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  • Saist - Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - link

    The Thermaltake Bach Media Case weighs in at only $120, about half the cost of the Zalman, and offers similar cooling with a similar design. Okay, so I don't get the remote. That's fine, I already have a remote that works with Linux and MythTV.

    Okay, so I don't get the inbuilt LED display. That's fine too, I can live without it.

    No thanks Zalman, but I'll stick with the Thermaltake for now.
  • topher42 - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Take a look at the OrigenAE X11.
    They came out last year.
    I put together a HTPC with an X11
    in January.

    And the Seasonic S12 series of
    power supplies are quieter and
    cooler.

  • AnnonymousCoward - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    MOSFETs? Are you serious? Just call them ICs. Or chips, or silicon. It's not like you're talking about individual discrete transistors, are you?

    Okay, maybe it's a common term, but I think it's ridiculous.
  • Stele - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    ^ Are you serious? Because he was. He meant MOSFETs. The power MOSFETs of the power supply circuitry to the CPU. Yes, he is talking about those individual discrete transistors.

    It's 'transistors' and ICs that're the more common, and in fact general, term. 'Silicon' is what the actual dies are made of, and you don't have bare silicon around a motherboard so that term's inapplicable here. Reading/understanding would help before shooting your mouth off ;)
  • AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    I didn't know there was such thing as discrete MOSFETs, individually packaged. That doesn't make sense to me. I thought you'd always have an integrated circuit, when there's at least 1 MOSFET present. Surely you can't find a black chip with 3 terminals--gate, drain, and source.

    So, I stand by my original point that these things should be referred to on an "IC level", not "transistor level". As far as I know, you can't point to an object on the motherboard and say "that's a MOSFET", since you'd be pointing to many of them at once in an IC. Of course, maybe I'm wrong. That's just my understanding, as an EE.
  • topher42 - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Look up power devices.

    International rectifier for one.
    Maybe a TO-220 package?

    You but three terminal mosfets when you
    want to control power.

    Forinstance on a mother board where you
    change the voltage to the cpu in the bios.

    The ic's input the the mosfet gate and
    the mosfet controls vastly more power
    than the ic.

    For instance. Cpu is 100 watts at
    1.xx volts.

    That's 50 to 100 amps, all varied in the
    bios.

    Do you know of an ic that can do that?

    VHDL guy?

  • AnnonymousCoward - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Okay. I've never heard of MOSFETs used outside of ICs as discrete high power devices. I've used Verilog, but not regularly.
  • Stele - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    Hi topher42 ,

    Not sure what exactly you were driving at as you confused a few terms and concepts there, especially since a MOSFET is an IC.

    They come in a fairly wide variety of packages, TO-220 being just one of many. The kind you normally see on motherboards are generally TO-261, DPAK or D2PAK - black, square with a metal tab (soldered to the motherboard) and short legs. Stuff you buy for power amps usually come in TO-3 for max power dissipation, ease of mounting (you can bolt the whole thing on a big heatsink) where compactness is not of concern.

    MOSFETs don't have to come with three legs if you want to 'control power', as they have nothing to do with each other... by the way, there are 3, 4 and even 6-leg MOSFETs, depending on design (6-legged ones are usually dual MOSFETs for low-medium power applications where board density is very important).

    Em, you can't vary the current (50 to 100 amps, you say) via BIOS, only voltage. And the settings don't go to the MOSFETs directly - they go to the pulse-wave modulation (PWM) controller IC, which then adjusts the output voltage ;)


    Hi AnnonymousCoward,

    As a professional (i.e., working) EE or EE student you must surely know about MOSFETs being discrete, individually packaged devices as that is the most basic package for them (like any transistor). Yes, you can go to any electronics store, your lab, your working place (or the section that handles EE hardware) or even just browse casually through any semiconductor manufacturer's catalog and find many, MANY MOSFETs in simple, 3-terminal packages (several which I've mentioned already above). With Gate, Drain and Source clearly labelled in the respective datasheets. As a further help to jog your memory (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you already know all this, but perhaps just forgot), the term 'MOSFET' alone in the industry generally refers to the transistor in its discretely packaged form. If one wishes to refer to the MOSFETs inside an IC, it is indicated and understood contextually... e.g. "we suspect excessive drain current in one of the MOSFETs in that design, causing heat and electrical overstress failure on the metal layer".

