Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

[korialstraz]

Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Ok so I'm going to get a new comp. I was initially going to build it myself, but someone I know said I should just talk to a guy he knows through work, which will build a comp with the parts I want, I might get a discount and I'll get 3 years warrenty on the whole package. OS included and installed since he can't sell comps without an OS installed.

Anyway I've been thinking a bit about how much I'm willing to spend, and around 1100-1300 euro seems good to me. I have started looking at parts, and think I've found a pretty kickass rig, but I'd want some feedback before making a decision.

So far I have looked at 2 different motherboards and I've found a CPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, a midi case tower and DVD-ROM. What I'm missing is the PSU, and that's because I don't know how powerfull it needs to be too power all the parts. Anyway the parts I have looked at is:

Motherboard: As far as I can tell there are 2 different version of the same motherboard. It is the ASUS Mainboard S-775 P45.

One comes with 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots that is AFAIK for CrossFire or SLI, but 4 RAM slots.

The other comes with 6 RAM slots but one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot.

I'm guessing I won't need more than 4 RAM slots, so it would probably be best to go with the first one. At least that's the only difference between those two cards I can find.

RAM: The motherboard supports DDR3 RAM, so what I was looking at is OCZ DDR3 PC3-8500 Platinum 1066MHz 4G Kit (2x2GB) 5-5-5-18
I bolded one part because I'm wondering what those numbers mean. I've asked a few people, but no one seems to know what it means, or what effect it will have on performance (if any). Maybe someone here knows what it is though =)

CPU: INTEL CPU Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz S-775 1333MHz 6MB "Wolfdale" Boxed. Not much to say about this. It looks good, and it's not that expensive. And I don't think I need anything better atm.

GPU: ASUS nVidia GTX280 1024MB. I was first thinking of getting the nVidia 9800GT 1024MB, but I think I can afford the GTX280.

HDD: Main goal here so to speak is getting a 1 TB disk. Not sure how much the different brands like Samsung, Seagate or Western Digital etc varies when it comes to performance, but I can't imagine it isn't that much. If anything it would be the quality that varies.

DVD-ROM: Nothing fancy. Anything that can read and burn CD's and DVD's is ok with me, and I've already found one so no worries here. If you have some good suggestions then please don't hold back on them :jig:

PSU: I really don't have a clue with what I need here. Hopefully I won't have to go with more than 800W since thats where they start becoming pretty expensive, but if anything less would hurt the performance or plain wouldn't work, I will go with what I need ofc.

Midi tower: I'll probably just pick the coolest one I can find that will fit all the parts. Suggestions is ofc welcome, but the tower isn't my main priority, so don't suggest anything over the top expensive ones


Feel free to comment on the parts chosen or to come with some suggestions on your own, just try to keep it within the 1100-1300 euro range.

Thanks for any help I may or may not get :whistling:

 

[Ankeli]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Motherboard: As far as I can tell there are 2 different version of the same motherboard. It is the ASUS Mainboard S-775 P45.

One comes with 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots that is AFAIK for CrossFire or SLI, but 4 RAM slots.

A solid choice. No, you won't be needing more than 8 gigabytes (which you can stuff into that if you so choose to) during the lifespan of this particular computer.

RAM: The motherboard supports DDR3 RAM, so what I was looking at is OCZ DDR3 PC3-8500 Platinum 1066MHz 4G Kit (2x2GB) 5-5-5-18

The bolded bit is the memory latency, aka response time. The lower the better. 5-5-5-18 will get you through all your needs.

CPU: INTEL CPU Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz S-775 1333MHz 6MB "Wolfdale" Boxed. Not much to say about this. It looks good, and it's not that expensive. And I don't think I need anything better atm.

You might do with an even cheaper one unless you're into absolutely min-maxing stuff.

GPU: ASUS nVidia GTX280 1024MB. I was first thinking of getting the nVidia 9800GT 1024MB, but I think I can afford the GTX280.

Or save some on the CPU, and get 2x 9800gt...

