My New Rig - Still time to make changes though

[rbickers]

While I'm waiting for the processor to arrive (this Saturday), they said I can still make some last minutes changes to my setup.

Here is some of the criteria I used in my decisioning:
- I have no interest in overclocking
- with regards to memory - I don't want to get something where I'm not going to notice the difference - Is the memory below good? Will I actually notice a 'big' difference with something else. Also, the guy at the shop told me that there isn't too much of a noticeable difference between DDR2 and DDR.. which is why I went with DDR.
- I'm using this system for video conversion and some gaming (half-life 2, farcry,etc.).

Let me know what you things of these components. Your comments / recommendations are much appreaciated.

Processor - Intel Pentium 4 550, 3.4G S775
Motherboard - Asus® P5GDC-V/DX, Socket 775, Intel® i915G Chipset w/ PCI Express x16 (ATX) - Onboard High Definition Audio, Serial ATA & IDE RAID, Gigabit Lan and Firewire. Hyper-Threading technology support. On-board Intel® VGA and PCI-Express x16 slot.
Memory - OCZ 1Gb PC3200 DDR Premier Dual Channel Series (2 x 512Mb) (OCZ4001024PDC-K) - Features double the cooling surface area on the heat sink - Timings 2.5-3-3-7
Video Card - Sapphire® Radeon™ X800Pro - Radeon™ X800Pro VPU w/256Mb GDDR3 & PCI Express x16 TVO OEM
Hard Drive - Maxtor 200GB 7200RPM SATA2 16M
PSU - Enermax Noisetaker EG495P-VE SFMA 485W ATX 12V Ver 2.0 Power Supply - Supports P4 - Dual Fan
Case - Still undecided

All the other stuff I'm re-using from my existing system (2nd harddrive, dvd r/w, cd r/w, keyboard, monitor, etc.)

 

[endyen]

For baseboard heaters, I prefer chromalox. They may not put out as much heat as your system, but they are a lot cheaper.
Prescott is the worst thing that Intel has ever done. Buy an Amd system, get better performance, more stability, no throttling, a lot less heat, at about the same price. Then when the 64 bit wave hits, your system wont be washed away.

 

[Starfishy]

Is it too late to get rid of the P4?? I think you will find that 90% of the people in this forum will tell you that you should be going with AMD. But if it is too late to go with AMD then I would PM mozzatarum and ask him about cooling the P4's he seems to know alot about it, and I believe he liquid cools his.

But I will stress once again... you are spending alot of money, wouldn't you like to know that you are getting the best CPU for your buck, and that it won't be throttling itself down everytime it heats up?? Go with AMD if you can.

 

[rbickers]

Would I notice a big, "noticable" difference with say an AMD® Athlon™ 64 - 3500? Even with things like video conversion?
If so, which mobo to get?

 

[Lazerous]

wusy is right. If you are primarily going to use this for Video editing and encoding then stick with your P4 but make damn sure you cool it well or you will losing out on some of it's speed. 120mm fans do a great job of moving air around. get a large case with great airflow and a zalman 7700-Cu CPU cooler if you cool with air. May also want to consider a small northbridge cooler for your mobo as well.

If you are going to do ALOT of gaming and just a small amount of video then go with AMD all the way. The P4 gets smoked by a64's in gaming.

<font color=green>AMD 64 3700+
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
CORSAIR XMS (1gb) PC-3200
Gigabyte GF 6800gt 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
2_36.7gb Raptors/Raid 0
Tt 480 watt PSU</font color=green>

 

[endyen]

Right now, divx says Intel xvid says Amd. Once 64 bit starts working, pity the fool who is stuck with P4.

 

[Starfishy]

Yeah, when it comes to upgrading and "future proofing" I have discovered that it is never worth guessing at which will be better in the future. So I will have to agree with wusy on this one, if you are using the rig for video editing then go with the P4, but be prepared for some heat. And if you are a gamer and want the best performance go with the AMD. 95% of the people in this forum will share this opinion.

And I don't know how much money you have to through around, but I was surprised to see you asking about the A64 3500+. I am sure you know that this is still very pricey (or at least it is in my area) and I don't think is the best performance/price choice. But then again, I don't know how much money you are willing to throw into this rig.

