$1300 Computer

[AustinMatherne]

First off I?m only 16 so I?m on a tight budget. I?ve been saving up for a few years now with summer jobs and I have $1300 to spend on a new computer to replace my Pentium II that I got for Christmas a long time ago. I can reuse my speakers (Logitech X-530) Keyboard and Mouse but I need a new Monitor. I?m very comfortable with OCing and would like to OC the CPU & GPU. Also this computer is going to be in my den with the TV so it needs to be very quiet. As well I will be upgrading it with another 1GB of RAM in a couple of mouths after I get it so I need a single 1GB stick of RAM now that way when I get the other 1GB I can run them both without having to run them in T2.
Also I would like a 19? CRT.
Anyway here?s what I was thinking. Nothings set in stone yet.

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500
Thermal Paste: Artic Silver 5
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 Black/Silver
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-500
RAM: ???
Hard Drive: Samsung P120 200GB 7200RPM SATA II
Optical Drive: NEC ND-3550A Black
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 6800GS PCI Express
GPU Cooler: Zalman VF700-CU
Sound Card: Chaintech AV-710
Monitor: ???

 

[Akhen]

can you build a computer yourself?
cause if thats the case you can get yourself a very nice computer for that price.

 

[Coolin]

If you're looking for quiet, I would suggest doing something about your motherboard choice.

The DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D, if I remember correctly, has a Northbridge fan that spins at 7000 rpm. You're either going to have to replace that with an aftermarket heatsink like the Zalman NB-47J or get a motherboard with a passive Northbridge.

 

[Finns14]

get the 3200+ instead I know you want to save money but for $10 you can get the 3200+ thats what I opted for

 

[Varun]

I think you have made some really good choices.

The CPU cooler, while amazing at cooling, is not the quietest cooler out there. In fact, SilentPCReview thought it was pretty loud. Zalman 9500 review

They really like the Scythe Ninja.

You could mount a 120mm fan on the Ninja, but since it is designed to run fanless, if you have Cool'n'Quiet enabled you would be able to use something like Speedfan to keep the fan off until a certain temperature is reached. I imagine it would only kick in when the CPU is almost maxed out.

The case you selected is a good case for sure, but not the best case for a quiet environment. If you like silver, the Antec P180 is likely the best case out for a quiet PC. It features great airflow in combination with sound deadening panels for the ultimate quiet computer. If silver isn't your thing, there is an exclusive black version here.

You don't have RAM picked, but I've read the OCZ Ram works well with your motherboard. Whether you go Value or performance is up to you and your budget, and if overclocking to you means increasing the RAM frequency or not.

The Zalman VF-700 is a great cooler for video cards, but if you really are after a quiet computer, go for the Zalman ZM80D-HP passive cooler. It will have no trouble with that video card, as long as you have some airflow in your case.

You'll probably need a case fan or two as well, 120mm Nexus fans are the quietest but push the least amount of air. If you want something with a bit more air flow the Yate Loon is a nice fan (same as the Nexus but spins faster).

Of course I'll recommend again to use Speedfan to control your fan speeds and keep them as slow as possible for the least amount of noise, but if the temperature goes up they can spin up on their own to deal with it.

Good luck with the new PC! It will be a HUGE step up from a PII

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Coolin
If you're looking for quiet, I would suggest doing something about your motherboard choice.

The DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D, if I remember correctly, has a Northbridge fan that spins at 7000 rpm. You're either going to have to replace that with an aftermarket heatsink like the Zalman NB-47J or get a motherboard with a passive Northbridge.

Good point - and with the Nforce 4 overclocked the Zalman gets pretty hot. The Asus A8N-SLI Premium has a nice heatpiped northbridge. It's a bit more money than the DFI though, and might not be quite as good for overclocking.

If you do get the DFI, you should get the Zalman as suggested, and just make sure there is some airflow over it.

 

[JEDIYoda]

Originally posted by: Varun
I think you have made some really good choices.

The CPU cooler, while amazing at cooling, is not the quietest cooler out there. In fact, SilentPCReview thought it was pretty loud. Zalman 9500 review

They really like the Scythe Ninja.

You could mount a 120mm fan on the Ninja, but since it is designed to run fanless, if you have Cool'n'Quiet enabled you would be able to use something like Speedfan to keep the fan off until a certain temperature is reached. I imagine it would only kick in when the CPU is almost maxed out.

