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My New PC

post #1 of 104
3/30/07 at 7:48am
Thread Starter 
I have now moved my old parts into my new HTPC case. I'm ready to start building my new gaming PC. I probably will do this over 1-2 months to soften the blow to the wallet. Here's what I'm currently looking at.

* ASUS P5B LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

* CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply - Retail

* Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail

* CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail

* Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

* Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM

The power supply is already in my house, and Vista is still up in the air.

Edit: Just ordered the Motherboard and HDD.
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post #2 of 104
3/30/07 at 8:01am
Everything looks good. Maybe you should look at 320 or 500 gb HDD. I really like the Corsair 620 PSU's. Use them on the last three builds. You havent listed/selected a vid card yet?
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post #3 of 104
3/30/07 at 8:05am
Nice Choices I'd probably go with a bigger HDD as well as the price for 500gb drives is really coming down. What about an aftermarket HSF to clock that E6600 up into the 3.2-3.4 range?

I'd probably skip past Vista if you still have an XP license you can use.
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post #4 of 104
3/30/07 at 8:14am
Thread Starter 
I really don't need a bigger HDD. I have a HTPC (with a 250 and 320GB HDD) where all my videos/music/pictures are stored. This PC will be strictly for normal gaming/internet use.

Quote:


You havent listed/selected a vid card yet?

I'm looking at the 8800GTX but not sure if I can justify the price right now. It'll definitely be a NVidia card though, but I won't be doing SLi.
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post #5 of 104
3/30/07 at 8:40am
If you are going high end, which it looks like you are, I would of gone with the 10K RPM drives. Since you don't the space, I would stick with performance. Everything else look like great products. When you get it complete I wouldn't mind seeing some benchmark numbers, since I had a similiar build in mind.
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post #6 of 104
3/30/07 at 8:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

I really don't need a bigger HDD. I have a HTPC (with a 250 and 320GB HDD) where all my videos/music/pictures are stored. This PC will be strictly for normal gaming/internet use.



I'm looking at the 8800GTX but not sure if I can justify the price right now. It'll definitely be a NVidia card though, but I won't be doing SLi.

Good pick, since the P5B doesnt support SLI. The GTX will give ~= to a 7900GTX's SLI setup. Just make sure it will fit in the case.
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post #7 of 104
3/30/07 at 9:31am
Thread Starter 
I have a full tower case that I'm using. It's equivalent to this case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811125468


Also getting this:

SAMSUNG Black 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe Technology - OEM
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post #8 of 104
3/30/07 at 11:58am
FYI - you can get an OEM 150GB 10K Raptor with 16mb cache from newegg for $179 after rebate. I just put on of these in as a system drive a few weeks ago and it really made a difference. Considering how drive constrained we are these days with lots of Ram and CPU power, it's worth thinking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136012
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post #9 of 104
3/30/07 at 12:03pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks but that's about $130 more than I just bought the 250 for. I have to cut some corners.
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post #10 of 104
3/30/07 at 4:57pm
The Raptor's are sweet espeacially in a RAID config, but personally it is much more cost effective to install two identical drives in a RAID setup. You get a performance leap that way as well.

If your not doing SLI I would suggest the GTX, but like you noted it is n investment, and the ATI cards are coming in May which could inspire a price drop.

I'd suggest Vista Ultimate; stay with XP until it's in the budget...64-Bit is the way to go if your focused on newer games...quite a few older games can't handle it...
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post #11 of 104
3/30/07 at 6:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebuken View Post

The Raptor's are sweet espeacially in a RAID config, but personally it is much more cost effective to install two identical drives in a RAID setup. You get a performance leap that way as well.

same conclusion toms hardware came to: here

and btw, no reason to get 800 mhz ram for that E6600 unless you plan to overclock above 3 ghz (mine runs fine at 3 ghz with two CM2X1024-5400C4). if no overclocking use the 533 mhz (4300 series) - only comes in 500mb sticks though.

fyi, Intel will come out with "Nehalem" 45nm cores in 2008 using AMD's idea of an integrated memory controller. if core 2 blew you away prepare for Annihilation!
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post #12 of 104
3/31/07 at 7:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trebuken View Post

The Raptor's are sweet espeacially in a RAID config, but personally it is much more cost effective to install two identical drives in a RAID setup. You get a performance leap that way as well.