 

[silverpig]

Take a look at the 64 bit mp3 encoding times in linux. 64 bit is almost twice as fast as 32.

s signature has been formatted to fit your scr

 

[rbickers]

The 64-3500 is actually $15 cheaper (Canadian $; $349.99 for the 3500 & $364.99 for the 550). Even if I'm not overclocking I'll need to do something about the heat?

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Does anyone even know when (if?) Micro$oft is going to come to AMD's rescue and finally deliver the much anticipated x86-64 version of Windows?

<pre><b><font color=red>"Build a man a fire and he's warm for the rest of the evening.
Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life." - Steve Taylor</font color=red></b></pre><p>

 

[Lazerous]

By the time they release the 64 bit version of Windows XP they may very well release Windows Longhorn a couple moths later. rofl....

Actually Longhorn is looking to be a very good OS and for once M$ isn't rushing it into consumers hands like they have done so many times already. Maybe they will have a winnere this time.

<font color=green>AMD 64 3700+
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
CORSAIR XMS (1gb) PC-3200
Gigabyte GF 6800gt 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
2_36.7gb Raptors/Raid 0
Tt 480 watt PSU</font color=green>

 

[mozzartusm]

Do you plan on Overclocking this rig? The socket 775 can run stock with air, but I would suggest you consider liquid cooling with this one. If your not going to overclock the chip then I would stay away from the Socket 775 and get one of the Socket 478 models. The Northwood core is the coolest, but the Prescott 478 is still cooler than the 775. I have both, 3.0E Socket 478 and 3.4 Socket 775. I have manged to Overclock my 3.0 @ 3.8 "3.6 is more likely for stable speeds" and my 3.4 has been Overclocked to 4.1. Keep in mind that it is water cooled though, the 3.0E is cooled by air.

 

[mozzartusm]

Longhorn does look promising at this point. I have acsess to one of the test versions. One of my professors somehow is on microsofts beta list. I think its called a beta list.

 

[Starfishy]

I wish that Longhorn was going to be 64-bit... I don't think it is going to come out with a 64-bit edition is it??

 

[Lazerous]

Yes, it's being created for use with 64 bit processors. originally they had planned on a different file system as well, to be more like a database,(ie..SQL, etc...) but now i read that M$ has tabled(pardon the pun) that idea until the second coming of longhorn. In practice you will be able to do more efficient Queries of the file system with this. They are calling it "WinFS" unofficially.evidently that was a pretty big chunk to chew. LOL
I also have a beta version of this but am hesitant to try it out because I'm not certain if there will be support for all the hardware I've bought.
2ndQ 2006 is the target release date according to sources.

Can't wait! In the meantime I will accept M$'s gift of a free 64 bit XP version being offered to current owners of M$ XP. at least we can get a taste of what 64 bits can do. I probably wouldn't have bought a 64 bit processor if it purely to take advantage of a 64 bit OS. The fact that these processors ROCK even in 32 bit mode is why I bought.

<font color=green>AMD 64 3700+
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
CORSAIR XMS (1gb) PC-3200
Gigabyte GF 6800gt 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
2_36.7gb Raptors/Raid 0
Tt 480 watt PSU</font color=green>

 

[Starfishy]

Thanks for the info... I have already downloaded the 64-bit beta, but I'm just not sure if I want to try it out yet. I am concerned that it will have considerable amounts of bugs in it, and I am enjoying the stability of my XP right now. But if you haven't noticed a problem maybe it is worth a try.

Wow, I just looked at your comp stats... you are one lucky ducky. I wish my wife would let me invest in something of this caliber. Alas, my A64 3200+ does me just fine for right now.

 

[Lazerous]

I got me a good wifey. lol :tongue:

I do things for her also. I build her <A HREF="http://www.3dplace.org/garden/garden.htm" target="_new"> <b>Gardens and Waterfalls</b></A><i>(give the slideshow time to load)</i> to make HER world beautiful so when it comes my turn for a little happiness she rarely gives me a fight.

Ultimately I have to pay for the thing though so I can only do this every 2 or three years but I like to stay somewhat close to the edge.

<font color=green>AMD 64 3700+
ASUS K8N-E Deluxe
CORSAIR XMS (1gb) PC-3200
Gigabyte GF 6800gt 256mb
Audigy 2 ZS
2_36.7gb Raptors/Raid 0
Tt 480 watt PSU</font color=green>

 

[mozzartusm]

I think the version of longhorn that I have worked with is 64bit, but I amy be wrong.