god bless the insurance company - new PC, need opinions :D

[MasterCraft]

So heres the deal, We had a wind storm here a few days ago, and My house being over 100 years old, Had no secondary grounds.


While this being a bad thing for anything electronic in my house, was a good thing on the insurance form, The main and only ground on my house was yanked off the back of the house, leaving my house entirely ungrounded. It blew out 4 power strips/serge protectors, 3 pc's, all my phones, 2 guitar amps (1200 dollar marshall's ), and TONS of other stuff. We had aquilla come out and fix it, and they verified to the insurance agent that it was more than likely true what happened (you know how insurance is) Well one of the things that blew out was my old p3 coppermine 1ghz. I bought it new for 1500 bucks from ABS about 3 years ago. Well I claimed value paid for all the items lost, and according to my agent (I've known him forever, really nice guy), he told me to claim full price due to "time lost using the computer" (even though the HD wasn't dead, just the rest of it, but he knew it and gave me a break) , and of course it certainly wasn't worth 1500 still.

after replacing everything else, I've got 1850 bucks to dump on a new PC.
And boy do I have ideas.

This is what I've come up with so far, I'm posting this first, as to get opinions, but as soon as newegg gets the Mobo in, im placing the order, so any suggestions and or feedback, good or bad is appreciated.

And please for the AMD heads, I'm building an AMD system in a couple of months, this one is definitely going the pentium route.


(thanks go to alot of people who helped me chose my last PC, ram and board choices, and the like, I stuck with alot of those prior decisions)

anyway, on to the PC -

Case
Motherboard
Memory
CPU
GPU(my first ATI, I'm so nervous!) (this is also just until the 6800U is on PCI-E readily available)
PSU
HD
Thermal paste
Rom
Mouse(You've never experienced cool until you've played with this mouse )

total = 1904.30

I plan on when I get paid next to also purchase another drive, raid them, and a rosewill 19 inch LCD, also as said, Upgrade to a 6800U once they come out on PCI-E.
Well there it sits, Like said above, any constructive crit is appreciated.

Thoughts? Comments? Questioning of sexual preferences?

 

[mtb856]

There is only one thing applicable to this situation....



and/or praying for lightning to hit my computer.

 

[MasterCraft]

There is only one thing applicable to this situation....



and/or praying for lightning to hit my computer.

hehe, yeah, It blew out my p4c800-edx I posted originally, I had just gotten it together, and it blew the PSU and everything, (compasitors on the board itself popped like fire crackers )

But it also is getting replaced with a similar setup as it was, only with a better serge protector

which btw, think I should go for the 3.6 and spend the extra 200 bucks?

overclockability of this system assuming i get at least decent parts in all respects

 

[Ssetre]

It looks good. But honestly I would spend the money on a X800XT and see why so many people are trading in their 6800GT's and Ultra's.

Other than that I think your missing a HSF? And for overclocking go with the X800XT or Pro ViVo and get XTPE. Since it smacks around the 6800UE you can't go wrong.


But you will prolly have to go someplace other than Newegg for the gfx card. Although the X700XT(Pro with overclocking) outperforms the 9800XT and therefore the 5950Ultra you can't be too badly dissapointed.

X800XT:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324512

X800Pro Vivo
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=320883

 

[MasterCraft]

It looks good. But honestly I would spend the money on a X800XT and see why so many people are trading in their 6800GT's and Ultra's.

Other than that I think your missing a HSF? And for overclocking go with the X800XT or Pro ViVo and get XTPE. Since it smacks around the 6800UE you can't go wrong.


But you will prolly have to go someplace other than Newegg for the gfx card. Although the X700XT(Pro with overclocking) outperforms the 9800XT and therefore the 5950Ultra you can't be too badly dissapointed.

X800XT:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324512

X800Pro Vivo
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=320883

HSF? (forgive my arrogance)

I'm onl going with that card because I can't afford something like the x800s with the rest of the setup, I'm already over about 50 bucks as it is

 

[nissmo300]

3.6 with the VERY expensive ASUS board is the best you can come up with for 2 grand? That is such a waste of money.

Buy a Nforce4, FX-55, 6800 ultra and be happy for a long long time.