RAID 0/Striped Arrays increase throughput but generally that's not so much the issue for normal PC users as access times and skipping rapidly between small files (this is where the 10K and access shines as well as the Raptor's firmware specifically geared for this type of use in a PC environment). In a lot of instances you can see a single drive perform as well and even slightly better than the same drive used in a 2 drive array (this includes a single raptor against 2 raptors in Raid0). Very few people are hammering the drives consistently on larger files to where that throughput will substantially outweigh access times and seeking - just the realities of PC usage vs. workstation/enterprise server/etc. I used to do work on very large data sets that would hammer the drives for hours straight doing calculations so here striping can make a massive difference as the drives bottleneck the whole system but normal PC use and gaming don't see this kind of use even intermittently for short periods, even Windows or most games loading don't make that cut. Actually in the Tom's review linked above the Single Raptor booted XP to desktop the fastest and posted the fasted access times - that means it beat 2 Raptors striped as well as the cheaper striped array in these facets. Striping isn't always faster especially the way many home PC users utilize their systems and these are fairly indicative of real world use and real world performance (that said, throw me another Raptor for free and I'll gladly stripe them for kicks).

The other performance issue is that ideally you don't want a lot of stuff on your system drive when you are after performance (so a large drive for price to GB works against someone who won't be using it for storage). I figured since he already had a media server he'd be after performance only here (although he later said he conceded on the HD for other pieces - HD is the easiest of later upgrades with drive imaging, prices only drop, and deals are plentiful so it makes total sense). For my setup, I have a Raptor for the system and programs drive and 2 large drives for storage specifically because of this. Nothing sits on the system drive other than as temporary holding and I try to avoid that anyway. I could probably put a small Raptor as a page file on a separate controller (not just SATA channel) but that's kind of overkill - I'd add RAM first anyway.
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post #13 of 104
4/1/07 at 8:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

I have now moved my old parts into my new HTPC case. I'm ready to start building my new gaming PC. I probably will do this over 1-2 months to soften the blow to the wallet. Here's what I'm currently looking at.

* ASUS P5B LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail >>> Nice motherboard -either that or an i650 motherboard would do nicely. I know you said no SLI but its always nice to at least have the option. MSI / Asus both have very good i650 boards.

* CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply - Retail >>> Great choice.

* Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail >>> If you are waiting, I hope you're waiting for the Intel C2D price drops as well -you could pick up a Quad-core Q6600 for around the same price -if not less than that E6600

* CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail >>> Corsair are good, if not screamingly the best. Good warranty / RMA service too.

* Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM >>> Just me, but I've had some bad experiences with WD hard drives -at least 3 have died on me in the last few years. I would personally go with a Seagate just for their 5yr warranty. I think WD only has a 3yr. The sweet spot for price/capacity is between 320Gb and 400Gb now btw. Those 7200.10 320Gbs are unbeatable at the prices they are at now.

* Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM >>> Seeing as you're gonna be building this for the future, I'd probably go with a Vista too -DX10 games should be coming pretty soon, albeit in rather limited quantities. But having a DX10 card with no DX10 games is just criminal. Nvidia's Vista drivers may suck now, but they should be better in May...

The power supply is already in my house, and Vista is still up in the air.

Edit: Just ordered the Motherboard and HDD.

As for the whole Raptor debate -meh. The new 750Gb Seagate/Hitachis, along with the new 1Tb hdds are almost as fast as the 150Gb Raptor. Makes no sense buying one imo unless money really is no object at all and you just want the bling. Sorta like buying anything with Fata1lty plastered on it...

Looks like a great new PC though -would be interesting to see how R600 stacks up against G80 / G81. It might work out a better idea for you not to shoot down AMD/ATI just yet. As great as the 8800 series may be in DX9 games, no one really has any idea how well they will perform in DX10 games.
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post #14 of 104
4/1/07 at 9:56am
Thread Starter 
I'm about to order 3 new 80mm fans for my case. That's the biggest it supports so does anyone have recommendations for quietness?

Kenny I've had the same experience as you albeit with Seagate. I've had no issues in the 5 years I've been using WD.

Also, should I stay with the stock cooler or get a new one?
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post #15 of 104
4/1/07 at 10:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

I'm about to order 3 new 80mm fans for my case. That's the biggest it supports so does anyone have recommendations for quietness?

Kenny I've had the same experience as you albeit with Seagate. I've had no issues in the 5 years I've been using WD.

Also, should I stay with the stock cooler or get a new one?

Quiet fans...SilenX and Noctua. But being silent you will have to give up some air flow. These two companies make very quiet fans. I use to use SilenX exclusively but switched over to the Noctua brand mainly in that they are a little more quiet and a lot cheaper.

