Newb to building computers, using 2.6c

[Maxwell Murder]

Hello, I've been running an HP Pavilion 7920 for about 2 years now (My parents bought me it august of 2000)

Windows XP Home Edition
900MHZ Celeron
128 RAM
32MB SiS Video Card
CD-RW and a CD Rom Drive
30 Gig HD

Needless to say I’m sick of it, and I hate it. So I've been looking into building my own PC so far this is what I've come up with. I also don’t know what to do for cooling for this machine, so advice for that would be great. I also intend to OC the machine eventually so please take that into consideration for cooling.

Procssor - Pentium 4 2.6c
Motherboard - Asus P4P8X
Memory - Corsair Memory 512MBx2 PC3200
Video Card - ATI 9800 Pro 128MB
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM
Case - Chieftec Server Chasis Black w/450Watt Foxconn Power Supply
OS - Windows XP Home Edition
DVD Drive - Lite On 16x DVD Drive
CD-RW - Lite On 52x32x52x

What should I change? I can afford adding extra cash to this. Is there a better form of memory I should get? Or Motherboard?

[Maxwell Murder]

I am also buying this from newegg.com

[krag]

First off...WELCOME TO THE FORUMS BRO!!!!!!!!:clap: :clap: :clap:


Don't get the P4P8 some peeps have had lots O' probs with it. Get a canterwood mobo An IC7 is fairly cheap but get one of the Deluxe modles either a Asus P4C800 or a Abit IC7. A little more $ but you said that was no prob & if you're gonna oc you want some mem with a bit more headroom than pc3200 go for the OCZ PC3700 Gold mem...lots of peeps been getting DDR500 out of it that means you're mem is doing 250fsb on a 1:1 divider =MASSIVE BANDWIDTH!!

Drop the foxconn PSU and get an Antec with equal wattage.


The rest looks fairly good.:cool:

[Bobtod]

Don't know much about the P4P8X, i've had no problems with the P4P800 Deluxe and have recommended it to 3 of my work mates who are all happy running their 2.4c's @ 3ghz+.
Maybe you could get 2x40 or 2x60gig drives in Raid 0 (if mobo has raid) instead of the 80 gig drive to speed things up a bit, mine takes about 7-8 secs to load XP after the bios has finished posting ;o).
If i could build mine again i'd swap the 2.6c for a 2.4c and spend the money on some PC3700 memory (i hear OCZ PC3700 gold is good). You'll benefit from a much better memory bandwidth as both chips overclock about the same anyway.
As for cooling i hear the Thermalright SLK900 is the best you'll get on air. I got my 2.6c up to 3.3ghz with load temps in the mid 40's with the stock HSF using AS3 and similar results with a 2.4c also.

Either way you go you'll have a great system. My suggestions would just get you a few more 3dmark points IMO.

[micamica1217]

I have to say that the 2.6c and two sticks of pc3500(say from corsair) would be a great combo.
if you can spring for OCZ gold then that would be great.

I also think that if you must go springdale then the abit IS7 is a better choice....yet I too think that canterwoods are better.
the IC7 is fairly cheap....yet you'll need a NIC.

I too think you should get an antec true 430w or better.

good luck

mica

[krag]

Dooohhoooo! Stupid me I forgot to include cooling (2nd most important part) do what Bobtod says get the Thermalright SLK900 its DaBomb!!!

[Ec]-[oMaN]

my mobo works fine =)

[krag]

Ok I flubbed, :o I first thought you were gonna get the Asus P4S8X which is the SIS 648 chipset. Go ahead and get the mobo that you first selected it is the springdale chipset and also a very good board.

[Maxwell Murder]

Processor - 2.6C

Motherboard - ABIT IC7-G, Intel 875P chipset for Socket 478 800MHz Canterwood ATX Motherboard

Memory - OCZ Technology 512MB (2x256MB) DDR PC3700 Dual Channel Gold Edition (Buying 2 to equal 1,028)

Video Card - ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb

Case - Chieftec w/ 450W Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=11-125-224

OS - Windows XP Home Edition

DVD Drive - Lite On 16x DVD Drive

CD-RW - Lite On 52x32x52x

Floppy - Samsung 1.44MB Floppy Drive

Thermalright SLK-900-U ( Heatsink ONLY ). All Copper heat spread. AMD: Athlon XP Palamino, Thoroughbred, and Barton 2800+ and up. Intel: Pentium-4 socket-478 3.06 GHz and above


So,
Would I need any more cooling?
What Hard Drive should I Buy?
What processor 2.4c 2.6c or 2.8c?
I've decided I want the chieftec due to looks, should I buy a chieftec w/o a power supply? If so which power supply?
Is there anything on here unnecessary? Or something that could reduce the cost w/o noticeably reducing the power of the machine?

