mj_brooks

I agree, however when diagnosing the culprits with my current PC, it mostly came down to loud system fans, which are connected via odd proprietary connectors on the CyberPowerPC chassis. So I wanted to find something optimized for silence while also replacing system and CPU fans with Noctua products.

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately for the cases you've mentioned, they fall under the same category as the R5 in which while they do fit what I am looking for, they are not currently in production and are extremely hard to find (or in some cases, just the white variants). I had thought about painting as well but I'm not sure that I have the resources or space to do so. Otherwise I would think about painting the front on the R6 and calling it a day.

TLDR - I'm looking for the PC case equivalent of a minimalist Scandinavian fridge. I'm looking for a very aesthetically simple and silent case to replace the relatively loud, glassy case that came with my CyberPowerPC (it was a good deal alright don't judge lol). I'm a recording musician trying to serve a white/wood aesthetic in my room while having a PC that's as quiet as I can possibly get it. The Fractal Define R6 is so close to what I want, but the black front panel seems like a giant tramp-stamp on the aesthetic that I'm going for. If I could have it my way, I would purchase the white, non-windowed Define R5, but this seems very hard to come by aside from the occasional Polish ebay listing. There is a "GameMax" Silent White Gaming Case that fits the bill for me essentially perfectly, but it seems like primarily a European product and I can't really find anywhere in the US who sells it (ideally not trying to pay $100 for shipping). I feel like I'm stuck and at the will of a new release by a case manufacturer, but I wonder if I'm just not looking in the right places. Any ideas on where to look or what to pursue?

Yeah I think at the time it was made Vista was one of the sexier operating systems, though it was pretty widely hated until many believe Windows 7 "fixed" it. And yeah Windows 10 is extremely rectangular with everything, which may also have something to do with being more optimized for touch-related tasks. But I think it could be a bit more lifelike. Yeah I see what you mean with the grayness. I definitely think a little bit of gray or unsaturation in many things is good, I don't think I'd want to see just extremely vibrant reds on an OS or anything but a sports car, but again, I feel like there's somewhere in the middle that would look a bit nicer. And I could imagine that with work, especially if you're working with others who have similar software or a software that only works on a certain OS. Yeah I feel that lately "features" hasn't really been a huge word in Apple's dictionary. While I'm sure they're getting rid of and adding some definitely useful things like better RAM management and things like that, they tend to be getting rid of widely used things these days and losing sight of what people actually want or would care to use. And after reading through part of your post, yeah there are definitely a lot of things we agree on. I really enjoy the elegance and build quality of modern day Macs, but for gaming and managing files and windows I much prefer the Windows OS.

Yeah exactly, flat but also almost like soft looking and lively

Thanks for the insightful answer, all that stuff does make a good bit of sense, especially with function in mind. The skeuomorphism stuff is pretty trippy, and I think I've read about that in places before. I guess I just feel like the liveliness of the operating system is starting to go away too with certain design changes, and I prefer the more touchable, skeuomorphic design style. Who knows, maybe they'll end up developing something that is a bit more "in-between" that I'll like, although I'm kind of panicking in regards to the direction Apple's going as a whole right now.

I'd actually love to try Linux, but there's no way I could make it my primary OS, just because the software I use on a regular basis isn't available for it and it would make working on projects with others really difficult.

Yeah I agree with you there, with both material design and the aero glass. I can be alright with "flat-ish," which is something I really liked about Windows 8.1. It still has the overall flat nature of newer UIs, but there are some subtle gradients and extra borders to give it a sense of dimension. Not super flashy, but not literally just single colors all around like 10 seems to have.

Yeah I did try and play around with the colors in Windows 10 for a while, and while I could get it to look better, it always still had this sort of darkness/flatness to it, especially with the start menu. I remember most people kind of hating the looks of Windows 8.1, but I feel like if you installed Classic Shell it basically just made it look like a glassier, more vibrant version of Windows 7.