The case you selected is a good case for sure, but not the best case for a quiet environment. If you like silver, the Antec P180 is likely the best case out for a quiet PC. It features great airflow in combination with sound deadening panels for the ultimate quiet computer. If silver isn't your thing, there is an exclusive black version here.

You don't have RAM picked, but I've read the OCZ Ram works well with your motherboard. Whether you go Value or performance is up to you and your budget, and if overclocking to you means increasing the RAM frequency or not.

The Zalman VF-700 is a great cooler for video cards, but if you really are after a quiet computer, go for the Zalman ZM80D-HP passive cooler. It will have no trouble with that video card, as long as you have some airflow in your case.

You'll probably need a case fan or two as well, 120mm Nexus fans are the quietest but push the least amount of air. If you want something with a bit more air flow the Yate Loon is a nice fan (same as the Nexus but spins faster).

Of course I'll recommend again to use Speedfan to control your fan speeds and keep them as slow as possible for the least amount of noise, but if the temperature goes up they can spin up on their own to deal with it.

Good luck with the new PC! It will be a HUGE step up from a PII

Actually SPCR is the ONLY reviewing site that found the Zalman 9500 loud!!
Most others found it to be a very quiet heatsink and effective!!

I will tell you what SPCR did wrong when the evaluated the zalman 9500....
This is from my personnal experience with it...

When i first installed it and started the computer...
The CPU made such a noise as you would not believe...soo loud....
Then after about 30 minutes of that noise......
I thought to myself SPCR must have been right on....
Well at the 45 minute mark...it went totally silent....I mean totally...
well I let it run for another 6 hrs....checking occassionally to make sure the heatsink was working it was so quiet.....

In other words SPCR did not give the zalman heatsinktime to be broken in...
To this day mine 9500 is quiet even at highg rmp....where it just prrs right along!!

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

I think the Abit nForce4 Ultra motherboard has heatpipe cooling for about $100, but I don't think it'll get nearly as high overclocks. In that case, try and go for a 3200+ Venice, or even better, a S939 Opteron 144 (double the cache of a Venice, basically San Diego core).

 

[firewolfsm]

i would recomend the Epox 9NPA Ultra, and if you want quiet, buy a seperate PSU w/ a good fan like the XCLIO bl series, they have 120mm slow rotating fans. why can't you get 2x512MB, and upgrade to 4x512 later?

 

[l Xes l]

if u r going to OC...i'd definitely recommand to get xp120 as ur HSF to cool off ur rams at the same time... it's a real help on the rams... and save trouble of buying another fan to cool off the ram..
and dont worry about NBridge fan on DFI.... it's dead silent...

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda

Originally posted by: Varun
I think you have made some really good choices.

The CPU cooler, while amazing at cooling, is not the quietest cooler out there. In fact, SilentPCReview thought it was pretty loud. Zalman 9500 review

They really like the Scythe Ninja.

You could mount a 120mm fan on the Ninja, but since it is designed to run fanless, if you have Cool'n'Quiet enabled you would be able to use something like Speedfan to keep the fan off until a certain temperature is reached. I imagine it would only kick in when the CPU is almost maxed out.

The case you selected is a good case for sure, but not the best case for a quiet environment. If you like silver, the Antec P180 is likely the best case out for a quiet PC. It features great airflow in combination with sound deadening panels for the ultimate quiet computer. If silver isn't your thing, there is an exclusive black version here.

You don't have RAM picked, but I've read the OCZ Ram works well with your motherboard. Whether you go Value or performance is up to you and your budget, and if overclocking to you means increasing the RAM frequency or not.

The Zalman VF-700 is a great cooler for video cards, but if you really are after a quiet computer, go for the Zalman ZM80D-HP passive cooler. It will have no trouble with that video card, as long as you have some airflow in your case.

You'll probably need a case fan or two as well, 120mm Nexus fans are the quietest but push the least amount of air. If you want something with a bit more air flow the Yate Loon is a nice fan (same as the Nexus but spins faster).

Of course I'll recommend again to use Speedfan to control your fan speeds and keep them as slow as possible for the least amount of noise, but if the temperature goes up they can spin up on their own to deal with it.

