Hello all - I'm relatively new to the forums, but have been consulting Anandtech's excellent articles for years... I'm amazed I've completely missed out on this community all this time...
I'm building a new system and could really use some advice from those wiser (and with more hands-on experience) than myself for a few key choices. I'm looking for the best bang for the buck: getting the lowest price isn't critical, as I'm more concerned with quality and performance, but I don't believe in spending twice the money for 10% better performance. I'll be using the system for high-res (1920x1200 when possible) gaming, music production, photoshopping, 3d rendering, and fractal flame rendering, among many other things - and to make it really interesting I'm shooting for an extremely quiet build. As a point of reference, I'm currently running a K7S5A, Athlon XP 2400+, 2x512 PC2100, & a 6800GT AGP 4x, so pretty much any new system would eat this thing for breakfast.
Luckily, there's a little room in the budget atm, so I've been researching parts for the new build. However, I'm still torn on a few decisions, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback.
What I've purchased so far:
Case: Antec P180b - Bought this about 9 months ago for the current system to improve noise/cooling and love it; will reuse for new build. Can't recommend this (or P182) highly enough.
RAM: 2x1gb OCZ Reaper HPC 4-4-4-15 1T - Impulse bought for $50 AR, should have held out for some Patriot or Ballistix 4-4-4-12's at same price, but ce la vie. I suspect the "cooling" arrangement on these is next to useless, especially since the less than ideal radiators on top look like they will cause significant turbulence in the airpath in front of the CPU fan and ultimately reduce overall airflow. Anyone get good results from these?
Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC Rev A00 - After months of drooling, I finally blew my wad on this a couple weeks ago when it dropped to just over $600 after tax & shipping. I'm a die-hard CRT fan, coming from a Sony G500 21", but this is a bloody beautiful LCD, great colors and image quality with Desktop preset, Brightness and Contrast both at 45, and Custom RGB set to 90-90-90. Bright reds and greens can still be a bit eye-searing compared to the Sony CRT, but I plan to borrow a calibration setup (or at least try some profiles from the net) to tone this down. Very nice blacks, but could use a slightly more effective anti-reflective coating if there are lights behind you. No dead pixels, no "ghosting" unless contrast is cranked, though I haven't tried a real dark, contrasty game like Doom 3 yet. However, fine text isn't quite as smooth as the Sony CRT (even with ClearType tuned), though I expected this. Although it took 2 weeks to get here (ordered 9/19, shipped 10/2, arrived 10/4), it still got here 8 days sooner than Dell's estimate
.
What I plan to purchase:
CPU: Q6600 G0 - Decided on this over faster dual-cores because of sufficient game performance after overclocking, and more cores = more future proof. In addition, more cores = better performance rendering and multitasking outside of games.
HSF: Thermalright 120 Ultra Extreme w/ Scythe S-FLEX F - The TR120UX HS seems at or near the top of all the lists cooling-wise, and lets me choose my own fan. The SFF21F fan is very quiet (can speed down quieter than stock if OCing allows) and reliable.
PSU: Corsair 620 HX or 520 HX - Universally hailed as one of the best in performance, quality, and noise. Will get 620 if I go the SLI route, otherwise 520.
What I'm having trouble with:
Video: EVGA 8800GTS 320 or 640 Superclocked - The only reason I'm leaning toward EVGA is the insurance policy of the Step Up program in case G92 turns out to be, well, a significant step up Otherwise, the MSI 8800GTS 640 is only $320 AR which seems to be best bang for the buck for high-res atm. I'm leaning away from the cheaper 320 part since it is on the way out, and may be scarce (or nonexistent) a year or two from now when I want to pick up a second one cheap to SLI. However, I've heard (more than once) that SLI isn't worth the money/power/heat - would I be better off selling the single card in a year or two and buying a replacement single faster card? Should I just avoid SLI altogether?
Mobo - SLI: EVGA 680i A1 - A bit pricey, waiting for another $20+ rebate to come along, but really like the feature set of this board plus the flexibility of throwing in a second 8800GTS when funds allow. I've heard that the Nvidia chipsets don't overclock as well as Intel's, but the SLI support is the dealmaker here.
Mobo - non-SLI: Abit IP35 Pro or Gigabyte P35-DS4 Rev2 - If I scrap the SLI idea completely, the IP35 Pro jumps to first place, with Gigabyte's DS4r2 a very close second. It seems either of these would be an excellent choice for OCing, reliability, and features, though I have yet to see much objective information on the DS4. Any votes for or against either of these?
General advice needed:
RAID 0 for the system drive: Anyone out there doing this? I'm thinking of just striping a couple 400gb Samsung SpinPoints for the system's only partition (OS, programs, and data), with the OS install and data backed up regularly in case of physical drive failure. However, it seems many systems I see with RAID setups use a single fast (loud) standalone drive for the OS and a striped RAID for the programs & data. I want to keep down costs, noise, and heat by using only a total of 2 hard drives - is this wise/feasible?
