A long time coming but now built and running both Windows 7 for gaming and openSUSE for every thing else.

Had a lot of fun putting this box together. As always quietness is a priority for me and I’m pleased to say this is a very quiet machine.

There have been many improvements in hardware since I built my last computer a few years ago. At last liquid cooling is affordable, this is a much quieter option than the stock CPU cooler. Also modern power supplies and graphics cards don’t spin their fans until they’re needed, making a noticeable reduction in noise levels. Rumbling Hard Disk Drives are replaced by silent Solid State Drives. Put all this in a case fitted with dense, sound-absorbing material and you have a whisper quiet computer. Just what I need.

With just one SSD fitted, Windows 7 was installed from a USB drive. Fast and painless. After testing the system using the utilities that came with the hardware. A second smaller SSD was fitted and openSUSE Linux was installed. As Windows cant boot a second drive with the newer UEFI bios the boot order must be changed to the second SSD letting Linux chain load Windows.

So now I enjoy fast start ups, playing games at high graphic settings, optical audio out, responsive desktops and all that … nice!

Components	:
CPU	AMD FX-8 8350
MOBO	ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0
GPU	ASUS GTX 960 STRIX
RAM	KINGSTON HyperX Fury 16GB (2X8GB) 1866MHz DDR3
SSD	CRUCIAL MX100 512GB Windows 7 installed
SSD	SANDISK 128GB openSUSE 13.2 installed
PSU	XFX XXX EDITION PSU 850 WATT
COOLER	NZXT KRAKEN X41
CASE	FRACTAL DESIGN R5 Black