Good luck with the new PC! It will be a HUGE step up from a PII

Actually SPCR is the ONLY reviewing site that found the Zalman 9500 loud!!
Most others found it to be a very quiet heatsink and effective!!

I will tell you what SPCR did wrong when the evaluated the zalman 9500....
This is from my personnal experience with it...

When i first installed it and started the computer...
The CPU made such a noise as you would not believe...soo loud....
Then after about 30 minutes of that noise......
I thought to myself SPCR must have been right on....
Well at the 45 minute mark...it went totally silent....I mean totally...
well I let it run for another 6 hrs....checking occassionally to make sure the heatsink was working it was so quiet.....

In other words SPCR did not give the zalman heatsinktime to be broken in...
To this day mine 9500 is quiet even at highg rmp....where it just prrs right along!!

Well they actually use acurate test equipment in a controlled environment, so I'm sorry but I'll take their word over yours. I also doubt that they were able to do their entire review in under 45 minutes with the measurments they take. If the motor has excessive noise that goes away in 45 minutes they would have heard it. I'm not saying yours didn't, it's very possible a bearing could be loud and then whatever was making it noisey got blown out. Some people have different opinions on what quiet is, and I don't want to take anything away from the 9500 as it cools really well.

They got a rating on the Zalman at 37dB@1m, which is OK. It's just the Ninja at the same airflow with a Nexus fan was only 18dB. If you understand the logarithmic scale, the 19dB difference is HUGE.

If you compare the two by noise (undervolt the Zalman), the Ninja is 4° cooler at the same noise level. The big point here is, the Zalman won't run any quieter than 22dB, and the Ninja can.

The biggest advantage to the Ninja is that is can be run with the fan off for 90% of the time, and you can pick and choose a fan to mount to it (ie Nexus)

 

[w00t]

JEDIYoda

I would trust them before anyone else when it comes to sound if they say its loud its loud.

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: firewolfsm
i would recomend the Epox 9NPA Ultra, and if you want quiet, buy a seperate PSU w/ a good fan like the XCLIO bl series, they have 120mm slow rotating fans. why can't you get 2x512MB, and upgrade to 4x512 later?

He chose the Seasonic S-12, which is a very quiet, high quality power supply.

Also, does it really matter if he goes single channel for a while? The performance loss is not much, and filling all RAM slots can put a lot of load on the motherboard/memory controller. I think he is taking the right road with the 1x1GB stick now, and another later.

 

[AustinMatherne]

Akhen
Yes I can build a computer by myself. I helped build my Dads Computer last year (ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe, AMD Athlon 64 3200+, Antec P180, OCZ PowerStreem 600W, ATI Radeon X300, Seagate 7200.8 300GB SATA and 2x512MB sticks of Corsair XMS RAM)


Coolin
I don?t want to change to a different mobo because of the OC features of the DFI board. However I will defiantly look into changing the Northbridge fan to a passive heatsink.


Finns
I believe there aren?t any advantages to going with the 3200+ when OC on the DFI board if I?m wrong please correct me.


Varun
I will defiantly be looking into the Scythe Ninja.
Like I typed earlier in this post my Dad has the P180 and I love it but for $70 more then the Centurion 5 I don?t think it?s worth it.
I don?t want to passively cool the GPU because it will most likely hamper my max OC.


t3h l337 n3wb
I?m not really familiar with the Opteron line of Processors could someone explain the deference?s between the Opteron and Athlon 64 families?

 

[bigpow]

check my sig, pretty close to what you have in mind

Can't comment on 9500 (it was not available when I bought my 7700), but Vf700 is silent enough for my taste.
NB47j runs warm, but I've not seen any problem yet.

I'd give the Opteron 146 a try, or maybe you'd be interested in a slightly used 3000+?

I wouldn't comment on your case selection, we're all entitled of our own subjective taste.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

The Opterons were AMD's first design, intended for servers and running on Socket 940. They have higher grade silicon and are designed to work for a long time. Then, AMD introduced the Athlon 64 to the home desktop market, based of the Opteron's design. They have the exact same architecture, but until recently, Opterons have been limited to Socket 940 for server motherboards only. However, AMD has just recently released Socket 939 Opterons, both single and dual core. They are exactly the same as their Athlon 64 counterparts, but have been known to get higher overclocks. Also, the cheapest Athlon 64 with 1MB cache that you can buy is the 3700+ San Diego. However, you can get an Opteron 144/146, which have clock speeds equivalent to a 3000+/3200+ respectively, but using the San Diego core (which AMD renames "Venus" for the Opterons), which gives it 1MB of cache. The dual core Opterons all have 2MB of cache, so an Opteron 165 (1.8ghz 2MB cache) would be better than the 3800+ (2.0ghz 1MB cache), and it costs less. People have reported getting 3.0ghz+ on single core Opterons, and probably somewhere around 2.7ghz on the dual cores. They're all the rage now, so you should definitely try to grab one.

