Coolermaster 922 HAF case and graphic card question

[jaredofnz]

Hey guys n' girls, building my first gaming-intended PC this week and need verification on something. The Cooler master 932 and 922, such little price difference yet just outside my budget. I just need to know if the parts I intend on getting (especially the graphics card) will fit in the 922 case nicely and if it will provide sufficient airflow:

****UPDATE****
Intel Core i5 750 CPU Bundle:
Core I5 750 CPU
+ Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 Intel P55 LGA1156 Motherboard
+ G.SKILL Ripjaw F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-1600 Memory
+ Shipping = $744
Cooler Master 922 HAF case - $225 (picking it up locally)
Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 650W PSU - $137 incl shipping
Sapphire Radeon HD5870 - $720 (picking it up locally)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB 16MB 7200rpm SATA hard drive - $105
Total: $1931

What do people think?

Any other suggestions or problems with compatibility between the parts please speak up! this is my first ever build and remember it's 90% for gaming and 10% for HD movies. Thanks Peeps
Jared

 

[wathman]

don't use a caviar green drive for your main hard drive.. they're great for storage, but you're taking at least 2 steps backwards in terms of hard drive performance. Get at least a Caviar Blue if you must get a WD

 

[jaredofnz]

It's either that or a Samsung, Hitachi or Seagate one. Which one? WD black and blue and ridiculously overpriced over here

 

[wathman]

really, Caviar Blue is straight up midstream drive, more or less the Honda Civic of hard drives. Wonder why they are so expensive. Samsung F3 or Seagate 7200.12 would actually be my current first two choices, hopefully they are better priced over there. Both of them are right on par with Caviar blacks, and priced pretty well as they are cheaper to build.

 

[jaredofnz]

I've found a blue for $10 more than the green but what justifies that $10? they both have the same rpm and cache etc. Also i plan to chuck in a ssd and 1tb at xmas time along with a second 5850. I reallllllly need to know about this case and space problem

 

[wathman]

well the green drives are optimized for power efficiency, which means they like to go to sleep if idle even for just a little bit. This is no problem, and actually preferred if you are using it as a storage drive. This can become problematic, and frustrating when your system will momentarily slow down while the drives start spinning up if used as a primary drive. The green drives also don't have as high of a max speed they can spin at, 5900 or so.. they are advertised as a "variable spin" drive as it changes according to demand. The green drives are fast enough to run as a primary drive in theory, but it generally isn't recommended since they don't do so well with random reads and writes of small files that you typically get a lot of with your C: drive usage.

As for getting a 5850 to fit inside a 922, it should since I have a monster sized XFX 8800 GTX in my HAF 922, and it fits just fine. I'll have a better answer for you soon though since my 5870 comes in the mail tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure all the 5870's are bigger than the 5850s.

 

[jaredofnz]

Wicked, thanks for that. the 8800 is around 11 inches anyway isn't it? with the power connectors at the end instead of on the side like the 5000 series? are you happy with your case?

 

[wathman]

my 8800 GTX is pretty long, but I don't have an exact measurement handy. I do know for sure that it didn't fit well in my previous case which was a Thermaltake Armor Jr. I had to remove the internal hard drive cage to get it to fit in that. Inside the HAF 922, there's at least 3 inches from the end of the card to the hard drive cages ( that have connectors facing the side by the way). My 8800 GTX has the pcie power connectors are on the side of the card, but there appears to be plenty of room for rear facing plugs. I'll know for sure tomorrow.

As for the case itself, I'm happy with the room it has inside. Initially I was a bit put off by how much plastic it uses in the front bezel, but it is good quality plastic, and really helps keep weight down. The case is surprisingly light, yet still maintains durability. Air flow is obviously very good, though it's not really as quiet as it could be. at least the pitch of the fans seems a bit lower so the noise doesn't bug me as much as in the old case I had.

 

[jaredofnz]

Sweet as. Yeah let me know and it looks like i might have to go with AMD instead had to pay some bills

 

[1ce]

An AMD board may be better since you intend to crossfire, as I don't think you can get an i5 board supporting two PCIe slots at anything better than x8/x8.

 

[wathman]

That's true, the 16x pci-e lanes for graphics come directly off the CPU in the p55 chipset design. This is better in some ways since it doesn't have to go through a northbridge, but when you start talking multiple GPUs, you go 8x/8x for crossfire, and if you were going to shell out the cash for 3x crossfire, you would have bought an x58 board in the first place.

For current generation hardware, I think the tradeoff for direct CPU communication vs. fewer PCIe lanes will be more than enough to keep pace with dual CF setups for now, but if GPU power makes another leap with the next generation, dual 8x/8x will probably become a bottleneck. I've always been a big supporter of single GPU gaming systems. The money saved by not upgrading to 2 cards means I can do a complete system rebuild sooner than a CF or SLI build.

