Hi,
I am after some help with my requirements on a new PC setup.
I will list out what I am considering and will then ask a few questions.
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
4off 184Pin DIMM 512MB PC3200 Non-Parity CL2 64Mx64 Crucial Ballistix
2off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V1100 Black Aluminium Midi-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Zalman Reserator 1 Fanless Water Cooling System
1off Antec Phantom 350 Silent ATX12V2.0 350W fanless power supply +blue LED
2off MSI NX6600GT-TD128E GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
a.) I am after a system that is as low noise as possible while still being able to play Doom3 effectively and be upgraded to a FX when they become more realistic in price.
b.) Will the 350watt Phantom PSU be up to the job? I know it has excellent 12V rail power of 16A + 18A . Or should I wait and get a Phantom 500?
c.) Will this PSU or the larger Phantom 500 fit into the rather tight Lian Li V1100 Case? If not can you recommend another good silent case design that is suitably plain looking?
d.) The 6600GT cards take 47.74Watts or 4.07A each from the 12V Rail and almost nothing from the 3.3V one. The MSI version above are supposed to have quiet fans onboard, can anyone confirm this? Also can water cooling blocks be added instead?
e.) I have gone with the Seagate drives. I may even go for a RAID 0 data drive with a single disk boot drive. These seem like reasonable units, if slightly noisier than the previous models. Any better suggestions. Also are there any really effective aftermarket solutions for noise damping these?
That’s it for now I am sure that I can ask more questions as I learn more. This system will hopefully be bought over the next couple of months. I have waited for the SLI AMD board to become available. That should be any day now in the UK.
Many Thanks in advance.
Mark
Advice please on a New A64 SLI Setup?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
I have to question your want for the SLI 6600GTs. I have seen tests and a dual 6600GT set-up was bettered by a 6800GT.
I also have to ask why you are spending so much on the graphics cards but only getting 512MB of RAM? The most recent games these days are starting to use 1GB easily.
The PSU will come wiuth the power load but it WILL get very hot so make sure you have sufficient case cooling.
How about 1HD now and another later on or a bigger Seagate drive? It will cut down on noise and heat. RAID0 really isn't worth it. Small gains and increaded complications and risk of losing all your data.
I also have to ask why you are spending so much on the graphics cards but only getting 512MB of RAM? The most recent games these days are starting to use 1GB easily.
The PSU will come wiuth the power load but it WILL get very hot so make sure you have sufficient case cooling.
How about 1HD now and another later on or a bigger Seagate drive? It will cut down on noise and heat. RAID0 really isn't worth it. Small gains and increaded complications and risk of losing all your data.
Jordan,
Thanks for the quick reply.
I think you may be wright on the SLI setup, I thought the two 6600GT would be a better deal but am not so sure now. £125 each. How much for a 6800? MSI NX6800GT-TD256E is £317 so does cost more. Then I could have TWO 6800 in the future. Ouch, expensive but fast. I will think about this one.
The memory is 4off 512 so is 2GB in total.
RAID works in my current setup. But it is fiddly and messy when you install XP. You have to have the RAID drivers ready on a floppy. So I think you may be swaying me toward one drive. Then if I need another I could get one then. Saves a lot of money. Good idea.
Thanks
Mark
Thanks for the quick reply.
I think you may be wright on the SLI setup, I thought the two 6600GT would be a better deal but am not so sure now. £125 each. How much for a 6800? MSI NX6800GT-TD256E is £317 so does cost more. Then I could have TWO 6800 in the future. Ouch, expensive but fast. I will think about this one.
The memory is 4off 512 so is 2GB in total.
RAID works in my current setup. But it is fiddly and messy when you install XP. You have to have the RAID drivers ready on a floppy. So I think you may be swaying me toward one drive. Then if I need another I could get one then. Saves a lot of money. Good idea.
Thanks
Mark
"The memory is 4off 512 so is 2GB in total."
Whoa, 2 GB! I missed the 4x but you really don't need that much to run games with. If you take my advice here you'll save yourself a lot of money which could be better spent somewhere else.