HDD: Main goal here so to speak is getting a 1 TB disk. Not sure how much the different brands like Samsung, Seagate or Western Digital etc varies when it comes to performance, but I can't imagine it isn't that much. If anything it would be the quality that varies.

A good minimum rpm value for gaming is 7,2k these days. Anything at that level or above will suffice. I personally prefer Seagate HD's, some people claim they break easily. It's a coin toss every time.

PSU: I really don't have a clue with what I need here. Hopefully I won't have to go with more than 800W since thats where they start becoming pretty expensive, but if anything less would hurt the performance or plain wouldn't work, I will go with what I need ofc.

The GPU is the most demanding bit, and with what you listed above 800 will suffice. If you go twin-graphic cards you might need to up it a bit, depending on the other stuff you choose.

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Thanks for the response Ankeli.

A solid choice. No, you won't be needing more than 8 gigabytes (which you can stuff into that if you so choose to) during the lifespan of this particular computer.

My thoughts exactly.

The bolded bit is the memory latency, aka response time. The lower the better. 5-5-5-18 will get you through all your needs.

Thanks for clearing that up. Not sure if I know how big a part it plays, but at least I know what it is for =)

You might do with an even cheaper one unless you're into absolutely min-maxing stuff.

Well I looked at some other cheaper ones, and I wouldn't save much more than 10-20 euro on going down to 3 GHz or even 2,8 GHz, and since I'm already going to get a new comp I might as well spend that little extra and then wait a bit until next upgrade. Besides this will be my first high end (imo) comp I've bought. The first one I had lasted 8 years, and the second one which I use now could probably last another year or so which would bring it's lifetime to 3 years, after which I would find another use for it. Hopefully I'll only need some small upgrades at a later point with this rig. Hopefully...

Or save some on the CPU, and get 2x 9800gt...

So what you're saying is getting 2x 9800GT will give higher performance than a GTX280? Because 2x 9800s would cost around 365 euro while the GTX280 costs around 500 euro. I'm just worried that older games can't handle 2 gfx cards, and if there might be other compaitibility issues with it. But if 2x 9800 cards is better it would also save me 145 euro which makes the choice very easy. :jig:

However I want to take into consideration future upgrades. If for example I can get a GTX280 now, then at a later point I need to upgrade RAM, CPU and GPU, then I could for example get another GTX280 (if they are still being sold and get me the performance I need. I imagine that would be cheaper than getting 2 new cards or 1 really expensive one. But I don't know, which is why any suggestions from here is highly appreciated.

A good minimum rpm value for gaming is 7,2k these days. Anything at that level or above will suffice. I personally prefer Seagate HD's, some people claim they break easily. It's a coin toss every time.

Thanks. I will have to take that into consideration then. But the one I've found is 7,2k rpm so I guess that's good.

The GPU is the most demanding bit, and with what you listed above 800 will suffice. If you go twin-graphic cards you might need to up it a bit, depending on the other stuff you choose.

Oh shoot. I was hoping for a 750W or something, since the price jump from a 750W to an 800 one seems kinda big. But if the performance on the 9800 cards is better than the 280, the money I save there can be spent on a better PSU.

Thanks for the advice so far! :thumbup:

 

[kamap]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

seems a solid rig

2x 9800GT will make calculations faster then the gtx280, but for future upgrades gtx280 might be more interesting but that depends on when you gonna do the upgrades, will the card still be availabel and what games you tend to play?

seagate or western digital are good for hdd's i suggest getting 2*500gb ones with 10k rpm, loading of games go so much faster

just a thought on your hdd's: partition one in 50gb, 200gb and 250gb then use the 50gb to install os and use the 200 for your games (thats about 10-20 very big games like wow, red alert 3 and some of the newer ones) and 250 for extra storage together with the other 500gb

750W should give you all the power you need

this is my rig and I'm using 600w and its good enough to keep it running all day long even with the hardest games (only 1 graphic card though gtx260)

case: CoolerMaster COSMOS 1000
ram: G.E.I.L. 4 GB DDR2-800 Kit GX24GB6400LDCK
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Processor Socket AM2 BOX
HDD: 2* Maxtor 500Gb 10000rpm 32mb SATA II
dvdwriter: DVDRW SAMSUNG S203D Black OEM SATA
screen: Samsung 2032BW 20'' 2Ms
GPU: OCZ StealthXStream Power Supply 600W
boxes: Creative Inspire T6100
MOBO: ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe AM2+
graphic card: Asus GeForce GTX 260 HTDP 869Mb PCI-E
fan or fan controller: Zalman ZM-MFC2
fan or fan controller: Zalman CNPS9700 NT

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Thanks for the suggestions kamap.