Sorry if I'm asking so many questions, I love information.

[Poobah]

If you're going for 1gb of ram which is probably a good idea I wouldnt go with 4 sticks.. more risk of trouble. go for 2 sticks of 512.

[micamica1217]

Originally posted by Poobah
If you're going for 1gb of ram which is probably a good idea I wouldnt go with 4 sticks.. more risk of trouble. go for 2 sticks of 512.

agreed....get 2x512 then 4x256

also, the true 430w from antec is a great start.

one last thing....don't forget case cooling.
2 quiet fans should do well...but 4 fans may be a little better.

if you can, go for the 2.6c....the 2.4c is good only if you can't spend the extra cash.

mica

[batboy]

Nice shopping list. Depends on what your overclocking goal is, but with a 2.6C CPU, you probably don't need the OCZ PC3700 Gold. Maybe save a few bucks and get Corsair PC3500 C2 instead. The Gold will allow you to use the 1:1 ratio up to 240 FSB (if you're lucky maybe as much as 250 FSB, but I would not hold your breath). Above that, you'll have to use the 5:4 ratio anyway. The PC3500 will be in spec using the 5:4 ratio up to 270 FSB or so. That's 3.5 gig which is probably more than the CPU will do anyway.

[Ec]-[oMaN]

yup most people are just wasting their money on these gold ocz unless you have a 3.0c dont buy them

[batboy]

Well... if you have an exceptional 2.4C that does 300 FSB, the Gold might be nice to use the 5:4 ratio instead of having to drop down to the 3:2 ratio. Also, the 2.8C might be a good candidate to use the Gold and 1:1 ratio.

[Maxwell Murder]

So whats the diffrence between pc 3200, pc3500, and pc3700?

What kind of hardrive should I choose?

[krag]

Originally posted by Maxwell Murder
So whats the diffrence between pc 3200, pc3500, and pc3700?

What kind of hardrive should I choose?

Heres a rip from VR-zone's release of Kingston's new DDR500 "cas 3 :(" this gives you a good idea of the relavant speeds according to the pr name.

Description Settings
333MHz (PC2700) 2-2-2-5-1 (CAS Latency 2)
370MHz (PC3000) 2-2-2-6-1 (CAS Latency 2)
434MHz (PC3500) 2-3-3-7-1 (CAS Latency 2)
466MHz (PC3700) 3-4-4-8-1 (CAS Latency 3)
500MHz (PC4000) 3-4-4-8-1 (CAS Latency 3)


CAS 2 or 2.5 veddy goot
CAS 3 not zo goot

[Maxwell Murder]

Is there a diffrence between the corsair xms platinum series and the normal black corsair xms sticks? And what Hard Drive should I be looking at?

And for the Radeons im buying an ATI OEM Sapphire for 365.00, whats the diffrence between the Guillemot Hercules 9800 PRO 128MB - OEM for 395.00

And what does OEM stand for?

[batboy]

The difference in PC3200, PC3500, and PC3700 is the DDR speed rating (see Krag's post). The higher the number the "faster" the RAM is rated and the more expensive it is. The PC3500 is a good match for the 2.6C when you use the 5:4 memory ratio (a BIOS setting).

I've seen review after review and test after test that showed no significant difference between the platinum and black heatsinks on the Corsair XMS. Pick whatever color trips your trigger.

For harddrive if you want the standard ATA, I'd get either the Western Digital Special Edition or Maxtor DiamondMax. Make sure whichever drive you get has 7,200 RPM, ATA133, and 8 meg cache (if you want the best performance). They have the newer Serial ATA harddrives available now too. They are pretty fast.

OEM=Original Equipment Manufacturer... what it means in this context is that you get just the vid card and minimal accessories. The retail version comes in the fancy box and instruction manual and sometimes comes with extra software plus all the bells and whistles.

As far exact differences between the Sapphire and Hercules, I don't know. Maybe ask in the Vid Card Section. But they use the same ATI Radeon 9800 Pro chipset and specs. Hercules is known to be an excellent brand, but I've heard of lots of happy campers using the Sapphire card too. Probably can't go wrong with either.

[Maxwell Murder]

Originally posted by batboy
Pick whatever color trips your trigger.

Word, and thank you for being soooo helpful, You guys are awesome.