1GB of RAM is enough for any game out there now and I think it will stay that way for a long time. Games only needed 512MB for a LONG time (maybe a couple of years) and only recently has that been pushed up to 1GB and I predict it will stay that way for a long time yet.
The RAM you have gone for is really expsinsive and the tighter tmings of "performance" RAM will only bring minimal gains. 1GB Geil/Corsair/Crucial value will save you a lot of money and will perform pretty similary (unless you want to overclock to high levels, in which case I recommend PC3700 or above).
With games the most crucial factor is the graphics card so you really shoud be spending the bulk of the money there if gaming is your thing.
The only situation I can think of that you'd need RAID0 and 2GB of RAM is if you were doing professioanl video editing but all you mentioned (that I saw) was gaming.
Whoa, 2 GB! I missed the 4x but you really don't need that much to run games with. If you take my advice here you'll save yourself a lot of money which could be better spent somewhere else.
1GB of RAM is enough for any game out there now and I think it will stay that way for a long time. Games only needed 512MB for a LONG time (maybe a couple of years) and only recently has that been pushed up to 1GB and I predict it will stay that way for a long time yet.
The RAM you have gone for is really expsinsive and the tighter tmings of "performance" RAM will only bring minimal gains. 1GB Geil/Corsair/Crucial value will save you a lot of money and will perform pretty similary (unless you want to overclock to high levels, in which case I recommend PC3700 or above).
With games the most crucial factor is the graphics card so you really shoud be spending the bulk of the money there if gaming is your thing.
The only situation I can think of that you'd need RAID0 and 2GB of RAM is if you were doing professioanl video editing but all you mentioned (that I saw) was gaming.
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SometimesWarrior
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Regarding the MSI cards: the "quiet" MSI's are the AGP 6600GT's only, and I own one. There would be no point in running this card's stock cooler in a system with any expensive fanless components, let me tell you. You will have to water cool them or get really creative with fanless heatsinks.
HardOCP's Nvidia SLI tests showed a dual 6600GT often edging out a single 6800GT in Doom3, but losing in Half-Life 2 and FarCry. Anandtech's results show dual 6600GT besting a 6800GT at 1600x1200 in Doom3 and HL2, but losing at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. FarCry is better on the 6800GT in both instances. They also point out that the 2x6600GT uses more power than the single 6800GT.
So basically, the 6800GT is a bit better in most tests. You can expect many games in the future to use the Crytek and HL2 engines, considering how good they are. As cool as SLI is, it doesn't look like a good idea to buy two cards at once when you can buy one that does the same thing... SLI seems more practical as an upgrade path than as an initial purchase.
HardOCP's Nvidia SLI tests showed a dual 6600GT often edging out a single 6800GT in Doom3, but losing in Half-Life 2 and FarCry. Anandtech's results show dual 6600GT besting a 6800GT at 1600x1200 in Doom3 and HL2, but losing at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF. FarCry is better on the 6800GT in both instances. They also point out that the 2x6600GT uses more power than the single 6800GT.
So basically, the 6800GT is a bit better in most tests. You can expect many games in the future to use the Crytek and HL2 engines, considering how good they are. As cool as SLI is, it doesn't look like a good idea to buy two cards at once when you can buy one that does the same thing... SLI seems more practical as an upgrade path than as an initial purchase.
Last edited by SometimesWarrior on Thu Jan 13, 2005 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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SometimesWarrior
- Patron of SPCR
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- Location: California, US
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I agree. Buying two 512MB modules will give you all the memory today's games could ask for, plus it gives you space to upgrade later. If you want some proof, look at Xbitlabs' test where they show 512MB is just as good for Doom3 until you hit Ultra quality. When I run HL2 with highest quality everything, my Task Manager says Windows + HL2 uses about 650MB of total memory. Since I have 512MB iin my system, performance goes to hell (basically the game locks up) unless I turn details to medium, no thanks to my 4xAGP bus. But 1GB would be plenty for HL2, I'll bet.Jordan wrote:The only situation I can think of that you'd need RAID0 and 2GB of RAM is if you were doing professioanl video editing but all you mentioned (that I saw) was gaming.
And there's plenty of material on StorageReview that shows RAID0 (and for that matter, the newfangled SATA NCQ technology) doesn't bring noticeable benefits to game load times, or for most applications in general. NCQ actually hurts performance for everything other than multiuser/database load patterns.
