PSU and case question

Fox9

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Mar 21, 2006
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I am liking the Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 500W ($69)for the following reasons:

1) Although I had my mind set on ATI, right now I am leaning towards GeForce, so I want an SLI capable PSU for later expansions.

2) I want to slightly overclock by about 0.2GHz.

3) I picked Antec due to brand name.

Please advise me if those reasons are good enough? This is the cheapest Antec SLI that I found. Is there a cheaper 450W or 400W SLI capable PSU from another good brand?

Also, I am heaving a great deal of trouble picking a case. It seems that getting a case and PSU together is a bad deal. Unless there is one I overlooked? So I intend to buy one separately.

I want something that will let me overclock, have a front MIC and SPK connections, and will be under $80.

I found one very interesting case - Sky Hawk/Eagle Tech Matrix PSR5605W-SL.

But how do I judge if it is good enough? Has anyone here used it?
 
It's definitely easier to see and touch quality, then it is to read about it. That's one of the reason that people come to baords like these and read reviews from trusted sources. Take a look at the Coolermaster RC-531 - here is a good review.

Without you listing the parts that you want to put in your rig it is almost impossible to give a good recommendation for a PSU. I can tell you that the Smartpower is not Antecs best PSU line - their TruePower series is better. I will tell you that I have an Antec Sonata II with a Smartpower 450W and it's doing a good job running my rig:
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
3200+ with a 15% OC (300Mhz)
HiS IceQ X800GTO (500/1000 core/mem clocks)
HDD 250GB, 16MB cache
NEC DVD/RW
1GB Patriot Signature Series RAM
If you can find the Sonata II under $90, then that would be a good deal, too. I don't like the duct system that is installed - removed it. Give us some details and we can narrow down some good options for your rig.