[Maxwell Murder]

Processor - 2.6C Pentium 4
Mother Board - ABIT IC7-G, Intel 875P chipset for Socket 478 800MHz Canterwood ATX
Memory - Corsair XMS PC3500 2x512MB Sticks = 1,028 With Platinum Silver Heat Spreader
Video Card - ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Hard Drive - Western Digital 80GB HD, 7,200 RPM, IDE ULTRA ATA100, 8 Meg Cache
OS - Windows XP
DVD Drive - Lite On 16x DVD Drive
CD-RW - Lite On 52x32x52x
Floppy - Samsung 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Case - Chieftec w/ 450W Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=11-125-224
Cooling - Thermalright SLK-900-U
Antec Case fan With Blue LEDs Lights 2x

Anything else that could lower the cost w/o lowering performance?
Do I need any more cooling?

*Edited because I forgot to put the video card in*

[batboy]

Looking good. Personally I'd get the ATA133 harddrive instead of the ATA100, but that's up to you. That case comes with 3 case fans and you have listed two more, so case cooling is fine. The only thing I'd add is a tube of Arctic Silver 3. The IC7-G has the Gigabit LAN, if you don't need that, then the regular IC7 is cheaper. This is going to be an awesome rig.

[Maxwell Murder]

Hard Drive - Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM Hard Drive 8MB Model IDE ULTRA ATA133 I presume.

So for the Mobo the diffrence between the Abit IC7 and Abit IC7-G is that the IC7 just doesnt have the onboard lan? What should I get in place of this? (The LAN Card)

[batboy]

Ok, I guess they don't they don't make a WD ATA133? The WD special edition version ATA100 with 8MB cache has a seek speed of 8.9ns which actually beats the Maxtor ATA133 8MB drive that specs at 9ns. So, it's your call. Both are great drives. Apparently the ATA133 don't make much difference after all.

Unless you are connecting into a Gigabit high speed network, any regular ethernet card will work just as well and will save a few bucks. The IC7-G built-in LAN is nice. Not trying to talk you out of it. But, you can save a little getting the IC7 and a cheap network card.

[Maxwell Murder]

Processor - 2.6C Pentium 4
Mobo - ABIT IC7-G, Intel 875P chipset for Socket 478 800MHz Canterwood ATX
Memory - Corsair XMS PC3500 2x512MB Sticks = 1,028 With Platinum Silver Heat Spreader
Video Card - ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
Hard Drive - Western Digital 80GB HD, 7,200 RPM, IDE ULTRA ATA100, 8 Meg Cache
OS - Windows XP
DVD Drive - Lite On 16x DVD Drive
CD-RW - Lite On 52x32x52x
Floppy - Samsung 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Case - No PSU Chieftec Server Chasis Case w/ Side Window (One side window fan and two rear fans)
PSU - Antec True Power 550w
Cooling - Thermalright SLK-900-U
Antec Case fan With Blue LEDs Lights 2x

Wow I've learned a lot just buy making this set up and talking to you guys. I can't thank you all enough. I’m getting the Antec 550w PSU on ebay for 92.00. And the memory can be bought on Ebay for 110.00 a stick. Then the Radeon 9800 Sapphire OEM can be bought for 275.00 on ebay. All the products are insured to. That should save me some dough on this whole thing. Still deciding on the mobo's Abit IC7 or Abit IC7-G, some more feedback would be great on these 2, but they look to be pretty much the same board. What’s the Raid feature mean? The IC7-G has Raid 0 and Raid 1 as I was reading, while the IC7 has just Raid 0

This computer is going to be used for CAD, 3DS Max, Adobe Photoshop 7.0, and Star Wars Galaxies.

[gamefoo21]

yea ata 133 was made up by maxtor to make there drives sound better but when normal eide drives can't even fill up the ata100 pipe whats the point? the new raptors are in between 70 and 80 MB/s and they are 10,000 rpm drives.

Also you might want to get two of those harddrives and put them in raid so you get all the performance possible.

[batboy]

The IC7-G has 4 channel S-ATA RAID compared to the 2 channel S-ATA RAID of the IC7. In other words you can attach 2 more S-ATA drives to the IC7-G. At this point you only have a DVD, a CD burner, and one harddrive, so you don't really need the extra S-ATA channels. You have to use an adapter to connect a regular IDE into the S-ATA anyway.

[MrBean]

Hey i just wanted to inform you that video card on ebay is just the radeon 9800 not the PRO version you have listed, that is why its $100 cheeper. The regular non pro version has a lower clock speed. Also you may want to consider getting windows xp professional.