Fewer hard drives and fewer memory modules means less can go wrong, too.
But the Athlon 64 looks rockin', and though I don't know much about the Resterator or the Phantom, they both sound cool to me. Good luck!Hi,
From what I've seen all nForce4-SLI mobos have a fan on the chipset, but only the Asus A8N has the such a chipset position
that you can change it with a Zalman NB47J. On the MSI SLI solution I'm pretty sure you can't.
You may want to check my post (first at SPCR) on the A8N 8,000 rpm fan issue.
If you'll upgrade the graphics cards (or processor) then you'll need a higher wattage PSU than 350W.
I currently have a FSP 350 PF(PN) and hope that a 2.0 GHz Winchester and two GeForce 6600GTs won't cause me
trouble when I'm going to upgrade to Asus A8N-SLI.
For the cooling of the 6600GTs you may go for the Zalman VF-700 solution, and run the fans at low speed.
From the many posts I've read on these forums it seems that going completely fanless is an overkill, using low
speed (and low noise, of course!) fans is as good a solution in terms of silencing, and having better temperatures.
I'm curious though if it's possible to watercool two graphics cards with the Reserator. Not in terms of cooling power,
if two 6600 GTs are involved, but is the supplied pipe configuration able to support two?
From what I've seen all nForce4-SLI mobos have a fan on the chipset, but only the Asus A8N has the such a chipset position
that you can change it with a Zalman NB47J. On the MSI SLI solution I'm pretty sure you can't.
You may want to check my post (first at SPCR) on the A8N 8,000 rpm fan issue.
If you'll upgrade the graphics cards (or processor) then you'll need a higher wattage PSU than 350W.
I currently have a FSP 350 PF(PN) and hope that a 2.0 GHz Winchester and two GeForce 6600GTs won't cause me
trouble when I'm going to upgrade to Asus A8N-SLI.
For the cooling of the 6600GTs you may go for the Zalman VF-700 solution, and run the fans at low speed.
From the many posts I've read on these forums it seems that going completely fanless is an overkill, using low
speed (and low noise, of course!) fans is as good a solution in terms of silencing, and having better temperatures.
I'm curious though if it's possible to watercool two graphics cards with the Reserator. Not in terms of cooling power,
if two 6600 GTs are involved, but is the supplied pipe configuration able to support two?
Thank you for all the suggestions so far!
Here is my revised list.
I will list out what I am considering and will then ask a few MORE questions.
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 184Pin DIMM 512MB PC3200 Non-Parity CL2 64Mx64 Crucial Ballistix
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V1100 Black Aluminium Midi-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Zalman Reserator 1 Fanless Water Cooling System
1off Antec Phantom 350 Silent ATX12V2.0 350W fanless power supply +blue LED
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
Now that works out at less than the previous cost with twice the GPU power.
I think I now NEED a GPU watercooling block for the 6800GP.
Plus I need to investigate the Motherboard solutions, if any.
This seems along with the HDD the only reamaining source of noise.
I will replace the case fans with something more suitable and
use the Matrix Orbital to PWM the speed.
Many Thanks.
Mark
Here is my revised list.
I will list out what I am considering and will then ask a few MORE questions.
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 184Pin DIMM 512MB PC3200 Non-Parity CL2 64Mx64 Crucial Ballistix
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V1100 Black Aluminium Midi-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Zalman Reserator 1 Fanless Water Cooling System
1off Antec Phantom 350 Silent ATX12V2.0 350W fanless power supply +blue LED
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
Now that works out at less than the previous cost with twice the GPU power.
I think I now NEED a GPU watercooling block for the 6800GP.
Plus I need to investigate the Motherboard solutions, if any.
This seems along with the HDD the only reamaining source of noise.
I will replace the case fans with something more suitable and
use the Matrix Orbital to PWM the speed.
Many Thanks.
Mark
I recommend the NExus Real silent case fans and get a fan controller too. I still think the Ballistix RAM is a bit OTT but it's you're choice and money 
You sure you're not interested in a bigger Samsung HD? If you need the storage better getting a 200GB drive now rather than having to add another later increasing noise and heat.
