Building New System

[darkeyed]

I am planning on building a new high end system, and I am looking for some advice. First of all I have built several systems over the years and have done some mild over clocking. I have worked with both AMD and Intel systems. I am looking to build that I can push as hard as possible to over clock while keeping the system air cooled. I am willing to spend some money but I am not going to break the bank.

I am going to build a AMD64 3500 Winchester based system.

The first question is on the mother board. People seem to love and hate about every board out there. I would like to get a nForce4 board but I don?t need SLI and I am not totally wild about the Gigabyte board. My short list is:

Abit AV8 Via K8T800 Pro
Asus A8V-Deluxe Via K8T800Pro
Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 nForce4 4X
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum nForce3

Cooling is Thermalright XP-90 with a Panaflo 92x25mm Medium Speed 48 CFM.
Power Supply is Antec TruePower True480 480W.

I would like to use a Antec NeoPower 480W because of the features and flexible wiring setup but I have heard so much about the dual power rail problems.

The next question is memory. I have read a lot about what people are saying and I am a bit confused. I am willing to pay a bit more for head room on my memory since the times I have messed with over clocking memory has been my limit.

Am I better off getting faster memory (ie DDR 500) or is low latency better such as Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO? Both are about the same cost.

I have a short list but I also am willing to listen to any suggestion
Corsair TWINX1024-4400C25PT 1GB Kit DDR550
Kingston HyperX KHX4000K2/1G 1GB Kit DDR500
Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO 1GB Kit DDR400 XMS3200 Xtra-Low Latency Dual

For a video card I am probably looking at a 6800 GT in either AGP8 or PCI E. I guess that depends on the motherboard. I don?t see for now that the PCI E would give me better performance with the cards available now.

 

[ts3433]

If you're looking to overclock anyway, get a 3000+ or 3200+ Winchester. You'll top out at around the same speeds. Additionally, you don't need to waste money on "fast RAM," as shown here. Get two 512MB sticks of some good value RAM for $140.

The Asus A8V, MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, and Epox EP-9NDA3+ are all supposed to be good boards. You may see slightly better overclocking results with the latter two, which are nForce3-based. Don't worry about PCIe for the moment.

 

[darkeyed]

bump

 

[darkeyed]

I also am wondering which would give me better performance using a single raptor drive or a pair of seagate drives setup in a raid 0 ?
I can use a raptor drive for my system and I have a western digital I can use for data.

 

[JBDan]

ts is right on. Save big $$ with the 3000+ 90nm and value RAM (Mushkin $136 2.5-3-3 pc3200 @ Newegg) I would go single raptor but thats me. Raid does not offer the gamer big performance boosts. I have the A8V - its a solid board and a decent oc'er.

 

[SrGuapo]

Yeah the Epox 9NDA3+ is an excllent board. It is virtually tied with the MSI as the top OCing board for s939. The mushkin value RAM is also really good. I have mine running prime stable at 240 MHz 2.5-3-3. I also opted to get the 3200+. epending on what you are doing, a Raoptor or RAID 0 might not benefit you very much. You may see a slight improvement (only a few seconds) improvement in game loading, but in game will be the same. Personally I would save some money and get a good Seagate 120 GB or 160 GB 7200 RPM.

 

[darkeyed]

Since I will not be buying any of this for a couple of weeks should I wait for the DFI nforce 4 ultra to come out?

I have done alot of reading on the memory and it seems I will go with decent ram but not extreme ram.

So a 64 3200+ will top out about where a 3500 will? Is the Thermalright XP-90 good enough to get me there?

 

[Regs]

My 3200 Winchester is now overclocked to 3800 speed with no voltage adjustments. I can imagine I can hit 2.5 with ease. If I had better ram than 3200 value select, I could likely hit 2.6 or even 2.7. My CPU is running idle at 35c with stock cooling.

The SLI motherboards are powerful and will offer you a hell of a lot of performance if you decide to get another 6800. But if you just are going to get one 6800GT, then SLI is pointless. If you do decide to get an SLI mobo, make sure you get the best PSU out there. Nothing less than 500 watts.

a 2.4 GHz overclock is easily obtained with good 2.5 Cas 3200 value Ram. If my corsair can do it with 1T timings, I think no different for you. However if you want to go for the more exotic overclock, OCZ 3500 LL or EB and even OCZ 3700 will suite you well.

 

[darkeyed]

I was thinking of the non SLI nforce 4 board. Many due the the other features. I dont think I will ever go to dual video cards. Not for a while anyways. I have also heard less bad things about DFI. But I have never used them. The only bad mother board I have ever had was a Soyo.

What would you think of Kingston low latency memory KHX3200ULK2 which i can get for just a bit over 200?

 

[SrGuapo]

My 3200+ also is running at 2.4 GHz without touching the RAM timings (2.5-3-3 w/ a gig of mushkin value RAM) or vcore/vdimm;. Right now, I am prime testing 2.5 GHz. The 3200+ is a much better deal easily OC's past a 3500+, and is almost $100 cheaper.

Get the cheap RAM as well. A gig of PC3200 value RAM (corsair and mushkin are boh good) will be MUCH cheaper than the low latency RAM. Running a divider does not hurt your performance noticably anyways.

While CI-e and te nForce4 Ultra boards are great choices, they arter very limited in availability and therefore the prices are jacked way up (if you can find one at all). Also, if you plan on getting a 6800gt, those prices are jacked up considerably as well (I've seen them more expensive than a 6800 Ultra).

I built my first system just this week (Wednesday) and I chose to go with AGP. Between the motherboards and 6800gt prices, it came out to be much cheaper. If ou don't mind waiting (possibly quite a while) for the nForce4/6800gt prices and availability to improve, tht will definately be an excellent route to take.