So I splurged and gave my PC a major upgrade.

[Niode]

I've never ever had an OS that worked perfectly just how I liked it right out of the box. The only OS I've had come close is OS X, the only thing I needed to tweak was the mouse settings because default acceleration for non-apple mice blows.

[otaku]

Gonna chime in that vista is fine IMO it has some nice new features and while a bit bloated is fine. Windows 7 is even better it fixes what was wrong with vista pretty well. if you have the proper hardware its not a problem. NIce upgrade man enjoy!

[Mozgus]

Bought a new shell, with Niode's heavy suggestions. regarding the Antec Nine Hundred, for $100 at my Microcenter. Unfortunately, I was not able to tuck away much of the wires, and in fact, due to the PSU being on the bottom, the SATA power connects to be flipped upside down at every single joint on their way up. This led to me breaking one of the connectors right off the drive. The contact plates slid back in and it still works, but I'm still pissed.

Otherwise it's a great case. Feels tough. Has a good weight. Dropped my temps by about 3C. It's slightly more quiet. (all fans set to low, except the 200mm, set to medium.) It should be noted that I got the v1.1 revision case, which added an HDAUDIO front panel connector, with the old AC97 connector dangling off it. This was very important for my new board, for the front jacks to detect my headset being plugged in. They changed some other things in 1.1, like added water cooling holes, and realigned the PCI slots.

[dlmvii]

Nice case, its the same one I have

Antec 900, or at least closely related to it.

edit:And now I see you've named the case in your post, making my comment seem much more silly.

[MrPopo]

Wwo, who comes up with the idea to put the PSU on the bottom, which runs contrary to every case design over the last 20 years?

[lordofduct]

Wwo, who comes up with the idea to put the PSU on the bottom, which runs contrary to every case design over the last 20 years?

My case does the same thing. But there is a divider between the lower section holding the power supply and the rest of the case. With a "door" that you run the wires through that can be closed. Then a dedicated fan sucking air from the front over 3 hdd slots and then out through the PSU... it's actually kinda weird.

It too is an Antec, the Antec P180: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129154

maybe it's just their new thing.

[Niode]

Yep lots of new cases mount the PSU on the bottom now.

I guess my PSU, a 4-5 year old Enermax Liberty is more liberal (pardon the pun) with it's wire lengths as I had no problems routing them round the back, out of sight.

The bottom mounting does make a lot of sense as far as heat is concerned. Essentially the top fan on decent PSUs (if your PSU doesn't have at least one big 120mm fan you should think about replacing it) pointing upwards increase the amount of air flow in the case.

I really like my 900, the only thing I can hear in my case is the CPU's HSF and my HD4870. That top big boy fan throws a hell of a lot of air around. It won't be long until I take the plunge and water-cool the entire rig thanks to the 900s integrated water cooling holes. I think it needs to be said that the holes have a little rubber seal around them with rubber teeth so they're not just an afterthought and are genuinely useful.

[Mozgus]

So the biggest problem I had with this new pc was the odd static interference in the front audio ports mainly when a game was running or other mild visual effects (even mousing over start menu objects caused static.). Turns out, muting the internal speaker fixes it, or at least lowers the buzz by 50-75%. Fucking speaker never worked anyway, because normally I use that for Skype to ring, in case my tower speakers aren't on. Oh well. Problem solved. I can tolerate it.

[Niode]

The Antec 900 has in internal speaker? I thought it didn't have one!!

[Mozgus]

The Antec 900 has in internal speaker? I thought it didn't have one!!

No, the evga board.