DavidtheDoom

I'd really love getting a NUC. Happy New Year mates!

Takstar is the OEM manufaturer of these units. Qpad have specified their needs and their equivalent of the HyperX Cloud is the QH-90. Kingston have bought the rights (from Qpad)to use the same design with some alterations from the Qpad headsets. The Takstar equivalent comes without a microphone and is the Takstar Pro 80. Here is more info about Takstar Pro 80: http://www.head-fi.org/t/585356/the-takstar-technical-pro-gemini-greathon-cyberx-qpad-thread Takstar Pro 80 Available @ 60USD Ebay (Free Shipping) 65USD Amazon.com Those who want and open headset design should try the: Qpad QH-85 with a microphone Technical Pro HPT990, without a microphone or the OEM variant: Takstar Hi 2050, without a microphone. I've tried both the QH-90 (have one pair at home) and the QH-85. The QH-85 sounds a bit better to me, and the mids aren't as low as the QH-90 have.

Dude, I did use the search Tool and typed Node 804. Didn't show up.

This case features loads of water cooling potential with a quite minimalistic design in mind. There is also a wooping 8x3.5" HDD slots. http://www.fractal-design.com/media.ashx/fd-ca-node-804-bl1000x10001.jpg http://www.fractal-design.com/media/7b64ee99-0451-40da-9dc4-cca9aede436a More Info: http://www.fractal-design.com/home/launch-of-the-cube-node-804 http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-804 As found on their website: "The Node 804 is a micro ATX chassis which focuses on cooling performance and maximum configurability, all packed in an interesting new form factor with Scandinavian elegant design. The dual chamber layout separates hot running components from the cooler ones and allows for unrestricted airflow over the motherboard, processor and graphics card. The case comes with three excellent 120mm fans but can be upgraded with several additional fans if needed. Featuring plenty of options for placing water cooling components, tall heat sinks and hard drives. The flexibility of this case really gives the users the possibility to create their optimal system build. Key features Highly effective dual chamber case layout for best possible cooling. Minimalistic design with an elegant brushed aluminum front panel Unique hard drive mounting system, fitting up to 8 x 3.5″, 4 x 2.5” or up to 10 x 3.5”, 2 x 2.5″ drives HDD/SSD Three Fractal Design Silent Series R2 fans included with the case and space for an additional 7 fans. Excellent water cooling support with space for up to 4 radiators simultaneously. All intakes feature removable dust filters providing a dust-free interior. Featuring a window side panel to show off your set up in style. Additional space in the front to mount a slim optical bay drive and 2 x 2.5″ drives. Fan controller included. Five expansion slots that allows for multiple GPU setups. Specifications Micro ATX and Mini ITX motherboard compatibility 8 - 3.5″ HDD positions 2 - 2.5″ dedicated SSD unit positions 2 - Extra positions for either 3,5″ or 2,5″ drives 5 expansion slots 10 - Fan positions (3 x 120mm Silent Series R2 fans included) Filtered fan slots in front, top and bottom CPU coolers up to 160 mm in height PSU compatibility: ATX PSUs up to 260 mm deep Graphics card compatibility: Graphics cards up to 320mm in length. Graphics cards up to 290 mm in length may be installed if a fan is installed in the lower position in the front. Velcro strap for easy cable management Clear Window side panel included Colors available: Black Case dimensions (WxHxD): 344 x 307 x 389 mm Net weight: 6 kg Package dimensions (WxHxD): 370 x 468 x 412 mm Package weight: 16.3kg Cooling system Front: 4 – 120mm fans (included is one hydraulic bearing 120mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed) Rear: 1 - 120/140mm fan (included is a hydraulic bearing 120mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed) Rear: 1 - 120mm fan slots (included is 1 hydraulic bearing 120mm Silent Series R2 fan, 1000 RPM speed) Top: 4 - 120x140mm fans (not included) Fan controller: 1 - Integrated fan controller for up to 3 fans (included) Water cooling compatibility Front (right chamber) - 240 mm radiator configurations up to 60 mm thick (with fans) and 278 mm tall are allowed. Front (left chamber) - 240 mm radiator configurations up to 60 mm thick (with fans) and 278 mm tall are allowed. Using a radiator in this position prevents the use of a fan in the top position just next to it. Top (right chamber) - 240/280 mm radiators up to 130mm hick (with fans) may be fitted if the HDD drive bays are taken out or placed elsewhere. No limitation to thickness. Top (left chamber) - 240 mm radiator configurations up to 130 mm thick (with fans) will fit. Radiators in this position limits the height of memory modules to 48 mm tall. Maximum radiator configuration: 1x240mm,1x280mm and 2x120mm radiators simultaneously." http://www.fractal-design.com/media.ashx/fd-ca-node-804-bl1000x10001.jpg http://www.fractal-design.com/media/373aa2ba-0f04-45ce-95c2-bc816cbc7864 http://www.fractal-design.com/media/02678b68-4539-4e4c-9f33-4b1bfbf90268

Are you going to use a software raid or a hardware version? If software such as FreeNas or Nas4Free there is no way to cache the raid since SSD Cache accelleration is done through the motherboard Raid controller. And the controller will see 5 individual drives if it is a software raid.