 

[AustinMatherne]

Whets the difference between the Zalman ZM-NB47J and there ZM-NB32K?
I can?t find any places that sell the Nexus fans. Could someone give me a link?

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Fishers Web
Whets the difference between the Zalman ZM-NB47J and there ZM-NB32K?

The 47J is taller for a bit more surface area and will cool better than the 32.
I can?t find any places that sell the Nexus fans. Could someone give me a link?

http://www.endpcnoise.com/

 

[AustinMatherne]

Ok I?m back with a couple more questions.
The specs for the Cooler Master Centurion 5 80mm case fan is 80x80x20mm but the Nexus 80mm fan is 80x80x25mm will it still work?

 

[imported_electron]

Originally posted by: JEDIYoda...I will tell you what SPCR did wrong when the evaluated the zalman 9500....
This is from my personnal experience with it...

When i first installed it and started the computer...
The CPU made such a noise as you would not believe...soo loud....
Then after about 30 minutes of that noise......
I thought to myself SPCR must have been right on....
Well at the 45 minute mark...it went totally silent....I mean totally...
well I let it run for another 6 hrs....checking occassionally to make sure the heatsink was working it was so quiet.....

In other words SPCR did not give the zalman heatsinktime to be broken in...
To this day mine 9500 is quiet even at highg rmp....where it just prrs right along!!

You've got to be kidding. A HS/Fan getting quiet after a 45 minute break in period? I'll tell you what YOU did wrong. You got used to the sound level.

 

[The Batt?sai]

i would suggest finding someone in these for sale forums here thats selling a cheap socket 939 chip :-D. i'm sure u can get something real nice for cheap :-D. same with the ram. i got 2 x 1 gig sticks of patriot red heatspreader 2.5-3-3-8 ram shipped from someone in the forums . goodluck!

 

[AustinMatherne]

Ok here?s what I got now.

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D $119.99
Northbridge Heatsink: Zalman ZM-NB47J $4.95
Processor: AMD Opteron 144 1.8GHz 1MB $165.00
CPU Heatsink: Scythe Ninja $39.99
CPU Heatsink Fan: Nexus 120x120x25mm $15.95
Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 $5.89
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 Black/Silver $54.99
120mm Case Fan: Nexus 120x120x25mm $15.95
80mm Case Fan: Nexus 80x80x25mm $10.95
Power Supply: Seasonic S12-500 $129.00
RAM: OCZ Performance Series DDR PC-3200 1GB Module $109.93
Hard Drive: Samsung P120 200GB 7200RPM SATA II $93.50
Optical Drive: NEC ND-3550A Black $44.99
Floppy Drive: Sony Black $10.00
Video Card: EVGA e-GeForce 6800 GS PCI-Express $209.00
GPU Heatsink: Zalman VF700-CU $25.99
Sound Card: Chaintech AV-710 $25.00
Monitor: NEC MultiSync FE992-BK $209.99
TOTAL: $1,291.06

There is one problem.
The Zalman ZM-NB47J won?t fit on the DFI board once a video card is installed. However there are ways around this if you?re creative enough.

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: Fishers Web
There is one problem.
The Zalman ZM-NB47J won?t fit on the DFI board once a video card is installed. However there are ways around this if you?re creative enough.

very nice

 

[grant2]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
The Opterons were AMD's first design, intended for servers and running on Socket 940. They have higher grade silicon and are designed to work for a long time. .... AMD has just recently released Socket 939 Opterons, both single and dual core. They are exactly the same as their Athlon 64 counterparts, but have been known to get higher overclocks.

Can you please tell us where AMD says they use a different grade of silicon for Opterons?

It looks like you are saying the 939 opterons use lower-grade silicon than 940 opterons.