It's done. Ordered what I listed several posts above while changing the mobo to the Z68.
Should arrive this week (Alternate) and next week (hardwareversand) :excited:
Oh and I had to swap the Mushkin memory with a G.Skill because it went out of stock. Nothing wrong with G.Skill right?

RAM tends to be pretty much the same across most manufacturers and brands. It should be fine.

Sorry I haven't been here, I've been without internet since the hurricane hit. Gladly rockz took care of this commendably in my absence. Everything looks good and I hope you have fun building it.

Oh dear I completely forgot about Irene and NJ. Glad to hear you're okay enough to be back on SEN, Ex.

I was hoping for some of Irene's rain, but it skipped central NC...

Also, G.Skill is now one of the better RAM manufacturers.

God damn, I should've seen that coming. The CM case I ordered was designated as being available at 09/09/11. Now that I checked this has changed to unknown... great. I waited eagerly for a week and now this. I'm going to try to change the order but I know next to nothing about cases. So could someone as soon as possible recommend me a decent case that is available at hardwareversand.de? I plan on changing the order tomorrow morning hoping it gets shipped the same day so speedy help is of the essence.

I'd go with the Fractal Core 3000.
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=49192&agid=631

Ah thx for the quick reply. I was about to edit my post with my finds so I'll still post them for review:

cheap: http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=9427&agid=631
mid range case: http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=26909&agid=631
good reviews: http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=23029&agid=631

Just a second I'll take a look at your case.
Can you find one with front buttons and connectors for USB and audio? Also this isn't a must, but I like designs where the front has design elements, instead of being a plain (holed) surface.

The fractal case has top buttons and connectors.

Antec 300 is overpriced shit, much like most of antec's cases. That's not to say it's not a good case at $30, but not at whatever price its at right now. You probably won't be disappointed with it if you do get it, but know that I really seen them for $30 in the states, whereas the k-58w, k-57, and CM 692 are all in the $50-$80 range.

These are things I like to look for in a case:

Amount of rice - the most important part when you think about it. Once you get everything assembled you're only going to look at the outside. I am so against rice that I have become a ricer. That fractal case looks awesome to me.
Cable Management - holes in the motherboard tray are a must so you can guide cables through it to keep the case looking clean and having good airflow
Side mount HDD cage - not only does this make it easier to get the HDDs in and out, it also makes connecting them easier, and lets you turn them around to hide the cables even more should you so choose.
Airflow - the most important part when you don't think about it. Also pretty "meh". More fans=better airflow. There's a lot of theories out there, and none of them are probably completely true. I just know that I like having few holes in my case so I can maintain a positive pressure, allowing me to filter all the air coming into it. More fans=more filters.
Number of fans - ties in with airflow, and can save you from buying more fans. Factor in the fans when you compare prices. Often times the $10 more expensive case model comes with 2-3 more fans.
Bottom mount PSU - less efficient, since the PSU doesn't help cool the case, but helps the PSU stay cooler, last longer, and keeps cables naturally out of the way via gravity.
Front panel - 99% of all cases have 2 USB ports, most have audio jacks, a few have firewire, and even less have eSATA. The location varies too. I have mine on the top, which makes it easier for me to get to, but obviously then you can't store anything on it, or put it in a cubby hole.
Removable motherboard tray - just gravy.
Huge hole in motherboard tray - just gravy for quick change of heatsink. You can also install the motherboard, THEN put on heatsink if it's enormous or something.
Price - always the deciding factor for me, along with looks. A low price would be the only reason I buy an antec 300. But if I want a $30 case, I may as well go grab a free one and use that instead, so I still probably wouldn't ever get an antec 300.

This one looks pretty damn awesome to me, but I'm just guessing here.
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=48895&agid=631

Here's my case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163075

It's huge and really really well made with excellent cooling (separate compartment for the HDs, and dedicated GPU cooling).

I lol'd hard when I saw the price.

@rockz: Thanks for that guide.
Now that I read it time and time again I gotta ask: What is rice? Is it the amount of useless lights and edges and other design elements built into a case to make it look cool?

Btw. your case is good looking imo (sleek but not plain), but it got top mounted connectors which just don't work for me.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 9 2011, 10:50 am by NudeRaider.

I didn't pay that, I got it free (with the rest of my computer)

It's overpriced. I think probably $140-150 would be more reasonable. But it is a *very* good case.

