Conroe Rig ideas

[Havok423]

Greetings everyone! I need a little help if you don't mind.

I'm starting to gather ideas for a new rig and I need some guidance on the case/cooling and budget.

What do y'all think of the following list of equipment

Intel E6600 ~$370
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe Motherboard ~$250 <-- intend to overclock
2GB RAM (Crucial PC2-5300 DDR2-667) ~$220
X1900XT ~$299
Western Digital Raptor (WD1500ADFD) - Boot Drive ~$200
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB - Secondary Drive ~$85
Case - ?????
Power Supply - ?????
Cooling - ?????

Trying to keep the budget in the $1500 neighborhood. If I'm overlooking any crazy ideas that can cut cost, let me know. I chose the E6600 to get the processor in the 4MB cache territory. I want this rig to last at least 3 years.

My largest concern is building the quietest machine possible without extreme cooling (no liquid cooling, etc.).

Can y'all tell me what you think of the component list and recommend a good case/cooling solution that is quiet and effective?

Thanks for any feedback!

-Rick

 

[PhoenixOrion]

For a quiet system using air cooling,

Antec P180B or Gigabyte 3D Aurora are nice cases, from personal experience.

Use Scythe Ninja or Tuniq Tower for CPU HSF.

Quiet PSU, you can't go wrong with Seasonic S12 series.

I think you can get better 2GB DDR2 with faster ratings at lower prices. Check Corsair XMS or OCZ XTC series.

 

[savvy]

Just wondering, but where are you getting the Barracuda for 85 dollars?

Also, you might want a Tuniq Tower if you can find one for cooling.

Since you're going for a quiet machine, are you overclocking?

 

[gators81]

Very similar to my build.

I went with g. skill ram, and already have a secondary HDD. Otherwise we are getting the same things. For case I got the Antec P180B. Cooler I got a scythe ninja plus, and PSU I got the OCZ gamexstream 700w.

I also got the creative xi-fi xtreme soundcard.

 

[Havok423]

Thanks everyone! How much overclock (without causing heat issues if trying to keep a quiet system) can one get from an E6600?

Savvy, I saw the $85 price here.

Looks like it was $95. My bad.

 

[Havok423]

Anyone know of a place to order with stuff actually in stock? (CPU mainly) It'd be cool if I could get everything here by Friday...

 

[gobucks]

$220 is way too high for DDR2-667. try this instead:
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=85025-5&ps=ho1
$40 cheaper and it will OC much better. And in my rig, I've noticed that running memory fast (800MHz-1000MHz) at loose timings provides better performance than slower memory at tighter timings.

also, if you can get a 320GB 7200.10 drive for $85, why not RAID0 a pair of them together instead of paying $200 for the raptor? that way all 640GB of storage will be very fast, not just 150GB, and you save $115. plus, the raptor is loud, which you said is an issue for you.

oh, one last thing - the 4MB cache doesn't do a whole lot. i think the difference worked out to 3.5% when averaged out over many benchmarks. considering most conroes (except the x6800) have similar OCing ceilings ~3.2-3.4GHz, which is high enough to be bottlenecked even by that X1900XT, i don't see much of a reason to spend an extra $100 on the e6600, which is hardly ever in stock, over an e6400 which is in stock everywhere. that's essentially a 40% premium for an extra 3.5% performance (assuming equal overclocking potential, which is impossible to predict anyways, since it is hardly related to stock speed).