New PC build, thoughts?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The G41 would be Ok if it did not have the ancient ICH7 southbridge. If it had the ICH8 it would be much better. The latest P45 and G45 motherboards have the ICH10 southbridge. The ICH7 is from 2005 IIRC. The 975X based motherboard in my PC has the ICH7R and I assembled my PC in late 2006.

[sammorris]

Out of curiosity, what do the ICH9 and ICH10 do that the ICH7 doesn't?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Out of curiosity, what do the ICH9 and ICH10 do that the ICH7 doesn't?

The performance is much improved all round but since Shuttle had no P35 based units at the time and there were no 965 based ones even I went for it. I could have waited longer for the P35 based ones but my old PC at the time was needing replacement as it was an Athlon XP with an nForce 2 chipset and used AGP too!

The P35 in my backup machine has the ICH8 and the southbridge is better TBH. Better I/O performance all around and even reviews confirm this. The ICH9 and ICH10 are improvements over the ICH8 on top of this.

It would have been nice if at least for the G41 Intel had used the ICH8 as this was found in 965 chipset motherboards.

[sammorris]

Interesting as I used a P31 board for my file server and didn't even consider the I/O performance difference of using an older southbridge...

[Phalanx]

Thanks for the help guys, I'm very pleased with my final build because it was under budget

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for the help guys, I'm very pleased with my final build because it was under budget

What did you go for in the end??

[scaryjim]

Why would you take a G41 over a P41 in these circumstances, out of interest?

First motherboard I found on ebuyer in the same price range of the 770

I'm not as clear on the differences between Intel chipsets as I am on the AMD ones, mostly because the AMD ones have had a lot more press in the last 9 months with the release and revisions to the 700-series, but also because I tend towards budget builds with integrated graphics and AMD tend to offer better value at the bottom end than Intel.

[lego batman]

Sorry to lower the tone a bit, but did you remember to get some fans?
If you haven't yet, focus on getting some really quiet ones as the antec 300 has the fans right at the front so you will definitely notice a loud fan.

[sammorris]

The 300 doesn't actually have front fans as standard, last I checked. You have to add the front ones yourself I think.

[lego batman]

Yes sorry that's what I meant - if you do want to put fans there at the front, make sure they are quiet since there will be basically nothing between your ears and the fans!

[sammorris]

Agreed, and that's one of the reasons I don't typically recommend such cases for quietness, not necessarily the fans, but the noise of the HDDs behind. Depends which drives you buy really.

[webman]

Agreed, and that's one of the reasons I don't typically recommend such cases for quietness, not necessarily the fans, but the noise of the HDDs behind. Depends which drives you buy really.

But surely, quiet HD's and quiet fans would sort that out?

[sammorris]

It would, but you have to buy the right ones, I buy pretty much exclusively WD green drives for my server now as the level of vibration and idle noise is low enough.

[lego batman]

I'm sure on SPCR they will have instructions for DIY elastic-mounting your HDDs to get rid of vibration. Good thing about the antec 300 is that there's lots of room for things like that!
Idle noise is harder to get rid of I suppose.

The top panel on my antec 300 vibrates a bit, turning the whoosh of the 140mm fan into a low hum but it doesn't really bother me. I can see it turning into a real niggle though if you are sensitive to noise!

I found that swapping the two side panels (so easy) hides the sound from the GPU etc. and actually helps cooling if you have 2 intake fans fitted in the front, probably as it's a straight path for the air through the case.

Or, if you don't have a hot-running system you can use the side-panel-with-intake as a fanless intake and have the cooling driven by the 2 exhaust fans at the top of the case. You have to block off the front though (put a piece of paper behind the front cover) so don't put any fans there. Also make sure that everything exhausts outside of the case. This set-up means the only case fans will be the two exhausts so it will be quieter, but watch out for dust and for HDD temps.

[webman]

I'm sure on SPCR they will have instructions for DIY elastic-mounting your HDDs to get rid of vibration. Good thing about the antec 300 is that there's lots of room for things like that!
Idle noise is harder to get rid of I suppose.

The top panel on my antec 300 vibrates a bit, turning the whoosh of the 140mm fan into a low hum but it doesn't really bother me. I can see it turning into a real niggle though if you are sensitive to noise!

I found that swapping the two side panels (so easy) hides the sound from the GPU etc. and actually helps cooling if you have 2 intake fans fitted in the front, probably as it's a straight path for the air through the case.

Or, if you don't have a hot-running system you can use the side-panel-with-intake as a fanless intake and have the cooling driven by the 2 exhaust fans at the top of the case. You have to block off the front though (put a piece of paper behind the front cover) so don't put any fans there. Also make sure that everything exhausts outside of the case. This set-up means the only case fans will be the two exhausts so it will be quieter, but watch out for dust and for HDD temps.

Would he be better off with a case with a door on it then? no noise coming from the front? antec mini p180 comes to mind.

[sammorris]

You don't necessarily need one with a door, just one that has a bit more coverage of the front vents, or more to the point, one that uses a singular hard disk zone at the bottom, rather than two separate cages.