You sure you're not interested in a bigger Samsung HD? If you need the storage better getting a 200GB drive now rather than having to add another later increasing noise and heat.
If you get two 6800 GTs, then there's a high chance the 350W Phantom won't be enough, especially if you'll upgrade the CPU later.
Maybe a Seasonic PSU would be better suited, while not fanless, they claim high amperage on the 12V line.
I am not sure if the Zalman Reserator can properly cool this setup, in a heated room.
And I still don't know how you'll replace the chipset fan, the waterblock would obstruct the second 6800 GT card.
Maybe a Seasonic PSU would be better suited, while not fanless, they claim high amperage on the 12V line.
I am not sure if the Zalman Reserator can properly cool this setup, in a heated room.
And I still don't know how you'll replace the chipset fan, the waterblock would obstruct the second 6800 GT card.
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Tibors
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- Joined: Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:07 am
- Location: Houten, The Netherlands, Europe
Use the Zalman NB-47J passive northbridge cooler. If doesn't fit, do as Spod did in this thread. Mutilate it till it fits.
After a lot more thought along with the suggestions and comments from you all so far I have now modified my requirements.
A Full Tower Case. I was worried about getting the larger PSU in the MIDI One. Plus I am now looking at a different water cooling system which should cope with the higher heat load better. So this case should allow the pump to be fitted internally and the large radiator to be installed on the side of the case, along with the Tank-O-Matic.
I have up rated the PSU to an Enermax Noisetaker 600W. This should cope with ANY future expansion. I would prefer the Antec Phantom 600W, but I have no idea when this would be available.
The motherboard is fitted with two fans. The Power stage one can be removed without a problem, leaving the heat pipe assembly and fins to do all the work. But the chipset fan will have to be looked at in more detail. I see a market for a low profile water block! Any takers?
Is there a good silent HDD solution for keeping the noise down whilst cooling the HDD? I have seen the water block for the HDD but they don’t look like they would help with the sound damping much.
See list below
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 184Pin DIMM 512MB PC3200 Non-Parity CL2 64Mx64 Crucial Ballistix
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V2100 Black Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Innovatek SET Passiv XxK (Universal) Black Ultra
Comprising of 12V Pump, CPU Block, Pipe, Fittings, Ultra Sized Radiator 600mmx370mm
1off Innovatek Tank-O-Matic external rev1.1 Black fittings
1off Innovatek Cool-Matic NVIDIA NV40 rev1.5 WB-VGA994 For cooling the 6800GP Video card
1off Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701 AX-VE PSU
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
With provision for adding another one at a later date
2off Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans for tower case cooling. Mainly for getting rid of the motherboard and HDD heat load.
1off Logitech diNovo Media Desktop 2.0 (I am sucker for shiny Bluetooth wireless gadgets)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
Total cost for the above is around £1800 (UK Pounds)
I think I am getting to the stage of being reasonably happy with my selections. I will probably get the case, PSU and water system on order while I wait for the MB and Video card to become available. This would give be chance to fit out the case and test the water system. Which would all be completely new to me.
The system can easily be expanded in the future with out the worry of upgrading the cooling etc. I may do some Video editing on it so extra drives could be added for that.
Main uses are, Photo editing and processing of large RAW format pictures from a Pro DSLR camera. Playing Doom3, I will not even contemplate this on my old machine as is just goes so slowly! Just the fun of modding a machine to make it run fast and quiet is part of the fun of this project.
A Full Tower Case. I was worried about getting the larger PSU in the MIDI One. Plus I am now looking at a different water cooling system which should cope with the higher heat load better. So this case should allow the pump to be fitted internally and the large radiator to be installed on the side of the case, along with the Tank-O-Matic.
I have up rated the PSU to an Enermax Noisetaker 600W. This should cope with ANY future expansion. I would prefer the Antec Phantom 600W, but I have no idea when this would be available.
The motherboard is fitted with two fans. The Power stage one can be removed without a problem, leaving the heat pipe assembly and fins to do all the work. But the chipset fan will have to be looked at in more detail. I see a market for a low profile water block! Any takers?
