New member, new to OC'ing

[kiyoshilionz]

I'm a big computer geek, but I've never really gotten into hardware modding and all that stuff. My system is really old and getting to be slow and unreliable and I want to take out a few parts, put it in a new system, and then use that one. My curent setup is

Dell Dimension
P4 1.6ghz Wilamette
Who knows what mobo
512MB PC133 SDRAM (Old crap)
Radeon 9600XT
40GB main drive, 160GB Storage drive
Audigy MP3, an old one

I'm planning on getting a new case, mobo, CPU, RAM, and hard drive, and then putting the video card, sound card, and 160gb hard drive in the new one. I want to get into overclocking and hopefully not have a system that will become obsolete and worthless really soon. (This is why I'm debating getting one now, since AMD is supposed to go to socket 939 and Intel....they're always changing sockets and upgrading)

Well I've got about $700 to spend, and here's what I've figured out mostly through Anandtech guides....

Xaser III Lanfire Aluminum case - $112
Antec TRUE380 380W PS - $60
P4 2.8C 2.8ghz - $172
Asus P4P800e Deluxe - $109
256x2 PC3200 RAM (Don't know what brand to get) - Hopefully about $100
10K RPM Raptor - $110 (Waste of money???)
Heatsink - $50 (Haven't decided)

Anyways my doubts are:

Should I go P4 or AMD?
Is a fast Raptor worth it?
What kinda RAM should I get?
What heatsink to get?
Any other cooling supplies I'd want?

Suggestions are welcome

[Yuriman]

To answer your questions:
1. P4's are better for encoding, ect. Athlon64's are better for gaming. A mobile XP that can do 2.6ghz should be on par with the higher ends of both of those.

2. Skip the raptor, get 2 120gb SATA SE drives and raid them. Or, raid the raptors. I dont think you will see a big boost in a single drive.

3. Depends on what cpu you get. P4=highest fsb, IE PC4000+
XP=lowest timings, IE PC3200/3500, 2/2/2/6 timings

4. Go with an Slk heatsink from Thermalright. NOT THERMALTAKE.

5. Lots of fans.


Personaly, I would get at least a 1gb of ram for your new pc, 512 just doesnt cut it in many new games.

[ares350]

grab a xp mobile AMD. itll overclock nicely without breaking the bank(90-100$). hit 2.5ghz on air, and slaughter anything else in that price bracket.

gig of ram for sure. its quickly becoming the new standard.

[Cho]

Originally posted by kiyoshilionz
Should I go P4 or AMD?


Go for P4 if you do a lot of media or vvideo encoding stuff.
Go for AMD if you play game a lot.
If you overclock, I think P4 overclocks better.

Originally posted by kiyoshilionz
What heatsink to get?


I recommand Zalman CNPS7000A-Cu, quiet and reliable.
If you can substain high noise, then Thermalright SP-94.

[kiyoshilionz]

OK, so it sounds like an Athlon is what I need cuz I do a lot more gaming than heavy processing (except for using Photoshop). My only gripe is that Athlon XP's are getting pretty old and outdated these days, now that we have the Athlon 64, the Fx-53, and the upcoming release of socket 939. But they're cheap, so I guess I could live with them.

For the raptor Raptor I was thinking of getting 2 and raiding them, but I read on Anandtech that the performance gains for raiding 2 Raptors vs. 1 big raptor drive is pretty small, so I decided to just cut it down to 1. But if you say the performance gains of 1 Raptor is pretty small, I guess maybe it's not worth it.

Lastly, 1GB isn't totally necessary IMHO. I have 512mb of crappy old PC133 RAM and I've been able to run stuff like Far Cry, Morrowind, and Call of Duty. I don't know if I really wanna spend the majority of my money for this new rig on RAM.

[Yuriman]

If you get an Athlon64, you realy dont need the best ram in the world. A 3000+ would be equaly to probably a 2.3ghz XP, but with 64bit. I strongly recomend getting the extra ram, even if you dont think you need it. Maybe be a cheepo, and get 2 $70 chips of pc3200?

[kiyoshilionz]

Well would you recommend getting an A64? It seems like it's not a popular processor around here to overclock. More people overclock the XP's and P4's around here, so it seems.

[Yuriman]

Thats because you get less mhz total overclock with the A64. Its less "fun" to most of the people here, but I would trade my mobile 2600 for one.

[kiyoshilionz]

OK well I think it'd be better to get a cheap XP processor and overclock it, rather than get an A64 and barely be able to get more performance out of it. But I'm still wondering about the RAM, because they go from $60 for a 512MB stick, all the way to +$140. Anyone have recommendations for a mid-priced option? Or some expensive RAM that would really be worth it? (Mushkin/OCZ)

[donny_paycheck]

http://webpages.charter.net/rylandpage/estradawelcome.jpg

[kiyoshilionz]

LOL, thanks :)

Well here's what I've come up with as for a FULL system build (Everything I would buy), feel free to comment

SF-201B Case: $110
http://us.st7.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/directron_1794_33697621
Antec TRUE380 PS: $60
ABIT NF7-S Mobo: $86
AMD Mobile Athlon XP 2500+: $90
80GB SATA HD: $70
SLK-947U HS: $30
Zalman ZM-MFC1 Fan cntrl: $29
Vantec Tornado 92mm - $14

The case has 5 fans, hence the Zalman 6-channel fan controller. Future upgrades to this system would be the addition of bigger, better (louder) fans and maybe another SATA hard drive for RAID later on. Oh yeah, and I haven't figured out the RAM yet. Maybe $200 budget for 1GB?