    Integrating them as part of an IC is just an expansion of that concept, and for the same reasons you must surely also know that transistors are the basic building blocks of most ICs; therefore, it is not surprising to see more than one MOSFET, BJT or a combination of the two on the same die in an IC design. Perhaps you'd like to check back with your electronics notes? :)

    To refer to the MOSFETs as ICs is not wrong. However, since there are many ICs on the motherboard, it does not at all indicate which specific IC(s) the reviewer was referring to - which, in this case, are the power MOSFETs of the CPU power supply circuitry. You can point them out as MOSFETs, because as already mentioned, the term is understood to refer to discretely packaged MOSFETs - and usually used in power supply circuitry applications.

    VHDL and Verilog characterise devices by describing and simulating the chips and systems prior to fabrication, so it's not too useful a tool to learn anything physical about a device, like packaging and so on. That requires a datasheet. :)
  • AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    Thinking about it, in lab once or twice I probably did use a discrete component with 3-4 integrated MOSFETs. I used discrete BJTs more often, though.

    "MOSFETs being discrete, individually packaged devices as that is the most basic package for them"

    Most basic, yes, but not the most common. Through college, and now working in the semiconductor industry, I have almost never dealt with discrete MOSFETs. So, in power-controlling applications, when are discrete MOSFETs used and when are relays used?
  • topher42 - Monday, April 3, 2006 - link

    relays have better off isolation.

    Some small signal fets can achieve
    decent off impedance but not power devices.

    It's all in what you want to build.

    ASIC, FPGA, BJT, power FET.

    When I design a op-amp, I want to
    use bjt's. And I like power bjt's
    for audio power amp outputs.

  • Stele - Monday, April 3, 2006 - link

    Good post, well said.

    As for using BJTs in audio power amps, I agree with you. It's a good thing... properly selected and implemented, they're generally known to give better sound than FETs (especially in the form of substantially lower distortion and noise figure), as much as triodes/vacuum tubes have excellent distortion and noise characteristics. I used an all-discrete, all-BJT design for an audio power amp competition several years ago; trickier to get right but ultimately satisfying sound quality compared to some designs that took the short cut and dropped in power-amp ICs (mostly from ST, IIRC). :P
  • Stele - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    Hi topher42,

    quote:

    What are you calling integrated?
    Most power fets are one transistor and nothing else in the package.
    Not much integration.


    Now how did that slip by me... yes, you're perfectly right. Was trying to be careful not to make that mistake but in the end still tripped on that common misuse of the term. Thank you for pointing it out, I stand corrected :)

    20kW amps??? That's powerful alright, no surprise about being a headache to keep cool :)

    I mentioned TO-3's along with the other packages to illustrate my point that discrete MOSFETs don't always have to come in 3-legged form, though you're right that they're a big too big for motherboard mobos.

    quote:

    The EE's I deal with that don't know a fet from an asic are usually the digital
    designers designers that never get closer to a part than their VHDL code.


    I see your point, and it kind of explains certain things nowadays... oh well, gone were the hands-on approach of the good old days :P


    Hi Clauzii

    As with topher42 you're right that a discrete MOSFET is not an 'IC', srictly-speaking. I really must be more careful not to mix them up!

    However, a MOSFET is not really a "constructional technique in a transistor"; rather, it is a transistor (the most common type of FET, of which there are several kinds) that is made using a particular constructional technique (metal/polycrystalline on gate oxide on silicon etc as opposed to bipolar junctions on BJTs) and that works using a particular method of operation (field effect, as opposed to BJTs). :)


    Hi AnnonymousCoward,

    quote:

    Most basic, yes, but not the most common.


