Good price/case for those looking to seriously overclock, but it is all airflow based. Have looked it over at Micro Center, and doesn't look like it caters to those seeking silence. With specs/case I mentioned above, I sometimes don't even know it's running. This Antec P180 with three 120's on lowest RPM setting and Tuniq Tower 120 fan dialed low (1400rpm), keeps a 3.0ghz O/C Q6600 at 39-41C Idle and 59-63C full load (Prime 95 for 30mins +). FYI, used Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.
I tried the Asus Maximus and Gigabyte X38 boards (Micro Center is 5mins away from me here in Cherry Creek, Denver). Liked the Gigabyte very much, but realized not many revisions had been put out yet. When I have so much $ on the line trading, generally not a fan of playing guinea pig and will opt for a motherboard that has been on the market for quite some time. Also made me a little nervous reading dominant attention would be paid to the upcoming x48 chipset, as if the x38 is a temporary stepping stone. Also found the best P35 board at $130 discount in comparison to the X38's. That $130 paid for both 8600 GT Dual DVI video cards. Don't need Crossfire full x16 electrical on 2nd PCIe x16 slot since the computer is strictly for trading/investing, not latest SLI optimized gaming. The 4x electrical is the same as 4x AGP, which was plenty of video card bandwidth for business/2d applications and most current games. P35 is simply the most tried and proven at the moment. Mature board & bios revisions, and excellent resources/configs available around the net. Very stable on significant overclocks.
Sounds reasonable. I did a little research and see that this board has some issues with 45nm processors, specifically the E8400.
LOL, I did that one time except rather then drill a hole I got extension cables and put the noisy culprit into a closet. John
Yes. Some shops are mostly repair I suppose, but others also assemble systems for retail sale. Such shops will build one for you with the parts you request.