A FX-55 blows every Intel out of the water... You have an OCed Intel at 4.0-4.1.... then a OCed FX-55 still blows them out of the water.

 

[MasterCraft]

3.6 with the VERY expensive ASUS board is the best you can come up with for 2 grand? That is such a waste of money.

Buy a Nforce4, FX-55, 6800 ultra and be happy for a long long time.

A FX-55 blows every Intel out of the water... You have an OCed Intel at 4.0-4.1.... then a OCed FX-55 still blows them out of the water.

reread my post again, then rethink that statement.


Or did you miss the part about where I said

"And please for the AMD heads, I'm building an AMD system in a couple of months, this one is definitely going the pentium route."

 

[MasterCraft]

back to the point, how do you think this will overclock? anyone?

I Do plan on watercooling as soon as I get everything else bought (second HD, HD coolers, ETC ETC), but will be air until then


hows the setup otherwise

 

[nissmo300]

back to the point, how do you think this will overclock? anyone?

I Do plan on watercooling as soon as I get everything else bought (second HD, HD coolers, ETC ETC), but will be air until then


hows the setup otherwise

Sorry for not seeing that note about AMD. Anyway, since you want Intel I suggest not buying a 3.6 as it hard to sqeeze a big OC out it due to it's high multi. You should get a 3.2 and with water you can probably take it to around 3.9-4.0 if lucky. You wont see anything significant over 4.0 with any current processor without any mods or extreme cooling.

Air: 3.6-3.7 or 3.8 with very very good air.
water: 3.9-4.0

 

[@md0Cer]

back to the point, how do you think this will overclock? anyone?

I Do plan on watercooling as soon as I get everything else bought (second HD, HD coolers, ETC ETC), but will be air until then


hows the setup otherwise

I can't give you an exact number as overclocking is never very predictable, but you could probably expect around 3.8-9ish to 4.2ish if your ram is good enough (I really have not entered the DDR2 world of knowledge yet) and you can keep that CPU cool. I highly doubt there is any AMD for $278 that will give you comparable results.

That video card is not bad. I have had good luck with my Saphire card. It is old a crappy, but it overclocks quite decently. An X700 is not the fastest card out there, but I can assure you that will be plenty for the time being. If I have been able to hold out this long on the cheapest card when it first came out, you should do fine on the X700. I might add to check out www.abit-usa.com for video cards with Vguru. They will have "Guru" in their name on the page that lists all of the video cards. This overclocking tool that comes with these cards allows you to change the core and memory voltage. That should help quite a bit in terms of overclocking.

I don't see any heatsinks or fans on there. If you need any advice on those I would be more than happy to offer it. Good luck with your new system!

 

[larva]

I think if I could throw mad money around I'd get one of those sweet i875 dually boards and some Xeons. Dually's only suck when it means running a second-rate chipset and sacrificing competive cpu clock for the privilege.

 

[MasterCraft]

I can't give you an exact number as overclocking is never very predictable, but you could probably expect around 3.8-9ish to 4.2ish if your ram is good enough (I really have not entered the DDR2 world of knowledge yet) and you can keep that CPU cool. I highly doubt there is any AMD for $278 that will give you comparable results.

That video card is not bad. I have had good luck with my Saphire card. It is old a crappy, but it overclocks quite decently. An X700 is not the fastest card out there, but I can assure you that will be plenty for the time being. If I have been able to hold out this long on the cheapest card when it first came out, you should do fine on the X700. I might add to check out www.abit-usa.com for video cards with Vguru. They will have "Guru" in their name on the page that lists all of the video cards. This overclocking tool that comes with these cards allows you to change the core and memory voltage. That should help quite a bit in terms of overclocking.

I don't see any heatsinks or fans on there. If you need any advice on those I would be more than happy to offer it. Good luck with your new system!

strictly for cool modding purposes, I'm probably going to go with an all acrylic case off of frozenpc, When I order it I'll get a good watercool setup started(if not finished) as well, depends on if I can get everything I need fairly cheap.

But either way I do need some help with fan/heatsink choices, I appreciate the help

 

[@md0Cer]

Sorry for not seeing that note about AMD. Anyway, since you want Intel I suggest not buying a 3.6 as it hard to sqeeze a big OC out it due to it's high multi. You should get a 3.2 and with water you can probably take it to around 3.9-4.0 if lucky. You wont see anything significant over 4.0 with any current processor without any mods or extreme cooling.

