Hi,
About 8 months ago I decided the laptop i used for work was not really up to the job for a lot of games, and so I looked around and bought a Dell 8400 with the new 925X chipset and an ATI X800XT gfx card. At that point there were zero X800XT's in the channel, so it seemed a good deal at 1300 euro including everything. After about 6 months of very enjoyable use from the Dell (perfectly stable and quite fast) I started getting interested in upgrading. I quickly discovered what you all know already, that upgrading a Dell is very tricky as they use proprietary M/B's, PSU's and cases. This really annoyed me, so I decided to try doing something I have always wanted to do but not quite had the balls to do; build my own machine.
So I looked hard at the PC websites, found a bunch of forums, and discovered that Anandtech was the best in terms of clear information, aided by intelligent and in-depth reviews on the website. Gradually my ideas gelled, and I decided that the best system would be based around a socket 939 A64. The ridiculously high heat output from the Prescott combined with inferior performance for most things I do routinely made it a very clear choice in favour of AMD. I was waiting in January for the Venice core to come out (as was originally stated it should in the Inquirer) and when I saw H1 for the release of that stepping on the newest roadmaps I decided to just do it, and get the kit with a winchester.
Right after I ordered a 3200+ and A8N-SLI Anandtech posted the glowing DFI review, so I sent back the Asus and exchanged it for the DFI SLI-DR. I live in Sicily, and the supply for these board in Italy seemed much better than in the US.
So the following kit arrived last week (prices include shipping and tax):
A64 winchester 3200+ (175 euro)
DFI NF4 SLI-DR (202 euro)
Geil ultra platinum DDR500 (210 euro)
Lian-Li PC65B (140 euro)
Thermaltake Hardcano 13 (65 euro)
Coolermaster Hyper48 HSF (50 euro)
DVD +/-RW 3520A NEC (70 euro)
DVD ROM LG (25 euro)
Soundblaster Live! OEM with CD (22 euro)
PSU - 500W silent ATX 1.3? Tecnoware FAL500PRO (35 euro)
Wireless KB + Mouse logitech (44 euro)
Philips 109B60 19 inch CRT monitor 210 (euro)
ASUS X300 SE (to subsitute the X800XT in the Dell) (60 euro)
Total cost around 1500 euro. I am selling the dell (having taken out the X800XT) for about 800 euros, so the upgrade cost is 700 euros. Quite expensive, in the end around 2000 net, but for a pretty good system. My fiancè is not completely happy about all this though...
I had studied the boards quite well so i pretty much knew what I was aiming at. Zebo's OC'ing guide took a lot of anxiety out of the thought of OC'ing, made it seem ridiculous not to, like a free upgrade with very little risk if T's are well monitored (hence hardcano 13).
Memory, PSU and cooler were the hardest choices, as there was not great availability for memory here, and certainly not at what I thought were reasonable prices. The absolute cheapest, no-name PC3200 dual channel RAM came in at around 160 euros. Crucial, Kingston, all the rest were well expensive for low latency, around 280 euros for a gig. I found these Geil DDR500 sticks with 2.5-4-4-7 timings at DDR500 and figured I could play with them either at lower latency at DRR400 or at 2.5 with a memory ratio or with 1:1 timing. These were only 210 euro, and looked pretty cool too. I was very worried though by the lack of positive comments for Geil in general and the virtually complete absence of positive comments for these sticks in particular. But I figured if everyone does the exact same thing, we're just the same as Dell aren't we? A little bit of experimentation is always a good thing...
I had heard a lot of good things about the XP-90, but it's very expensive here and with limited availability. The Hyper-48 is much heavier, but looks great, and I figured something with that much mass and surface area must be good. Reviews confirmed the comparable performance of the XP-90 and Hyper-48 so I went with it. The only concerns I had were (i) Will it break the M/B? (ii) Will the phase change system work well when the HSF is mounted sideways, not flat...
The PSU situation at the moment is a real mess. The step-change in power requirements has been a godsend for the PSU suppliers, who have managed to turn the PSU into almost a fashion product... And some of them look very good indeed - at a price. Careful study showed there was only one fundamental parameter to worry about; the maximum load current of the 12V rail. I chose a Tecnoware 500W PSU for 35 euro from a local supplier. 24A on the 12V rail - should be plenty. Haven't seen them anywhere else, or in any reviews. Such a low price, I figured if I was wrong then I hadn't lost too much money and would be forced to spend more than 100 euro on a big name.