It's difficult to decide if I'm going to go with 2x 9800GT or the GTX280, so I'll wait for more feedback and ask for advice from the guy I will order the comp from.

As for the HDD's, I looked up 10k rpm disks, and they were a bit too expensive for me. A 300 GB 10k rpm disk would cost more than the CPU. Although storage has never been a problem for me, so actually going with a 300 GB 10k rpm disk might be better for me than a 1 TB 7,2k rpm disk. Another thing to think about now^_^

Again thanks for the feedback so far!

 

[kamap]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

you could also buy 1 hdd of 250gb with 10k rpm partition it and put your games and os on there and buy some 1tb or 500gb hdd for storage alone

2x 9800GT or the GTX280 are both a solid choice i would look for some numbers on them (performance, price, and so on) and then decide

2x 9800GT will kick the GTX280 in the *** for performance but not that hard, the downside is when the game doesn't understand 2Xgraphic card it might not work the way you want it to work so on that perspective the GTX280 would be more interesting but costs more (or go for the 260 costs less and is comparable in performance slightly lower though)

 

[Furyan]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Aight mate, let's share my thoughts :thumbup:

GPU: I'd go for the GTX280 over 2x 9800GT's. The 9800GT isn't the fastest card around, you'd need a special motherboard supporting SLI, and most importantly you'd need a way stronger power supply. Last but not least: not all games support SLI. I looked it up for you, and if you like playing games 1-2 years old or older, the 9800GT might not suffice, and cooperation between the 2 isn't possible. Oh and btw: google is your friend, and card reviews might provide you with all the information you need about power supply needs etc.

PSU: For my rig (for everyone except korial: Core 2 Duo E8500, 4GB ram, Geforce 9800 GX2 1024 Mb) a power supply of 600+ watts was adviced as minimum, so I went with 750W to be certain. The power needs of the GTX280 will certainly not be higher than mine, so 700W should definitely suffice, and 800W would certainly be overkill.

Edit: I looked it up for you, and nVidia themselves recommend a PSU of 550W minimum for your card, with all other components being normal stuff, no extreme overclocking units for example. So if you go with ~700, you'll definitely be ok.

One point you might wanna watch is how the GPU is connected. Mine has 2 separate PCIe cables to be connected to the power supply (one 4-pin and one 6-pin), and not all power supplies support this. Be sure to check this. I went with a 750W PSU of Be Quiet, which comes with a load of cables and support. It did cost me 125 euro though.

CPU: Nothing to be said about this, the E8500 is the top notch dual core processor atm for ~160 euro. 'nuf said.

RAM: The bold numbers are indeed the response times, and there's no need to worry about that, the RAM you selected will certainly do its job very well.

Motherboard: I don't know much about motherboards, but in your case I'd go for the one with 4 slots. 6 slots is definitely overkill.

DVD/CD: Nothing to worry about here.

HDD: From my own experiences I should advice you to avoid Seagate disks. I've only experienced one HDD crash so far (my laptop this summer, as I told you), and that was a Seagate. I go with Samsung Spinpoint HDD's now, and they do the job just fine. Western Digital is the other top notch brand.

Just keep in mind that no HDD is flawless. My dad had 3 HDD crashes at his work already, and those were a Pioneer, WD and a Maxtor. He swears by Seagates since then... Oh, the irony.

Edit: now that kamap mentions it, getting a small disk with 10000 RPM for applications and a big, normal one for data is a good idea. Your rig will load applications and games faster, and it is easier to format and keep clean since you got your data on a separate disk.

