Antec Aria case, DFI K8M800-MLVF mobo, Athlon 64 2800+ cooled by Zalman 7000AlCu, Corsair 512MB DDR400, Western Digital 250GB, Plextor PX712A DVD-writer, GeForce FX 5200.

all components arrived withing 1 day of each other - not bad timing for 3 different orders.

i am truly sceptical all this stuff will fit into that case.

yes, some more shots before the packaging is ripped apart.

first order of business - get rid of that fan grille on the back of the PSU. used simple wire cutters and went over it with dremel sanding disk - the aluminum is very easy to work with. btw, why did antec decide to put two grilles in there?! - there is already a grille on the PSU!

wanted to be able to toggle the two huge blue LEDs in the front of the case - will wire those via this switch on the back of the case.

wiring for the switch is tucked away into tiny wire holders.

i tried bunching all the wires together, with variable success.

motherboard, less the northbridge heatspreader. note the uneven thermal paste on the northbridge - good thing i pulled it and reapplied with AS5.

now the athlon 64 is ready for that huge zalman.

dwarfing the motherboard, zalman is gigantic! we are using the zalman voltage regulator to run the CPU fan at maybe 8V - that was it is silent, and CPU temps do not go over 45C.

some more zip ties, and the USB/firewire cables are semi-decent.

motherboard is now in the case. i had to remove the top PSU bracket as well as the PSU itself - it was almost easy once i did that.

most of the wiring is messy, but will be rearranged somewhat. btw, that GPU cooler has been replaced with vantec GPU cooler.

there is maybe 3mm clearance between the top of the zalman heatsink and the bottom of the PSU. it is a very tight fit, and at one point i was affraid i would have to file down the heatsink to make it fit.

now the drive cage is in place. we are not using antec's 5.25" blank, wanting to show off the plextor dvd-writer. i had to file out the mounting holes in the drive cage to let the optical drive be mounted about 5mm further forward, flush with the bezel.

the back, is all assembled, with a switch visible next to the power plug. the antec-supplies slot cooler was added a little later - it's quiet, and does remove some hot air.

all assembled and working. it was a nice little build, not too extreme, but i came to like the aria a lot.