So, last week all this kit arrived and I could start building. First of all, the Lian-Li PC65B is a thing of beauty, I was really delighted with my choice. All the faceplates for DVD's etc are black, as well as the frontx so it looks very professional in the black case. The hardcano13 is pretty spank too. The motherboard also looked great. I set everything up on the kitchen table prior to installation in the case, and nothing worked. I thought the cheap PSU was duff, so I went to the shop where I purchased it and they showed me that I was just very, very stupid and needed to switch on the motherboard before the PSU turned on. Embarrassing... Tail between my legs I come back, and sure enough I see the DFI NF4 logo on boot... Yes! I power up using the 20 pin cable from my PSU in the 24 pin socket of the M/B, with added 4-pin power and Molex connected as well. Lots of messing around and I finally come to put the X800XT in. No joy, as there is no 6-pin PCI-X power cable from the PSU. Next day I go to a local hardware store, buy a couple of male Molex connectors and connect them up as per Spode's Abode instructions for a DIY 4-pin to 6-pin PCI-X power cable. Not very pretty, but it works! Very nice to get your hands dirty and resolve a problem without spending too much money...
Load up XP Pro, and it's sweet. All working well. So after a couple of days I try overclocking. I follow zebo's quick and dirty guide (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...tid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y) religously, and it works great. My max HTT is way high, thanks to the DFI, at around 330 MHz. Max CPU seems around 2600. Not bad, my CPU is a week 48 SPAW. Max memory is around 270 at 2.5-4-4-7 (so Geil works really quite well). I mess around a lot, wack up the V's to 1.55 and 2.9 for CPU and memory respectively. In the end I decide the best compromise is the simplest: FSB 250, 1:1 memory, 2.5 Ghz=25% O/C. Prime stable for 12 hours, but runs a little hot, 49C under load. It's winter here so around 19C in the house. In the summer it will be around 27-28, so I am not happy with this temp. Want it stable all year long. So i try reducing the Vcore a little, and find to my delight that it's stable as a rock (another 12hrs primed) at 1.475V. Now the load T is just 43C, and idle 30C. This is a sweet little system, 5250 on PCmark03, 34s for 1M superPi.
I want to thank everyone on these board for their advice and experience, particularly zebo and guitar daddy. It's funny that I kicked off all this being motivated primarily for games, but now I find myself watching superPi and Prime95 avidly instead...
Best regards,
z
About 8 months ago I decided the laptop i used for work was not really up to the job for a lot of games, and so I looked around and bought a Dell 8400 with the new 925X chipset and an ATI X800XT gfx card. At that point there were zero X800XT's in the channel, so it seemed a good deal at 1300 euro including everything. After about 6 months of very enjoyable use from the Dell (perfectly stable and quite fast) I started getting interested in upgrading. I quickly discovered what you all know already, that upgrading a Dell is very tricky as they use proprietary M/B's, PSU's and cases. This really annoyed me, so I decided to try doing something I have always wanted to do but not quite had the balls to do; build my own machine.
So I looked hard at the PC websites, found a bunch of forums, and discovered that Anandtech was the best in terms of clear information, aided by intelligent and in-depth reviews on the website. Gradually my ideas gelled, and I decided that the best system would be based around a socket 939 A64. The ridiculously high heat output from the Prescott combined with inferior performance for most things I do routinely made it a very clear choice in favour of AMD. I was waiting in January for the Venice core to come out (as was originally stated it should in the Inquirer) and when I saw H1 for the release of that stepping on the newest roadmaps I decided to just do it, and get the kit with a winchester.
Right after I ordered a 3200+ and A8N-SLI Anandtech posted the glowing DFI review, so I sent back the Asus and exchanged it for the DFI SLI-DR. I live in Sicily, and the supply for these board in Italy seemed much better than in the US.
So the following kit arrived last week (prices include shipping and tax):
A64 winchester 3200+ (175 euro)
DFI NF4 SLI-DR (202 euro)
Geil ultra platinum DDR500 (210 euro)
Lian-Li PC65B (140 euro)
Thermaltake Hardcano 13 (65 euro)
Coolermaster Hyper48 HSF (50 euro)
DVD +/-RW 3520A NEC (70 euro)
DVD ROM LG (25 euro)
Soundblaster Live! OEM with CD (22 euro)
PSU - 500W silent ATX 1.3? Tecnoware FAL500PRO (35 euro)
Wireless KB + Mouse logitech (44 euro)
Philips 109B60 19 inch CRT monitor 210 (euro)
ASUS X300 SE (to subsitute the X800XT in the Dell) (60 euro)
Total cost around 1500 euro. I am selling the dell (having taken out the X800XT) for about 800 euros, so the upgrade cost is 700 euros. Quite expensive, in the end around 2000 net, but for a pretty good system. My fiancè is not completely happy about all this though...
