New PC - answers and comments appreciated

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J

jutetrea

Junior Member
Oct 22, 2005
12
0
0
Hello All,

Relatively new to the board, attempting to get caught up with new hardware after using the same box for 4 years.

I'm getting a machine next week (just waiting on the PSU) with the below hardware and have a few questions. Would also welcome any comments as I still have a bit of leeway in involved items.

Abit Fatal1ty an8 Sli (I liked the uGuru panel and reviews)
AMD x2 3800+ (seemed a better idea than the 4000+)
Evga 7800gtx (256-p2-n528-ax)
2GB (2x1GB DDR 400) (Kingston)
Coolermaster R120 (see below)
Enermax 660W
200GB 7200rpm hd
16x DVD R/W
Mid Coolermaster centurion Black (seemed ok to me)
Coolermaster Aerogate fan control

$2099

I plan on OC'ing a bit, although a complete newcomer. General use is for games and MS office stuff.

Questions:

RAM: Is the Kingston ram any good, have looked a bit and haven't seen much on it.

Cooling: Coolermaster 120 gets some ok reviews, its biggest selling point is that its easy to setup. Air cooled or stick with the liquid cooling? The motherboard comes with 4 small fans i believe, 2 on the back of the board that only get used in extreme circumstances and 2 over the ram. The case has 2 spots for 120's, 1 in front 1 in back and a mesh front for airflow.

PSU: I've read good things about Enermax, should I expect any issues?

MOBO: It was between the DFI lanparty series, the asus SLI premium, and the Abit. I went with abit because of the passive cooling and the uguru panel. It seems that most on the boards have the DFI, so most everything I've read is from reviews and the like.
Anything special I should be aware of?

Fan Control module: With the uGuru panel, is this redundant, or will this actually be nice.

OS: I have virgin copies of both x64 and x32 XP and decided to stick with x32

Overclocking: I'm still getting up to speed on lingo and process, but any newbie pointers are appreciated. I guess I need to figure out more about the ram to find out if I'll need a divider or not. Any all inclusive guides out there for the motherboard?

Thanks in advance



 
Aenslead

Aenslead

Golden Member
Sep 9, 2001
1,256
0
0
1.- Read Zebo's Athlon 64 Overclocking guide. ALL your questions are answered there.
2.- EXCELENT motherboard. As high-end as it gets.
3.- RAM is good, but there are better.

Do you have any pics?
 
S

Shimmishim

Elite Member
Feb 19, 2001
7,504
0
76
I'd recommend the opteron 165 instead. It's around $299 for the retail chip and is clocked 200 mhz slower but has 1meg L2 cache per core (more than the 3800+)
 
J

jutetrea

Junior Member
Oct 22, 2005
12
0
0
Some questions after reading through the guide a second time:

Locks - I come across the reference alot but unsure as to what it really means. Motherboard locks? Meaning I can or can't change something? Or I can't increase over the 1000mhz spd? edit: nvm, found out

memory settings - 2.5-4-3-7 1 T = almost gibberish to me. I'm assuming that within the BIOS there will be settings to match up with these. Are they always in the same order in a BIOS? edit: nvm, figured it out

Hardware settings - voltages, recommended max speeds etc. I should be able to get these from the manuals and off the web, but is there a recommended site for testing info?
I find bits of pieces on random web searches, just not sure if was a "recommended" font of info. edit: nvm, figured it out.

No pics as of yet, still haven't got the box in hand. Getting it built because I didn't have time/too lazy. The PSU should be in Mon/Tues so should have it soon thereafter

I'd read up a bit on the Opterons, but since I'm a complete newcomer I decided to go with the 3800+. It seemedl like there was a bit more support out there. Plus I saw a comparison between the 4400+(??) whichever is the next jump up with 1mb caches.. and the differences weren't huge.

Found a few spots with good basic OC tips, won't have a good grip till I actually get the box here and play with it a bit. Will post further questions and benchmarks later.

Still curious if the uguru will handle the aftermarket fan throttling, and if it makes the coolermaster aquagate useless.

Haven't heard a peep about the R120 liquid cooling rig yet.
 
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