starkers, i think you're due for a cpu cooling upgrade. (hint, hint)

Oh, yeah.....like he needs another fan....

He already has more fans than Manchester United ....

lol!  My shop wasn't that far off.

Hey, Mark... you might want to get your stuff further off the floor... also, more air circulation (think you had plans for that).

The Zalman cooler has performed well enough with multi-cores up until now, but I'm not opposed to upgrading it to protect my investment, so what would you recommend? 

I just had a look at the Thermaltake site [bookmarked so it was the easiest] and saw this.....

Its the Frio OCK... can pick it up for $74.00 AUD.  Good enough or should I go for the Frio Extreme for $91.00 AUD?

Then there's this....

The dual fan Thermaltake Jing CPU cooler at 76.00 AUD.  I've never though liquid cooling before, but for a few extra bucks or so I can get this...

It's the Thermaltake BigWater A80 all liquid cooling for $85.00 AUD

Anyhow, tell me what you think... I do like Thermaltake, just in case you didn't notice, and there are others here that I didn't ask about/feature.

You never miss an opportunity, do you... and yeah, I probably do have more fans than Man U.

The shelf the Case sits on is about an inch off the ground and the case is elevated a bit over an inch by the feet, so I'm not concerned about that.  There's about an inch either side and the desk is about 5 inches off the wall, so it has reasonable ventilation.  However, I do plan to lift the desktop lid so I can drill that series of holes in the shelf just above the top fans... of course pulling out the tower first to avoid crap dropping in the vents.

Will that be enough? Last time I stuck a computer in a space this size (albeit nearly 20 years ago) I ended up putting a floor fan against the wall behind the desk and taking the cover off of the computer.

Yeah, I think it will be enough.  With the internal fans and ventilation holes I'm making I think it'll be fine.  Besides, MadDeez has advised a better CPU cooler, and that might answer any overheating issues if I invest in the right one.

My current CPU cooler is a Hyper 212 plus and works better than I ever imagined.  So those heatpipe models should be fine, although fitting them with two fans is just silly.

I checked out the Hyper 212 Evo for $37.00 AUD, but it only has 4 heat pipes and I may need more/better, given the 40c plus Summer temps... can reach 44c...and that it's an 8 core that's quite over-clockable to 5ghz +.  Don't know that I'd ever consider that, but I do like to leave my options open.

While at the Coolermaster site I did check out the Coolermaster V8, which I can pick up for $72.00 AUD.  Then there's the Coolermaster V6GT for the same price. Both have 6 copper heatpipes so either would seem adequate.

So yeah, so far I'm tossing up between the 2 Coolermasters and the Thermaltake Frio range... possibly the OCK.  I'll wait and see what MadDeez advises, however, and take it from there.

Edit: Oh, and the two fans, according to the Coolermaster site, is to increase air pressure within the fins, thus improving cooling.

nice-looking box there Starkers

Instead of lots of little holes , you could cut a large one (6x9 or better) and cover it with a speaker grill. Wouldn't hurt to put one in the side of the cabinet either, since grills normally come in pairs.

I finally took mine out of it's pidgeon hole, but only because it was such a pain to pull out to clean it. With 3 cats, PC hairballs can be a killer. It had a door on it but I did leave it open most of the time while the rig was running.

Excellent idea. 

Thank Dave... I reckon so as well... obviously.

Actually, that's not a bad idea, Wiz... an excellent one, in fact.  I could put one on the shelf above midway between the fans, and one on the wall between the pigeonhole and where I sit/put my legs.  That would really open up ventilation to the side intake fan and to top fans.  There's an audio section at my local JB Hi-Fi, and I recently spied some speaker grills that'd fit the bill perfectly.  They are for 12" Woofers so they'd be perfect for what I want. 

Thanks for the brilliant idea.

 Functional and sylish.    I'm glad you like it. 

Now all you need is a hinged trap door for that docking bay.

starkers, my suggestion for the cpu cooler would be the bigwater, as I have found that the temps are more stable (and lower) with water cooling(using a small corsair h60) and overclocking compared to even a prolematech's megaheme with two fans and exausting straight out of the case and the same degree of overclocking, and yes I also get over 40 degree c days in my workshop.

and a very neat set of cabling there.

another possible idea regarding the use of the dock and usb ports would be to build a small extension to the base of the bay the computer is in so that the tower can be permently slid forward

jafo, yes I was trying and succeeding in getting raises out of those that do not have enough tolerance, then I went to bed.

harpo

They're inches away from eachother.  That's ridiculous.  You might as well stick 700 fans in your case, because it'll be ridiculously stupid but it will improve cooling!