Windows 7 - What will fit?

ZenixNet · 12-25-2011

Custom Rig Noob here, also sorry if this is in the wrong section.
For Christmas my sister got me a tower. I have never built a system before and I am planing on using this tower for practice. However I am not sure what can fit into it. Such as the mother board, PSU and all that stuff.
Here it is on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/11-Bay-Tower-C...4839070&sr=8-1

Sorry for infiltrating the forums with my nooby questions.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays

Maguscreed · 12-25-2011

It is the atx form factor.
The majority of motherboards are atx so that's good.
I see no mention of it supporting micro-atx though so that's something you'll need to look at before putting a board into it. It's possible that the see thru design and apparently all plastic construction limited them in the number of screw points they could provide without making the plastic crack or become weak.
I can't get a feel from the short specs listed on amazon as to whether it can house a large modern graphics card or not though. That's generally the only shortcoming with mid towers.

...some of them are a little tight in the graphics card space.

ZenixNet · 12-25-2011

Thanks for the info, do you have any suggestions for an i5 Sandy Bridge mother board? (Or an AMD processor with the same or more power?)

profdlp · 12-25-2011

Found some more specs here: 11-Bay ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/3x80mm LED Fans - No PSU (Transparent Blue) BLU-CLRCAS-3LED

As for what to stick in it, give us a budget limit and an idea of what you'll be using the computer for.

ZenixNet · 12-25-2011

Quote: Originally Posted by profdlp

Found some more specs here: 11-Bay ATX Mid Tower Computer Case w/3x80mm LED Fans - No PSU (Transparent Blue) BLU-CLRCAS-3LED

As for what to stick in it, give us a budget limit and an idea of what you'll be using the computer for.

I am probably just going to use it mostly for show (and practice as this will be my first custom rig) so I don't need it to be incredibly powerful (i5, 4-6GB ram, 1GB-2GB GPU). If anything I will set it up in my room and get a TV tuner for it and use it as a very cool looking TV. I want to have many LED's lighting up the tower (and the ability to choose the color if possible).
Budget, probably $1000-$1200.

Maguscreed · 12-25-2011

In that budget you might as well go i7
...then again hard drives are very expensive right now.

linnemeyerhere · 12-25-2011

If it was me I would consider this the killer rig and then phase two with twice the ram and add your TV card along with more HDD capacity.

ZenixNet · 12-25-2011

That is kinda what I am thinking but slightly less because I want to put LED's throughout the tower. (How do you even do that anyway? Do they just plug into power cords from the PSU?)\
Also, Intel if possible - just because I am familiar with there processors. However, how does that AMD compare to an i5/i7?

Maguscreed · 12-25-2011

I would skip the liquid cooling and spend it on better graphics .... but that's just me.

profdlp · 12-25-2011

I left the storage and optical drive(s) up to you.

The links:

XFX HD-687A-CDFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP

XFX Gift - Dirt3 Game Coupon

Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-800 800W ATX12V/EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active-PFC Power Supply

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 ...

Cyberlink TRIPLE PLAY - Power Director 9 + MediaEspresso 6.5 + Photo Director 2011

Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit

You can toss another XFX 6870 in there down the road and have a nice ~~little~~ big Crossfire gaming system, too.

It may have been overkill on the Power Supply, but you did mention lights...