Quote from E.Reiljans :

ATCS 840 is tiny compared to Silverstone TJ11.

Look up little devil pc cases, they even make the tj11 look small.

Quote from Matrixi :

Took a better shot of the internals.. and fixed the noisy H100 pump with a little diode: clip. Apparently the problem was caused by the pump not being able to withstand any excess voltage above 12V, and mine was running around 12.1V. Kind of shoddy engineering from Corsair not to build any kind of voltage regulator inside the cooler to keep things under 12V.

Very nice indeed didn't think I would like to the look of that case but it alright, looks well laid out inside too. Unlocked fps on lfs must be lolable with a 580.

Quote from Greboth :

Look up little devil pc cases, they even make the tj11 look small.

Or CaseLabs.

Quote from MAGNUM TH10 Case :

Size: 15"W x 25.06"H x 26.06"D (381mm x 637mm x 662mm)

My Corner:


Desk Close-Up:


Comp Close-Up/Insides(Yes I know, I need to rewire it):

That 912 is cute. Too bad it's not painted black inside. I'm planning to paint my 932 black soon I think.

Getting some extra RAM with a bit of luck second hand. Found a sweet deal on the exact same RAM I have now for only €50.

you should look into getting a pci or pci-e sound card Bose. the sound difference is very noticeable compared to onboard.

Is it? I currently have it connected via an optical cable and I think it's now just down to the crappy Logitech software inside the Z5500 to en/de-code it?

Atleast, that's what I always thought. I however agree that the sound via 3.5mm jack cables will be better for sure with a PCI(-e) sound card.

I went from an onboard realtek 5.1 to a 5.1 asus Xonar (pci) and the difference is very noticeable. There's more detail in the pci card. could be down to the drivers but i doubt it.

That sounds (no pun intended :razz good. Do you also use an optical cable?

I'm not really that happy with the current setup. According to windows it's stereo, but when I play those preview track it does send the melody to each individual speaker like it should. But it games etc I can't select 5.1 anymore (since I switched from the 3.5mm jacks). Also in VLC player for instance when I select 5.1 audio it it noticeably less loud compared to the stereo option. Is this because the receiver (Z5500 in this case) is meant to 'split' the signal (it does somewhat works like I explained) to the speakers, or is it just because of the 'cheapness' of onboard sound?

Hoping to make the deal on 4GB more RAM so I can render more easily and play BF3 without bogging my system.

I'd have no problem getting a soundcard aslong it's not that expensive. I'm not having terrible issues right now, so unless it's noticeably better I'd rather save the money.

Quote from Bose321 :

Too bad it's not painted black inside.

I'm thinking of getting a LanBoy Air when I save up some money... So will probably be sometime this summer...

Quote from Bose321 :

Do you also use an optical cable?

Optical passes the raw data (1's & 0's) to the speakers, which will then use the onboard DAC's to convert that into frequencies for the speakers.

I would imagine the DAC's in the Z5500's are better than your onboard sound card, but a decent sound card will be much better. However you'll need to connect it up by something analogue (i.e. 3.5mm) to actually let your soundcard do the work.

On poorer speakers (Logitech X540's) I definitely noticed the difference between onboard sound & my Creative X-Fi.

Not being able to select 5.1 etc is probably a driver issue - the Z5500 can only work with the data coming in...

it should also help performance too. similar to onboard graphics.

Quote from Jakg :

Optical passes the raw data (1's & 0's) to the speakers, which will then use the onboard DAC's to convert that into frequencies for the speakers.

I would imagine the DAC's in the Z5500's are better than your onboard sound card, but a decent sound card will be much better. However you'll need to connect it up by something analogue (i.e. 3.5mm) to actually let your soundcard do the work.

On poorer speakers (Logitech X540's) I definitely noticed the difference between onboard sound & my Creative X-Fi.

Not being able to select 5.1 etc is probably a driver issue - the Z5500 can only work with the data coming in...

Would you reckon with a good soundcard the sound with 3.5mm jacks will be better than my current setup with an optical cable?

Quote from dadge :

it should also help performance too. similar to onboard graphics.

Yeah, for games like BF3 and Bad Company this should really help.

Do you guys have any recommendations for good (not super expensive) soundcards?

I also ordered the extra ram, so should have 8GB soon.

I have xonar d2/pm myself and I like it. not too expensive neither. if you have any more money to use, go for essence stx.

the most common choice is the sound blaster range. but an unsung hero is the asus xonar. i only paid £30 for my xonar a few years ago.
this would still be better than onboard sound. and it also has a built in headphone amp too so it could be a little monster.

Quote from Tomba(FIN) :

I have xonar d2/pm myself and I like it. not too expensive neither. if you have any more money to use, go for essence stx.