[MrBean]

The main differerences between the IC7 and the IC7-G, is the onboard lan, which is very nice since it is routed directly into the southbridge, and not routed through the pci bus, enabling it to be faster. What i think your not understanding is that the IC7 and IC7-G come with 2 standard parallel ata 100 connectors(also called PATA), capable of supporting 2 devices each. Also both the boards support the new seriel ata standard(known as SATA), via the onboard controller on the southbridge, with two connectors, each capable of supporting 1 device each. These are capbale of raid 0 only. The difference between the two is that the IC7-G has another controller for SATA made by silicon image, capable of raid 0 and 1. You get two ports with this one each supporting one device.

Now a brief explanation of raid, basically raid 0, which is also called striping, puts part of the data on each of the 2 drives in the array, and loads them in parallel, theoretically doubling your bandwith. You also get the full storage of both your drives. Raid 1 on the other hand is of much less use to us, beacuse there is no increase in speed, it is also called mirroring it simply creates a dupiclate drive for backup purposes. With this you only the the total storage of one of your drives.
For more infromation on raid go to: http://www.tekram.com.cn/knowledge/quickexplanation.asp

For more information of SATA go to: http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/hardware/features/article.php/1482351

[Rashio_UK]

i thought the asus p4p800 was a little cheaper than the abit ic7? but has the same performance?

or is the ic7 better?

[Maxwell Murder]

Ok so PATA is more bulky with a little less speed, while SATA is smaller and with all its little extra goodies. So, I then basically can take two SATA drives plug both of them in on the mother board then run them under the same HD with Raid 0? Because there are only 2 SATA Drives avaible correct? By doing this now my computer will run more fast correct? Then take a PATA and run it normal as a backup kind of drive for storing my Videos, My 3D Houses, and Adobe Drawing? I still have a feeling im missing some things, would the raid 1 act as the same as the raid 0 with 2 PATA's?

I love learning... lol

[MrBean]

yes pata is more bulky with less speed.
Here would be your optimal configuration
DVD-rom PATA 1 as master
CD Burner PATA 2 as master
2 SATA HD's on the southbridge contoller in raid 0, for OS and programs
1 PATA HD, with a Seriel 2 adapter(comes with the IC7-G), on the silicon image controller, for backup files, songs, movies

I would reommend getting two Western Digital Raptors as the sata drives, and a western digital 120gig 8meg cache pata drive for the backup. You will need to buy one sata cable and one pata cable if you opt for the ic7-g. And also make sure you plug the drives in with the standard molex cable, do not use the inclued sata power adapters, they make these drives unstable for some reason.

Hope this helps.

[Maxwell Murder]

So whats the raid 1 for?

[gamefoo21]

its for data safety basically it mirrors data across 2 or more drives.

[Maxwell Murder]

So the Raid 1 Duplicates the data that the raid 0 or what my PTAT drive is doing just in case one screws up in some way? And what is the firewire?

[MrBean]

I really dont know what your asking for you first question, go read up on raid and hard drive somewhere. Firewire is like usb, mostly used in digital camcorders.

[toadwart]

This has been an informative post for me as well, with my near term plans to upgrade, and build a new system that does _not_ use VIA components, as my current AMD system seems to suffer nothing but problems with the VIA components in it.

I've been considering a setup very similar to this, however; I do have a few (noob I know)questions.

One: just what exactly is meant with the 2.6C designation on a cpu, I assume the 2.6 means processor speed obviously. Is the C designation to represent fab plant? I swear I read about this somewhere on here at some point in the past, but can't seem to find it in the FAQ's or search utility now.

Two: the IC7-G sound option can be disable in the BIOS I assume, but are there any known conflicts with Soundblaster Cards, Live/Audigy? I really don't want to go through the nightmares I suffered through with my KR7A and my soundblaster(s) - 3 of them that never have worked properly, though the Live does run at present.

Three: the IC7-G isn't capable of a Raid 0+1 setup (If I am understanding Raid config's correctly, striping and mirroring with this setup) does it?

Toad

[billstuck]

Maxwell I noticed in your shopping list you have a lite-on DVD rom and a Lite-on CD/RW.

Lite-On has a DVD-ROM CD/RW combo drive that works great and is only $64 from newegg.com

You may want to consider that instead.

[Maxwell Murder]

2.4b would be with a FSB of 533mhz while the 2.4c is with the FSB of 800mhz

I wouldnt see why you couldnt use the audigy with the Abit IC7-G

And raid 1? I still dont understand it completely yet

[batboy]

Toad...

1) The 2.6 is indeed processor speed. The "C" means 800 bus. A processor with a "B" like the 2.4B is a 533 bus and the "A" like 2.0A is 400 bus. Because the P-4 has a quad pumped system bus, that means 800/4=200 FSB, 533/4=133 FSB, and 400/4=100 FSB.