    Granted not the most common in the objective sense, and you may not need to work with them much unless you're involved in, say, power circuitry design. After all, you did mention that you normally use BJTs more. :)

    However, it is really common enough in terms of availability and application that it's about universally known, like the 'regular' BJT, especially in (but not limited to) the semiconductor community/industry. Besides, major semiconductor companies sport hundreds to more than a thousand of such devices in their product lists and they're used in an enormous number of electronic devices, from handphones to motherboards to power amplifiers (audio and electrical).

    quote:

    So, in power-controlling applications, when are discrete MOSFETs used and when are relays used?


    MOSFETs are used in many (dare I say most?) modern power supply applications in electronic devices these days, especially in switch-mode (as opposed to linear) power supplies. Briefly, the MOSFETs in such power supplies are used as digital 'switches' that are rapidly turned on and off a hundred or more times a second to provide power - the amount of power required is varied by changing their duty cycle (how long they stay ON or OFF). This is a whole field by itself, so no-one can blame you if you're not thoroughly familiar with it (I don't pretend to be either! :P).

    Relays are used as mechanical switches that isolate two or more circuits yet allow one to control the other(s). A common (but certainly not only use is to allow a low-voltage low-current circuit to control/switch a high-voltage high-current circuit, e.g. when you use a battery-powered light-sensing circuit to turn your room light on.

    Opto-couplers and FETs (in the form of solid-state relay ICs) can do the job too, but relays are cheap, readily available, fairly reliable, easy to troubleshoot and generally can handle more current and voltage than a semiconductor counterpart. Of course, relays are bulky, noisy, can introduce damaging surges in the energising circuit when switching on and off (due to the inductance of the coil), and cannot switch as fast as a semicon equivalent, but that's the way it is :)
  • Clauzii - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    To repeat myself:

    MOS-FET is a constructional technique in a transistor, be it a small one inside a IC or a single "gate" in a device.

    An IC is more than one component in the same housing. The MOS-FETs used on mobos are NOT ICs, but Field Effect Transistors made using Metal On Silicon process.
  • Clauzii - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    PS: When do DT check up on their f...... Forum System - it´s flawed like h... :)
  • Clauzii - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    To repeat myself:

    <b>MOS-FET is a constructional technique in a transistor, be it a small one inside a IC or a single "gate" in a device. </b>

    An IC is more than one component in the same housing. The MOS-FETs used on mobos are NOT ICs, but Field Effect Transistors made using Metal On Silicon process.
  • topher42 - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - link

    stele.

    "especially since a MOSFET is an IC."

    What are you calling integrated?

    Most power fets are one transistor
    and nothing else in the package.

    Not much integration.

    Most of the 6 pin devices I have used
    were for low current noise differential
    inputs were you wanted identical devices
    and temperature tracking.

    And I have used the big packages when
    designing and building 20 kilowatt
    amplifiers. Pain to cool....

    I was pointing out that the bios would
    have a problem controlling the cpu voltage
    without power fets. to3's would be a
    little big for that app.

    The EE's I deal with that don't know a
    fet from an asic are usually the digital
    designers designers that never get closer
    to a part than their VHDL code.
  • Clauzii - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Nice with a guy that knows what he´s talking about :)
    Also, almost all amplifiers for professional use (including old estimated Hafler P500, Crown, Ampeq etc.) are build whith MOS-FETs in single TO-3 (metal) etc. housings.
    MOS-FET is a constructional technique in a transistor, be it a small one inside a IC or a single "gate" in a device.
  • nullpointerus - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    I'd just like to put my vote in for "geeky electrical thingies."

    Seriously, does this matter to 99% of the readers?
  • SonicIce - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It's official! Joshua Buss of Anandtech does bad case wiring jobs!
  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Believe it or not, I don't do 'great' wiring jobs inside cases for testing as a matter of choice. Typically, users don't spend enough time routing cables neatly enough to stop all airflow blocking problems, thus I feel it's more accurate to actually leave a little cable clutter behind. Besides, if I spend much more time on it than the average user would, I'm not providing a good sense of how easy it is to do the cable management - I'd simply be showing off. The best way to give people a sense of how the case is laid out is to spend roughly the same amount of time in each case trying to clean them up a bit and see how far I get. With this case, I was able to get the majority of the mess out of the way with almost no effort, which is a testamanet to the ample space inside the HD-160.
  • SonicIce - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    yeah i was just joking around man. you did a good job reviewing it the way you did.
  • JoshuaBuss - Monday, April 3, 2006 - link

    Thanks man, I never am sure on these little 'comments' sections.. I tend to get a lot of crap here.. haha.

