Purposed Machines for Mult-Boxing...

[Shigan5]

With your powersupply you have a couple things to consider. The Watts specified for the products you have listed are the specifications for not at load, meaning when idle or just doing basic desktop stuff. While gaming your components will consume much more power.

The second thing is that the video card you are selecting is requesting a minimum of 300w power supply, granted thats not a necessity. But the big issue which will render it useless is that the video card you have there requires 18amps on the +12v rail. Now let me explain, there are different pwoer "rails" in your PS and each one has its own amperage, this number can vary depending on the power supply, but basically your graphics card requires that many amps on that rail or it will not get enough power. And i cant find a good description for your powersupply but looking at the pictures on Newegg the Amps on the 12v rail looks like a single digit number. I may be wrong. But these are important things to consider, as they can render your hardware useless.

One more thing, the 250W is a rated number, meaning it is not necessarily going to give you an exact 250W. Its just like harddrives, they say 250GB but they give like 246. And that number is also the MAX watts it supports, meaning once you hit 250W at load, the powersupply wont give anymore power and youll get system failure.

Also, does each of your boxes need a combination DVD/CD Burner? Just seems like a waste to me, but thats my opinion. Your going to be using these to box correct and each one is going to have one instance of wow?

[Sentack]

A good name brand ~ 250 is all you need.

Okay, so 250 is sufficent, but does the brand name mean anything other then adding more cost to the system? You seem to have a lot of experience with this sort of thing, so I trust your right, but I just need to know a little bit more about why some brand name PSU's are better then factory models.

EVGA 512-P2-N738-LR GeForce 8400GS 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

The 8400 is crap. Get the 8600.

What was it with the 8400? Just a sucky model in general? Part of the reason I picked the 8400 is because it's inexpensive and decently rated. Remember I'm not looking for blazing speeds here. Games like WOW don't need a massively powerful Graphics card. (I suspect Warhammer Online won't too) So since these will be my 2+ Man machines, I don't need a blazing graphics card.

[Sentack]

The second thing is that the video card you are selecting is requesting a minimum of 300w power supply, granted thats not a necessity. But the big issue which will render it useless is that the video card you have there requires 18amps on the +12v rail.

Okay THAT is a good reason for me to get a better power supply in general. Any recommendations, gentlemen? I hate picking products blindly. Which I've done for most of this shopping experience. So a 300w PSU should be reasonable? What are some good name brands for PSU's?

[Wilbur]

Certain brands are better because they use higher quality components which are far less prone to failiure (fires)

As has been stated, graphics cards require a decent amount on the +12V Rail.

Run out of power and you a) increase the risk of your PSU overworking itself and setting itself on fire.
b) Don't get as great performance as you could with a more powerful PSU.

[Xzin]

A 8400 does not NEED a 300 watt. But for a 8600, dual core, I would buy a name brand 300 and call it a day. Anything more is overkill for the rig you describe unless you want a little headroom for future growth.

[Xzin]

What was it with the 8400? Just a sucky model in general? Part of the reason I picked the 8400 is because it's inexpensive and decently rated. Remember I'm not looking for blazing speeds here. Games like WOW don't need a massively powerful Graphics card. (I suspect Warhammer Online won't too) So since these will be my 2+ Man machines, I don't need a blazing graphics card.

It's cheap for a reason.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...=854&chart=287

It's worse than a 6600 GT.

[Shigan5]

May I suggest a build for each box that will be much cheaper but run very effectively?

This is almost the same exact build of my old comp with mainly the same parts, other than a few improvements and a different case, but it will run WoW at full settings and get around 40-80 FPS everywhere except shatt, where youll get about 20ish depending on population and where your at, if your on a rise youll get 40ish again but i fur standing by the practicing guards thats where youll get 20 everywhere else was fine, but it never crashed on me and i never had any problems it was a very reliable build. This is also an improved build on the one you have at $160 cheaper, it has plenty of expandability and the power supply has sufficient power to addin other peripherals down the road if you need to.

CASE: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811119077
MotherBoard: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16813138077
Video: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814150229
Power: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817339012
Processor: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819103213
Memory: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820211066
Floppy: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16821103203
HD: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822135106
DVD/CD: http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16827135151

Final Price: $414.40

Basically your saving $160 per system, and itll run wow like a charm and you have upgrade room and plenty of power, u can upgrade to 4gb of ram later or add in a soundcard if need be, and the video card is much better than the one you have selected (it also comes with a free copy of Company of Heroes). Also if you plan to 5 box and you already have your main system by buying four of these would cost the same as buying 3 of the systems you had selected up top. Granted this requires more assembly but it is an overall more powerful/ cost effective build. The power supply also is 585 watts so you can add fans and any other fancys you would like. Its also the same power supply i currently use to run my system which is 4gb of ram a nvdia 9600gt and a athlon 6400+. along with other things

[Speedbump]

I think you would be horribly disappointed with the 8400. Tom's Hardware 2007 VGA Charts. *edit* Guess Xzin beat me to it while i was typing this up.

Notice how the 8600 GT performs 3x as well as the 8400, yet there is only a $30 price difference. EVGA 8600GT 256MG: $89.99

Also, I have two friends that have used the shuttles in the past. Both of them had heat issues that made the system unstable. They were fine for non gaming use, but that is not your goal. I purchased my rack mount cases, a 500 watt power supply, and a reliable MB for less than what you will be paying for that little shuttle.

[Shigan5]

The case, mb, and power supply i listed above is only if i remember right about 120 and theres plenty of airflow, with room for fans and the like.

[Sentack]

May I suggest a build for each box that will be much cheaper but run very effectively?
Final Price: $414.40

That's actually a great little set up you have there. I was hoping to make a really tiny line of boxes for visual purposes but you have something there that's actually pretty decent deal and has a lot of horsepower. I might try grabbing two of those systems, assembling them and testing them out myself. Thanks for the advice. Pretty damn sweet.