I finally decided to actually go through with the project of tearing down my two machines and reconfiguring. Almost all my watercooling gear has been sold, and I’ve downsized from the HAF932 to the HAF912. So, my new system? Pretty similar to what I was running about 2 years ago.
i5 750 w/ Noctua NH-U12P (Single fan)
16GB Mushkin Blackline DDR3 (Finally sent the bad RAM for RMA!)
EVGA P55 FTW
Gigabyte HD6850 Windforce
HT Omega Striker 7.1 sound card
120GB OCZ Vertex 2 Extended
640GB Western Digital Black
2x1TB Seagate Barracuda (RAID0)
Corsair TX650
HAF912
Not too shabby. I also moved away from my 2x Acer 23” LCDs to a Single Samsung 21.5” LCD. The desk looks a little more empty now, but it’s nice to have the breathing room. I still kept my headphones and speakers, and my Blue Yeti.
Everything else went into creating an ESXI box. A bit of trading and selling left me with a fairly capable machine that I’m pretty happy with. The top picture is the new case, a Silverstone PS08B. It’s by far the nicest little 30 dollar case I’ve played with. Specs below:
i7 860 w/ Stock i5/i7 LGA1156 heatsink
16GB GSKILL DDR3
Gigabyte P55M-UD2
Intel Pro 1000 PT Gigabit NIC
150GB Velociraptor 10KRPM 2.5”
500GB Seagate 7200RPM 3.5”
320GB Toshiba 5400RPM 2.5”
256GB Crucial M4 SSD 2.5”
40GB Intel SSD 2.5”
Antec Earthwatts 430w
Silverstone PS08B
It was living in the HAF932 before, but that just looked foolish. At 30 dollars from Memory Express, the PS08B was really a no brainer. The 16GB of GSKILL DDR3 came from the HardwareCanucks forums, as well as the Pro 1000 PT, the 40GB SSD, and the 256GB Crucial M4. There’s a dual port HP NC360T on the way for another couple NICs. I’ll go over the configuration a bit more in a future post, but so far things are awesome.
Oh, and just for the size comparison between the PS08 and the HAF932, just take a look below.