2) Yes, you can disable the on-board sound in the BIOS. I have a Soundblaster X-Gamer 5.1 in my system and it's running with no conflicts (it's just a fancy version of the Live).

3) Yes, the IC7-G will do RAID 0+1 if you have 4 identical drives, 2 striped and 2 mirrored. The IC7 won't do RAID 0+1 because it only has 2 SATA channels. You have to do either RAID 0 or RAID 1.

[batboy]

RAID 0 (or striped) splits the data up onto two (or more) drives so you can access and save data to multiple drives at the same time. You read half the data from one drive and the other half from the second drive. This speeds up performance significantly. But, if one drive crashes, you've lost everything because the data is split up between the RAID 0 drives.

RAID 1 (or mirrored) backs up your primary drive(s) and makes a mirror copy. When you save a file to your primary drive(s), it's also saved to the mirrored drive(s). In this case, if your primary drive(s) die, then your mirror drives are a complete backup and you have not lost your data.

You can do like I used to do too. Run RAID 0 with two 40 gig drives (which combined equals 80 gig), then ghost them up to a backup 80 gig drive on a monthly basis or so. That way you don't have to mirror the drives.

[Maxwell Murder]

So... I run say like 2 40gig drives on raid 0, then run 1 80gig drive say on raid 1, the 80gig drive will back up the 2 40 gig drives? Or do I need say like 2 40 gig drives running on raid 1 also?

Raid 0 Makes 2 drives act as one drive?
Raid 1 backs up the process on those 2 drives just incase something happens?

When something does go wrong though does the information get saved to the raid 80 gig drive on raid 1? or does it get saved back to the two 40 gig drives?

I'm still learning, sorry

[batboy]

I know you can mirror 1 drive, but I think if you use RAID 0+1 you need 4 identical drives. I might be wrong, but that's what I understand. You are right, the RAID 0 acts like one drive. You alluded to a disadvantage in the RAID 1, because if you have a registry or a file that gets corrupted, then yes, the corrupted file gets copied to the mirrored drives. That's why I prefer using RAID 0 for extra speed and then Norton Ghost to a single backup drive whenever I want. Mirroring drives is more for people with mission critical data. Say you have an accounting business and you don't want to lose all your customers tax records due to a harddrive failure. I still burn my important stuff to CDs too. Never know when lightning will destroy your whole computer.

[Maxwell Murder]

Ahhh ok

Can you explain ghosting?

Also for the SLK-900 what fan should I put on it?

[batboy]

If you get Norton Systemworks that has utilities on it, there is a program called Ghost. It makes a perfect copy of one harddrive to another harddrive or one partition to another partition. I don't have a SLK-900, so I'll let someone else answer that question.

[modenaf1]

Originally posted by toadwart
This has been an informative post for me as well, with my near term plans to upgrade, and build a new system that does _not_ use VIA components, as my current AMD system seems to suffer nothing but problems with the VIA components in it.

I've been considering a setup very similar to this, however; I do have a few (noob I know)questions.

One: just what exactly is meant with the 2.6C designation on a cpu, I assume the 2.6 means processor speed obviously. Is the C designation to represent fab plant? I swear I read about this somewhere on here at some point in the past, but can't seem to find it in the FAQ's or search utility now.

Two: the IC7-G sound option can be disable in the BIOS I assume, but are there any known conflicts with Soundblaster Cards, Live/Audigy? I really don't want to go through the nightmares I suffered through with my KR7A and my soundblaster(s) - 3 of them that never have worked properly, though the Live does run at present.

Three: the IC7-G isn't capable of a Raid 0+1 setup (If I am understanding Raid config's correctly, striping and mirroring with this setup) does it?

Toad






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to the forums

[Maxwell Murder]

These are the best forums I've ever been on.

[Overclocker456]

Originally posted by krag
First off...WELCOME TO THE FORUMS BRO!!!!!!!!:clap: :clap: :clap:


Don't get the P4P8 some peeps have had lots O' probs with it. Get a canterwood mobo An IC7 is fairly cheap but get one of the Deluxe modles either a Asus P4C800 or a Abit IC7. A little more $ but you said that was no prob & if you're gonna oc you want some mem with a bit more headroom than pc3200 go for the OCZ PC3700 Gold mem...lots of peeps been getting DDR500 out of it that means you're mem is doing 250fsb on a 1:1 divider =MASSIVE BANDWIDTH!!

Drop the foxconn PSU and get an Antec with equal wattage.


The rest looks fairly good.:cool:

I have the P4P800 and I'd like to say it's great, not to mention it's the FASTEST 865PE motherboard that's out.