New build this summer - opinions needed

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yourmothersanastronaut

yourmothersanastronaut

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Mar 23, 2006
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I'm planning to build a new gaming computer this summer. It'll be going to college, which means no full-tower cases and an LCD is a must, so no CRTs (thankfully, I won't need to go up to the 3rd floor like i do this year, but still...desk space is a premium).

All this stuff is from newegg, and I'd prefer to keep it that way to keep shipping costs to a minimum. I'm not averse to case modding, but I'll need to buy a Dremel, since I don't have one at home.

And I can't harvest anything but a keyboard, mouse, microphone and some sweet Boston Acoustics speakers from my last computer, since it's a 4 year old Dell notebook.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16827135063
Asus DVD Burner

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811112040
Lian Li PC-65B - great for mods, I hear

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16821152005
NEC Floppy Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16813136158
DFI Lanparty SLI-D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103588
Opteron 165

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16820227066
OCZ Gold DDR500

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814150139
XFX 7900 GT

http://www.newegg.com/product/Product.asp?item=N82E16835118117
Zalman VF700-Cu - since the GPU's stock cooler is pretty loud

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16824116373
Viewsonic 19" Widescreen CLD, 8ms

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16829102176
Sound Blaster Live! sound card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16816152007
Tyan PCI-X SCSI RAID hard drive controller

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822116001
Fujitsu 36.7 GB 15,000 RPM HDD - for OS and apps

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16822144701
WD Caviar SE16 250 GB HDD - for documents and .iso files

I know what some of you are thinking - why SCSI? It's true, Raptors would be more cost-effective. But, It's just plain cool to have a 15K RPM drive in your desktop. Loud? Sure. That's why I'm adding a $7 hard drive silencer and a fan that mounts in a 5.25" bay. Expensive? Hell yeah. But think how long SCSI drives will last when cooled properly, and there's no arguing that both the drives themselves and the bus are the fastest you can buy. And yes, capacity is low, but it's only Windows and games on that drive. I decided to go with a 15K 36.7 instead of a 10,000 RPM 74 GB, because if I just stay with 10K, I might as well get Raptors. Go big or go home. My documents, music, and Ubuntu/Fedora are going on the warehouse drive.

That and the controller card will take organizing my storage away from the CPU and chipset, which will make everything quicker and boost transfer rates.

I am a n00b to overclocking, but I think I can manage with DFI-Street's help.

Any comments?
 
If you want a faster handling computer I think a dualcore CPU is better than a fast harddrive-although i have no experience of it just hearsay.

Dont buy a alucase, no gain in that? Buy a thickplated steelcase instead.
 
I would say you'd get better performance by dropping the SCSI drive and getting an Opty 170 or even the 180 with the money you save. Get a couple of Raptor 36 gigs for a RAID 0 for OS, aps and games. Otherwise looks pretty nice. Very nice case by the way, a buddy of mine has one and loves it. Personally I like cases with a lottle more to them without being overly gaudy.
 
Ok, don't get the 15k drive as the only thing it will improve is your start time by about 2-5 seconds. Use the money you save on that, and get a 7900 GTX, or a Opty 170. Also, what is your PSU. Or should I say, I think you should get a Sonata II. Cheap, saves money, and then you can spend it on both the 7900 GTX and the Opty 170. Otherwise, I love your set up. Though I would get this RAM, which is positively a AWESOME PRICE. Good screen, same I'm getting, and cheap too. Oh, and finally, don't get that motherboard. First of all, your not going to be doing SLi, so its not needed, and you can get a much better non SLi board from DFI. Get the DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D. Cheap too. And if you really, really want faster load times, get the Raptor. The only good application of a 15k HDD is in a server. So, therefore, not needed in your rig.

DDay
 
If you want a faster handling computer I think a dualcore CPU is better than a fast harddrive-although i have no experience of it just hearsay.
Click to expand...
'

:?: :?:

You do realize he has a Opty 165 down don't you? Which is dual core? Riiiiight?


DDay
 
I think getting the 15k SCSI drive is a good idea - they're pretty expensive, but that card gives you the option of adding another drive later on and forming a RAID-0 array (and seeing as the 15k drive isn't that big you can easily copy the files over before creating the array).

I would normally say don't get the SLi board but I understand you're looking more to overclock which is your reason behind getting the DFI board. And getting the Opteron is a good idea for OC, too.

A well designed system, a mon avis.
 
What people haven't commented on is your sound card. Frankly its a piece of sh!t, don't waste your money. That card is Pre Audigy and you will be so pissed off that you wasted your money. If you are going to drop 2-3k on a pc at least get a X-FI Xtrememusic especially since you are going to pair it with some real speakers.

I also agree with previous posters that SCSI isn't worth the effort and cash. If you were creating a massive RAID 5 array with a file server applicatino then I could see it, but just for OS seems a bit ridiculous.

I would go for the Opty 170 just for the 10x multiplier, other than that its the same as the 165.

Also if your a noob to overclocking you may want to stray away from DFI, while the DFI-street people are very helpful there is alot that you can screw up. I have a DFI board and I've crashed it a few times making timing tweaks I shouldn't have and its frustrating as hell, but if you have the time to put in you can make it work.
 
I do have lots of time, the whole summer basically. For my Air Force job last summer, I had to get my computer up and working. It had a 15K RPM SCSI drive on a dual Xeon 3.6 GHz with 4 GB of RAM. Gawd, that was a fast computer. It took a week and a half of work to get it stable with WinXP SP2. SO, I know about SCSI trouble and I can put in long hours getting my computer to work. My computer at the lab was a BoxxTech, if anyone knows the name.