Is there a good silent HDD solution for keeping the noise down whilst cooling the HDD? I have seen the water block for the HDD but they don’t look like they would help with the sound damping much.
See list below
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 184Pin DIMM 512MB PC3200 Non-Parity CL2 64Mx64 Crucial Ballistix
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V2100 Black Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Innovatek SET Passiv XxK (Universal) Black Ultra
Comprising of 12V Pump, CPU Block, Pipe, Fittings, Ultra Sized Radiator 600mmx370mm
1off Innovatek Tank-O-Matic external rev1.1 Black fittings
1off Innovatek Cool-Matic NVIDIA NV40 rev1.5 WB-VGA994 For cooling the 6800GP Video card
1off Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701 AX-VE PSU
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
With provision for adding another one at a later date
2off Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans for tower case cooling. Mainly for getting rid of the motherboard and HDD heat load.
1off Logitech diNovo Media Desktop 2.0 (I am sucker for shiny Bluetooth wireless gadgets)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
Total cost for the above is around £1800 (UK Pounds)
I think I am getting to the stage of being reasonably happy with my selections. I will probably get the case, PSU and water system on order while I wait for the MB and Video card to become available. This would give be chance to fit out the case and test the water system. Which would all be completely new to me.
The system can easily be expanded in the future with out the worry of upgrading the cooling etc. I may do some Video editing on it so extra drives could be added for that.
Main uses are, Photo editing and processing of large RAW format pictures from a Pro DSLR camera. Playing Doom3, I will not even contemplate this on my old machine as is just goes so slowly! Just the fun of modding a machine to make it run fast and quiet is part of the fun of this project.
There's really no need for more than 400W. 2 SLI 6800 Ultra's under load will pull less than 180W. After this I see power consumtion going down. Everyones getting into reducing heat and shrinking CPU and GPU cores that produce less waste heat and therefor consume less power now air cooling has reached it's limits. So I don't see power requirements going up in the future.
Coolmax has a 400w fanless,$114 US at Directron. To get the benefit of course you mount it outside,scew it onto the back. No fan does not mean no heat. At less than half the price Coolmax has the CX400B, a 400 with a 120mm 3 speed fan, the slow speed is very slow and quiet-and since it would not add heat to the insides can go in the case
I got the first of my items on my list.
The Lian Li V2100 Black Case. It's HUGE!
Should be easy to get it all in! Very impressed with the quality and it looks excellent in black.
Revised my list and added some new things. (Hmmm Shiny)
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 512MB DDR PC3200 • CL=3 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR400 • 2.6V • 64Meg x 64 Crucial
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V2100 Black Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Innovatek SET Passiv XxK (Universal) Black Ultra
Comprising of 12V Pump, CPU Block, Pipe, Fittings, Ultra Sized Radiator 600mmx370mm
1off Innovatek Tank-O-Matic external rev1.1 Black fittings
1off Innovatek Cool-Matic NVIDIA NV40 rev1.5 WB-VGA994 For cooling the 6800GP Video card
1off Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701 AX-VE PSU
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
With provision for adding another one at a later date
2off Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans for tower case cooling. Mainly for getting rid of the motherboard and HDD heat load.
1off Logitech diNovo Media Desktop 2.0 (I am sucker for shiny Bluetooth wireless gadgets)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
New Stuff
1off Mitsumi 7-in-1 USB Media Drive FA404M - Floppy disc drive / card reader - Floppy/Hi-Speed USB
2off Viewsonic VP171B-2 17" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-033-VS) These are the new 8ms ones that have just come into stock with a few UK dealers.
It's cheaper to get two medium res 17" LCD's that one large (Slow) 20" Hi Res one.
(It is time to retire my old 19" IBM G96) and get my desk space back.
Had a great conversation with my UK Innovatek dealer. He can get all the fittings in black to to match the rest of the components. I have to wait a couple of weeks for my black passive rad to come in though.
I will try and do some build photos and comments and add them to my website if anyones interested?
Thanks
Mark
The Lian Li V2100 Black Case. It's HUGE!
Should be easy to get it all in! Very impressed with the quality and it looks excellent in black.
