Lo Folks,
I just got my new pc up and running. This is only about the 10th pc I ever put together, and although it was easy, I still ended up cursing Micro$. Someone just has to come up with a better OS. I feel my hardware loose power once I install that piece of s-oftware.
Anywho, the motherboard is a real beauty. So far every machine I have built sported an Asus mobo. I thought the placement of the secondary IDE channel was a bit odd, but it turned out for the better. I have 2 hard drvies sitting at the bottom of my case, right next to it. The only thing I can wish for now is a really short IDE cable just to get rid of some clutter. And the mobo has enough usb connections for me to finally use the usb ports on the face of my Lian Li 68 case !
The only thing I do not like about the mobo is the onboard sound. I went with it because it seems almost all mobos sport onboard sound these days. I am still sound testing, but I think I will put my old Soundblaster Live Platnimun with Live Drive in.
Onto the power supply - NeoPower 480. Did I get a bad one ? It sounds like a tiny hair dryer. And the damn thing is hot ! It only has 1 fan (my old Enermax has 2) and I couldnt tell if the damn thing was blowing air in or out ! I actually put a piece of paper to see if it would get blown away from the fan or toward it. My case fan is right under the powersupply, so I am thinking maybe it is disrupting the air flow. I need to test. However, I am not at all happy with the NeoPower. I wish I could return it to NewEgg.
Ram - I just got 1 gig of plain old Corsair Value Select. And it works ! You see, last build, I payed dearly for 512 meg of Mushkin Enhanced Rimms (Asus P4T mobo), and I was not about to spend all that cash on ram again.
Cpu - I had a 2.4 on my P4T, and now I have a 3.0 with hyperthreading. Whats the difference ? I can't tell. I kinda knew I wouldn't see that much of a performance boost, but I was expecting to see something. And to be honest, I am really considering not selling my P4T mobo, Mushkin rimms and 2.4 proc. That setup ran damn fine.
In conclusion - I feel like I wasted alot of money. I don't see that much of a performance boost and the power supply is loud and hot.
The only thing keeping me from rebuilding my P4T is having to return all the new hardware, and another rebuild of all my software.
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Hope your doing ok notquite.
How is the new ps doing for you ?