About to order parts for new pc - comments welcome...

[drbob]

Hello,

I'm about to order a new rig to replace my againg athlon xp 1700 setup. Here's my current parts list:

Athlon 3800 x2
Asus A8R-MVP motherboard
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PT RAM (2x1GB DDR400 2-3-3-6)
WD Raptor 150GB
Gecube ATi x1800xt 512Mb Crossfire master
Scythe Ninja fanless heatsink
Antec NEO HE 430W (modular near silent PSU)
Antec P180 case
Microsoft Professional Wireless Optical Desktop
Acer 1916ws 16:10 19" widescreen LCD (already purchased)

I was torn for a while between going with an asus A8N motherboard + 7900gt and the above but eventually decided that the better IO performance of the Uli chipset on the A8R would be a good match for the raptor and the 512Mb graphics RAM on the x1800xt would be better for oblivion (which I've just bought but am waiting to play until I buy the above). I may eventually add a second x1800 but probably not until I can pick it up second hand for below £100. CD drive will be slavaged from my old machine (The only part to survive!)

I plan for a mild overclock of 2.4Ghz for the 3800 (240Mhz fsb) to bring it up to x2 4600 performace levels.

Any comments welcome. All in it's going to cost around £1300.

EDIT:
Here's the updated parts list based on my resarch and the discussion below - I'll update it again if anything else changes (differences in red):

Athlon 3800 x2
Asrock 939Dual-SATA2
Corsair TWINX2048-3200C2PT RAM (2x1GB DDR400 2-3-3-6)
WD Raptor 150GB
HIS ATi x1900xt 512Mb
Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer Accelero X2
Scythe Ninja fanless heatsink
Antec P150 case w/NEO HE 430W PSU
Microsoft Professional Wireless Optical Desktop
Acer 1916ws 16:10 19" widescreen LCD (already purchased)

Any additional comments/suggestions welcome

[ExceededGoku]

Nice set up although I would personally get rid of the raptor and get a better motherboard along with an X1900 with the money saved. Love the case

[drbob]

Long loading times really annoy me so the raptor has to stay :-)

Seriously - I'm looking for balance rather than bragging rights so I'm prepared to trade 10% video performance (all that the latest generation of cards seem to gain on the previous) for the raptor - I don't want to feel that any part of the sytem is holding the rest back.

But.... As I typed this I went back and rechecked the prices and discovered that ebuyer have an x1900xt for only £280. The x1800xt I was planning on buying is £240 - the performance boost is worth £40 to me but not £80-100 (which seemed to be the premium a couple of days ago when I put this list together) guess I'll get to brag after all :-)

[manwithnoname]

I've got a Antec P180 case, I'm very happy with it, but build wise the front door is a bit shoddy - it tends to bow in the middle.

I have a A8N32 and a Seasonic S12-430, looks like the A8R-MVP has the 4 pin ATX12v connector in the same place, I'd guess the Antec NEO HE 430W may have a longer cable on it, if not it is a tight fit.

[BUFF]

If you are thinking of going Crossfire later you should get a more powerful PSU from the start (will save swapping to 1 later).

Also, if you check the forums you will see that there have been a lot of people unhappy with voltage fluctuations on the A8R-MVP.

if you are looking at overclocking the 3800+ to ~2.4GHz Corsair TWINX-2048 3500LL PRO would be a nice match.

[drbob]

The crossfire option is very theoretical - I'll only likely do it if Ati releases a driver that makes the speed increase comparable to the increase seen in nvidia sli. At present it's just not worth it.

Thanks for the psu tip - I'll probably stick with the 430W though as I'll always have a use for it in another machine if I need to buy a more powerful one for crossfire in the future.
3500LL PRO Ram would be nice, but I have to draw the line somewhere! It's £50-60 more and I don't think it would offer as much of a boost to performance as using the x1900 over the x1800 will. From what I've read the 3200C2 memory should go to 240 FSB and if not I'll just set the RAM divider to 166 and have it run at stock speed.

manwithnoname: Thats why I'm sticking with antec for the PSU, if their own PSUs have cable routing problems on the P180 I'll be surprised.

[amjedm]

The crossfire option is very theoretical - I'll only likely do it if Ati releases a driver that makes the speed increase comparable to the increase seen in nvidia sli. At present it's just not worth it.

Thanks for the psu tip - I'll probably stick with the 430W though as I'll always have a use for it in another machine if I need to buy a more powerful one for crossfire in the future.
3500LL PRO Ram would be nice, but I have to draw the line somewhere! It's £50-60 more and I don't think it would offer as much of a boost to performance as using the x1900 over the x1800 will. From what I've read the 3200C2 memory should go to 240 FSB and if not I'll just set the RAM divider to 166 and have it run at stock speed.

manwithnoname: Thats why I'm sticking with antec for the PSU, if their own PSUs have cable routing problems on the P180 I'll be surprised.