    I kinda guessed that you were joking actually, but wanted to take the time to clarify why exactly I cable it the way I do anyway. I suppose for a lot of people, they might've read your post and NOT thought it was meant in jest.
  • 4AcesIII - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Thermaltake's Mozart and Bach cases have that thing beat hands down at less money. And why not tell us that the vfd and remote are farmed out to Imon by Soundgraph? Anyone notice how the vid cooler eliminates use of slot next to video? If you're going to do that why not get something that puts the hot air out the back like some other after market vid coolers do? This is nothing other than a big black box with alot of stuff bought from others to put into and with it and not especially attractive either but that sorta follows Zalman's history in my opinion. Go ahead and buy it if you want a Yugo get something else if you want quality.
  • segagenesis - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    I think this is the HTPC case I've been waiting for. Screw how big it is... I want as quiet as possible.
  • topher42 - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Take a look at the OrigenAE X11.
  • ScarletGrayFire - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It's about time we have an HTPC case capable of quietly cooling a high-performance HTPC! This case fits right in the audio rack, and with three 80mm fan locations and enough room for a quiet CPU HSF, one can run an Athlon FX CPU with a state of the art video card. Also, an Arctic cooling vga cooler will push some of the heat in the PCI card area out the back of the case. Word is that this case is actually manufactured by OrigenAE.
  • mbhame - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Those pictures are awful. What gives??
  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    care to elaborate? any particular pics? I thought most turned out very good actually..?

  • Howard - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It's spelled "exemplary", and I only see 3 discrete copper heat pipes (re: Zalman 9500).
  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Thank you. I don't know what I was thinking.. I knew it was three all along..heh.
  • LoneWolf15 - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    I have a camera that uses xD picture cards, and it seems that 7 out of 10 card readers leave this format off. They're not that uncommon, and it's really begun to bother me.

    Otherwise, it looks nice, though I'd nitpick one final thing: If there is a way to make the fan grill on the top of the case look a little more refined and a little less "cheap cookie-cutter PC" like, I'd be all for it.
  • krwilsonn - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    It is worth noting that when installing the Zalman GPU cooler, you could probably heat up the old fan assembly with some intense 3d processing to heat and soften the thermal adhesive before removing and replacing it.
  • cyanic74 - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Or better yet, a hair dryer!! Worked well for me.
  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Good point, but with the stock heatsink still attached, it does cool off very fast after being turned off
  • AGAC - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Lovely Case. I just can´t wait until next gen HD players (wether BR or HDVD) come out and I´ll finaly have a computer to manage TV, audio and video playback in the living room. Too many pending issues related to software and hardware on the HD front to do it now (Vista, HDCP video cards and monitors). This case certainly will be in my short list when the dust settles.
    Oh, BTW, what about freezing the video card for some hours before snapping off the heatsink?
  • topher42 - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    Whats wrong with the DVICO fusion 5 series?

    Does HD for me just fine.

    Cheaper than a video card.
  • JoshuaBuss - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    when metal is cold there's a better chance of it breaking.. I'd definitely not recommend this.
  • Tiamat - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    I think this case has quite a bit of promise. Unlike most other HTPC cases, this one has the ability to house quiet 80mm fans and seems to have good HDD vibration control. Additionally, a good amount of ventilation around hot areas seems to be present. Its quite pricy just like any other Zalman product, but overall pretty nice.

    I would probably get a Silverstone LC-17 case over this one due to cost savings however it is nice to see zalman tackle the htpc arena without an 800-1200$ solution.
  • AndrewChang - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Seeing a couple reviews around the web, in the back of my mind I was hoping that you guys would take a look at this. I honestly don't think this Zalman case is THAT big... Well... OK maybe, but the fact is, it is quite handsome and this would look perfect sitting beside the pieces of HiFi equipment found in countless homes and home theaters.

