Athlon XP system, ordering parts on or before 1/12/04

pandamonium54 · Post by **pandamonium54** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 9:16 pm

So after deciding between an Athlon 64 (cool'n'quiet), P4 (just for kicks), Athlon XP (best price/performance), EPIA (just for kicks), and laptop (so I wouldn't have to use a different computer when not at school), I'm fairly certain that I'll be going with an Athlon XP and tweaking my system for silence. Ideally, I will use a combination of SilenTek and CPU MSR to mimic the Athlon 64's cool'n'quiet. If that fails, I will just undervolt my CPU.

I already have a Seasonic Super Tornado 350W with active PFC, a GeForce 3 Ti200 with Zalman heatpipe "b" heatsink, Antec Performance One P160 case, and Altec Lansing 5.1 speakers.

Here's the proposed order:
HDD: Samsung SP1614C 160GB/8MB 7200RPM SATA drive
Motherboard: AOpen AK79D-400 MAX (nForce2 Ultra 400 with integrated SATA and IEEE1394) - I need a motherboard with IEEE1394 because I want to be able to use the front firewire on my P160. This board should also undervolt in case I give up on enabling PowerNow!
CPU: Athlon XP 2500+ Barton core - I will use the pencil and bridge cutting tricks to convert this to a Athlon XP-M
HSF: Thermalright SLK-800A or SLK-900A with some fan - recommendations please!
RAM: 2x512MB PC3200 or 2x256MB PC3200 - dual channel goodness

I'll try using onboard sound for a while, but I may consider shelling out an additional $30 for Chaintech's Via Envy 7.1 sound card.

So the question is: would you do anything different?

I need a motherboard with integrated SATA and IEEE1394, and there seem to be very few of those on the market. The AOpen model I found also has SilenTek, but after reading a few threads, SpeedFan might be able to give me the same results with any motherboard. Is this conclusion accurate? My idea was that if SilenTek and Speedfan don't do what I want, I can at least rest assured that this motherboard will undervolt my CPU.

1398342003 · Post by **1398342003** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 9:45 pm

I would recommend the NF7-S mobo from Abit. It has IEEE1394 and SATA, and it's a very good board in my experience. (It survived having water poured onto it while running

)

There are two fans you could try for the heatsink, the L1A and the Aero 7 blower. On my heatsink the Aero at half power out performs my highest speed 80mm fan, but you may preferr the L1A.

Some tests have shown the Zalman CNPS7000A AlCu and Cu to be a better HSF in some conditions, you may want to try it.

Gnerma · Post by **Gnerma** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:12 pm

pandamonium54 wrote:HSF: Thermalright SLK-800A or SLK-900A with some fan - recommendations please!
RAM: 2x512MB PC3200 or 2x256MB PC3200 - dual channel goodness.
I'll try using onboard sound for a while, but I may consider shelling out an additional $30 for Chaintech's Via Envy 7.1 sound card.

You cannot go wrong with an 80mm Panaflo L1A for either of those heatsinks.

I'd recommend a gig of RAM.

I however, strongly recommend against using the onboard audio. Yeah you hear all about the MCP-T APU. But the fact of the matter is unless you have digital speakers all the output goes through that same old crap Realtek ALC650 DAC. So your sound quality is no better than most any onboard sound, although you do the get the lower CPU usage and generally better drivers of the APU. Grab the Chaintech card and you'll thank yourself later.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Sat Jan 10, 2004 10:40 pm

pandamonium54 wrote:HSF: Thermalright SLK-800A or SLK-900A with some fan - recommendations please!

At the end of the latest SPCR heatsink roundup, there's some mention of the Zalman CNPS7000A's ability to run at four volts. It is supposed to be very quiet and a reasonably effective cooler in this configuration. If you have the right fan controller, or you are willing to solder a diode onto your power connector, the Zalman might be the best choice for you.

pandamonium54 · Post by **pandamonium54** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 1:09 pm

Where I currently stand:
CPU: AMD XP 2500+ (Barton core) - I'm going to try converting this into a XP-m unless the XP-m's pricing drops a little more

RAM: 2x512MB PC3200 for dual channel goodness, although there is a slight chance I might get 2x256 instead

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint SP1614C 160GB/8MB 7200RPM SATA

Audio: $30 Chaintech Envy-powered sound card on newegg

As far as motherboards, I'm stuck on a fence between the AOpen AK79D-400 MAX and the Abit NF7-S.

