Compatability with The Windtunnel

[Crunkadile]

This may seem like a dumb question but I'm thinking about building a computer and I've been looking up parts on sites like newegg.com etc. The Windtunnel looks very appealing and has many good reviews, I know nothing about the technical aspects, I'm pretty much learning as I go along, anyway, I was wondering if a 5.25" bluray drive would fit, I don't want to start purchasing things and then realize after that the stuff I get is'nt compatable.


Other parts I'm considering: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB 3.5 Sata Internal Drive
Corsair CPMSU 750V Power supply
ASUS P6T Deluxe
GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI video card
ASUS DRW Internal Burner
Sony optiarc black SATA internal bluray drive (Not burner)
G.Skill Trident 6GB(3x2GB) DDR3 2000 (RAM)
Intel Core i7 920
And of course the XCLIO Windtunnel

Like I said, I'm pretty new at all of this so any advise would be helpful.
Also, what O/S should I use?

 

[Yami]

All good choices! OS, I'd recommend buying Vista, with a free upgrade to Windows 7. Or pre-order Windows 7 and use the Windows 7 release candidate for now.

I have the same power supply and can wholeheartedly recommend it.

A BD-R drive will fit provided the Windtunnel has 5.25" drive bays, which all cases do.

 

[Crunkadile]

Thanks alot for the reply, I was'nt sure if I was doing things right, I've heard good things about windows 7 so the vista with the free upgrade sounds really good. The Windtunnel offers room for an additional fan, would that at all be necessary?

 

[Yami]

Do you mean the fan slot on the rear of the windtunnel? It's probably not necessary to fill it, but you may as well. Decent fans are like $10 (or less).

Are you going to be overclocking, by the way? If not then 1600MHz RAM would suffice and probably save you money.

 

[Crunkadile]

I'd like to (finally) play Crysis and WOW, possibly the old republic mmo whenever that comes out, I don't know how hard these games push a machine but I've heard that Crysis is pretty demanding, I just want to get something that can handle whatever disk I put in.

 

[Yami]

Depending on what resolution you're playing at Crysis will run at least on very high on that rig. WoW isn't very resource-intensive. the Old Republic MMO should also play fine, though I can't say for sure since it's not out, obviously.

 

[Crunkadile]

The 1600 is cheaper though so I might look into that instead. Is there anything else you might suggest that I could add to my list?

 

[Yami]

Are you going to use the stock cooler which comes with the i7, or do you want to get an aftermarket (better) cooler?
Other than that I can only think of monitor/mouse/keyboard/speakers.

Oh, there is also the option of buying an SSD (Solid State Drive). They're like hard drives (but different technology) but much much faster. However they are very expensive compared to hard drives, and come in smaller capacities. Most people buy them to put the OS onto, which pretty much halves boot times, and makes anything OS-based very snappy. And besides, it's a good idea to have separate drives for 'OS' and 'storage'.
OCZ are currently the best price/performance brand for SSDs, while Intel make the best but those are more expensive. The newer Corsair ones are just as good as the OCZ Vertex series but slightly pricier I believe.
If you do decide to look into SSDs, I suggest looking at the OCZ Vertex series, which come in 30/60/120/250GB models (the 60GB is about $200 methinks).

 

[Crunkadile]

wow!! I did'nt even know there were SSD's, I'll definately look into that because it makes alot of sence, I never though about putting the O/S on a different drive, fantastik!! I was looking at the arctic cooling freezer 64 pro (92mm) but I did'nt read into it much, I figured I would ask about what I already had down (glad I did), if you know of a better cooler please let me know, I really appreciate the advice, I tried this other forum and got no response all day.

 

[Yami]

Glad to be of help

I'm not entirely sure on heatsinks, but seeing the design of the Windtunnel I would recommend that any CPU cooler you get has vertical fins (relative to the motherboard), seeing as those fans will exhausting air vertically away from the CPU. Though it probably won't matter too much.
Make sure any cooler you get will fit in the case, and has a bracket (or is designed to fit on) the LGA1366 slot.

Btw, doesn't particularly matter but O/S means something different to OS

Anything else I can help you with?