Isn't Essence a headphone amp soundcard? I thought it doesn't do 5.1 at all. Planning on getting a Essence STX to my rig, this Realtek integrated "card" sucks so bad.

it has amp for headphones, but it also has balanced audio outputs for more high end speakers etc. It supports 5.1 if you use optical or coax afaik? Awesome soundcard from what I've heard.
Would of bought it too but had no money for some quality speakers so it would of been quite pointless. It should be awesome for headphones though, supporting 64ohm or more, can't remember...

Got my new RAM on the mail today! Put it in and seems to run fine. Going to bench and stress it later this week.

Semi off-topic:
With this update I also discovered my old specs page was kinda...ugly... So I spent some time this week making a simple looking and friendly to browse through page. In essence it's the same page (although it's fully re-built) but with better looks. Chrome or Firefox are advised for watching. I'd like to have some feedback.

http://idrift.nl/specs/

My gaming rig:

i7-2600K @ 5015MHz
GA-P67A-UD4-B3
2x4GB G.SKILL DDR1600
HIS Radeon HD6990 @ 945/1400
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD
2x WD 74GB Raptor
500GB Seagate Barracuda
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3
Corsair H70
Silverstone Raven 2
Logitech Z-5500(sub replaced with RE Audio SR10D4 in 2ft^3 tuned to ~27hz)
3x ASUS VE276Q 27" LCD's
Logitech G9x
Logitech G15v2
Logitech G25
Windows 7 HP x64
HRT MusicStreamer II
Musical Fidelity V-CAN MkII
HiFiMAN HE-500
Beyer-Dynamics DT 770 PRO 80 Ohm
Grado SR-125

Mostly using the DT770 for racing, but I race with my HiFiMAN's on occasion when I don't feel like switching.

Laptop(racing on this atm):

MacBook Pro7,1 (Unibody MBP)
17" 1920x1200 Glossy
nVidia GT 330M 512MB
500GB SATA
Core i5 540M @ 2.53GHz
2x2GB DDR1066
Mac OS X 10.6.4 & Windows 7 HP x64

Quote from Bose321 :

Got my new RAM on the mail today! Put it in and seems to run fine. Going to bench and stress it later this week.

I had those exact same rams on my old rig, they OC really good.

Just received some Noctuas. Will most likely end up getting some more and replacing every single fan on the case with them, stock CM fans seem to be quite noisy at higher RPMs.

My "car"
Latitude e6400,
*Nvidia quadro nvs 160m, 256mb
*C2D p8700 2.53ghz
*3gb ddr2
With oveclocked gpu and coolingpad runs about 100fps stable, but usually I play without it, limiting fps to 55fps.

and here's my setup with homemade shifter.. now i'll need only bigger LCD before I go for a S2

My old pc that i got in 2008

Cpu: Amd Phenom 64 9500 Quad Core 2,2ghz
Motherboard: Asus Narra3
Memory: 3gb ddr2
Hdd:500gb western digital
Monitor: LG Flatron L225ws 22inch
GPU: Was Nvidia 8400gs now is a Nvidia GT520
PSU: Was 350w Generic Psu now is a 500w Coolermaster ATX2.2
Dvd Drive: Light Scribe DVD-RW

All Noctua now.. expensive fans, but man were they worth it. Extremely quiet!

Also did a partial push/pull for the radiator, 8-pin power connector prevents a second fan to be installed inside. Temps still dropped a good 2-3c without any audible noise difference.

Quote from Matrixi :

All Noctua now.. expensive fans, but man were they worth it. Extremely quiet!

Also did a partial push/pull for the radiator, 8-pin power connector prevents a second fan to be installed inside. Temps still dropped a good 2-3c without any audible noise difference.

Nice fans. I really like Noctua's, but the only thing stopping me to get them is their colour.

I'm planning to do some work on my case between now and the summer and I'm planning to swap the current fans, including the ones with LEDS to something else. I really like the fractal 120mm and 140mm fans in matte white and black and that would look nice a black painted inside of a HAF932 I guess?

Anyway, I'm also looking to replace the two stock 230MM fans on my case, does anyone know any (good) replacements?

I'm also planning to replace the CPU heatsink to something better. I actually want this little update to make it look less chavy and more silent.

my first reply

Asus Pundit Barebone System
Intel Celeron 4 Sandybridge 2x 2.4 Ghz
2 GB DDR RAM PC3200
SiS 651 Chipset OnBoard Graphics with maximum 368MB RAM
Samsung 7200upm 160gb S-ATA
Soundcard: Avance AC'97 5.1
Power: 240W silent

with the graphic card i have max 75fps and sometimes 55 - 45 fps at high graphicdetails

Quote from -.Ryan.Cooper.- :

my first reply

Asus Pundit Barebone System
Intel Celeron 4 Sandybridge 2x 2.4 Ghz
2 GB DDR RAM PC3200
SiS 651 Chipset OnBoard Graphics with maximum 368MB RAM
Samsung 7200upm 160gb S-ATA
Soundcard: Avance AC'97 5.1
Power: 240W silent

with the graphic card i have max 75fps and sometimes 55 - 45 fps at high graphicdetails

wat