I had studied the boards quite well so i pretty much knew what I was aiming at. Zebo's OC'ing guide took a lot of anxiety out of the thought of OC'ing, made it seem ridiculous not to, like a free upgrade with very little risk if T's are well monitored (hence hardcano 13).
Memory, PSU and cooler were the hardest choices, as there was not great availability for memory here, and certainly not at what I thought were reasonable prices. The absolute cheapest, no-name PC3200 dual channel RAM came in at around 160 euros. Crucial, Kingston, all the rest were well expensive for low latency, around 280 euros for a gig. I found these Geil DDR500 sticks with 2.5-4-4-7 timings at DDR500 and figured I could play with them either at lower latency at DRR400 or at 2.5 with a memory ratio or with 1:1 timing. These were only 210 euro, and looked pretty cool too. I was very worried though by the lack of positive comments for Geil in general and the virtually complete absence of positive comments for these sticks in particular. But I figured if everyone does the exact same thing, we're just the same as Dell aren't we? A little bit of experimentation is always a good thing...
I had heard a lot of good things about the XP-90, but it's very expensive here and with limited availability. The Hyper-48 is much heavier, but looks great, and I figured something with that much mass and surface area must be good. Reviews confirmed the comparable performance of the XP-90 and Hyper-48 so I went with it. The only concerns I had were (i) Will it break the M/B? (ii) Will the phase change system work well when the HSF is mounted sideways, not flat...
The PSU situation at the moment is a real mess. The step-change in power requirements has been a godsend for the PSU suppliers, who have managed to turn the PSU into almost a fashion product... And some of them look very good indeed - at a price. Careful study showed there was only one fundamental parameter to worry about; the maximum load current of the 12V rail. I chose a Tecnoware 500W PSU for 35 euro from a local supplier. 24A on the 12V rail - should be plenty. Haven't seen them anywhere else, or in any reviews. Such a low price, I figured if I was wrong then I hadn't lost too much money and would be forced to spend more than 100 euro on a big name.
So, last week all this kit arrived and I could start building. First of all, the Lian-Li PC65B is a thing of beauty, I was really delighted with my choice. All the faceplates for DVD's etc are black, as well as the frontx so it looks very professional in the black case. The hardcano13 is pretty spank too. The motherboard also looked great. I set everything up on the kitchen table prior to installation in the case, and nothing worked. I thought the cheap PSU was duff, so I went to the shop where I purchased it and they showed me that I was just very, very stupid and needed to switch on the motherboard before the PSU turned on. Embarrassing... Tail between my legs I come back, and sure enough I see the DFI NF4 logo on boot... Yes! I power up using the 20 pin cable from my PSU in the 24 pin socket of the M/B, with added 4-pin power and Molex connected as well. Lots of messing around and I finally come to put the X800XT in. No joy, as there is no 6-pin PCI-X power cable from the PSU. Next day I go to a local hardware store, buy a couple of male Molex connectors and connect them up as per Spode's Abode instructions for a DIY 4-pin to 6-pin PCI-X power cable. Not very pretty, but it works! Very nice to get your hands dirty and resolve a problem without spending too much money...
Load up XP Pro, and it's sweet. All working well. So after a couple of days I try overclocking. I follow zebo's quick and dirty guide (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...tid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y) religously, and it works great. My max HTT is way high, thanks to the DFI, at around 330 MHz. Max CPU seems around 2600. Not bad, my CPU is a week 48 SPAW. Max memory is around 270 at 2.5-4-4-7 (so Geil works really quite well). I mess around a lot, wack up the V's to 1.55 and 2.9 for CPU and memory respectively. In the end I decide the best compromise is the simplest: FSB 250, 1:1 memory, 2.5 Ghz=25% O/C. Prime stable for 12 hours, but runs a little hot, 49C under load. It's winter here so around 19C in the house. In the summer it will be around 27-28, so I am not happy with this temp. Want it stable all year long. So i try reducing the Vcore a little, and find to my delight that it's stable as a rock (another 12hrs primed) at 1.475V. Now the load T is just 43C, and idle 30C. This is a sweet little system, 5250 on PCmark03, 34s for 1M superPi.
I want to thank everyone on these board for their advice and experience, particularly zebo and guitar daddy. It's funny that I kicked off all this being motivated primarily for games, but now I find myself watching superPi and Prime95 avidly instead...
Best regards,
z