Revised my list and added some new things. (Hmmm Shiny)
1off Athlon 64 3500+ S939 512Kb
1off K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI PCI-E ATX
2off 512MB DDR PC3200 • CL=3 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR400 • 2.6V • 64Meg x 64 Crucial
1off Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ 160GB SATA150 7200rpm 8MB
1off 1.44MB Internal 3.5"
1off Lian-Li PC V2100 Black Aluminium Full-Tower (No PSU)
1off Matrix Orbital MX412 Black Keypad with temp probes
1off Innovatek SET Passiv XxK (Universal) Black Ultra
Comprising of 12V Pump, CPU Block, Pipe, Fittings, Ultra Sized Radiator 600mmx370mm
1off Innovatek Tank-O-Matic external rev1.1 Black fittings
1off Innovatek Cool-Matic NVIDIA NV40 rev1.5 WB-VGA994 For cooling the 6800GP Video card
1off Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701 AX-VE PSU
1off MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
With provision for adding another one at a later date
2off Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans for tower case cooling. Mainly for getting rid of the motherboard and HDD heat load.
1off Logitech diNovo Media Desktop 2.0 (I am sucker for shiny Bluetooth wireless gadgets)
1off Existing LG DVD-Rewriter
New Stuff
1off Mitsumi 7-in-1 USB Media Drive FA404M - Floppy disc drive / card reader - Floppy/Hi-Speed USB
2off Viewsonic VP171B-2 17" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-033-VS) These are the new 8ms ones that have just come into stock with a few UK dealers.
It's cheaper to get two medium res 17" LCD's that one large (Slow) 20" Hi Res one.
(It is time to retire my old 19" IBM G96) and get my desk space back.
Had a great conversation with my UK Innovatek dealer. He can get all the fittings in black to to match the rest of the components. I have to wait a couple of weeks for my black passive rad to come in though.
I will try and do some build photos and comments and add them to my website if anyones interested?
Thanks
Mark
Now the set-up looks near perfect. I still have one (or 2) gripes though.
The first being the RAM. Crucial Value is great but try to get CAS2.5 stuff. 2.5 timings are very common in Value RAM. Geil Value is excellent and is CAS2.5. Corsair, Crucial and others also make CAS2.5 Value RAM.
On the PSU thing... You just don't belive us on the rating thing do you? :p Their is a new Phantom due, I think it's 500W? You prob can't wait that long but it could be the perfect solution to the 350W Phantom not being enough.
The Noisetaker is quiet though, but you REALLY don't need 600W...
The first being the RAM. Crucial Value is great but try to get CAS2.5 stuff. 2.5 timings are very common in Value RAM. Geil Value is excellent and is CAS2.5. Corsair, Crucial and others also make CAS2.5 Value RAM.
On the PSU thing... You just don't belive us on the rating thing do you? :p Their is a new Phantom due, I think it's 500W? You prob can't wait that long but it could be the perfect solution to the 350W Phantom not being enough.
The Noisetaker is quiet though, but you REALLY don't need 600W...
Jordan,
Thanks for the help.
I will go for these I think. I can buy them direct with 4% off and no postage charge and if they are 100% reliable I think the cost will be worth it in the long run.
They do a faster version called Tracer with LED's, but as I have no window they would be wasted, plus they are even more money.
2off 512MB DDR PC4000 • 2.5-4-4-8 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR500 • 2.8V • 64Meg x 64 Crucial Ballistix
The power supply I will live with. I found a smaller Noisetaker at my supplier but it was the older V1.3 which is no good for the SLI Motherboard,
The 600 is version 2.0 which has everything. 24way and SLI & SATA.
Iwould love the Antec 500 Phantom or the other cool looking 500 watt supply I saw in the show report. But I think I would have to wait too long!
Maybe on the next system in a couple more years.
I know that MSI states at least a 450watt PSU in their recommendation on their website. I suppose this is to allow for the exaggerated figures from some manufacturers of PSU's
.
Hopefully as the 600 is oversized it should never ramp the fan speed up and thus run more silent that a fully loaded 350.
I modified my older Enermax, see spec below and it has given me years of reliable service.
I did see some water cooled PSU but they are all quite low ratings or come from unknown manufacturers. Has anyone got one? What do you think to them?
