New Rig - Commments Appreciated

[RavenNight]

Hi! I'm really new here. I stumbled accross Hexus while researching my components, it's great to see a hardware site that's English, most of them are US!

After weeks (I mean Literally) of surfing I have come up with my spec:

Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe Mobo
AMD 64-bit 3700+ San Diego Core (Planning to OC from 2.2Ghz to 2.6Ghz)
1GB (2x512mb) Corsair XMS Twinx Cas2 RAM
36.7GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA
Gainward 1690 Golden Sample (6600GT)
NZXT Nemesis Elite Case
Hiper 580W Type-R Modular PSU

Generic FDD and DVD+-RW etc

I'd appreciate comments on the spec. e.g. better alternatives (i'm on a super tight budget so similair pricing ideally) and experiences people have had with this kit. Thanks!

[darrensen]

Sounds like a good setup there!

Just a couple of things.......not becuase ive got them but heres what i would suggest.......maybe go for the Asus a8n Premium as it has the fanless design and also maybe go for a Tagan PSU. I have heard about some Hiper PSU's blowing!

Good system other than that.

[tkh]

Personally I think that your HDD, however fast it is will be too small for your pc. And I would upgrade your graphics card if your going all out on everything else

[darrensen]

Personally I think that your HDD, however fast it is will be too small for your pc. And I would upgrade your graphics card if your going all out on everything else

Good point. If you really want a Raptor then go for the 74gb version. If not go for a SATA 120 Segate or something.

[vincent]

i would say HDD as well

[RavenNight]

Seriously the only stuff I have on my current PC is the OS, a few work files and BF1942. If i need more storage I can upgrade that easily later by getting a standard SATA drive.

I like the Deluxe but its £20 more. The heat-pipe doesn't make that much difference as I hope to water cool the PC a few weeks after getting it (Thermal Take Big Water Kit).

The GFX, again this is only a stop over. Hopefully in a fwe months something like a vanilla 7800 will come out and i'll snap one of those up.

I've heard mixed reviews on pretty much every PSU i've seen, I'll giev the Tagan a good look online before I dissmiss it, I've had PSUs blow on me (literally, noise, smoke and flames!!!!) before so a good one is on the agenda. Thanks for the comments!

[daverobev]

What are you going to do with the PC?

To be fair, 37Gb isn't a tiny amount, really; if you're gonna do internet, email, one game at a time and a bit of programming you'd be fine. 500Gb really IS quite a lot, unless you are doing home video stuff or using it as a media center...37Gb "sounds" titchy but....well, go have a look at your current drives and see whats what. You can always lump in a slower store drive in addition to the boot/fast drive...

74Gb sounds like a nice all round size, on the other hand

*Edit* typical me-post-while-you-post.

Enermax PSUs are good...never had a problem with one...

[mike_w]

I have a Tagan, and it hasn't blown up yet, so thumbs up from me!

According to some, BF2 likes 2GB of RAM, and games in the near future might like similar amounts, so you may want to consider 2GB of RAM. I would personally buy cheaper, but decent, RAM (e.g. Corsair Value Select), regardless of quantity - the tighter timings give a relatively small performance boost for quite a bit of money.

Also, the graphics card looks a little slow, but you've already said that you're going to upgrade it in the future.

Oh, and welcome to Hexus!

[RavenNight]

Thanks! Mike w brought up one of major queries in the grand scheme of things (like running something like BF2, which I will do) how much difference does the more expensive RAM make?

37GB is great, I've struggled along on HDD where I really only have 14GB free for ages I manage fine, I don't have insane music/movie collections.

[daverobev]

RAM: from the cheapest decent stuff (I go for Crucial myself, but hey) to the most expensive on the tightest timings is like 1-2%..on memory performance...unless you overclock where you might get 4 or 5%..on memory performance..only. So it has an overall effect of...half a percent.

But more ram is good....and I have heard that BFII is particularly RAM hungry...

More is definately better in this case, I think.

[Dark Horse]

I like the Deluxe but its £20 more. The heat-pipe doesn't make that much difference as I hope to water cool the PC a few weeks after getting it (Thermal Take Big Water Kit).

The GFX, again this is only a stop over. Hopefully in a fwe months something like a vanilla 7800 will come out and i'll snap one of those up.

I would still get the premium heatpipe version if you're looking for silence. IMHO watercooling a chipset when you could have it done by something else silently is pointless as it just dumps more heat into the cooling loop when you don't need it to.

Even if its only a stopgap I'd try an x800gt over 6600gt as it is the same price and has better performance and will probably have a better resale value as its newer.

[RavenNight]

Frankly I'm not that bothered by system noise, I game with a headset so it doesn't make all that much difference. I want the water cooling for its coolin' ability.

Thanks for suggestin' the X800GT having used nVidia cards in the past I hadn't given it any thought but i'm willing to try ATi, currently reading Hexus' excellent review...

Oo... PSU update, i've seen Tagan recommended everywhere but I can't find any actual reviews of their modular ones, anybody used one?

[Beer Moon]

If you plan to OC you'll get more mileage out of a 3000 or 3200 and a DFI mobo. Spend the extra cash you save from the 3700 on some decent RAM, like the OCZ EL Plat Rev 2 - it overclocks very well and you can use the leftover cash to get a better video card.

I have a 3000+ at 2.6Ghz stable, and it doesn't require water by any means. No one needs water to get 2.6Ghz out of a Venice. Just get a decent air cooler like an XP-90 or XP-120. I use a Zalman 7000B-Cu and my load temps are around 47 at my current voltage (~1.52v) running the 2.6Ghz OC.

The DFI LanParty NF4 boards are the way to go for sure. I have the Ultra D and I love it. I haven't seen any other board recommended more highly by overclockers for Athlon 64.

[RavenNight]

I have seen some awesome results from 3000/3200 chips but they're venice cores with only 512kb of L2 cache as opposed to the San Diego's 1mb.

I'll look into the DFI boards...

On the X800GT read some great reviews, 90% converted

[arthurleung]

If you plan to OC you'll get more mileage out of a 3000 or 3200 and a DFI mobo. Spend the extra cash you save from the 3700 on some decent RAM, like the OCZ EL Plat Rev 2 - it overclocks very well and you can use the leftover cash to get a better video card.

I have a 3000+ at 2.6Ghz stable, and it doesn't require water by any means. No one needs water to get 2.6Ghz out of a Venice. Just get a decent air cooler like an XP-90 or XP-120. I use a Zalman 7000B-Cu and my load temps are around 47 at my current voltage (~1.52v) running the 2.6Ghz OC.

The DFI LanParty NF4 boards are the way to go for sure. I have the Ultra D and I love it. I haven't seen any other board recommended more highly by overclockers for Athlon 64.

No one guaranteen the 3000/3200+ overclock well, even with the best memory. If you need to push the voltage up that defeats the idea of slient cooling. It takes you a whole week at least to tweak overclocking, and you don't need to do that with a faster cpu.

[RavenNight]

yeah, I really don't want to muck to much with this system, if I go for a higher clocked CPU to begin with then it can be a very stable pure processor overclock without having to fiddle with voltages and the like.

On DFI motherboards, I looked at a great comparative review here at Hexus and as far as blank performance goes there is a minute difference on only a few of the benchmarks, I don't think thats worth £20 plus you get stacks more extras with the Asus, external SATA ports, how cool is that!!!