Case: Finding a case is hard, since there are 500 different brands and cases. I'd go with either Coolermaster or Antec, since those are the market leaders for gaming rigs. I have an Antec 1200 myself, but I'd recommend you an Antec 900. I only went with the 1200 because the 9800 GX2 is such a rediculously big card, but now that I bought it, I swim in space. The Antec 900 is the most commonly used case for gamers, so you can't go wrong with that. Only point with this is the style: some find it cool, some find it ugly. As for me I don't care: all that matters for me is the performance.

Main reason why I went Antec instead of Coolermaster btw is the base 7 built in fans the case has. That way overheating trouble will never be yours. I don't have experience with Coolermaster though, so you could definitely go that way as well.

Good luck mate, and if you want help, you know where to find me :thumbup:

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Thanks a lot guys! All this help is just priceless. You have no idea how much it helps me!

I'll make sure to get some pics when I have the comp, but don't expect any high quality pics, since all I got is my mobile phone camera

Tomorrow I might send a mail to the guy I will probably get the parts from and get his opinion on the rig as well. Hopefully he can get all the parts! :azn:

If there still are people who want to give feedback its highly appreciated!

 

[blackrocksword]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Stick with the GTX 280. 9800 GT SLi may provide more performance, but you may run into issues like micro-stuttering and such, and some games don't scale well so performance may be worse after all. It also depends on your monitor size.

The 5-5-5-18 is indeed the memory latency (RAS and whatever). Don't worry about that, performance difference is minimal as far as I've experienced with those numbers.

As for the PSU: Wattage matters, but not as much as the rails. Make sure you get one with solid rails (One that can take the beating on the amps).

I would recommend PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/451/1/

Pricey it may be, but I think it's worth it. Just look at the benchmarks (the rails).

Alternatives I would recommend are OCZ, Enermax. I heard that Silverstone is also good, but I'm not sure about that. I suppose Cooler Master and Thermaltake are OK for your needs too, but I personally won't use them.

As for casing, I personally use the Coolermaster Stacker 832, that's not a bad case at all. Just make sure you have a case with good airflow, that's all it matters.

Otherwise, nice set up.

P.S. kamap I'm curious as to how you can get 500GB 10K RPM hard disks?

 

[sevencreature]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

PSU: Enermax MODU (cheap, solid, silent) or (newer) Revolution.

Case: Stacker 830 Evo - the one and only choice here .-) - or Stacker NVIDIA Edition (basically 83x Evo (with wheels included), NVIDIA certified) if you don't mind NVIDIA logos and color (it's cheaper than Stacker in some shops surprisingly).

HDD: I would also recommend considering one (fast) for system and one (or more) for data (something silent and reliable - as was mentioned, reliability can be rather, well, problematic/mysterious here). And the system one could be either ~160 or ~80 GB WD Velociraptor or some SDD (price can be similar).

CPU: I think 7200 C2D has really good price/performance ratio - 8xxx are a bit faster, but the increase in price is quite steep IMO (i.e. not worth the money).

GPU: Dual GPUs can be pain (heat, chance for microstuttering (not as problematic nowadays with newer models though), power consumption, game compatibility). I'd say getting single GPU is wiser in the long run.

RAM: Doesn't matter - if you are not HC Overclocker.

MB: Asus or Gigabyte (GA-EP45-DS3 or similar for example).

 

[Usufruct]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

I don't know what they cost where you are, but 2x GTX 260 cards will only set you back $420 here. A GTX 280 is only $20 or $30 cheaper than that. I'm building a PC with a pair of the 260s for that reason.

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

@blackrocksword: Thanks for the feedback! I didn't think that a power supply would mean much at all so long as it was powerfull enough to power the system. I've read a few other reviews as well, and I'll take a closer look on what kind of powersupply I will use =)

I will take a look ont hat case you mentione as well. Thanks for the help

@sevencreature: I'll take a look at the case you suggested as well. I don't think I will go for a 10k rpm disk yet though, because I find it kinda expensive. I can always get a 10k rpm disk at a later point and reformat the comp. Also I will go with the E8500 CPU since I find that affordable, but thanks for your view on the CPU =)

@Usufruct: Well I think I'm going with the GTX280, since I know that I still will be playing some old games as well on that comp, and they probably don't support SLI/CrossFire, and if I understand correctly only 1 GPU will be used. So for now I will go with a single GPU



I will most likely mail the parts I want to the guy I'm buying all this from to get his opinion on this. I will let you guys know what he thinks =)

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

If this guy is building and warranting it for you I would let him know the spec's you want and get his feedback, he may be able to source things cheaper or have strong recommendations to make.