Thanks
Mark
Thanks for the help.
I will go for these I think. I can buy them direct with 4% off and no postage charge and if they are 100% reliable I think the cost will be worth it in the long run.
They do a faster version called Tracer with LED's, but as I have no window they would be wasted, plus they are even more money.
2off 512MB DDR PC4000 • 2.5-4-4-8 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR500 • 2.8V • 64Meg x 64 Crucial Ballistix
The power supply I will live with. I found a smaller Noisetaker at my supplier but it was the older V1.3 which is no good for the SLI Motherboard,
The 600 is version 2.0 which has everything. 24way and SLI & SATA.
Iwould love the Antec 500 Phantom or the other cool looking 500 watt supply I saw in the show report. But I think I would have to wait too long!
Maybe on the next system in a couple more years.
I know that MSI states at least a 450watt PSU in their recommendation on their website. I suppose this is to allow for the exaggerated figures from some manufacturers of PSU's
. Hopefully as the 600 is oversized it should never ramp the fan speed up and thus run more silent that a fully loaded 350.
I modified my older Enermax, see spec below and it has given me years of reliable service.
I did see some water cooled PSU but they are all quite low ratings or come from unknown manufacturers. Has anyone got one? What do you think to them?
Thanks
Mark
-
SometimesWarrior
- Patron of SPCR
- Posts: 700
- Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2003 2:38 pm
- Location: California, US
- Contact:
A warning on the Viewsonic VP171B's: most LCD displays are ill-suited to photo correction because they have worse contrast ratios and color accuracy than CRT's. Those 8ms panels are probably worse than some other panels for color accuracy (possibly using 18-bit color rather than 24-bit). All panels also suffer from viewing angle problems: the 160-degree rating specifies when the image is basically gone, but colors and brightness will start shifting with only a few degrees of angle, so even looking head-on at the display will probably result in tonal differences across the screen. I can see this even on my screen,
Since they are probably TN+film displays, you may not be satisfied with their Doom3 performance, because their black-to-grey transition times are several times higher than 8ms. Many people (including myself) don't really notice LCD blurring that much, but you may see some blurring. I found this Xbit-labs article on LCD technology to be really useful (check page 20 for a graph of TN response times). So, before you buy a panel, be sure to take it home and try it on your system. It's quite possible that Viewsonic has made the panel fast enough to make games look good, but you should check this out beforehand, and compare it directly to your CRT. Hopefully you can find a good computer shop that will allow you to do this without charging you a big restocking fee.
I bought a new Samsung PVA panel before reading this article. I'm still happy with it (text looks great, big screen size, good price) but the response time is atrocious (several times worse even than TN panels), and motion trails are everywhere. Personally it doesn't bother me, but many people would be tempted to hurl a rock through it. For fun, I put it right next to a friend's 19" trinitron CRT monitor and cloned the display between the two. At the desktop or reading web pages, mine looked stunning, and his fancy monitor suddenly looked like he pulled it out of a dumpster: fuzzy text, dim, and off-color. But then we played a DVD, and my panel was the one staring at its toes. Even standard dialogue scenes looked odd, because the actors' lips seemed off-sync on the blurry panel compared to the snappy CRT. And Doom3... well, it looked like a motion-blur effect had been applied to the floor textures when I ran.
Since they are probably TN+film displays, you may not be satisfied with their Doom3 performance, because their black-to-grey transition times are several times higher than 8ms. Many people (including myself) don't really notice LCD blurring that much, but you may see some blurring. I found this Xbit-labs article on LCD technology to be really useful (check page 20 for a graph of TN response times). So, before you buy a panel, be sure to take it home and try it on your system. It's quite possible that Viewsonic has made the panel fast enough to make games look good, but you should check this out beforehand, and compare it directly to your CRT. Hopefully you can find a good computer shop that will allow you to do this without charging you a big restocking fee.
