[Meatfeast]

I copied a lot of ur stuff and the system is now built. It comprises:
Asrock A75M A75
AMD Quad-Core Black Edition A8-Series
Corsair 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1866Mhz
OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SSD
X-Case Q100 + 500watt PSU
I gotta say this thing is really impressive. It breezes through everything and menu's are super smooth. I upgraded from an Acer R3610 and it used to judder on MQ3 skin. Movies playback flawlessly as well hooked up to my Sony AV Receiver (1080p MKV)
The stock CPU cooler is quite load so I'd defffo suggest getting a better one. I'm looking at the Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 (SCBSK-2100) but it might have to wait until payday. Whole deal cost me £301.42 ($468.94).
The case was a little bigger than i thought it would be which is only down side.

Are you based in the UK too? I totally agree about the Xcase, i wish i could have warned you but i only recieved mine last thursday. It is a bit on the large size but it does look good and the build quality isn't too shabby either. Especially at that price point! Superb delivery service too! I think i might swap it out eventually for the widely used (on here) Silverstone ML03 It is more suitably sized to accompany other AV equipment and has 2 front mounted USB 3.0 ports. I'll see how the Xcase fairs first though!

I have also been looking at a CPU cooler and the Shuriken 2 is a bit pricey for my liking so i've been sniffing around the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro

What did you choose for storage out of interest? Also what retailers did you use? (If you are from the UK)

[angel129116]

I am from the UK as well mate (Nottingham). I used Ebuyer to get all my stuff (barr the case obviously).
The only hard drive in the case is the OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SSD. I've a custom built windows 7 PC that act's as a media server in my hall cupboard that has 7TB's of media storage. This fuels the house with media via a gigabit 6e Ethernet setup.

[Meatfeast]

Hope you're not a Forest fan!!!!

I'm from Bristol and My beloved City play Forest at the city ground 1st game of the season!

If you're not into footy or forest, feel free to ignore my previous comments!

Sounds like a sweet setup & something i will look into when i move into my new place.

I use ebuyer & amazon alot but discovered technextday.co.uk who provided a super quick turnaround even on the saver free delivery option! 2 days from order!

Another site i used for the first time was morecomputers.co.uk very impressed as i went for free delivery and it arrived the next day. (i think it states upto 5 days)

Glad your build went well and you're pleased with the power & speed of your new machine. Any pictures for us?

[angel129116]

I'm going to pop some pics up, just need to sort the cpu cooler. Sooner the better as the stock one is really annoying me.
There are some pics of my equipment here:
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...pid1127986
I'm quite impressed how it all works actually. :o) Feel like a proper techie household. hehe.

[Meatfeast]

I copied a lot of ur stuff and the system is now built. It comprises:
Asrock A75M A75
AMD Quad-Core Black Edition A8-Series
Corsair 8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1866Mhz
OCZ 60GB Agility 3 SSD
X-Case Q100 + 500watt PSU
I gotta say this thing is really impressive. It breezes through everything and menu's are super smooth. I upgraded from an Acer R3610 and it used to judder on MQ3 skin. Movies playback flawlessly as well hooked up to my Sony AV Receiver (1080p MKV)
The stock CPU cooler is quite load so I'd defffo suggest getting a better one. I'm looking at the Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 (SCBSK-2100) but it might have to wait until payday. Whole deal cost me £301.42 ($468.94).
The case was a little bigger than i thought it would be which is only down side.

Are you based in the UK too? I totally agree about the Xcase, i wish i could have warned you but i only recieved mine last thursday. It is a bit on the large size but it does look good and the build quality isn't too shabby either. Especially at that price point! Superb delivery service too! I think i might swap it out eventually for the widely used (on here) Silverstone ML03 It is more suitably sized to accompany other AV equipment and has 2 front mounted USB 3.0 ports. I'll see how the Xcase fairs first though!

I have also been looking at a CPU cooler and the Shuriken 2 is a bit pricey for my liking so i've been sniffing around the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro

What did you choose for storage out of interest? Also what retailers did you use? (If you are from the UK)

Just a word of warning,... DO NOT buy the CPU cooler I linked in this post! It is HUGE and will not fit in the already big xcase Q100.