 

[kamap]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

@blackrocksword: Well now I'm wondering to I just copied the list of what i ordered from bytesatwork and pasted it I'll have to open up my comp again and check it I think the shop made a fault in their listing cause I can't find those hdd's in their listing now (i find the same ones but with 7.2k rpm)

so it will pbb be 2*500gb 7.2k rpm (if so I'll go complain and get myself 2*250gb 10k rpm ones and 1* 500gb 7.2k rpm)

when i bought them i thought damn thats cheap so lets stock up on em ^^ oh well my rig runs fine enough and much better then my old rig so I'm happy

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

That is exactly what I'm going to do BobCox. I'll ask for his recomendations and see if he can get some parts cheaper etc. Then I will take his recomendation into account with the suggestions given here and the parts I want and specs I want to get and make decision from there.

Anyway I've looked up the different parts and the price is a little over the budget I was aiming for, but then again I just remembered the 110ish euro I had saved up from before. And when getting a new comp and with the suggestions from here, I'd rather pay a little more than I was first aiming for to get quality parts. Mostly the PSU and case influenced the total price.

The price is about 1350-1450 euro.

Specs:

Case: I looked at both Coolermaster Evo 830 and 832 as well as Antec 900 but they didn't impress me as much as the Antec 1200 (yes I had to look it up when you said you are swimming in space Furyan ). And after reading a few reviews from each I have to say Antec seems like the most viable option for me. Enough space for future upgrades, nice cooling quality and it was the one with the coolest looks imo.

Motherboard: Asus Mainboard S-775 P45 ATX

RAM: OCZ DDR3 PC3-8500 Platinum.

CPU: Intel E8500 3,16 GHz

GPU: nVidia GTX280

PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750

HDD: WD HDD 1.0TB 7200 RPM SATA II 3,5†16 MB Caviar Greenpower

And a DVD-ROM that looked ok.


This is how it looks before getting final comments from the guy building it. Though I really wanted to put it together myself I can see the benefits of having someone do that and warrenting it as well as maybe being able to get some parts cheaper.

 

[blackrocksword]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Nice rig!

I understood why you went with the decision to let the guy assemble it for you. But it's good that you had control over which components you wanted (of course, with feedback from us too ).

Not accusing your seller or anything, but some sales people just try to be smart and say all sorts (based on my experience, some of them tried to recommend me some other part [e.g. some other GPU or the sort] when I knew exactly why I wanted a specific part), which can get annoying.

And yes PSU is a vital unit, plenty of people who get new rigs tend to overlook it and just shoot for "the highest W figure I can go for", which is only relevant to a certain extent. I was one of those people, until I was educated about it.

It's the solid rails that you need if you're going to be operating your computer for a long sustained period of time.

The 1TB looks nice, but why did you settle for only 16MB cache? I thought 32MB ones would be better. By the way, I've had a look at the performance of 7.2K RPM 1TB hard disks, they are pretty respectable (can even give the older Raptors a run for the money in terms of performance at certain aspects!) given their price.

@kamap: Ah OK that makes sense. I was just curious because I did not think there was something better than the Velociraptor.

 

[korialstraz]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Hmmm. Good question about the HDD. I'll ask what the differences is in the mail I will send to the seller. The price for a TB disk 16 MB cache or 32 MB wasn't that big. Only difference is that it's a Samsung disk and not WD, which to me doesn't make much of a difference

 

[kamap]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

@blackrocksword: you are correct there, atm there isn't anything better then the Velociraptor, they even ruled in the prehistoric times and they still do.