The cooler(s) to get is the Thermalright ULTRA 120 (tower) or the Thermalright SI-128 (traditional) and along with a good 120mm fan would be my rec.
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post #16 of 104
4/1/07 at 11:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

I'm about to order 3 new 80mm fans for my case. That's the biggest it supports so does anyone have recommendations for quietness?

In my experience, unless a fan has some kind of mechanical flaw or some other magic at work, nearly all the noise is related to air moving (mechanics breaking down will potentially cause issues though). The quieter the fan, the less air moving (holding size constant). Basically RPM = Air Flow = Noise and that equation holds in most every case although sometimes a particularly great fan can have a noticable effect but I've found nothing earth shattering that pushes a lot of air and is very quiet - air is the noise for much of it. What I did do was buy some 120mm fans that came with knobs that attach to the back plate in open PCI slots (I guess I could mod for something up front but custom work isn't my strong point). When I game or do something demanding, I crank them, otherwise I leave them in the middle (they also hook into the motherboard and will override as needed). Another option is to get those rubber dampeners which in some cases can quash noise from vibration if that's a factor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

Kenny I've had the same experience as you albeit with Seagate. I've had no issues in the 5 years I've been using WD.

I've lost hard drives from everyone IBM/Hitachi, Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital - multiples from most (Samsung has never failed me but I only own one and it sees little use). I look at warranties now. For storage I will usually buy whatever has a good deal with reasonable warranty. That said I am a lot more comfortable with WD than Maxtor. I'd probably put Maxtor last and buy anything else before them.
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post #17 of 104
4/1/07 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
How are these?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999120
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post #18 of 104
4/1/07 at 3:03pm
Looks decent. I like the flexibility so you can rig each up as you like (motherboard controlled, onboard sensor, or control knob). Just like the reviews state, if you put them on high the noise from air will be loud but that just means they are capable of really pushing air if need be and are a lot quieter when not maxed. Never been a fan of lights but otherwise I'd buy them - probably can find similar but cheaper without the lights (not sure about on board sensor though - that's not as common an option).
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post #19 of 104
4/1/07 at 3:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

How are these?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999120

Never found a Thermaltake fan that was quiet.
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post #20 of 104
4/1/07 at 6:17pm
Thread Starter 
Ok so what do you use Tinker?
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post #21 of 104
4/1/07 at 8:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinker View Post

Quiet fans...SilenX and Noctua. But being silent you will have to give up some air flow. These two companies make very quiet fans. I use to use SilenX exclusively but switched over to the Noctua brand mainly in that they are a little more quiet and a lot cheaper.

The cooler(s) to get is the Thermalright ULTRA 120 (tower) or the Thermalright SI-128 (traditional) and along with a good 120mm fan would be my rec.

He provided this above. SilenX and Noctua.
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post #22 of 104
4/1/07 at 8:16pm
Thanks ChrisFB.

Styker412, if you can use a fan controller then it doesn't really matter much what fans you get. Just dial them up when you are gaming and dial them down others wise. Prior to building HTPC's, I use to build mainly gaming PC's, noise be d@m'd. Vantec Tornado's (mini vac fans and finger dicers) and I always use fan controllers with those suckers. Had to use the Vantec controllers since the those Tornado's drew a lot of power and would blow out most other controllers and def mobo headers. I still use fan controllers on my gaming rigs since I like the control of the fans speeds, esp for the CPU HS fan (panaflo hi flow fans) so to control the noise, and some chassis fans when I want performance rather the quiet (no such thing as a completely silent fan...except a dead one ).
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post #23 of 104
4/2/07 at 5:23am
Thread Starter 
Have any of you guys ever used a fan filter for dust? I was thinking of putting on one my door fan that blows on the graphics card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999214
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post #24 of 104
4/2/07 at 6:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

Have any of you guys ever used a fan filter for dust? I was thinking of putting on one my door fan that blows on the graphics card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999214

Kind of a waste of money in my opinion. It only takes a moment to open your case and clean your components with compressed air. You're just reducing the air flow in the process as well, especially once a bit of dust starts collecting in the filter.
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post #25 of 104
4/2/07 at 6:44am
My case has one built in - I'm happy about it but my situation is a bit unique. Obviously if the mesh is small enough to trap dust it will obstruct some air, but in all the fan is still able to pull pretty strongly. We have a lot of dust in our home. I still get some dust inside the PC (likely a lot less than if no filter) and I have literally pulled huge strips of flattened bunny's off the large filter (keep in mind that the filter is inside vents in the front panel and the vents point straight down with large overhangs so nothing is falling into them from above). My PC is elevated on a cabinet and I've literally seen the filter so clogged that airflow was nearly totally obstructed and the HDs and system temps were running much hotter than normal (I now clean it regularly - my home is dust heaven). So I'd say, if you get a lot of dust, I'd certainly consider it. Then again, now you have to turn the fans up by some margin to compensate back to equal airflow.
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post #26 of 104
4/2/07 at 8:24am
The quietest fans I've found have been:

1) Nexus (rebadged / down-volted Yate Loons)
2) Yate Loons
3) SilenX
4) Globalwin

There is a very in depth fan thread over at SilentPCReview -and a review section here. Those guys really know their sh*t when it comes to analysing sound and I would trust what they say over anyone else. Their reviews are always the most detailed and analytical from a sound standpoint.

For me, the best are still the Nexus fans -they may not move the most amount of air but they are definitely one of, if not still, the quietest -and most reliable around. Jabtech always seems to have sales on Yate Loons -which you can then either downvolt or run through a fan controller.

As for a CPU cooler -depending on the size of your case, the Thermalright Ultra-120 / Tuniq Tower 120 / Scythe Infinity or -if you can find one, the new Thermalright IFX-14 (craazy size + cooling potential). If space is more your concern, an SI-128 like ChrisFB suggested above is probably the best -if not exactly low-profile. At least it keeps the surrounding mosfets/RAM/chipset cooler than a tower-style heatsink. I just upgraded to one from an XP-90 and temps dropped by 3C -not to mention the noise is now much lower than before.
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post #27 of 104
4/2/07 at 10:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker412 View Post

I have now moved my old parts into my new HTPC case. I'm ready to start building my new gaming PC. I probably will do this over 1-2 months to soften the blow to the wallet. Here's what I'm currently looking at.

Looks good. I built my new machine a few weeks ago, and have loved the upgrade.

Have fun with it!
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post #28 of 104
4/2/07 at 11:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenny_dope View Post


There is a very in depth fan thread over at SilentPCReview -and a review section here. Those guys really know their sh*t when it comes to analysing sound and I would trust what they say over anyone else. Their reviews are always the most detailed and analytical from a sound standpoint.

That was a really good link. Most fan reviews are notoriously bad just because everyone's frame of reference and system is different (just read newegg's fan reviews and it makes you want to slap people).
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post #29 of 104
4/3/07 at 2:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisFB View Post

RAID 0/Striped Arrays increase throughput but generally that's not so much the issue for normal PC users as access times and skipping rapidly between small files (this is where the 10K and access shines as well as the Raptor's firmware specifically geared for this type of use in a PC environment). In a lot of instances you can see a single drive perform as well and even slightly better than the same drive used in a 2 drive array (this includes a single raptor against 2 raptors in Raid0). Very few people are hammering the drives consistently on larger files to where that throughput will substantially outweigh access times and seeking - just the realities of PC usage vs. workstation/enterprise server/etc. I used to do work on very large data sets that would hammer the drives for hours straight doing calculations so here striping can make a massive difference as the drives bottleneck the whole system but normal PC use and gaming don't see this kind of use even intermittently for short periods, even Windows or most games loading don't make that cut. Actually in the Tom's review linked above the Single Raptor booted XP to desktop the fastest and posted the fasted access times - that means it beat 2 Raptors striped as well as the cheaper striped array in these facets. Striping isn't always faster especially the way many home PC users utilize their systems and these are fairly indicative of real world use and real world performance (that said, throw me another Raptor for free and I'll gladly stripe them for kicks).

The other performance issue is that ideally you don't want a lot of stuff on your system drive when you are after performance (so a large drive for price to GB works against someone who won't be using it for storage). I figured since he already had a media server he'd be after performance only here (although he later said he conceded on the HD for other pieces - HD is the easiest of later upgrades with drive imaging, prices only drop, and deals are plentiful so it makes total sense). For my setup, I have a Raptor for the system and programs drive and 2 large drives for storage specifically because of this. Nothing sits on the system drive other than as temporary holding and I try to avoid that anyway. I could probably put a small Raptor as a page file on a separate controller (not just SATA channel) but that's kind of overkill - I'd add RAM first anyway.

That's some good info, Thanks.

My experience is that in games that load on the fly (Oblivion) you wcan have a better experience with a single drive, but games that have load screens you benefit from RAID more.

Can't you still buy SCSI drives that are even faster...haven't looked at those in ages...
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post #30 of 104
4/3/07 at 4:26pm
Thread Starter 
Wow! I installed the new power supply today. I just can't get over how much smaller it is than my older one. Even the new SATA DVD burner I bought is smaller.
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