due to some problems I will be needing to eaither get a laptop or mini tower pc... I was looking to maybe get this antec case however I had a few questions about it. will it be able to support a radeon x800 por or xt? I would probably get an athlon 64 3400+ with its so would the psu be powerfull enough? will I only be able to fit one HD? will it be possible to water cool it? I was also wondering about laptops... where can I get a good costum one that is not too expensive? is there any retailers that already carry the radeon mobility 9800? thanx for all the help!
From what I have heard these cases have serious heat issuses with high end systems as the only airflow is the extraction of the psu fan. Ok it's a 120mm job but there aren't any intakes to speak of. Also as the psu is only 300w it might strugle a bit. I believe they can take upto 3 hard drives.
i know about the heat issues... if i got one i would definately mod it for better airflow... also was thinking about watercoolking, maybe building another compartment on top for the pump and radiator....
one of my main concerns is the 300 watt PSU... i know its an antec, but i'm ganna have an athlon 64 bit 3700+, a radeon X800 xt or pro, 1 gig of corsair pc-3200 ram, a 250 gig hd and a plextor dvd+/- rw... plus maybe a swiftech water cooling system. not sure if 300 watts will do it, and if it won't, will i be able to switch it out or not? looks like its costum for that case so it won't take too much room...
I think it is cutome for the case - there are a couple of decent reviews for the case knocking about that google should turn up for you.
also wondering how i can keep tract of the temp, and i also was wondering if water coolng would be possible... i was wanting to add another chamber above for a pump and radiator. maybe also another PSU
Space and power wise, you should have no problem with an x800 series. Antec PSUs are definately good quality, it should provide you with what you need. I have a SilenX 350w powering my p4 2.4c @ 3.2, 1GB PC4000 ram, AIW 9600pro, three hard drives, two opticals, two PCI cards and quite a few accessories and the PSU isn't even putting out a ton of heat (and again, silenx = dead silent but natrually little airflow so things would get hot in there if it was doing a lot of work). Realistically, any quality 300w unit should power just about any system except for one with a high-end processor and a 6800ultra. But the x800 series draws a little less power than a 9800xt and I'm sure I've heard of people putting them in shuttles with 250w PSUs However I have a friend with an Aria, and he's constantly having overheating problems (at stock speed). Although apparently he has his CPU fan on upside down and three hard drives in there (so my other friend tells me anyways, and thats the max it can take) You also need to use a somewhat small HSF unit as the PSU tends to be over the socket area. Watercooling should be possible, it depends how much modding you wanna do but it should be doable. It looks like it would take very little modding to fit in an entry-level kit but to get some actual good watercooling it may take some work and it would almost certainly have to be external. Oh yeah, to watch temps, I'd suggest motherboard monitor. It uses the motherboard's system health monitoring chip and displays the info (temps, fan speeds, voltages) onscreen and if you want you can take that and output it to another program for a fancier display If you do external watercooling and use a 12v pump, I would suggest getting a second PSU for it. Not necessarily some big one, even one of the tiny ones made for EPIA systems would work or some old cheapo generic (it wouldn't take much load so not much to worry about).
cool thanx for your help!!! I'll probably eventually mod it with a 550 antec psu, water cooling, and come other crazy stuff. but for now its good to know that it will simply run