[Yuriman]

Go with a mobile 2600+, from excaliberpc.com, people have been hitting 2.6ghz or more with those on fairly low voltages.

[qualhiveldorf]

I would go mobile, also, get 512mb now 512 later.

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS.

Download Folding@Home!!! www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/download.html

Set username to your username on this forum and team to 32

[kiyoshilionz]

I AM planning on going mobile....and I like the idea of getting some RAM now and some more later.

However, my searches at newegg.com have shown a lot of different RAM modules for 512MB made by OCZ.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-976&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-889&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-835&depa=1

There's a few more cheapo ones, but these are all pretty much the same name, but what's the difference? Which one should I get?

[Yuriman]

Cas latencty and rated speed are the 2 most important things. The top chip is cas 2.5/3/2/8 PC3200, the middle is 2/3/2/5, and the bottom 2/3/2/6. Lower cas means more work per mhz, though it isnt an extreme difference between them.

[kiyoshilionz]

OK I"ve decided to get the 512 now and another 512 later, and so I'm thinking of getting a top-of-the-line model since I'm only getting 512mb. I'm looking at the OCZ 4200EL since it's pretty much the fastest memory in the world, but can non-PC4200 boards run them? Also, is it not worth paying nearly $200 for 512MB of top-quality ram when I could get 1gb of cheaper ram?

Oh yeah, and I've been looking for a good top-of-the-line heatsink. It'll either be one of these, or maybe a Zalman

Thermalright SP-97
http://www.pricewatch.com/ri/4716340-2255.jpg

Thermaltake SilentTower
http://www.thermaltake.com/images/coolers/main/whatsnew/silentTower.jpg

CNPS7000 Cu
http://www.pricewatch.com/ri/4314719-857.jpg

[NewBldr]

Both the Zalman and the Thermalright rock. I'd choose between those two tried and true heatsinks.

Too, for an AMD system, your CAS latencies are very important. I'd get as close to 2, 2, 2, 2, 5 as you can with the fastest stick of ram PC3500 if possible.

[kiyoshilionz]

Well I've sorted out pretty much the whole system now. It'll be about $750 cuz of all the extras I didn't think of (Cables,Panaflow fans, fan controller)

Super-Flower SF-201T Case (5 fans, 3 windows)
Antec True380 Power Supply
Abit NF7-S Rev. 2 Mobo
Athlon XP Mobile 2600+
120GB HD
2x256MB OCZ PC3200 Enhanced Latency (2-2-3-6)
Thermalright SLK-947U
6 Panaflo Fans (1 92mm for heatsink, 5 for case)
Super-Flower SF609 Fan Controller
Round Cables, UV Sensitive (I'll add 2 tubes later)

Freebies from old computer:
160GB HD with all my files
Radeon 9600XT
Soundblaster Audigy
Monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard all from old rig.

[sandman001]

Originally posted by kiyoshilionz

Xaser III Lanfire Aluminum case - $112
Antec TRUE380 380W PS - $60
P4 2.8C 2.8ghz - $172
Asus P4P800e Deluxe - $109
256x2 PC3200 RAM (Don't know what brand to get) - Hopefully about $100
10K RPM Raptor - $110 (Waste of money???)
Heatsink - $50 (Haven't decided)

Anyways my doubts are:

Should I go P4 or AMD?
Is a fast Raptor worth it?
What kinda RAM should I get?
What heatsink to get?
Any other cooling supplies I'd want?

Suggestions are welcome

Here's what I would get:

cheiftec/antec dragon style case.
frotron 530watt psu
2.8C is fine
Abit AI7 motherboard
2x256mb kingston hyperX, corsair XMS, mushkin. Might be a bit over $100, but worth it
I'd pick up another 160gig hard-drive to match your other one, and run those in raid o.
thermalright SP-94 is the best, but an slk-800U or slk-900U are still good heatsinks. Then, I'd pick up a fan that suits your noise tolerance.

I"m not a big fan of the thermaltake cases, but if you liek them then go ahead. But, you can get a just as good case for cheaper.

[kiyoshilionz]

I'm going with an aluminum Super-Flower case from Directron.com. Read the post above yours to see what i pretty much decided on. I don't need another 160GB HD and I'm trying to keep the costs down as much as possible.

[Cho]

For heatsink, I think you can consider CoolerMaster Hyper 6. Try to search for Hyper 6 in this site http://www.madshrimps.be/. It contains a lot pointers of Hyper 6's reviews.
Most reviews show that Hyper 6 even outperforms SP-94.