greatscott68

I have to admit that over the past couple of years, I just stick with the advice given at the johnnyguru site. I bought my Antec Quattro 850 & my Rosewill 850 Extreme, based off their reviews. Their reviews are entertaining enough to read, while helping guys like me (who don't know that much about PSUs and electricty) at least kind of understand what's going on. Both of the units I just mentioned have been cracked open, re-sleeved, and were running Crossfire 5870 & SLI GTX285 machines, respectively. They are both currently folding with a couple of GTX260/GTX285 SLI setups. Pretty much 24/7 uptime for nearly 2 years. Like it's been stated numerous times within this thread, the value of finding a site/source that's trustworthy, is immeasurable. I would have never thought in a million years that I would ever own a Rosewill PSU, let alone rely on it for something that runs 24/7. That's the value of a source that you feel you can trust. While no site is going to be able to delve into something with complete 100% accuracy (fine by me, because I most likely wouldn't understand 90% of the technical jargon anyway), just give me the site that lays it out in terms I can understand, and has a body of review work that's consistently accurate. I'll take the content of the article that started this thread, with a shot of whiskey, and a few grains of salt. There was nothing said that would make me uneasy about where I go for reviews and buying advice, because like I said earlier, the consistent results I've had trump everything else.

^^ Now why go and bash the guy, saying he needs his "eyes examined" - when you could have done the cool thing, and just corrected him with your very CORRECT information? That would have been the helpful thing to do. I don't post often here, but I own a couple of these cases, so here goes. Lian Li - beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think it's a great looking, clean, bling-free box. Just classic clean looks. Plenty of room - but too much room unless you're WCing. I run a quad HC in the bottom of mine (removed HD cages, and mounted it vertically), SLI GTX260s, 3 HDs, etc. I used to run an air cooled Opty 170 setup, and it looked a little empty down below. Great box though - can't go wrong for the price. CM HAF - my current case. Lots of room. Have a triple rad mounted in the roof. Gets a little dusty inside, with all of the mesh, but oh well. First thing I did was strip it down, and spray paint the interior BLACK. looks really sharp. Plenty of room to work with - and it comes with casters. is actually a bit wider than the Lian Li, and just a little smaller otherwise. Love the looks - but that's a matter of taste. All fans are big = minimal noise. Antec 1200 - Great looking box with plenty of room for air cooling - but not interior WCing. Need to cut and mod for interior rad mounts bigger than a single. But you're not WCing - so who cares Great box, but gets a little dusty with all of the mesh. Is heavy, so I mounted Lian Li wheels on the bottom of mine. Don't own the Cosmos - but they are pretty boxes. Seen them up close - and they are big. Fancy - without being too blingy. If I had to choose between two - it would be between the Lian Li and the CM HAF - with the CM HAF winning. Can't beat the price + versatility of this box. I got mine at Newegg a couple weeks ago when they were running it for $119. There you go

I second this one - fast shipping + good prices. Jabtech is another good, as well.

That's a great looking monitor, bud

Personally not an ATI guy. and I agree that SLI is a waste of money - UNLESS you start running res beyond 1600. It's a real difference maker at 1920 res, as the cards really start to stretch their legs, and show their stuff. With 8800GTs at less than $150 a piece (with rebate), coupled with the fact that there is no significant performance increase with a 9800GTX vs a single 8800GT (same GPU with a little tweaking) - SLI starts to look pretty attractive if you're going to run a 20" or larger LCD.

I was looking at all three of those, a couple weeks ago, when I was getting ready to make my purchase - but then I noticed this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824254026 Did a bunch of research on the brand, and that particular model, and was pretty impressed. At the time, it was $499 - with free shipping. I went for it - and am extremely happy. The only issues were that it was set to 100% brightness & contrast, out of the box. I currently have mine at 35% brightness, and 55% contrast - and it looks fantastic. Didn't need to tweak the colors or anything else. Used a WS fix for BF2 - awesome. COD4 looks great, as well. Like I said, the price was $499 a couple of weeks ago, and if you read the reviews, it seems to drop to that price every few weeks. If you can wait, I would give it strong consideration If not, then I don't think you can lose with any of those 3 choices - especially the price on the Acer. Not sure what your system specs are, but I can still max out COD4 at 1920 res - and still pull around 50 fps, with a single 8800GTX. Your idea on SLI 8800GTs will be perfect. I have one, and am waiting for the game that busts the 8800GTX, at that res - then I'll do an SLI rebuild, myself. Good luck.

Formerly a member of DIY-Street, and just wanted to say hello. Nice looking forum - lots of info Looking forward to getting to know my way around.

http://resizepic.com/ I use that for any resizing I need to do - quick and easy

Thanx for the replies, fellas. I've never slipstreamed a disc before, and was more than open to walking through the process with him (it can't be that hard), over the phone (I'm in WA - he's in FL) - but he's not that tech savvy. That was my first idea, because I didn't think there was another way, when it comes to XP. We got a couple Google hits that suggested a USB floppy, but nothing definite. He got hopeful, and took off to Wal-Mart, to pick one up, figuring he could just return it if it didn't work. A Dell open chat tech told him it "should" work (after I posted here), but we all know how sharp thopse Dell guys can be... Thanx for the assist - I'll see if anybody else chimes in with another take

Hi guys - I have a buddy who wants to do a fresh install with XP Performance, and wants to run a RAID0 set. He doesn't have a floppy port on his mobo - is there a way of setting up his RAID set without slipstreaming an XP disc? USB floppy drive, maybe? His mobo is a Dell 0SJ030 - chipset is I945P? Thanx in advance, guys!

Yeah, I just got COD4 for Christmas, though I haven't had time to fire it up yet. Too much BF2. I was a late comer to that game (like 6 months ago), and really enjoy it. That would be: FEVER agent38ddd Loved the COD4 demo, so it's just a matter of time before I make my way over. On topic - thinking about reformatting and going back with the Vista 64, for the DX10 eye candy with Bioshock and Crysis...plus the machine is a little on the flaky side right now. Thinking it's this BloodIron mobo, but we'll see. Nice talking with you, man

@BA - Yeah, I would consider the jump after things are better from a gaming performance standpoint. I do a lot of benching, and the drivers for vid cards jsut aren't there yet. Pretty interface, and not bad to work with after you tone down the intrusive stuff. I worked with it in a dual boot setup for a while, so after things iron out (much like XP64) I'll reinstall and go from there.

I have this kit, and it's a winner with XP64. I have run them as high as 1072 with 5-5-5-15 timings, and the standard 2.1 vts. Good stuff, and they were cheap

That's hilarious!

Interesting. Tutorial onsite?