Hard Drive And Case
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 640 GB 32 MB Cache
A single drive is more cost-effective than a RAID setup, and a striped RAID array won’t offer a perceptible performance increase for the typical user. Of course, a redundant array is appealing for data protection, but it wouldn’t easily fit within our $1,300 price ceiling.
Read Customer Reviews of Western Digital's 640 GB Caviar Black
We opted for the Western Digital 640 GB with 32 MB of cache. Now at $75, this drive is a good choice with decent speed and a good amount of space, allowing us to stay within budget.
Case: SilverStone TJ08-B Micro-ATX Mid Tower Case
Read Customer Reviews of SilverStone's TJ08-B
At first, we had chosen the Antec Mini P180 as our case of choice, as it was on sale for under $100. Admittedly, it would have been cheating a little compared to the other Micro-ATX systems in the marathon because it’s quite large for a Micro-ATX enclosure, approaching the size of Antec’s Three-Hundred full-sized case.
Instead, we ended up going with SilverStone’s TJ08, which is an excellent (and small) Micro-ATX chassis that should still offer enough room for our $1,300 high-performance SLI system, while keeping it portable. SilverStone has a great reputation for building high-quality cases, and the included 120 mm intake and exhaust fans will be appreciated when the small case is tasked with dissipating the heat that the high-performance components create.
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I wonder why this system builder marathon was limited to Micro-ATX cases. Is there a general trend towards these things or what? I'm looking to build a whole new system soon and I can't see any reason to go Micro-ATX.
I don’t think it’s a trend, think of it as more of a challenge. Some people don’t want to have a giant full/mid tower sitting next to them.
Right, I don't mind that at all, so I'll stick to a normal case when assembling my next system. Thanks!
Nice challenge but what's the point when the system dies a couple of months down the line due to shorten life span of all components as a result of high temps. Then you spend another $1300?
I can't remember if it was this or one of the other SBM articles this month, but they mentioned something about these PCs being LAN boxes - if so heat is going to be even more of an issue (much higher ambient temps, cases right next to each other) so this system would be pretty unviable.
I know that my PC runs as much as 10 degress hotter in that environment - if it's in the low 90s on the CPU and at the limit of GPU stability already, another ten degrees will see it constantly throttling, making errors or shutting down.
Assuming that we were building a full ATX system, what would have been the motherboard of choice for this PC?
Can I also remind everyone that these articles are irrelevent on this side of the Atlantic? Intel and nVidia prices in particular are far, FAR lower in the US - such a system would be over 30% more over here! SLI GTX260 for £200 my arse!