My PC

[nvening]

I have been planning this build for a while now, I have reached the point where I cant see the bad things with this system, but, im sure that you can, heres my plan:

Case: ThermalTake Tsunami Black Aluminum (VA3000BWA) +Window c/w 3x case fans +USB2 +Firewire NO PSU
£0073.97 - micro direct ( I know it may need new fans and i would like a fan controller but there are issues with fan controlers and this case - cause of te door-)

PSU : 480W Tagan Whisper quiet 21db Also support 12v EPS/SATA/XEON 3 Years Warranty ATX/BTX
£0069.30 - scan

Motherboard: DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D £0105.69 - OCUK

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500 32/64Bit CPU S939 Winchester 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty
£0182.70 - micro direct


RAM: 1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty
£0131.47 - scan

HDD: 200 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200rpm 8MB cache (Manufacturer's 5yr Warranty)
£0074.72 - microdirect

GPU: Powercolor ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB £0223.19 - microdirect

Optical drive2: NEC ND-3520 16x16 Dual Layer Black DVD +/- R/RW oem £0038.76 - microdirect
Optical drive2: LG 16x DVD-ROM Black IDE OEM £0017.57 - microdirect

Floppy: 1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive £0004.29 - microdirect

Total ex. monitor: £0925.05

Monitor: 17" Sharp LL-172GB 16ms DVI Black MultiMedia TFT Monitor (3yr onsite)
£0257.27 - micro direct

Total inc monitor: £1182.32

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

[YorkieBen]

the monitor is awesome, I should know cos Im using it right now

[StormPC]

I like everything but the case and PSU, and the HSF if you are overclocking. I'd go with an Antec Neopower 480, Corsair XL instead of C2PT and a Thermaltake Venus 12 instead of the stock HSF. I like a few of the Lian Li cases as well. The Tsunami Dream is really hard to keep clean and it's a pain in the arse to have to open the door everytime you want to do anything. The cooling is great on them though. Dual 120mm fans are nice, but many Lian Li cases have this also. The monitor is great! Personally I like the Samsung 712n better for gaming and video stuff but not by much.

[arthurleung]

Don't be using a 17" together with that kind of spec. Get yourself a Dell 2001FP, 2005FPW or 2405FPW. Pretty pointless to run game at 1280*1024 and turn on 8X AA.

DVDRWs read as fast as a DVDROM so there is no need for a seperate one.
Almost no one use a floppy drive so you will be better off getting a USB Floppy or not at all.

If you are planning to overclock (Which is quite obvious for using the DFI motherboard) I recommend you to get a dual channel pair of Patriot DDR400+XBL (So you can overclock to 500+ if you CPU is capable of) or simply Corsair DDR500 or higher (Patriot+XBL is more flexable for Clockrate/CAS)

[pudds]

First off you don't need a A64 3500+ , get a 3000+ . Ive never seen a 3000+ that won't do 3500 speeds. There a waste of money. And if your thinking about overclocking further and trying to reach higher speeds in fact the 3000+ and 3200+ seem to overclock better. My 3000+ does 2700mhz which is better than an FX-55 although youll probably get between 2400 and 2600.
With the money youve saved upgrade your graphics card and get a 6800GT. They are identical to a 6800 Ultra but clocked slower. Best thing is nearly all of them will reach ultra speeds no problem.
PSU looks OK to me although personally id upgrade to an OCZ 520W powerstream.

[Firelord]

First off you don't need a A64 3500+ , get a 3000+ . Ive never seen a 3000+ that won't do 3500 speeds. There a waste of money. And if your thinking about overclocking further and trying to reach higher speeds in fact the 3000+ and 3200+ seem to overclock better. My 3000+ does 2700mhz which is better than an FX-55 although youll probably get between 2400 and 2600.

Well the 3500 may oc further than a 3000+ in the first place specially if its a Winchester core

Plus your 2700MHz doesn't match an FX-55 because you've got half the cache of an non FX CPU. You would need about 2850-2900 to get similar scores to an FX55...

EDIT: Also great setup but consider the Akasa Eclipse instead as its had great reviews and slighty larger which'll make working on it easier

Also maybe look at the Luxotop RS812 (Thermalright XP120 with silent fan)

[pudds]

If you look around for the highest winchester overclocks you won't find many record breaking 3500+ ones. 90% are 3000+ or 3200+. There all the same core and speed binned , serious overclockers don't bother with the 3500+ because they know this.
Even with the 1mb cache unless the application benefits from it you wont see a difference. Im not too bothered by an occasional few fps difference for £400 less

[nvening]

Im not planning much if any overclocking, i chose the DFI as as far as i could tell by everyones comments its the best nforce4 ultra mobo part from the fatal1ty one wich costs £130 more. I actually probs wont go with the case, think I have changed to an antec p180. Im willing to go for a different PSU but £70 really is the limit.

