Much as I like reading the forums, I always feel a little daunted when posting, but you'll know a lot more than me which is useful. The primary reason I'm posting is questioning about cases. I currently have a really old Antec case, bought off the bargain shelf one lucky day so I have no idea what it is (chieftec did a copy if anyone knows the name of the antec version). Its as heavy as a brick outhouse, and cools well but damn it sure is noisy. I had a time where I overclocked the nuts off my old hardware, nowadays I have no interest and prefer quiet and cool (too much heat is bad where my computer is) i'm likely to keep the case should I ever want to go loopy again. I have a tendancy to go to Lan parties every now and again so would also like a reduction in size from a full tower to a mid-tower. So the primary things I'm after are good cooling, Quietness (doesn't have to be whisper quiet, but not omg loud), midi sized. Cases I've been looking at have been the Antec 900 Which covers 2 out of 3, those bing the cooling and size. However, I have heard a lot of people say if your after quietness (unless you go nuts in the fan department) don't go there. Also been looking at the Lian-Li Pc-7 Plus (the 120mm fan version) Which looks good, is the right size and I haven't heard any major negatives in the cooling department. I have no idea how quiet it is! If anyone has any other ideas, my max price range is about £50 - £70. Hardware wise, I play very few demanding games generally. I do enjoy playing CoD 4, but the main game I play is WoW (yes, i am one of those freaks, however im not a hardcore raider) Spec wise, I have e6300 C2D Gigabyte DQ6 Mobo (Quad bios, think it just manages 1066 FSB so its P965 chipset i think) 2GB Value Geil PC6400 RAM 8800GTS 320MB Leadtek bog standard GTS 74GB Raptor I use 2 screens, a 22" WS 1680x1050 screen, and a piddly little half dead 17" tft (it has burn in from firefox its that old). I'm having times where I experience slow-down in both WoW and CoD4 during hectic situations. I'm unsure whether this is due to either graphics performance (I don't set everything to absaloute max, im sensible and have things at medium, but still have issues) or whether my poor little e6300 is just struggling. Cutting back all the settings helps of course, but playing WoW with everything off is just ridiculous, i mean the games 2+ years old! Process wise, I cut all the apple carp off auto to manual to reduce that. with FF open, and MSN messenger in the background I have about 40 processes. AV'd and Spyware checked so i'm fairly sure its not software problems. A recent reformat (say a month and a half ago) means Windows should be clean, had no problems with installing at all. Might be useful to say I use XP Pro not Vista! HDD has about half space with no errors reported via SMART. Does anyone think it is likely to be hardware struggling, or is it more likely to be something else? I have the money to upgrade the CPU and GFX card but am unsure if it would be worth doing it? For what I need and use my computer for, theres no point going OTT and splurging on a whole new system so will only be upgrading the major parts. I shouldn't really need more than 2GB of RAM in XP either! Bearing in mind I want to keep my motherboard what upgrade options are there for CPU? I presume the newer releases are out, cause the FSB is a lot higher but I'm not quite sure where the limit is because of how many different releases there have been since I got my system >.> So yes, any idea on my slowdowns, and reccomended upgrades to last me a while more. I also do not need Quad core, much as it makes the geek inside go yay, Dual core easily covers what I need! Max Limit of £275 for CPU + GFX. Would prefer products available on Scan, free postage from an iseries event so easy. Thanks for anyone that can help, My knowledge seems to have become crap since I was OC'ing bright
If your willing to make it trully quite it can be silent. As im my case i have the second gen PC7(the original has 80mm fans, second gen changed to 120mm) and pretty much ive silenced the entire machine by using anti vibration fan mounts and only 2 fans for extraction(1 including the PSU fan). the quality of the case is superb and is uber lite when completly empty and not to mention a first rate finish. I'd recomend that case or the tiny Lian li A02 case. Hardware wise i dont think you need one. Maybe a full format is in order?
thats the problem, I did a full re-format about a month and a half ago, and theres not a lot on here really at the moment. Thats the main reason why I'm concerned as to the random slowdowns. Maybe I just thrash it too hard when playing games (i.e too much running in the background) but with it being dual core I would have thought it could hack firefox and MSN open =\ Case wise it looks like the PC7 is a runner then, which is good. Thanks for the reply