When I finally get around to replacing this, I'll be keeping the case and just replacing the components inside (really that just means mobo, cpu, ram and graphics).

So since I didn't receive recommendations for cases without top mounted buttons and ports I went with the Cooler Master Gladiator 600 which already arrived this morning.

So I spent the whole morning slowly building my system in happy anticipation and now it's ready including fresh Win7 installation. Everything seems to work flawlessly and I can't wait to game the shit out of it.

There's 1 gripe however: Windows device manager didn't find drivers for 2 components:
- PCI-Communication controller (simple)
- Video controller

I have no clue what those could be so since I already installed LAN, WLAN and graphics drivers. Maybe you guys can help me find the drivers? Also automatic driver update via Internet doesn't seem to work. It just immediately says that it couldn't find the driver. I'd expect it needs a few seconds to check for online drivers?

I've never had windows find a proper driver via automatic driver finding. Ever.
The manufacturer should have included disks with the components for you to install the drivers; you can also check their websites for more uptodate drivers.

Alright I found it, one was the Sandy Bridge GPU but I had to install an "onBoard video driver" (lol!) and the other was some "management software" (wth is that for). And those were indeed on my MoBo driver disc.

System is running stable, cool and really quiet. Max/Idle temp:
CPU: 50/35 °C
GPU: 70/45 °C

As expected I can play everything on ultra @ 1920x1080 without noticing any low framerates. I'm sure my fps wouldn't be enough for gaming enthusiasts that need everything running at >60fps, but luckily for my purse I'm not that picky.

Windows performance index also looks good for the most part:
GPU: 7.8 (yeah that GPU is a monster)
CPU: 6.7 (not that high, but that's because it was the budget pick and will be upgraded later)
HDD: 5.9 (meh, I had higher expectations for the fastet HDD on the market but I guess the scale needs some headroom for SSDs)
aaaand RAM: 5.9
And there I'm worried. I have DDR3 1333 which is not that high. Is this going to bottleneck me? Is it when I put in an I5/I7 CPU?

Wait, you only bought a single stick of RAM? 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 should be around 7.5 on the Micro$oft scale.

(Also, single conventional hard drives don't seem to ever get a grade of 6.0 or above. My hard drive is considerably slower and still rates at 5.9.)

Yeah, my 2x2 gb RAM gives me a 7.2 rating. ;o

The fastest mechanical HDD is the velociraptor made by western digital. 10,000 rpm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000014&IsNodeId=1&Description=velociraptor&name=Internal%20Hard%20Drives&Order=BESTMATCH

Let me quote myself
Not in any way close to a perfect build, but it works til I get a good paying job and can afford to go all out .

Processor: 7.5
Memory (RAM): 7.5
Graphics: 7.8
Gaming Graphics: 7.8
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9
My 7.5 is 2x2 gb also

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Sep 11 2011, 9:40 pm by DevliN. Reason: Removed the "key" portion.

RAM speed is never a bottleneck. Capacity is.

$250 600GB 10000 rpm Velociraptor:


$60 2TB 7200 rpm drive:


$190 for negligible performance increase and 1/3 capacity is laughable.

EDIT> $90 60GB SSD:


$25 worth of RAM made into a RAMdisk:


Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 11 2011, 8:56 pm by Aristocrat.

Urban Dictionary "rice"

It's the goofy looking stuff that case manufacturers put on the front of the case in order to make it "look cool". Most of the time all it does is take up space, and to me something like this:
OMG my computer is a cyborg and glows bright red
is ugly, wastes power, and is usually a gimmick to get people to buy cheap things because of looks.
I would much rather have something that uses intuitive airflow, a good design, and made of quality material. I also prefer simple and elegant over flashy and trashy.

Blue LEDs are the bane of my existence. No seriously, I could go on and on about how every single fucking power switch glows a bright BLUE that screams at you if you're in the dark. Give me back my good old warm colors like red and yellow, or even a pale green to show that my piece of electronics equipment is currently turned on. It's god damn ridiculous.

Finally, windows experience index is a poor indicator of performance:

Processor - Amd x3 @3.1 GHz - $67
RAM - OCZ shitty stuff $35
Graphics - 5770 - $90ish
HDD - deathstar 160 GB - $60

No lie, my computer sucks. But I'm still getting everything EXCEPT hard disk transfer rate over 7? I call bullshit. I'm pretty sure that your processor is faster than mine too, so I don't see why you're getting a lower score.