 

[jaredofnz]

Yea i think I have to agree with u there, two graphics cards, although i'm not too educated in the area, is an overkill in my mind when one 5000 series should play any current and future game on the market buttery smooth shouldn't it?
Also, when the 5890s come out and if they are significantly better chances are I will get one of them. Only if they are SIGNIFICANTLY better than a 5850. I would be right in saying that my intended set up will run any game very smooth on high - highest settings though right? bit worried about trading off my xbox 360 and spending this much and not getting great game play on the build.
Thanks,
Jared

 

[jaredofnz]

Hey how did the 5870 fit in your 922 dude?

 

[wathman]

the 5870 fits great in the 922, my XFX 5870 has the pcie power connectors on the side also, though there's still plenty of space between the card and the HD cages. I did run into issues with my motherboard though, the card sits right on top of the SATA II conectors, and if I didn't have spare right angle SATA II cables, I'd be screwed right now. Right now I'm dealing with Vista 32-bit's crappiness, A 1 GB card isn't playing nice with my system memory under 32-bit OS memory addressing. Looks like I may just have to install the win 7 64-bit trial version just until my full version comes in.

 

[jaredofnz]

Man thats a relief. Yeah well good luck with 7, i hate it. like REALLY hate it. Can not get absolutely any games to run its irritating as hell. but yeah i better make sure the motherboard won't run into the same issue. do you think it will?
thanks and game that 5870 up man

 

[wathman]

I took a look at the board you selected, the top 16x slot should be fine, but you might run into issues with the second 16x if you were to go crossfire with that board and the 5800 series cards. 2 of the SATA II ports might be completely blocked, and I'm not sure how much the right angle connectors would help placement of the second card.

 

[jaredofnz]

Hmmmm. Would this still be the case with the 5850? turns out it's 9" not 11" like the 5870. I've been looking at theories and benchmarks on the fact that to crossfire a p55 board u have to go 8x8x and the difference is hardly even relevant. I do plan to add a second 5850 later, now that that the crossfire benchmarks have been released and they trump the 295. I've got my case sorted. lol. atleast that's out of the way but this whole motherboard and graphics cards problem I really need resolved... my budget cannot budge so will this mean "downgrading" to a 940/945 AM3 build with the possibility of one 5870 and adding another in the future/ one 5850 now one in the future or shall I just stick with the I5 build and deal with 8x8x crossfire? I will only ever use this build for gaming, so I mean if this I5 build has no difference in performance over a 940/945 in terms of gaming i may as well go 940/945 right?

Well that was a complete noob's perspective for ya ^ I'm expecting flaming over that possibly completely incorrect written paragraph or two of mine

Noobiness aside tho i am only after what I will get the most performance out of gaming wise so if anyone can suggest a better build under a $1750 NZD budget using NZ prices and keeping in mind my needs for this then please go ahead!!!
Please use www.pricespy.co.nz and don't change the case i've got that all sorted.
Thanks all!!

 

[wathman]

How much does the Asus P55 PRO board go for? the connector design is better and won't have issues with a second graphics card. The other option I looked into was the EVGA P55 LE board, this one will also fit 2 cards rather smoothly. I think these are both higher tier boards, but I guess they figure people who buy these boards will actually put video cards in crossfire, and they made sure the SATA II ports don't get blocked.

 

[jaredofnz]

We don't get EVGA boards over here and this is the closest i can find to the "Asus P55 PRO board" http://www.globespec.co.nz/product.php?PID=44989
Thanks,
Jared

 

[tom1121]

dude can you please post a picture of the 5870 in your case. Ty in advance.

 

[jaredofnz]

Yeah that's a good idea, do you mind man? wouldn't mind seeing it myself

 

[wathman]

That board is an ASRock, not too bad actually. Wish they were available over here right now. All the SATA II ports are on the bottom of the board, well away from the path of the monster sized graphics cards, so the fit should be fine. Only problem I see is that second 16x slot only goes up to 4x PCIe speeds. Doesn't say anywhere that it will do the 8x/8x split.

I'm at work now, so I won't be able to get a picture posted until I'm home this evening. I'll put one up when I can.

 

[jaredofnz]

Alright awesome. i'm getting a 5870 so i'm very interested in seeing it in my future case

 

[wathman]

Been working on my computer some so just got around to taking a picture of it.

 

[jaredofnz]

Thanks for that man, WOWWWW there is still heaps of room. laughing at the people over in other forums saying that it will never fit a 5870 in
mind if i ask what the rest of your components are? quite curious now lol. Wicked set up by the way
If your short on time no worries