AMD Gaming build request

[alius]

Would really apperciate if someone could help me out...I havn't been following any tech related stuff recently and am a bit overwhelmed by everything. Staying power and quietness are a must (don't really go together do they?). My old machine was basically a hairdryer and I don't want a repeat of that. Thanks in advance!.

alius

 

[fishmonger12]

build it completely silent, with passively cooled psu, cpu, gpu, and case.

with a 3k budget, it's easily done with good components.

 

[KoolDrew]

For a completely silence (or close to) system you could get a water cooling setup. If you are not planning on overclocking though you could but a fanless heatsink. I don't really know how well they perform, but if you are not planning on overclocking this would be your best option. I don't see a reason to go with a liquid cooled setup except for overclocking. You could also replace the stock cooler on the video card you buy with a fanless one. Again I do not exactly know how well they perform so it may not be good if you plan to overclock. It really all dep-ends on how silent you really want it though. Do you want it dead silent or just quite? When buying components the most important factors that would creat noise are cooling, Power Supply and Hard Drive.

For harddrive Samsungs are dead silent so I would defniteyl go with a samsung hard drive.

For PSu you may want to look at a Seasonic or soemthing.

Case is also very important. You don't want a crappy case that vibrates like crazy. I would reccomend something from Antec, Cooler Master, Lian Li and Silverstone just to name a few.

These links may help you out:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
http://www.buildsilentpc.com/

 

[PrayForDeath]

For video card, there are some passively cooled X800s and 6800s, and they still perform decently. I think Gigabyte makes those.
For the CPU, this and this are the quietest CPU fans/Heatsinks you can get, and the Zalman is a little quiter than the CoolerMaster.
For the case, I hope someone else would help you.

 

[ribbon13]

For 3k you could have a dual opteron based on the Tyan Thunder K8WE, and would have more staying power than any other platforum out.

 

[gobucks]

if you don't watercool, I recommend the following:
Athlon 64 3200+ or 3500+ (anything higher is a waste cause these overclock better than the more expensive 130nm parts) - $190 or $250
DFI nForce4 Ultra - $140
2x512MB Crucial Ballistix PC4000 or PC3200 (both are about the same, just whichever is cheaper) - $230
Geforce 6800GT or Radeon X800XL - $375
Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300GB SATA drive, NCQ, 16MB buffer - $190
NEC-5200A Dual Layer DVD-RW - $60
PSU - Vantec VAN-520A, OCZ Modstream 520, Antec NeoPower, whatever 24-pin PSU you prefer - ~$100
Case - Thermaltake Dream Tower - $100
CPU cooler - Zalman CNPS 7700-AlCu - $40
GPU cooler - Zalman VF700-AlCu - $30
Fans - Panaflos are good, apparently, and pretty quiet if you turn them down. The Vantec 120mm Stealth is also quite good and quiet, but all the other Vantec Stealths, even the 92mm ones, can't hardly push any air at all. The 120mm version pumps over twice as much air as the 92mm one, without being any louder.

Anyways, I think that's a good place to start. The 90nm A64s clock better than the other high end chips, hitting around 2.7GHz, versus about 2.5 for the 3800+ and 2.6 for the 4000+, while costing around $400 less. The Crucial Ballistix also overclock great, leaving you plenty of room for OCing your CPU, and even have pretty good timings to boot (2.5-2-2-10 is apparently pretty easy at DDR500 speeds). The 6800GT/X800XL are your best price/performance in the high end segment, so I wouldn't waste your money on an X850XT or 6800 Ultra. The passively cooled GPUs are decent, but may be a bit underpowered for the kinda budget you're looking at (12 pipelines hurts the X800 and 6800). For cooling, the Zalman products provide great cooling while being very quiet. Not silent, but much quieter than even the stock heatsink/fan combos on both the GPU and CPU. And whatever you do, make sure you get an nforce4 mobo and a 24-pin PSU. The PCIe/SATA-II support, and ATX 2.0 compliance, will allow for greater upgrade potential, which is a definite plus for someone spending this kind of cash on a new system.

 

[alius]

So in your opinion the 64-FX isn't worth it? Also what about SLI with 6600s or comparable cards? Also I think someone mentioned watercooling, how difficult is it to do for the first time?
I also have two 120 gig 7200 rpm (EIDE) drives, would it make sense to keep them or to just dump them for some SATA ones? I have to mention too this is kind of a fishing expedition...my old machine is half dead and I'm debating if its worth repairing or building a new one. Thanks again for the responses (and I'm checking out those links Kooldrew).

 

[CheesePoofs]

Any of the fx's are a terrible waste of money IMO. Twice or three times the price of a chip thats has a 15% lower clock speed, meaning its about 7% slower.

Don't do sli with 6600s, they won't out-perform a 6800gt, and a 6800gt can be had for the same price as two 6600s.

I personally would keep the drives, if they are good, I see no reason to waste them. A sata drive probably won't be noticably faster anyways.

 

[alius]

Thanks CheesePoofs, another question though. Would it be a good idea to purchase a SLI enabled mobo and just get a single 6800gt to leave the slot open for future upgradeability? I read anand's review of the SLI enabled nforce4 boards but don't have a clear idea on if people think SLI is just a short term thing or if its going to have staying power.

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

Buying a 6800GT now and then holding the extra slot open is a better move then buying 2 6600GT's IMO.