Building new PC (first time) please help

[Rohan]

My Hitachi drive is easily the noisiest thing in my case - I'm wishing I'd spent a couple of quid more and got a Samsung.

I see I'm not the only one who has a noisy Hitachi drive. The annoying clicking during read/write is quite annoying. Plus it's not noticeably faster than any of the other drives I've used. Winning in theoretical benchmarks doesn't mean much IMO.

I'd say go with either a samsung or maxtor drive. Both are almost silent and fast enough.

As far as extra CPU cache goes, I don't think it's worth the extra cash ( ). Clock speed is king, so get the 3800+ and try some o/cing.

[TooNice]

If idle you noise is a factor, it goes like this:

Samsung > Seagate > Maxtor > Hitachi > WD

The Samsung is not exactly silent during read/write. No drive are.

[[DW]Cougho]

ive got the older hitachi drive the 7K250 and ive also got a samsung P120 and tbh the samsung is hardly any quieter at all than the hitachi. Although i have heard the later hitachis run a bit hotter and noiser.

[rich3]

Cool nice one, thanks very much for your help. I've a few days before I order and a lot to consider!

[bright_]

the 165 opterons aren't known for clocking too well, the best, afaik are the 170 opterons

[TooNice]

Either is fine really, and both better value than a 4400+. 165 do about probably 2500-2800 (you do find 3 Ghz too), whereas 170 is around 2700-3000 (3 Ghz remains scarce). So overall, we are looking at less than 10% overclock advantage give or take, for 20% price premium, again give or take. Acceptable I suppose (the gap used to be much wider when I ordered mine), the bragging right is often worth a 10% price premium for many, although still slightly less bang for buck.