Optical Drive And Power Supply
Optical Drive: Lite-On DH-4B1S-08SATA Blu-ray Burner
With a relatively high budget and focus on future technologies, there’s no excuse not to put a Blu-ray disc burner in this month’s top build. Lite-On’s DH-4B1S-08 fills the role at sub-$200 pricing.
Read Customer Reviews of Lite-On's DH-4B1S-08
With 4x BD-R and 12X DVD-R burns, Lite-On’s burner certainly isn’t setting performance records but was ordered before LG’s lower-cost 10x drive appeared at Newegg. Both drives burn BD-RE at 2x.
Power Supply: SilverStone Strider Plus 1,000W Modular
We knew an 850W power supply could easily handle the load of our current configuration, but sticking with our expandability theme meant starting out with a power supply that could meet future needs, such as a second Radeon HD 5970 graphics card.
We prefer single-12V-rail designs to avoid any per-rail limits, 80 PLUS efficiency ratings, and at least semi-modular cable attachment to reduce case clutter. But while many of these features are available on top-end power units, we also wanted to find ours at a good price.
Read Customer Reviews of SilverStone's ST1000-P 1,000W PSU
SilverStone delivers with its fully-modular, 80 PLUS Silver-rated, $200 ST1000-P. The combination of features, price, and brand reputation make this part an exceptional value for high-end builds like ours.