I also cant see te point in getting more than a 17" monitor (well i can but not for me)
A high rez monitor costs loads and that is the limit I wanna spend on a monitor.

On to the antec p180 case, its hard to get silver drives so, according to the antec site, the case comes with replacement bezles, is this true? Also, what are the fans like, infact, is the case good?

Mabe i should get a raptor, i have got a 160GB usb hdd here so i dont think that space would be an issue, mmmmm, but i did wanna put old home videos on pc, but then i would be putting them onto dvd, mmmmmmmmm

[nvening]

Ok, seems i was talking about the p160, authough the p180 looks quite good, any more news on it?

[RDL]

You could also consider a CRT?

I have the AKASA Eclipse, and it is very good, a great case for space etc, especially if you plan to watercool later on.

[StormPC]

Plus your 2700MHz doesn't match an FX-55 because you've got half the cache of an non FX CPU. You would need about 2850-2900 to get similar scores to an FX55...

You forgot to mention that 2.92GHz is pretty much a given on an FX-55 with decent air cooling. That means without a cascade you ain't touching an FX-55.

[wenis]

I have been planning this build for a while now, I have reached the point where I cant see the bad things with this system, but, im sure that you can, heres my plan:

Case: ThermalTake Tsunami Black Aluminum (VA3000BWA) +Window c/w 3x case fans +USB2 +Firewire NO PSU
£0073.97 - micro direct ( I know it may need new fans and i would like a fan controller but there are issues with fan controlers and this case - cause of te door-)

PSU : 480W Tagan Whisper quiet 21db Also support 12v EPS/SATA/XEON 3 Years Warranty ATX/BTX
£0069.30 - scan

Motherboard: DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D £0105.69 - OCUK

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500 32/64Bit CPU S939 Winchester 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty
£0182.70 - micro direct


RAM: 1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty
£0131.47 - scan

HDD: 200 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200rpm 8MB cache (Manufacturer's 5yr Warranty)
£0074.72 - microdirect

GPU: Powercolor ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB £0223.19 - microdirect

Optical drive2: NEC ND-3520 16x16 Dual Layer Black DVD +/- R/RW oem £0038.76 - microdirect
Optical drive2: LG 16x DVD-ROM Black IDE OEM £0017.57 - microdirect

Floppy: 1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive £0004.29 - microdirect

Total ex. monitor: £0925.05

Monitor: 17" Sharp LL-172GB 16ms DVI Black MultiMedia TFT Monitor (3yr onsite)
£0257.27 - micro direct

Total inc monitor: £1182.32

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

The system I have in the works is almost the same.

I went with an OCZ Powerstream 520 for the PSU.
I bought a Maxtor 300gb 16mb cache SATA drive.
I bought the NEC drive your getting.
I bought the THermalright XP-90 heatsink w/ panaflo fan and arctic silver thermal grease.
The chip and mb are the same as yours.
I need ram and was looking at 1gb of Corsair XMS pc3200.
I will probably get an Nvidia 6600gt and wait for the next gen for something better.
I have an audigy 2z
I already have an 18" LCD monitor. My next monitor will be a widescreen.

My main hold up is the Antec P180 like you. I really want this case or at least see the reviews before buying something else.


Anyway man sounds like a great system. Enjoy it and have fun.

[nvening]

U got me wondering weather I should just get a 6600GT, when will the next gen be coming? Also, i must say i like the look of the p160 more than the p180, are the crome bits made of plastic? Oh and i dont want a crt.

[nvening]

ka-bump

[wenis]

U got me wondering weather I should just get a 6600GT, when will the next gen be coming? Also, i must say i like the look of the p160 more than the p180, are the crome bits made of plastic? Oh and i dont want a crt.

My guess is both Nvidia and ATI will have revisions of at least their current line by this fall, just in time for the Holiday buying season. I'm sure others here know more about that than I do.

The 6600gt actually has some features that the 6800's don't. It will work well in a HTPC setup because its onboard encoder works! Many of them come with HDTV out features and the Pureview tech works well on these cards. So if you have anything like that in mind the 6600gt is a good choice. You won't be king of the FPS race for games, but everything will look nice. I can't advise you on ATI cards. I stopped following them because they keep screwing up their capture cards like the HDTV Wonder and the TV Wonder Elite.

As far as the p160 I'm not sure what chrome bits you are talking about. Its a good looking case but I like a doored case. The minimalistic and clean look of the p180 is perfect for me. I've heard alot of good things about the P160, but one thing I have heard is that there more plasitic parts that can break in it than other cases. My two issues with it are, No door and those drive covers just look like a headache.
The layout on the inside is nice. If the p180 doesnt come out soon I will propbably buy it, but it has it flaws. If the p180 comes out soon the price on the 160 is also likely to drop more.

The p180 may suck or it may be case Nirvana. Bottom line is if you can't buy its not an option. I going to wait a few more weeks because I still have some parts to buy.

[nvening]

Im thinking about the Akasa Eclipse-62 now. Does it come with fans?