Need advice on 5.25" bays in the HAF922 case and cables for ASUS P8P67 (Rev 3.0)

[bumblebee21]

Hi. I'm a newbie to this forum and have a few questions about the new PC I'm specing out at the moment. I like the CoolerMaster HAF 922 case but need to know whether the 5.25 inch bays in this allow you to fit anything other than optical drives into them? For example at a later date I might want to fit a card reader and multi port hub (like http://www.amazon.co.uk/IB-863-Front-Panel-Reader-Multiport/dp/B004EXJ60E/ref=sr_1_6?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1304279502&sr=1-6). Would this be possible?

Also, could I fit brackets to convert a 5.25 bay into a 3.5 bay and fit another HDD into it?

Next question - Based on the spec I've chosen below, is this new system likely to be very noisy? Currently I have a 10 year old PC with three 60mm fans (including the one in the PSU) and this is quite noisy.

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
4GB KINGSTON HYPER-X SPECIAL EDITION GREY - DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTS 450 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE Need For Speed™ World Starter Pack with any Nvidia® GTS450 or above!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W TX SERIES (TX850) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£99)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £926.00 including VAT and delivery.

Finally my last question is about the ASUS P8P67 (Rev 3.0) motherboard. What leads do I need to be able to make use of:

1. Front USB3.0 header connector
2. USB 2.0 connectors
3. Firewire (IEEE 1394a) connector

Many thanks for your advice.

 

[LinearHD]

That spec there is very unbalanced.. is there a budget that we can work with to help you out?

 

[bumblebee21]

Ok, first let me explain what I want the system to do.

I want a system for office work, photo/video editing, scanning in photos/negatives at very high resolutions and a small amount of gaming (strategy war games like the Command & Conquer series). It needs to run quickly, have the capability to add 6+ HDDs, spare 5.25 inch bays to allow for future devices to be added and plenty of PCI slots.

I want the system to last for quite a few years hence the reason for having plenty of free HDD bays, 5.25 inch bays and PCI slots. My current system is 10 years old and over the years I've upgraded it to the maximum point the motherboard will take. I hope any new system I buy has the potential to last this long.

The build spec above I thought covered my needs..........but hey I'm open to suggestions from experts in this forum. My budget is £1,100 max. Thanks.

 

[Teaz]

Welcome to the forums

Firstly, Yes. The HAF 922 shouldn't have problems adding card readers or multi hub ports or other extras to it but if they are smaller than the 5.25 bays then it will need extra 3.5 front mesh(s) to install them in and usually brackets to keep the 3.5 components in place. if its just the 5.25 standard then its just slip and slide in and locks in place without problems.

This is the 5.25 to 3.5 front mesh for the HAF and brackets:

The front usb 3.0 headers dont come with the case but does have 2.0 usb ports. They are both the same since its treated as usb ports. the usb 3.0 ports are backwards compatible with 2.0 usbs.
The firewire ports can be used but depends what it is and does it even come with a firewire cable.

As for the system, a few changes can be made to make it better. The chosen motherboard should have no problems providing you with the pci slots as it has 3 with 2 pci-e.

If you wish for Bay slots you could either go for the HAF X which is very fleixble with that or the Fractical R3 which has alot of HDD bays but only 2 Bay slots or the coolermaster cm690 case which is flexible with that.

This is a re-adjustment of the spec that will cover all your needs except scanning photos/negatives as this depends on the scanner or device's job to handle that as the pc will only show or view you them in full quality but not scan. thats the scanner's or device's job which is seperate from the pc so you may want to look for a good quality all in 1 printer or scanner etc.

Heres the re-adjusted spec:

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TX SERIES (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£86)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Total: 1075

This will cover all your requirements apart from scanning which is something different. It will last you some long years without problems and can be upgraded along the way if desired.

The OS Home edition is the same as the Pro. The Pro just have a few extra features which you may not need. You can compare it here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

The case however all depends on which you prefer as I believe that the 3 case ive mentioned will all provide the fleixble Bays. The case you have chosen is also good but not as flexible as the other 3 cases. Haf X is the most flexible one with really good cooling but may be pretty big. the Fractical R3 and CM690 are also good but the cm690 is the all rounder while the Fractical will provide the most HDD Bays. Which ever one you decide is good but may either extend or lower from your budget.

 

[LFFPicard]

The spec you have chosen is fine accept a couple if points based on what you just said.

You should seriously consider 8GB + Ram if you are doing Hi-Res images.
Also your talking about a lot of storage so it makes me wounder why you have only gone for a average 500GB SATA drive??
I would seriously recommend the 2TB WD Caviar Black for the sotrage, you will require 3x Less space if you upgrade storage with 2TB drives and the performance on these are better than the drive you chose.

Hope this helps!

 

[Teaz]

That's if he could push his budget further but he did say he will be adding extra drives in future so we will know till he lets us know whats more comfortable to do.

 

[bumblebee21]

I only chose the 500GB drive because I prefer to keep the operating system on a separate drive to my data. I figured that 500GB should be sufficient for Windows 7 and all the software I will install. Would I be better off going for the 500GB WD Caviar Black instead?

I do need a second HDD but I don't have any experience of Western Digital drives. I've had Maxtor and Seagate drives going without a hitch for 10 years now in my current system. If your opinion is that the WD drives are a safe bet, I'll take another look at them. Do you know how PCS's prices for them compare to other brands?