AOpen AK79D 400 MAX
Pros: Onboard IEEE1394; undervoltable; SilentTek for fan speed adjustment; http://www.cpuheat.wz.cz/html/AXP_multiplier/AXP_Multiplier.htm for vcore, fsb adjustment
Cons: No onboard SATA RAID 1

Abit NF7-S (v2?)
Pros: Onboard IEEE1394; undervoltable; http://www.hasw.net/8rdavcore/ for dynamic vcore, fsb, fan speed adjustment
Cons: Onboard SATA RAID 0 only (RAID 1 >>> RAID 0 IMHO.... screw write speed, I want redundancy!)

In terms of heatsinks, I'm leaning towards the SLK-900A because the I can't swap fans in and out of the Zalman. The Zalman is also incompatible with the NF7-S.

What do you think?

mahkum2 · Post by **mahkum2** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:04 pm

Audio: $30 Chaintech Envy-powered sound card on newegg

Why waste $30? I am happy with my onboard sound provided by the AOpen AK79D MAX. What I really like about this setup is that I can go to one website (Nvidia) and download all the necessary drivers (motherboard and graphics) from one place. I don't have to worry about compatibility problems as in the past when I had my Audigy installed.
Use the money towards purchasing 1 gig ram. Much more usefull.

BTW Doesn't the NF7 come with a north bridge fan? They can be highly noisy.

pandamonium54 · Post by **pandamonium54** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:36 pm

I've read a couple of reviews and all of them seem to agree that the Via Envy chipset provides markedly better sound than any onboard solution save a Soundstorm/Digital speaker setup. Soundstorm's audio fidelity is lost if you use analog ports b/c then all the sound data is going through a low-grade (or at least lower grade) audio codec. The 5.1 speakers I have are analog only, so that's why I'm looking into the Envy chipset.

As far as the northbridge cooler, I plan to replace it with a Zalman northbridge cooler.

I've been given free reign to spend as much as I want on this system, but I still feel the need to spend wisely and purchase what I know I will actually use. That's how I decided to go with the Athlon XP platform as opposed to the Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 platforms.

pandamonium54 · Post by **pandamonium54** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 10:45 pm

Abit vs. Aopen: Which one? (Or suggest an alternative with integrated IEEE1394, SATA, and undervolting)

1398342003 · Post by **1398342003** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 11:37 pm

The NF7-S can undervolt to 1.1V, I just checked, it can support 2 SATA drives in raid 1 or 0, and it has two firewire ports. You could also use the A7N8X-DX, but that may be more expensive.

Gnerma · Post by **Gnerma** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 12:05 am

pandamonium54 wrote:Abit vs. Aopen: Which one? (Or suggest an alternative with integrated IEEE1394, SATA, and undervolting)

I vote for the Abit mate. Mostly because there is more literature online about the NF7-S since its easily one of the top 3 nforce2 boards.

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:47 am

I agree with a few other that you should go with the Abit NF7-S v2 board.
There is a new board out that might be some kind of replacement for this board. I think it was called NF7-AN or something similar. Not sure about price or availability. I am not sure you want to risk going with a brand new board, so I would still recommend the NF7-S v2.

I was choosing between Aopen and Abit boards similar to your choise, except that I wanted the ones with onboard graphics.

Here was my reasoning:
Both board supports undervolting to 1.1Vcore.
Both boards have almost the same features. Not exactly sure on the RAID features.

Pros for Aopen:
No NB fan.

Pros for Abit:
Stability is reported to be better.
The great 8RDA/NF7 software for undervolting.

I decided to go with NF7-M (the version with onboard graphics, but without SATA, no RAID and no 1394).

Athlon XP system, ordering parts on or before 1/12/04

Athlon XP system, ordering parts on or before 1/12/04

Re: Athlon XP system, ordering parts on or before 1/12/04

Re: Athlon XP system, ordering parts on or before 1/12/04