    What I think you guys should really look at exploring though, is one's quest for high end computing silence. While this may seem totally irrelevant to the topic on hand (or maybe even like a guerilla marketing shill), it really isn't. With more and more people using their PC's as their home entertainment focal points, noise becomes a huge issue. I'm sure it would be REALLY valuable to a great deal many people.

    Anyways, thanks again!
  • krwilsonn - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    quote:

    What I think you guys should really look at exploring though, is one's quest for high end computing silence. While this may seem totally irrelevant to the topic on hand (or maybe even like a guerilla marketing shill), it really isn't. With more and more people using their PC's as their home entertainment focal points, noise becomes a huge issue. I'm sure it would be REALLY valuable to a great deal many people


    That was half of the point of the article IMO. When they are able to configure this box to be 2 db over ambient noise of the room, it can probably pass for silent unless you are putting your ear next to it. Since this is a HTPC, you will not have it on your desk anyway, and unless you live in a closet, you will be sitting at least a few feet away from your tv and home theater setup.

    I only bring this up because I think it is impossible to do away with fans. Even if you watercool, you still have a radiator with whirring fans, as well as a separate PSU fan (I wonder if anyone has watercooled a PSU? I'm sure that it would be a hit among enthusiasts). Unless you go with the ridiculously expensive Zalman "totally no noise" series of cases or buy the tower radiator for your water circuit then you have to have fans in your machine. There are, of course, other niche products such as fanless psu's but your mileage may vary in terms of performance. I remember reading in Maximum PC mag last year about some completely fanless machines that they built (watercooling on cpu/vga/chipset and a passively cooled PSU I think). I can't remember the configuration exactly but I believe it had zero fans and the results were poor because there was no airflow over the motherboard components and they were getting very hot. They basically pooh-poohed the experiment due to zero airflow in the case.

    I only bring this up because I believe it takes extreme and/or expensive measures to make a machine silent. The best solution that would be affordable and effective IMO would be an Antec Sonata with a sound insulating kit (trapping heat along with the noise) as well as 120mm fans on the front and rear of the case with some mechanism to control the fans as well as a PSU with a 120mm fan with some sort of fan control also. Since the Sonata is designed for silence out of the box, it is certainly suited for this task.

    None of this is news to anyone here, I'm sure, and I may be inaccurate about some things, but I believe that you can't really do away with fans in a normal gaming oriented machine so you have to design the best fan configuration to suit your situation and need for silence. I was just surprised to read the above post asking for a silent pc, as if 30db wasn't quiet enough. There is a trade off between quiet fans and temperatures and you have to find a happy medium between the least fans and keeping temps in check if you want silence.

    I don't personally have experience with specifically "quiet" 80mm fans so I'm wondering, are they very quiet at standard RPM's? I wish I could do away with fans smaller than 120mm so it's a bummer to see them used in an otherwise great looking case. The benchmarks speak for themselves here in terms of noise, though, so they must be close to silent.

    Thanks for a great review. It would be a bargain if $250 included the PSU. I don't think that was specified in the review. Sorry about the wordy post, as there are so many factors involved with quiet computing that came to mind.

  • krwilsonn - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    "edit" Ok so it says the PSU is a separate product in the first paragraph. Nevermind my inquiry about that. Also, to the author, nice work on the JPEG's... no complaints here (???)
  • nullpointerus - Saturday, April 1, 2006 - link

    It's more cost efficient to get longer cables and move the HTPC away from the listening position(s). And you might even be able to find an external DVD burner to sit on your entertainment center and run a 10 ft. USB or Firewire cable to the HTPC.
  • Fluffiette - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    :-*
  • logeater - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    Worst. Case. Ever.
  • logeater - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    first...
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    not...
  • creathir - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    This thing is TOO big for my tastes.
    When I think HTPC, I think small, quiet, & compact. This sucker is about the size of a normal ATX case, laid on its side.
    - Creathir
  • BornStar18 - Friday, March 31, 2006 - link

    The advantage I see to this case is that it seems to be the same size as a reciever. That would mean that it wouldn't mess with your ability to stack devices like the half depth DVD players or narrow TiVos and VCRs. I see the size as a good thing.

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