Your fan will need to be low profile. Eskro has some linked in his guide. Scythe ones are available on ebuyer.

[angel129116]

Hey there, been a while but thought I'd check in and see how you got on with the build. Did you ever finish?

[Meatfeast]

Hey,

Built, up & running. Not 100% finished as I am a tinkering around with case fans due to the warm, humid weather we've been having.

I went and got a Big Shuriken 2 without really knowing if it would fit over my RAM! Rest assured it went in fine and has about 5mm clearance!
I noticed the other day when I left it on to download overnight, the shuriken was spinning up quite fast, thus making more noise. So I ran speed fan and the CPU was running at 54c. I never installed the case fans included in the Q100 case so I gave them a try and the temps dropped sufficiently, but now my quiet HTPC sounded more like a xbox 360 on its last legs! I decided to give these a try Noise Blocker XR2 They are ok and alot quieter than the stock fans that come with the case, but ideally i'd like them to be a little more silent. So I have ordered and am waiting on this Fan Controller. I am also tinkering with the idea of sticking a big fan over the remaining pci slots. Then running the 2x 60mm as intake fans to blow cool air over the CPU then have the big fan as an exhaust.

Another Mod I had to make on the request of the Mrs was the Front LEDs. They are so big and bright, she was finding it very distracting. So I cut some small circles with a tiny hole in the middle out of vinyl (I'm a sign maker) and stuck them over the LEDs, which has done the trick lovely. I done them in matte black so it blends in perfectly!

I am way over budget now, but thats due to plumping for a 3tb Barracuda instead of the 2tb Caviar Green and not originally budgeting for a SSD and Big Shuriken.

I'm not that fussed though because its getting alot of use and for the most part has been near silent.

I will upload some pics when I'm finally done tinkering!

[angel129116]

Looking forward to seeing the pics mate.
I'm still tinkering around with mine as not 100% happy still. I see you decided to stick with the Q100 case. I've got mine still but not happy with it as I've no where to store it! lol.
What PSU are you using? I bought one from xcase along with the Q100 but it seems really loud! Let me know how you get on with the new fans and if they are any quieter.

[Meatfeast]

The PSU I got is here Seasonic 380w A little pricey but I assure you, dead silent! Yeah, I have decided to keep the Q100. Looks perfectly at home in my storage unit. Especially with the LEDs dimmed down!

I'll keep you posted on how the fan tinkering goes. I must say though, before the humid weather set in, it was extremely quiet. Infact, the only sounds I could hear were coming from the Barracuda HDD!

[bluray]

I noticed the other day when I left it on to download overnight, the shuriken was spinning up quite fast, thus making more noise.

If you haven't select "Cool N Quiet" option and set fan level to 1 in AsRock bios, you might want to try it......if it doesn't keep the CPU cool, you can bump up the fan speed one level at a time....

If the included case fan is too noisy, you can install this silent case fan- SilenX IXP-34-16 60mm Case Fan......

[Meatfeast]

Just a quick update. While I remember!

I have the 60mm case fans & the fan controller installed now & I would probably say it was a waste of time! here's why,....

I run SABNZBD through google chrome and set it to refresh every second so I could see my download progress in realtime. THIS was what was making my APU temps rise and make the fan kick in so hard. (Sods law I had to buy case fans & a controller before I realized this!) This only happened when I left the Chrome window open and never when SAB was running and downloading in the background. So then it was obvious that chrome was the culprit. Apparently Chrome does some realtime scanning for malware while you browse and therefore works alot harder than say firefox.

SAB is now refreshing every 30 seconds and my shuriken is keeping things cool at around 1300rpm which is so near silent I sometimes have to really concentrate and listen out to notice any noise! Great timing, as I have just discovered Breaking Bad and damn that show is good!!!

On a seperate note, the case fans & controller do work well together, I have the fans turned down to the minimum setting and they are inaudible. They probably don't push a huge amount of air but, some is better than none I guess!