When this question shows up I allways recommend getting the Non-windowed one. The sidepanel with a windows is available to buy afterwards but not the non-windowed one. Also, why getting a noise insulated case and then get the ignore the whole Idea behind the case with a window?

You are completely right. I've asked a mod to move the thread. I intended it to be posted there but must have miss-clicked when looking around the forum.

MSI A78M-E45 Motherboard Introduction MSI A78M-E45 is a mid-entry level motherboard for simple APU gaming machines and home entertainment PCs. It's aggressively priced and I managed to get hold on this motherboard from the store for approx. 54 USD(Sweden). Even-though it is a entry level motherboard it has overclocking features, quiet a beefy VRM heatsink, Four Dimm slots and two physical 16x PCIe slots, the bottom one is only 4x electrical. Box Front Box Rear Included Accessories A quick look in the box. The I/O Shield is plain metallic with punched markings for which connector is which. There are 2 high quality sata cables with straight to 90° angled connectors with latches. Simple white/black colours. What I actually freaked out a bit over was the really nice sized motherboard manual. It's brilliant. Far smaller than the regular one. Better for the environment and easier to handle with one hand, perfect! Included Chipset AMDs newest FM2+ Platform is a revised version of the FM2 platform, the specific chipset this motherboard is built upon is the model A78, also known as Bolton-D3. The chipset features nothing especially spectacular but full native USB 3.0, AHCI Sata controller running 6x 6Gb/s sata connections and supports raid 0, 1 and 10. The total TDP of the chipset is approx. 8W making the platform fairly low power driven compared to older chipsets and platforms. When combined with a FM2+ APU the motherboard supports PCIe 3.0 but runs on the integrated PCIe controller of the CPU, meaning that the FM2 processor will be limited to "only" PCIe 2.0. The LAN is a 1Gb/s integrated controller so ample of bandwidth. Integrated Peripherals MSI have designed this motherboard fairly well, the Chipset is decent featuring most of the features one might want and need for a mother PC. However, the Audio chipset integrated on the motherboard might leave some left to desire, although the Audio chip supports 7.1Channels HD Audio it is only an analog out, there is no Digital auto. Also the performance and fidelity given of the Realtek ALC887, is not the best. It does the job, but that is about it. Persons using USB-driven Headphones, a TV through HDMI or cheap PC Speakers might not care. But for those audiophiles and analog headphone users might wanna look at some other DACs. Internal Layout and Aesthetics Considering this is one of the mid-entry level motherboards it is in my honest opinion on of the better looking motherboards. The PCB itself is actually a brown tint which makes the black connectors blacker, and the blue brighter. Neat! The layout is simple yet clever. Layout The 1x PCIe is unfortunately beneath the 16x PCIe graphics slot rendering the use of a WiFi, capture or sound card much harder. Placing this 1x slot on the top would have made much more sense sin the clearance for a big air cooler would be far greater when no card in the 1x would be in use. The next PCIe is on the bottom making it suitable for a second graphics card in cases with five expansion slots such as the BitFenix Phenom with an extra gap between the two cards. The VRM Heatsink is impressive considering the price and competitions closest lineups. Might help with overclocking. The Auxiliary CPU power is only a 4pin which limits the power to the socket from the PSU directly to only 150Ws. Completely sufficient, remember, the motherboards supply some power aswell. Considering the power usage of a AMD A10 7850k should be far be low the total of 150W overclocked so there is no reason to despair. VRM Heatsink What I find the Motherboard lacking is the amount of fan headers. There is a 4-pin CPUFan, a 4-pin SysFan and a 3-pin SysFan, that's it. Something which severely limits the amount of supported fan without the use of adapters. Personally I'd like to see at least one more 3-pin. Preferable 2more for a total of 4 SysFans. There are 8 mounting holes(the MSI website states 6 which is wrong) and the motherboard is a full size mATX in width. The PCB is the same MSI use for higher end cards indicated of the vacant slot for 2 additional Sata Ports. Vacant slot for Sata-ports Memory The motherboard features four Memory slots capable of supporting up to 64GB of Ram, it does not on the other-hand support ECC-memory which limits the actual memory to a maximum of 32GB since there is no real supply of 16GB non-ECC ram as of yet. It supports memory speeds a maximum of 2133MHz which puts it on par with the integrated Memory Controller in the AMD APU flagships, clever design. It utilities a dual channel design and supports both AMP (AMD Memory Profile) and XMP (Extreme Memory Profile). UEFI Still in progress. Connectivity There is a fair bit of connectivity on the motherboard. The HDMI also is 4k resolution capable. I would really like a DisplayPort connector though. I/O Panel Summary This is a really interesting motherboard, MSI have taken a sub $70 mATX motherboard with both decent cooling for the power phases and VRM and enabled both CrossfireX and lots of Ram-expandability making this motherboard really attractive for a simple cheap machine. Full PhotoAlbum