The case. You can make out the stealthed DVDRW on the side in this picture (the rectangle on the top boarder) The rear/ports, the motherboard is removable (slides out) from the back, no mess pulling it apart. The inside of the box, fabric lining removed. The lid open, my nasty floor in the background. I haven't cleaned since I started working nights so also a very messy floor. Everything hooked up, again, plaster and paint just laying there. And me hunched over cutting the mount to the right size. The Zalman 9700 I put on the X2. Thats a quarter for comparison. Beautiful, disgusting tasting, Arctic Thermal Grease Applied. The old x700 I had in the previous system and as a place holder until the 8800 got here. The new card. The CPU + Cooler installed. The Video + CPU/Cooler installed. Everything in the box. Stats on the PC: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor with a Zalman 9700 110mm AM2 cooler (arctic silver 5 thermal grease), OC'd to 3ghz on a Biostar NF520-A2 nForce based mobo. 2gb of DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) gskills memory. A 200gb Western Digital HD Pioneer 18X DVD±RW drive and a shiny new EVGA 'Superclocked' GeForce 8800GTS 320MB at 608mhz core/900mhz Memory. Windows Vista "Performance Edition" (Runs about 300mb memory usage while idle)
Far too much beautiful, disgusting tasting, Arctic thermal grease. It's not sandwhich spread you know, a thin layer man, thin! I like to place a little blob on the centre of the CPU, heat and HS presure will spread it over time.
Far too much indeed - a grain of rice placed on the heatspreader/'sink bottom (either) will spread out quite nicely, even that's probably more than you need in truth. Great looking case though, very nice indeed.
I likened the Thermal grease to Peanut butter, when in doubt more is better. Should I go back over and reapply? my CPU is running around 20c idle and mid thirties under load, so I haven't been worried. Thanks for the compliments, the box could be a bit cleaner in my opinion, though.
Are you going to spray the back of the panel black? That should really healp clean up the look, also, having a modular PUS would help clean up the wiring inside the case. I'm wondering what you have in mind for cooling, hard to see you put intake vents on the side of it, the rear could handle about 2-3 80mm fans I guess. Maybe you could add 4 foot pegs and put 2 grill intake vents to the right and left of the PSU in the floor of the box.
I think I can swing two 120mm fans in the back, and some PCI slot exhaust fans inside, I run with the lid open so cooling isnt bad, especially after the VF1000 comes out. I'll have to paint the inside of the box and the metal mounts and what not black to clean things up a bit.
