Finalise my spec please!

[Sumanji]

Hey dudes,

Setting up a 2nd PC with some spare bits for LAN parties etc. No absolute budget, but I want to spend the least amount possible whilst maintaining decent performance. This is what I've put together so far...



That will go with these spare bits which I have kicking around:

OCZ Modstream 450W PSU
GeForce 7900GT 256MB
Seagate 80GB or Hitachi 250GB HDD
Crappy 15" TFT
OCZ Equalizer
Logitech Slim Keyboard
Windows XP Pro X64

Any improvements suggested? That will be better than my main PC, lol

Cheers,

Suman

[richieuk]

Generally from what I remember at lan parties, theres alot fo prog swtiching and messing inbetween matches. Its worth for that reason looking into 4GB of RAM.

Also, are you sure everyhtings ok with XP64bit? I've heard its a bit buggy so might be worth investing in 32bit or 64bit vista if you can get either cheap.

Generally its a not a bad build in a very nice case, should handle quite a bit, but with the 7900, it might be worth flogging that on and buying a new 4670 for £60 when they release next week as it'd be a bit of an upgrade (I assume, 2 gens difference) and still fit well.

That mobo is pretty cheap lol At least thats something good to offset it from being an nvidia chipset.

[staffsMike]

Problem with the motherboard is that it doesn't offer dual channel RAM so you limit yourself a little that way. That particular one is a very fussy overclocker as well I believe.
You can normally get these a bit cheaper, much better overall
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=616586

A nice way of cooling the CPU in this case is the coolermaster gemini II, it will fit underneath the PSU but will require the PSU to have a bottom fan in order to give it a little cooling. The zalman is probably not that much better than the stock cooler tbh, I've seen the thermaltake blue orb used a lot in this case also.

As much as I do like the cube cases, my head normally rules my heart and the last time I almost got a cube I bought the Silverstone TJ08 instead, a uATX tower which is so much better for cooling and noise really since it's got 2 x 120mm fans rather than the 80mm's on the Sugo.

[Sumanji]

Hey,

The main objective of this rig is to use as much of my old shiznit as possible, so extra expenditure is BAD! So...

• XP x64 is totally awesome - ran it for 2.5 years on my old rig, with the odd quaint driver issue (webcams etc.) otherwise its rock solid.
• 7900GT should be fine for some 1024x768 action on that 15" TFT
• 2GB RAM is more than enough for XP, even with multi-tasking.
• Normally would never consider a non-Intel chipset mobo, but these nForce boards are too cheap to resist! I do realise it's only single channel RAM, but one channel of DDR2-800 is enough to satiate that CPU with 800MHz FSB. Looking here the 630i totally on par with a G33 packing dual channel DDR2-667.
• Not looking to overclock, as I wanna keep heat and noise to a minimum. Again that system should destroy most games at 1024x768, and should hold it's own at 1280x1024.

Will look into those coolers though, thanks for the advice Mike

Cheers,

Suman

[edit] The only thing I was wondering about was if I should go for the XFX 730i instead? It's a tiny bit cheaper and doesn't have the ugly Gigabyte colour scheme

[Webby]

If you fancy the Sugo then the F version is a bit cheaper,

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=798106

Oh and I also say look at the TJ08 it is a great little case.

[Sumanji]

Hey Webby,

I looked at the -F, and the only difference I can find is that it's made of steel. I just thought the tenner extra would be worth the weight difference (4kg vs. 2.6kg iirc). What do you think?

Cheers,

Suman

[Sumanji]

Hmm ok I've decided to go for the Abit I-N73HD motherboard, as it combines the feature set and SATA layout of the Gigabyte with the good BIOS options of the XFX. Also going for DDR2-1066 in case I get the overclock itch after building it :devil:

I am now stuck on the cooler though! After a lot of research and speculating, I don't think any of the proposed heatsinks will fit without overhanging the board (so the side won't go on!). This I think will be a common problem with all boards.

The only cooler I can find that will fit both width and height constraints and give some decent performance is the Zalman CNPS8000... any other suggestions?

Cheers,

Suman