Thanks very much for any tips and advice. I only tend to build a new system every 4-5 years, and want to make sure I measure twice and cut once
I'm building a new system and could really use some advice from those wiser (and with more hands-on experience) than myself for a few key choices. I'm looking for the best bang for the buck: getting the lowest price isn't critical, as I'm more concerned with quality and performance, but I don't believe in spending twice the money for 10% better performance. I'll be using the system for high-res (1920x1200 when possible) gaming, music production, photoshopping, 3d rendering, and fractal flame rendering, among many other things - and to make it really interesting I'm shooting for an extremely quiet build. As a point of reference, I'm currently running a K7S5A, Athlon XP 2400+, 2x512 PC2100, & a 6800GT AGP 4x, so pretty much any new system would eat this thing for breakfast.
Luckily, there's a little room in the budget atm, so I've been researching parts for the new build. However, I'm still torn on a few decisions, and I would greatly appreciate any feedback.
What I've purchased so far:
Case: Antec P180b - Bought this about 9 months ago for the current system to improve noise/cooling and love it; will reuse for new build. Can't recommend this (or P182) highly enough.
RAM: 2x1gb OCZ Reaper HPC 4-4-4-15 1T - Impulse bought for $50 AR, should have held out for some Patriot or Ballistix 4-4-4-12's at same price, but ce la vie. I suspect the "cooling" arrangement on these is next to useless, especially since the less than ideal radiators on top look like they will cause significant turbulence in the airpath in front of the CPU fan and ultimately reduce overall airflow. Anyone get good results from these?
Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC Rev A00 - After months of drooling, I finally blew my wad on this a couple weeks ago when it dropped to just over $600 after tax & shipping. I'm a die-hard CRT fan, coming from a Sony G500 21", but this is a bloody beautiful LCD, great colors and image quality with Desktop preset, Brightness and Contrast both at 45, and Custom RGB set to 90-90-90. Bright reds and greens can still be a bit eye-searing compared to the Sony CRT, but I plan to borrow a calibration setup (or at least try some profiles from the net) to tone this down. Very nice blacks, but could use a slightly more effective anti-reflective coating if there are lights behind you. No dead pixels, no "ghosting" unless contrast is cranked, though I haven't tried a real dark, contrasty game like Doom 3 yet. However, fine text isn't quite as smooth as the Sony CRT (even with ClearType tuned), though I expected this. Although it took 2 weeks to get here (ordered 9/19, shipped 10/2, arrived 10/4), it still got here 8 days sooner than Dell's estimate
.What I plan to purchase:
CPU: Q6600 G0 - Decided on this over faster dual-cores because of sufficient game performance after overclocking, and more cores = more future proof. In addition, more cores = better performance rendering and multitasking outside of games.
HSF: Thermalright 120 Ultra Extreme w/ Scythe S-FLEX F - The TR120UX HS seems at or near the top of all the lists cooling-wise, and lets me choose my own fan. The SFF21F fan is very quiet (can speed down quieter than stock if OCing allows) and reliable.
PSU: Corsair 620 HX or 520 HX - Universally hailed as one of the best in performance, quality, and noise. Will get 620 if I go the SLI route, otherwise 520.
What I'm having trouble with:
Video: EVGA 8800GTS 320 or 640 Superclocked - The only reason I'm leaning toward EVGA is the insurance policy of the Step Up program in case G92 turns out to be, well, a significant step up
Otherwise, the MSI 8800GTS 640 is only $320 AR which seems to be best bang for the buck for high-res atm. I'm leaning away from the cheaper 320 part since it is on the way out, and may be scarce (or nonexistent) a year or two from now when I want to pick up a second one cheap to SLI. However, I've heard (more than once) that SLI isn't worth the money/power/heat - would I be better off selling the single card in a year or two and buying a replacement single faster card? Should I just avoid SLI altogether?Mobo - SLI: EVGA 680i A1 - A bit pricey, waiting for another $20+ rebate to come along, but really like the feature set of this board plus the flexibility of throwing in a second 8800GTS when funds allow. I've heard that the Nvidia chipsets don't overclock as well as Intel's, but the SLI support is the dealmaker here.
Mobo - non-SLI: Abit IP35 Pro or Gigabyte P35-DS4 Rev2 - If I scrap the SLI idea completely, the IP35 Pro jumps to first place, with Gigabyte's DS4r2 a very close second. It seems either of these would be an excellent choice for OCing, reliability, and features, though I have yet to see much objective information on the DS4. Any votes for or against either of these?
General advice needed:
RAID 0 for the system drive: Anyone out there doing this? I'm thinking of just striping a couple 400gb Samsung SpinPoints for the system's only partition (OS, programs, and data), with the OS install and data backed up regularly in case of physical drive failure. However, it seems many systems I see with RAID setups use a single fast (loud) standalone drive for the OS and a striped RAID for the programs & data. I want to keep down costs, noise, and heat by using only a total of 2 hard drives - is this wise/feasible?
Thanks very much for any tips and advice. I only tend to build a new system every 4-5 years, and want to make sure I measure twice and cut once
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