Air: 3.6-3.7 or 3.8 with very very good air.
water: 3.9-4.0

I have seen one or two people around here a while ago who had either 3.2's or 3.4's, but they were doing 3.9+GHz on air cooling. One was at 4.2 I beleive.

Here is a link with some general information on cooling. It has some cooling links and tips. I am still making it better.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=329015

Just to show you how much cooling you will need:

I have an Athlon XP1700 overclocked generating roughly 130-135 thermal watts. I have a Thermalright SLK-900 with a rated 160 CFM blowing into it with no deadspot. My computer is close to hovering with fan power and makes enough noise to block out a screaming person. I have the heatsink lapped, and it is currently running at 57°C on the CPU diode. A Prescott at 4000 MHz on 1.525Vcore generates roughly 160 thermal watts

 

[@md0Cer]

strictly for cool modding purposes, I'm probably going to go with an all acrylic case off of frozenpc, When I order it I'll get a good watercool setup started(if not finished) as well, depends on if I can get everything I need fairly cheap.

But either way I do need some help with fan/heatsink choices, I appreciate the help

Ok. I might add you can build a watercooling system relatively cheap with good deals, refurbished parts, some ghettoness, etc.

As for air cooling, I have sevral recommendations.

FANS:

80mm:

I recommend either the Thermal Take Smart Fan 2 or the Enermax Adjustable. According to the specifications on their websites, these two have the highest airflow to noise ratings. I personally have an older model Thermal Take Smart Fan 2, and I use the manual adjuster that comes with it. It pushes quite a bit of air all the way up (makes a mad screaming noise too), and it moves a decent amount of air at lower speeds as well. This fan cranked all the way up moves much more than the Enermax. The Enermax will not go as high if you crank it all the way up.

92mm: At this stage either the Thermal Take or the Enermax, again, the Thermal Take moves much more cranked all the way up. Remember, both these fans are adjustable and come with their own rheostat.

120mm: Here I recommend the Enermax Adjustable as its maximum output is about the same or higher than the Thermal Take and has a much better CFM to noise ratio.

You can buy higher performance fans like the Vantec Tornado to move a huge amount of air. These are usually not adjustable, so you would have to buy a third party fan controller or face the insane noise. I can deal with it, but many can't.

Another option is Delta's GFB series fans. http://www.delta.com.tw

They are dual bladed and they are counter rotating, so they have insanely high static pressure good for ramming insane amounts of air through a heatsink.

I recomend the Thermalright XP-120 as your heatsink. It is probably the best heatsink you can buy, and fitted with a high output 120mm fan and a duct drawing cool outside the case air directly to your heatsink, you can handle quite a thermal load. I am checking right now to see if your motherboard can use this heatsink.

 

[@md0Cer]

I think if I could throw mad money around I'd get one of those sweet i875 dually boards and some Xeons. Dually's only suck when it means running a second-rate chipset and sacrificing competive cpu clock for the privilege.

Ah, that would be quite nice. I probably would buy tons of used or refurbished socket-A boards with integrated video and tons of old Durons and make a nice big folding farm, of course folding for 32.

EDIT: I might add that I do not see that motherboard listed on Thermalright's compatibility chart, I would assume you could probably exchange the heatsink for one that fits and they would give you your money back according to the swap. Usually it is just a matter of bending a few caps just a bit.

 

[MasterCraft]

I'm lookin at those fans now, Likin the choices.

I'm not really likin the look of the thermaltake case I chose, I just awnt all the options it has, So i'm looking at an alternate on frozencpu, one of those 100% acrylic cases, looks cool

 

[(HR)Titan]

thermaltake is to kitcsh for my taste

 

[Ssetre]

I heard those acrylic cases are actually really hot. They hold heat more than a metal case and tend to amplify hot spots. But they do look sweet. You could do up a fancy paint job and have the lights inside glow through everywhere. Instead of it just being see though and glowing.

 

[@md0Cer]

I agree, but nothing beats good case airflow.

 

[MasterCraft]

I agree, but nothing beats good case airflow.

Yeah, It's probly gonna be an aluminum case 4 the win

or a vapochill