Teaz - thanks for your feedback. I'll take a look at the other cases you mentioned. I chose Windows 7 Professional (64 bit) purely for the fact it recognises RAM up to 192GB. I know in my case if I choose the Asus P8P67 you can install a maximum of 32GB. As the years roll by and the price of memory comes down and software becomes more memory hungry, I think I'd probably utilise the 32GB the board will take.

I chose the 850W PSU because this'll give me more than enough power for all my needs over the life of the system and mean that I don't have to upgrade it in the future. Again, feel free to give me your views.

Next......onto the RAM........both you and LFFPicard suggested I have 8GB. At the moment I'm running on 2GB of PC2700 but this really cannot handle the hi-res images my scanner is trying to send it. I thought perhaps I could get away with 4GB of DDR3 1600Mhz for now until the 8GB sticks become available and reduce in price, but maybe I'm being unrealistic?

Thanks again for your comments so far. I'm off now to look at the cases....

 

[Teaz]

The WD 500gb caviar blacks would be better than the standard ATA drives also they consume more power than the caviar blacks. the WD 500GB is indeed enough but i went for the 640 as its a small amount more but not needed if 500GB is good. PCS provides real reliable HDDs so it would be good to go for one since alot of the memebers on the forum owns 1 and havent come across problems yet. But thats your choice for which you choose.

WD drives are really good aswel as the company itself. You can look further into them if desired.

I dont think 192GB of ram is really needed especially home or office use or anything unless you planning of running a giant server as big as the Area 51. even in 10 years time i dont think nearly anything will need 32gb of ram soo soon. perhaps up to 24gb or lower but too soon for 32gb of ram.

the 850 psu is fine to stick with. I chose the 750 as it was plenty in my view even if you had 6 2TB power hungry ATA drives with 3 optical drives along with the system itself. If you prefer then 850 psu then its not a problem to go with it

We both suggested 8gb since you mentioned some video/photo editing since editing takes quite abit of processing so 8gb will fill that gap without a problem aswel as general use with your requirements. 4GB of ram will have no problems but 8gb for the safe side of your scanner aswel as your requirements.
The 1600Mhz of ram isnt really needed as 1333Mhz will have no problems since 1600Mhz is usually fully utilised when overclocking and system gain is minimal.
You could still op for 4gb ram and upgrade in future. Prices going down aint very much different for ram especially not quality made rams. I remeber an admin from PCS had said that the samsung rams are reliable compared to some of the past rams so its good to stick with the quality ram pcs provides

 

[bumblebee21]

I'm still using a CRT monitor at the moment so if I go for the 1.25GB nvidia Geforce GTX 570 graphics card should I get a mini HDMI to VGA adapter or a DVI to VGA adapter? Do either of these come with the system from PCS?

What benefit would I see from getting the 1.25GB nvidia Geforce GTX 570 graphics card you chose as opposed to the 1GB nvidia GTS 450 I selected?

I don't mean to sound like I'm picking holes with your suggested spec for me, it just helps me to understand where you're coming from.

Incidentally I think I'm pretty sold on the HAF X case. The front USB3 connections are really the icing on the cake for me. Looks like I could end up over budget. Oops!

 

[Teaz]

the gpu should come provided with a vga and hdmi adaptor or the vga alone but the 570 should provide both.

power house performence card that last you some good year and will have no problems managing your requirements especially in the video/photo editing area where the CUDA Cores will help process quick which only nvidia cards have. It has alot more CUDA cores than the gts 450. Its worth to invest in a good quality gpu then getting and old gpu since they will likely needed to be upgraded sooner again to keep up with advancements If you its too much then you could still op for the gtx560 which is also a good performence gpu.

The HAF X is a really good flexible spacious case but its a really big case. If thats not a problem you dont mind.
If you go for the gtx560 gpu you could op for the 850psu you're after awel as the HAF X case with the same suggested spec i've posted while still in your budget zone.

 

[bumblebee21]

The size of the HAF X case will be fine. It'll be sat under my desk so I won't really notice it being a bit bigger. I just hope it isn't too noisy.

You mentioned earlier in this thread "The 1600Mhz of ram isnt really needed as 1333Mhz will have no problems since 1600Mhz is usually fully utilised when overclocking and system gain is minimal."

I've never overclocked a system before. Is this done using the ASUS software that comes with the motherboard? Is there any benefit at all for having the 8GB Kingston Hyper-X Genesis Dual DDR3 1600Mhz as opposed to the 1333Mhz Samsung RAM?

 

[Fear]

You can hear the fans even when it is idle but it's not really loud or anything, have you checked the desk height as there is an exhaust fan at the top which needs some room and also if you put the wheels on that adds another couple of inches, very handy they are as it's bloody heavy :sweatdrop:

 

[bumblebee21]

Good point.....thanks. I'll double check my desk height tonight! Does the HAF X case come with 5 fans? If it does, the ASUS P8P67 motherboard looks like it only has connectors for 3 fans.

 

[Fear]

Mine has the front 230mm red led fan and 1 200mm top exhaust fan and i think it's a 140mm exhaust fan at the back the only other standard fan for that case is the 200mm side fan but mine was left off because of the CPU cooler, there is room for another 200mm fan at the top but that is optional.