@korialstraz: looks like a good rig you got there, happy gaming with it, what blackrock says about the hdd is indeed correct, he also got a point with those pesky sales persons.

example:

me: "I want that KVM switch."

salesperson: "for just 10€ more you can have this one on wich you can hang 4comps."

me: "no no, I want that one."

salesperson: With a look that says it all "ok here you go but maybe i can interest you in this."

me: "no thanks i got everything i need, to hook up everything i have."


salesperson still wont let me pay and keeps asking and showing things

me: "well maybe you can help me." started asking some questions about comp parts but detail questions he couldn't answer. (like latencies of specific cards and such)

me: "well thanks for your time but now i got to go, how much is it for the KVM?"

salesperson: with a look of I just got powned i think "its 57euro."

 

[Furyan]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

@ Korial: So you're going with the Antec 1200 as well? You certainly won't be dissapointed, the thing is damn awesome and huge, with 12 expansion slots etc. Really awesome to install stuff in it, loads of space. And with all those fans you'll never experience cooling problems. As for the rest, the rig looks awesome (as I said before)!

Small note: I have to follow blackrocksword indeed in the fact that you'll want a 32Mb cache HDD instead of a 16Mb. Especially with such big disks the cache can be quite important.

Oh btw mate, if you'd need help on getting the rig installed, gimme a shot :thumbup:

@ kamap: Oh, don't speak me of nasty salesmen... 5 years ago, when buying our new family computer, I had the same problem with some guy that absolutely wanted to sell me the Prescott version of the P4 3.0GHz edition (which was a test model, and has a lower performance), and I really had to say like "no, I want my processor, full stop", before he quit arguing... Since then I buy my parts in Holland. People are way more friendly in shops over there.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Getting a new comp, need help with selecting parts.

Given that your MB is ASUS, I'm guessing the two slots are SLI, not Crossfire. Which is what you want seeing as you're going Nvidia on the graphics card (Crossfire is ATi), although to be honest unless you set out to make a dual card system odds are you're never going to use that capability. Doesn't hurt though. And yes, 6 RAM slots are completely unnecessary. Unless some are DDR2 and some DDR3, and you want to go with some cheap DDR2 for now (DDR3 is still quite a markup, with no real difference in current performance).

Those numbers are the RAM timings. No, they don't make a difference.

I'd go with two 500Gb or so HDDs instead of one 1Gb.

Oh, and MAKE SURE YOUR OPTICAL DRIVES ARE QUIET. You think it's not an issue but man, my DVD burner has been pissing me off lately.

An 800W seems a little excessive, but then I'm not sure what the GTX280 requires. If I were you I'd check (I'm guessing you only really need around 550W, that's a good price point, I recommend the Seasonic 550 myself, it's what I have). Also, check that it has all the cables you need (check out reviews, these days you have to research your PSU like it's a serious component) and MAKE SURE IT'S A GOOD BRAND. PSUs are something you really don't want to cheap out on.

I strongly recommend getting a nice big case with good air flow and a decent amount of fans. You should look to spend at least $60, better yet more like $100. Get a good one and you won't look back, remember that that's the one component that theoretically never needs replacing.

Overall a good rig, you could afford to go cheaper on several components which aren't much better than their mid-market counterparts but if you're happy with the price there's no need.

Or save some on the CPU, and get 2x 9800gt...

I hear SLI can be a real headache.

My advice is go with a single x280 or even a single 9800gt. Unless you play crazy amounts of monster FPSes at full detail/AA/AI etc (pretty much just Crysis really) it really won't make that much difference. I really don't think dual video cards are for the casual gamer, if you want to build the system around them that's different though. But remember you'll need a massive PSU for that.

Case: Finding a case is hard, since there are 500 different brands and cases.

Yeah, plus it's surprisingly hard to find good case reviews. Especially for the non-leading brand ones.

The Antec Nine Hundred series (and the other -Hundreds, which are the same thing in various sizes) looked pretty good when I was looking around. Except that I don't like having fan grills and the usb/speaker/etc panel on top, that's where I keep all my junk.

*EDIT*

Ah, too late I see. Well congratulations, looks like a really solid rig.