I know the benefits of SCSI are minimal, but it's also a pride thing. And you can't beat the speed of SCSI. Believe me, I've used it. For how long I'll have this machine (considering how long I've had my 4 year old Dell notebook), I'm going to need all the speed I can get.

The GTX is a waste of money. The GT is the exact same card with a single slot cooler (that I'm replacing anyway) and a lowered core/memory clock.

I think the Antec PSU will be enough clean, stable power for this build. Fujitsus tend to be pretty good on power usage. I know I don't need a PCP & C power supply, so the Antec will be great.

I'm getting an SLI board for the extra PCI-E slot. I'm assuming the Ageia PhysX card will use a PCI-E slot, so I'm ready for either the PhysX card or nVidia's plan for SLI Physics. I love versatility, which is why I chose the parts I did.

I am new at overclocking, but I do know that the DFI board I picked supports very high FSB numbers, and my RAM will let me keep a very close divider ratio with the processor. I'm not to worried about the CPU multiplier.

The only problem I've heard about with the Lian Li is that it's loud. The fans themselves aren't that quiet, and the aluminum does nothing for vibration. However, I need the lighter weight, and I want a window to show off the delicious UV-reactiveness of the board and cables with some cathodes. It fills me with glee.

Thanks for your help, people.
 
GTX is not nessarily a waste of money. You get double the ram / a cooler that works / and a higher stock clock speed.

Ageia physics chip will be pci not pci-e. Not to cause rain but you cant use the extra pci-e slot for anything but graphics unless you are ready to unleash headaches.

SCSI is defenitly fast and expensive, but only worth it to those who can justify the cost.
One more thing I havent researched but what to you lose by pluging in a pci-x card into a standard pci slot???????

As for the proccesor the 170 is the beter choise for overclocking and not much more money its in the $70-80 usd range

Going with that sound card you might as well stick with the integrated.
 
Going with that sound card you might as well stick with the integrated.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is the other option, but I suggested X-Fi bc the OP seems to have a rather robust budget so another $80-90 wouldn't be too much to add, not to mention some probably bad ass speakers :twisted:
 
One more thing I havent researched but what to you lose by pluging in a pci-x card into a standard pci slot???????
Click to expand...

I think only PCI cards can be used in a PCI-X slot for backward compability, not sure about PCI-X used in PCI slots... if it did fit and work you would loose all your i/o performance advantage.
so that is a good point that card may not fit in that DFI board... maybe it is specific to a tyan motherboard?

They do have pci-e SCSI raid - slightly more expensive...

LSI Logic LSI00008 PCI Express SCSI RAID $646 woah! But, again it does have it all - RAID 0/1/5/10/50 u320...
 
I'm going for a more conservative overclock, maybe around 2.4 GHz or so. I want the Opty mainly for the extra cache and the better stock cooler.

As far as storage goes, you don't lose anything going from PCI-X to regular old PCI. PCI has a data bandwidth of around 500-550 MB/s, which is still much higher than even SCSI320, much less SATAII.

Made a few revisions:

2 x WD Raptor 36.7 GB, RAID 0 + 250 GB WD Caviar SE16.

eVGA 7900 GT KO with improved heatsink.

Where'd you find the info on the PhysX card? I couldn't tell what interface it was from the website.
 
Scrapped SCSI and Raptors for now, looking at a Tekram PCI SATA controller and 2 x WD Caviar RE 250 GB drives for a RAID 0 array. The PCI controller will boost performance, and these drives are mad for RAID.
Click to expand...

I think the PCI bus is limited to 133mb/s on a shared bus where as native SATA controller is a 150mb/s point to point circuit connection. Correct me if I am mistaken, but using the native controller should be faster than using a PCI controller. The only reason you would need a PCI controller is for RAID 5/6 and parity calculations.
 
Where'd you find the info on the PhysX card? I couldn't tell what interface it was from the website.
Click to expand...

Minimum System Requirements:
CPU with processor speed of 1.4 GHz or higher
128MB of RAM
Microsoft Windows XP, Home, Pro or MediaCenter Edition
CD or DVD-ROM drive
20MB available hard disk space
A 300 watt system power supply
A vacant PCI 2.0 or higher slot
Add-in graphics card supporting Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 2.0 or higher

http://www.bfgtech.com/physx/index.htm
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Also a better choise for SCSI card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816103131

You might want to research that TYAN card more. It appears to layed out for TYAN motherboards and you would lose a port by pluging it into a standard motherboard. Also it has no retention bracket making it a poor choice.
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Dont waste an extra $200 or so buying a 7900gtx! Just buy a 7900gt and voltmod it! The 7900gt comes stock 1.2v with an average clockspeed of 500mhz core/1500mhz mem, OC it and u will be around 560/1600, voltmod it to 1.4v and u will be hitting 650+, voltmod it to 1.55v and u will be pushing almost 700mhz core! There is also a Vmem mod that brings the voltage on the memory to around 2.2 or 2.3v, people have been hitting 1800 and 1900mhz on memory! There are instructions on how to mod the 7900gt up to 1.7v, a few have managed to get even higher (the highest ive seen is 1.85v but one of the chips on the card fried!) Heres the link to what im talking about, http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=176625

Seriously consider this, u can reach 1.4, 1.5, and 1.55v using a conductive ink pen, no soldering! This mod doesnt even void the warranty bc if the mod doesnt work u can remove the ink with alcohol or acetone! Save yourself $200 and do the mod, or spend a few extra $ and u can have 2 7900gt's in sli running gtx speeds!
 
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