The Smartpower 2.0 500W has long enough cables. The others in the Smartpower 2.0 range don't.

I think the Neo HE cables are long enough.

Seasonic have revised the S12 range with longer cables and all are sleeved. Not sure when these ones will make it to the UK though.

[Nat101]

The Seaonic S12 certainly performs better than almost all equivalents.

How about the Antec P150? You can pick it with the Neo HE included for about £100-105.

[amjedm]

How about the Antec P150? You can pick it with the Neo HE included for about £100-105.

Excellent idea.

It is a smaller case however and earlier Antec Neo He had problems with Asus boards.

[drbob]

The A3 revision of the NEO HE PSUs is supposed to resolve the problems that existed on the earlier versions. See here. Also weren't the problems with the A8N motherboards, not the A8R range?

I'll go with the P150 instead - it cuts around £50 off my total which more than makes up for switching to the x1900xt. I also like the hard drive suspension feature which should come in useful for slienceing the raptor. Looks like I'll have to use active cooling on the scythe heatsink though.

[amjedm]

Why do you have to use active cooling on the Scythe? You can always try passive first.

I'm not sure which place is the cheapest for the P150 combo but ebuyer have them.

[drbob]

It's just an educated guess based on the spcr report on the P150. They put a pentium D with an intergrated graphics motherboard in the P150 and had to use active cooling on the scythe.

I'll try without an active fan on the heatsink but I don't think I'll stand much chance with a x1900xt in the case :-)

[drbob]

After some further reading I don't think I'll try to buy a crossfire board right now - all of them seem to have issues to a greater or lesser extent.

The horror stories I've read online about the A8R have convinced me to avoid it. I considered it's sucessor the A8R32-MVP but am still not convinced.

Instead I'm considering an nforce 4 ultra board - the DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D looks good but I don't really want a whiny motherboard fan The Abit A8N Ultra looked perfect but seems to have been discontinued.

Also interesting is the Asrock 939SLI32-eSATA2, not for it's SLI capability which I won't use, but for it's full set of other features and rock bottom price (making it easy to discard if I do evenually buy a crossfire board once the platform has matured).

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

PS You may have noticed a significant slant towards a low noise, but powerful system - this is because my current rig (Lian Li PC-60 with 4 80mm case fans + Thermaltake Volcano 7) positively howls....

[Chan]

Check if overclockers.co.uk still have any AN8 Ultras left in clearance, where i snagged mine from last week. As for the case.. P180 is worth every penny, the cooling its capable of is crazy plus its completely silent, keeps my 3500+ at 25 idle (with a Thermo Big-T on) system is usually floating around 28-29oc im guessing the system temp sensor is situated somewhere near the X1800 which should explain the higher temp than the CPU lol.

Also, dont skimp on the PSU, you'll only end up regretting it. If you plan to spend £1300 then you might as well push the boat out and pick up a solid PSU. Like previous posters have said tho, be careful if you use the P180 since you need a long 4pin 12v cable to reach (the Hiper Type-R 580W barely reaches, and i think if you have any heatsink except a Big-T it definitly wouldnt reach as the cable is threaded under the big-t through the heat pipes, if it had to go around the heatsink there'd be no chance of it reaching).

[drbob]

Scratch the A8 ultra - a browse of the abit forums reveals it to have lots of issues as well - though I'm worried if I'm letting myself be swayed too much by the horror stories - it seems that every motherboard has at least a couple.

I think I'm going to settle on the Asrock 939dual-eSATA2 with a firewire pci card and this neat cable to get my front panel firewire working.

I know it's a budget board and counter intuitive for such an expensive rig, but the overclock I plan to do (240Mhz HTT, stock 200Mhz memory speed via the 166Mhz divider) should be easily attainable on it. I've read many good things about this board and if it proves problematic I won't have lost much. Every benchmark I've seen seems to state that it competes well with boards based on the ati or nvidia chipsets.

The other PC in the house is use only for office tasks - when I eventually move to another board, the asrock board will allow for a very cheap upgrade from the current duron to an athlon 64 (I can keep all the components, including the agp card and just add a cpu)

[drbob]

Also, dont skimp on the PSU, you'll only end up regretting it.

The Neo HE 430W is supposed to be a premium PSU - are you sure using it would be skimping?

Whilst it won't support a crossfire setup, I'm pretty confident it should be able to handle all I plan to put in the case at this time. This PSU load calculator estimates a 370W peak load.