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Yet another 'rate my rig' thread

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poopnuts

Junior Member
I was tinkering around on the Monarch site and threw this thing together. I originally wanted to buy the parts and put them together myself, but they don't charge a whole lot to do that for you and with my luck i'd probably fry the thing myself anyway.

Case: - No PS - Cooler Master CAC-T05UW Centurion $49.00

Power Supply: - PS 520W - OCZ OCZ52012U ModStream ATX 2.0 $89.00

Case Fan: - 120mm - Antec 120mm SmartCool Case Fan ?? $18.00

Motherboard: - DFI Lan Party UT NForce4 Ultra-D Audio/GB $129.00

Processor: - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core 512K 90nm Retail $369.00

Heatsink Fan: - None - Fan REQUIRED - except with RETAIL

Thermal Grease: - Shin-Etsu G675 Thermal Grease $14.00

Memory: DDR(400) 3200 2GB(2pcs 1GB) OCZ Dual Channel Platinum
(OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) $259.00

BFG Geforce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3/PCI-E/VIVO/Dual-DVI (Retail Box) $383.00

First off, is there any reason NOT to let Monarch assemble it for me? Time is not a huge factor so if it takes them more than a week it's no big deal, although more than 2 weeks might drive me insane.

Any problem with any of the components? I'm not dedicated to any one particular part, but i wanted something good so I can finally play some of these games i've been reading about all these years. I have an acceptable 19" CRT monitor, 120 GB HD, and some CD-RW's from my old POS, but I might throw in a new HD and a DVD burner for fun. I'm not too worried about those though.

I originally wanted the OCZ Powerstream 520W but lo and behold they take that one off their site the day before i'm ready to pull the trigger on this thing. So would the Enermax EG565P-FMA REV.2.0 ATX 2.0 w/SLI Support 535W be better than the Modstream 520W? Or any other $80-$100 PSU?

I'm not crazy about the case but it has the 120mm fans and the front usb ports and that's all i really ask. There's not many cases out there that i find attractive.

Also, how important is it to have a non retail heatsink/fan? I don't plan on overclocking right away, but some day when it starts to show it's age i'd like to play around with that, hence the DFI. The heatsink-fans don't cost THAT much more so if someone strongly suggested on i'd probably get one for good measure.

One last thing, are there many people running WindowsXP x64? Is it worth getting? I have XP pro so i guess i could upgrade...just wondering if it was going to be a pain putting XP on my new computer since Microsoft is so touchy with what you do with your stuff.

Well, I typed more than i thought i would. Thanks for reading and much thankage for any reply.
 
Looks good. You should really be able to play some games with that.

I like it all. I do like a after market cooler, but the stock one works fine. I am a fan of Zalman, mainly because they are so quiet.

As far as the 64, I've stayed away from it so far. I bought a copy of it and never installed it. I kept hearing about driver issues and no profomance gains.

As far as the case, to each his own. I have the Cooler Master Praetorian 730 (black) and I love it. It does cost more (~150ish), but it is worth it to me.

PSU.... I use the Seasonic 600, it is a bit pricey, but rock solid. There is a 500watt varient, though I don't know if it is in the 100 range. You may want to look at the Fortron BLue line. I believe they are about that price range. I used to use Enermax exclusivly, but the last couple of builds I have went with Fortron and now the Seasonic, not as big of a name, but a lot higher quality.

kd

PS. Love the RAM, Video card, CPU, and board.....enjoy.
 
Thank you for you inputs! I will take a gander at some more PSU choices, then just pick one and hope for the best.
 
Looks pretty good.
I would however drop the case fan, thermal grease (they out it on, but do not send the rest of the tunbe so you are paying $14 for a one time use!) and maybe get some value RAM. With the differenceyou could get a 7800GTX.

As for monarch, no way I would let them build it for me!! They say 8-13 business days (13 days actually being 2+ weeks), but they seem to rarely meet that. The average time seem to be closer to a month before you get the PC, and then there are IMO an extremely unacceptable amount of people having problems right from the start.
 
That's a solid rig, but I've got to personally say that I've never heard of anyone going with anything other than Arctic Silver when it comes to thermal grease. I'm sure there are other good makers out there, but I just wanted to put that out there since I didn't notice anyone having mentioned it yet.

You should see if Monarch will do good wire routing for you; something like that will give you a solid increase in airflow, which is always good.

And at this point, I see no valid reason to get the 64-bit of Windows XP, for the very simple reason that damn near everything is still 32-bit.
 
Looks like a pretty nice build all around. I agree with others; I wouldn't have Monarch build it. You can do it yourself, save the money, have a good learning experience, and have some fun while you are at it.

Those are pretty good prices in general, and monarch is a great company to order from. However, we can beat them on two things:

Motherboard: - DFI Lan Party UT NForce4 Ultra-D Audio/GB $129.00

We've got this on sale for $120. Monarch has free shipping on it though, but after that, we still end up being $3-$5 cheaper. Not a huge difference, but though I'd point it out 🙂

Processor: - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core 512K 90nm Retail $369.00

This can definitely be had cheaper elsewhere. I have seen them around for as low as $355, but I haven't looked in the last week so they may even be cheaper now. You can check mwave and ewiz, they seem to be good prices on this. We have a promo running that includes the 3800 retail and a free 3.5 gram tube of Arctic Silver 5 for $365, so that would save you $18 on the chip/grease. Like I said though, you may find it cheaper elsewhere, and the thermal pad on the retail processor is actually pretty good, so you don't *need* any thermal grease.

 
Thank you all for your thoughts. You've convinced me to give it a try and put it together myself....which is good, cuz i kind of wanted to do that anyways but i was nervous about it. I have a friend that has put them together before so i'll make him help me. If you hear a gunshot, that's just me puttin' a bullet in my head cuz i just fried something.....😛
 
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