I enjoy using both OS X and Windows for different things. Currently, I have Mavericks installed on my Mac and Windows 8.1 on my PC. The reason I haven't upgraded either of those is that I just cannot stand how flat the newer operating systems look. For OS X - The looks of Yosemite and beyond just totally destroyed everything I enjoyed about OS X visually. I love the subtle gradients on the buttons and icons on Mavericks, and even the taskbar just has this nice roundness to it that's really pleasant to look at. It looks really professional, elegant, and almost kind of polished, at least in my opinion. The newer OS's have this cartoony vibe that I just cannot stand behind. I think the dark mode thing is alright, but everything from the icons to the system text, to the plasticky transparent glassish vibe just makes it feel like an ugly phone OS on a computer. For Windows - My dislike for Windows 10 is mostly a color and shape thing. It just seems like a mix of dark colors with some highlights, and then just squared-off edges on seriously everything. Plus it just feels so washed out with just white and grey on some areas, especially on the taskbar and the minimize buttons and all that. The lack of vibrancy in the colors just makes it feel super dull and uninspiring to me, and I know a bunch of people would probably disagree with me on this, but I much prefer the brighter colors and vibrance that was shown on Windows 8. It made the OS more of a delight to use, and was more inviting and bright to look at. Windows 7 and 8 also both had some lovely, subtle gradients that were really nice, another thing missing from 10. It's kind of not important, but especially with the newer versions of OS X, I don't enjoy feeling like I'm falling behind in the past with an older OS, especially with certain programs and stuff that will only run on newer OS's. But at the same time, I would hate to upgrade to say Sierra, but then hate how it looks to the point where I just don't enjoy using it. Kind of a petty rant, but does anyone here share this sentiment with either OS's? I remember when Yosemite came out I wasn't totally alone on the whole "Yosemite is ugly thing," but I didn't know if most people have gotten over that or not.

I recently bought a Logitech Performance MX mouse for use in college. While I love the ergonomics and overall design, the horizontal tracking almost literally kills me on the inside. If I move the mouse from left to right in a comfortable motion, the mouse goes from more of a southwest to a northeast, rather than just west to east, like I'm used to with my Gigabyte Ghost mouse. I'm pretty sure this is due to the laser being off-center (which is stupid). I was wondering if anyone knew of a software that I could use to tilt the tracking, so it interacts with my movements in a more accurate way? Or anything I could use to calibrate its direction?

I personally have the FX-6300 with an MSI 970 Gaming motherboard (used for both gaming and editing). They work very well for both of those things. In Vegas, I can have four different video streams (like a quad split-screen) playing at once and there is little lag on preview. Games seem to enjoy having that extra processing power, especially any kind of open world games (Just Cause 2, Saints Row IV, Far Cry 4, APB Reloaded) that need to think about a bunch of different things at once. If you use an aftermarket cooler, you can very easily overclock the 6300 pretty high too. I have mine on 4.3 GHz with a Hyper 212+, though I've heard of people getting it up to 5.0 GHz. I will say, though, that if you have the FX-8350, it will handle both of those applications even better, and would be more worth it if you didn't plan on upgrading for a few years. Same goes for an i5 build. You can give or take here and there depending on how heavy of tasks you may be wanting to do.

They don't have one near me unfortunately, but that place looks awesome

Anyone know where someone could try out a variety of monitors? I'm not exactly in the market for a whole lot of extravagant things, but my current monitor is the Acer H226HQL (21.5" brother of the H236HL Linus reviewed). I think the colors are great, though I plan on replacing it with a VS239H-P because of some issues I'm having with it. I've also never seen like a really nice BenQ (144hz, nice stand, etc.) monitor in person, and as a gamer, I would love to try something similar to what I have now to something like an XL2420TE to see what I like more in both gaming and just normal use (I don't really do much that would require intense color accuracy). Best Buy and other retailers don't exactly just have various BenQ's or ROG Swift's laying around, so I was wondering if there were other stores where one could see these kinds of differences in person, or other ways of helping choose when/what to upgrade to. Thanks!

I just tried 4.3 GHz without manually setting the voltage (board set it for me), and my load temp has increased slightly, but not extremely. It's actually a lot better now that I let the board adjust the voltage itself. I'm getting higher idle temps (33Cish) and slightly higher load temps (56ish). I'm not sure about the socket temp. My stock clocks were back to normal (19C usually at lowest idle point, then up to 54C at 3D rendering load). I'm not sure exactly, I think our thermostat says something like 77F but the cooling doesn't transfer well in the house haha it's a bit warmer upstairs.