New life for a Dragon DX01 case

I working on my first build in about 10 years...yeah. Its been awhile.

The one thing I dont want to give up is my old Chieftec Dragon case. This is the old
Alienware style box.

Its still sweet looking after all these years.

I'm thinking about either a Hd 5670 or a 6670 card...there is my question in a nutshell.

I cant find anywhere that gives the card dimensions. From the back of the case to within about an inch of where the hdd sets in its cage, I have 9". Is this enough?

The other question is about ram. I'm thinking about going with 1600mhz ram vs the 1333. I would think this would give a little head room for some overclocking (nothing too radical).

The rest of the specs are looking like this.

Asus M5A97 mobo
8 gigs of ddr 3
amd am3 quad core in the 3ghz range
coolermaster 650 psu.

I tell you what. With all the new tech out now, I feel like a noob!

Thanks for your time.

Check details on newegg for the card you want. They're usually there.

Example: 6.46" x 4.21" x 1.57"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102988

Thank you so much!

I've been catching up on all the new tech and was getting spooked about my case.

Some of these cards sound like the old VESA bus cards from "the old days".

I remember my vesa. It was a Hercules. I think it had 1mb of ram!

It went with my 16mb of onboard ram and my 66DX amd.

Upgraded to a Matrox 200 later on.

No prob. Glad to see you're planning ahead before dropping teh cash and finding you've got 10 pounds of sugar and a 5 pound bag.

The Hercules was awesome :p I think my first actual card was an old Trident with 1mb as well.

Hope you enjoy the build man.

I hate to say it, but new cases, even cheap ones, are miles better than cases from even 3 years ago. Practically allcases have cable management holes and tooless access now. Cooling and noise are better too. Might want to browse newegg just for fun, they run great deals on cheap cases some times.

If you have a microcenter close, go by and get your CPU and motherboard combo there. They have deep discounts compared to newegg and they offer 50 bucks right off the top of a CPU and motherboard combo.

I've looked at the combo's....not really impressed.

I like to build and forget. Too much of what i have read says that formerly great boards (msi) are not so much of a guarantee any longer. I used to have an msi and loved it too.

I'm amazed at the lack of companies around now that are gone.

Soyo? Albatron? Iwill? They've all gone. Asus seems to be the last man standing for a good board.

I considered an Asrock. They seem to be a mixed bag. If is good, its good, if not you'll find out pretty fast.
That surprises me being they are part of Asus.

I cant believe that ecs is even an afterthought anymore. I attempted a couple of those about 10 years ago. Got a proc and board for the price of a proc so no loss. they were crap and the bios was a joke.

I've considered a new box but
1. I'm tight.
2. I reeeeeally like my dragon case. It was my first "high end" case other than my enermax mid tower. Thats a tough case but not much for features.

My above specs are still pretty solid. Theres a new board of similiar specs to the M5A97 called a M5A97 LE R2.0. its a bit more "future proof".

I'm finally settled on video now. I'm looking to go back to nvidia (last one was a gf3 300 series. I'm going with a Ti 550 fermi from Evga. Seems pretty stout for the money.