I bought a new Samsung PVA panel before reading this article. I'm still happy with it (text looks great, big screen size, good price) but the response time is atrocious (several times worse even than TN panels), and motion trails are everywhere. Personally it doesn't bother me, but many people would be tempted to hurl a rock through it. For fun, I put it right next to a friend's 19" trinitron CRT monitor and cloned the display between the two. At the desktop or reading web pages, mine looked stunning, and his fancy monitor suddenly looked like he pulled it out of a dumpster: fuzzy text, dim, and off-color. But then we played a DVD, and my panel was the one staring at its toes. Even standard dialogue scenes looked odd, because the actors' lips seemed off-sync on the blurry panel compared to the snappy CRT. And Doom3... well, it looked like a motion-blur effect had been applied to the floor textures when I ran.
Your 600W will run with very low efficiency though if under a load that is nowhere near maxed out.
A PSU will start to become more efficient as load gets close to it's maximum output. E.G. (completely made up scenario) If you have a 370W Enermax and use say 300W it will be (complete guess) 80% efficient which means less wasted heat. A 485W one will run at maybe 60% efficiency on 300W load (which you arn't even using right now) and will produce more wasted heat. A lower rated one will also cost much less.
I have no idea what RAM you're going for. The value or the Ballistix?
This would be my recommendation: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeIL_Value.html
it's CAS2.5 which is better than the CAS3 value Curcial you listed before.
Someone in the UK has the full range of Enermax PSUs and they were the cheapest in the UK by a LONG way. I did a lot of research on these as I wanted one... but then Nexus released the NX4090.
A PSU will start to become more efficient as load gets close to it's maximum output. E.G. (completely made up scenario) If you have a 370W Enermax and use say 300W it will be (complete guess) 80% efficient which means less wasted heat. A 485W one will run at maybe 60% efficiency on 300W load (which you arn't even using right now) and will produce more wasted heat. A lower rated one will also cost much less.
I have no idea what RAM you're going for. The value or the Ballistix?
This would be my recommendation: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeIL_Value.html
it's CAS2.5 which is better than the CAS3 value Curcial you listed before.
Someone in the UK has the full range of Enermax PSUs and they were the cheapest in the UK by a LONG way. I did a lot of research on these as I wanted one... but then Nexus released the NX4090.
Update!
Got all the system components Except any of the watercooling Kit & Matrix Orbital.
Monitors are fantatstic. Far clearer than my previous 19" and very acceptable colour and speed. They do change when you view off axis though.
The Graphics card is the single most noisy item I have in the system. This NEEDS a waterblock soloution.
I disconnected the fan on the voltage regulator section of the motherboard as I am not overclocking at the moment. It is still fitted with large heatpipe system.
The chipset fan will need looking at as well.
The CPU is currently on the standard bundled H/S Fan. O.K. but again will be water cooled.
The system is fast and very stable running XP MCE 2005 (What a bargain at the moment). I did not realise you got the full XP Pro with this! Cool.
I'll do some picture over the weekend.
Thanks
Mark
Got all the system components Except any of the watercooling Kit & Matrix Orbital.
Monitors are fantatstic. Far clearer than my previous 19" and very acceptable colour and speed. They do change when you view off axis though.
The Graphics card is the single most noisy item I have in the system. This NEEDS a waterblock soloution.
I disconnected the fan on the voltage regulator section of the motherboard as I am not overclocking at the moment. It is still fitted with large heatpipe system.
The chipset fan will need looking at as well.
The CPU is currently on the standard bundled H/S Fan. O.K. but again will be water cooled.
The system is fast and very stable running XP MCE 2005 (What a bargain at the moment). I did not realise you got the full XP Pro with this! Cool.
I'll do some picture over the weekend.
Thanks
Mark
Another Update
Full Review with pics is now available on my website.
See it here :- http://www.cones.free-online.co.uk/
Thanks
Mark
Full Review with pics is now available on my website.
See it here :- http://www.cones.free-online.co.uk/
Thanks
Mark
I'm glad you stayed with the 600W Enermax - I wish it were available in my country. I have read many posts (on Anandtech forums) of people having trouble with PSUs that dont' have enough amperage on the 12V.
Seasonic PSUs use to have the best amperage and very quiet too, but they seem difficult to find in the UK.
Please post results after installing the second 6800GT
Seasonic PSUs use to have the best amperage and very quiet too, but they seem difficult to find in the UK.
Please post results after installing the second 6800GT