but to localized turbulences which (as I understand it) would be better at moving air at the surroundings of the fan, but would be inferior in regards of reaching throughout the case.
Again, this is just what my technical intuition tells me.
Now you, Ex, claim that these 'local turbulences' are the better method of keeping the case cool. That's certainly true if you have fans everywhere, but what about when there's only front, back and side holes? What's the best configuration in that case?

Hm, interesting.
My case has a side opening too and also an extendable "tube" attached to it at the inside that is supposed to directly cover the CPU fan so it gets fresh, filtered air from outside. Strangely enough, when I extend the tube that it actually covers the CPU fan (how it's apparently supposed to be) my CPU temp goes up by ~5°C (~7°F). Is that because the fan is too weak (replaced the original fan with a quieter one) or is it a perfectly normal trade-off for feeding my CPU filtered air (which would be a lousy trade-off imo)?
However your suggestion sounds intriguing. I think I can unscrew the tube and put a fan there instead which should pretty much blow over my graphics card which gets quite hot under heavy load.

What I wanted to say is that if you can take care of the cooling part there's not much else a case must have aside from the the connectors you need.
Yes, there's things that make a case better, hence it's relevant to my question, but if I can get a cheaper case that is made of steel instead of alu, is pretty tight (only have to install things once a year or so), suffers from vibration (add some paper/rubber) and has bad cable management (zip ties!) I'd gladly take the money and invest in better components. I don't need an overall good case as long as it does its job and the internals are of good quality. But we're straying from the topic...
1) Ah yeah, brackets and whatnot. Those are nice, but if they come at a cost I guess I could as well take zip ties.
2) Interesting point. Are there actual cases that are made to be soundproof? Or do you refer to vibration dampeners?
3) Yep. Longer is better. Never had height problems with midi towers and larger.
4) Not an issue for me personally. My desktop is stationary.
These have an actual function and it's obvious, so yes it's part of consideration when buying a case but is not subject to my question.


Yeah, pretty obvious stuff here.
And yes, I also dislike LEDs, so I dimmed mine by soldering on a resistor that also made the attached fan run slower.
But hey, they were just too bright when I switched off the lights in my room. ...

While I don't like their methodology, it does shed some light on the effectiveness of case cooling (it's not very effective).
http://tech.icrontic.com/articles/pc_airflow_heat_cooling_guide/
I wish they had done one with all fans except the side duct, which is what I think is best.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=42853
This guy agrees that side fans have problems.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 20 2010, 10:46 pm by rockz.