New system, want to get everything perfect.

ceselb · Post by **ceselb** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:42 pm

Hi.
Been lurking here for almost a year, but this is my first post.
Please take a look at the system I'll build sometime after october this year.

Stuff decided on:

AMD Athlon X2 4400+ (or the next model up with 1MB L2).
Thermalright XP-120 (I *do* need this, as the CPU will run 100% nearly all the time).
SeaSonic S12-430 (380 or even 330 probably is enough, but I might add more drives later).

Not decided, but planned:

Motherboard that fits the XP-120. Needs PCIe, gigabit ethernet, SATA, firewire, 8 mem slots (if possible, since 1Gb sticks are expensive). A good passive chipset cooler, or one that is replacable. Linux drivers for sound/graphics, as once retired (in a few years), this will run linux and act as a server.
2Gb fast memory, using half the slots, for a future upgrade.
120mm silent fans with open corners for damping (and preferably without much PWM noise, since I plan to use a fan controller). I'm thinking that 2, front and back should be enough.
Case with big fan holes suitable for damping and room for 120mm fans front and back. USB and firewire connectors in front if possible. Roomy.
A graphics card that can power a WUXGA-screen (1920*1200) with dvi. If it can be managed on-board that's great.
One or two big HDDs, suspended or enclosed. Might need more direct cooling.

Moving over my existing dvd reader and burner, using a SATA adapter if needed.

Goals (if possible)

Use only 120mm fans.
Legacy free (no floppy, PATA or pci used)
Silent, without underclocking/-volting.

This will be my main rig for 3+years, so I want it to be good.

Any thoughts and comments welcome.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:01 pm

You probably need to ask again when you get closer to your build date. Technology and product availability change fairly rapidly.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:07 pm

ceselb....Welcome to SPCR!!!

Honestly, six months in the electronics world is an eternity. The case mods, suspension techniques, and other things that you will find on this website probably won't change much by October, but literally every component on your list could. For example:

although the X2 is supposed to come out Q3....there's no guarantee of anything at this point, especially with the world of paper launches getting more and more prevalent. Motherboards to run them? Any socket-939 should work with a bios update, but we're all keeping our fingers crossed that by then someone will have produced a mobo with a chipset that ISN'T RIGHT IN THE WAY OF THE FREAKING GRAPHICS CARD!!!

....ahem. Anyway, hopefully with the X2 AMD will have truly fixed their memory controller problems with large amounts of ram by that point, and you can run 2 GB at nice tight latencies and a halfway-decent HTT speed.

Fans, they probably aren't going to change to much (unless bestbyteinc.com really knocks us out with some super-secret model they build from all the suggestions they got last week), so check the recommended section for that.

Cases, might not change too much...God willing the P180 will be widely available by then and may (or may not) be the default choice on this forum; stay posted for MikeC's review.

Graphics card, anything could happen there. We could still have the exact same cards we have now, just with (hopefully) lower prices. ATI and NVidia may have launched their next-gen uber cards with 512 megs of ram by that point. Or, what I think is most likely, they will have paper-launched them but they won't really be for sale yet. At any rate, again, many things could change.

And with the HDDs, if you search that particular forum you can kind of get a feel for what direction to go in...there were recently a whole slew of new drives released, and everyone's still testing them out to get a feel for which will be the best this generation. Hopefully in six months we'll have an answer

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:08 pm

poo, m0002a, you beat me to the punch. But I win in word count

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 7:18 pm

Green Shoes wrote:poo, m0002a, you beat me to the punch. But I win in word count :lol:

Happens to me many times, especially on other forums.

ilh · Post by **ilh** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:37 am

Green Shoes wrote:Any socket-939 should work with a bios update, but we're all keeping our fingers crossed that by then someone will have produced a mobo with a chipset that ISN'T RIGHT IN THE WAY OF THE FREAKING GRAPHICS CARD!!!

Get something like a DFI Ultra-D and use the second VGA slot. Then the chipset isn't under or terribly near the VGA. That's the beauty of two slots: you get choice.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:40 am

ilh wrote:
Green Shoes wrote:Any socket-939 should work with a bios update, but we're all keeping our fingers crossed that by then someone will have produced a mobo with a chipset that ISN'T RIGHT IN THE WAY OF THE FREAKING GRAPHICS CARD!!!
Get something like a DFI Ultra-D and use the second VGA slot. Then the chipset isn't under or terribly near the VGA. That's the beauty of two slots: you get choice.

Yeah, I know that's an option, and that might be what I wind up doing (I know I'm going for the DFI mobo...). But the thought of running at 8x, even though the logical side of me says it's a very small performance decrease, sends the anal-retentive side of me into dry heaves.

Qwertyiopisme · Post by **Qwertyiopisme** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 7:00 am

I beleive that ATi's chipset will be quite common in a few months time, and the standard placement today doesnt put it in the way of the graphics card, and it is very nice and fast (especially the built in video). That may be something to keep an eye out for.

GUNNER · Post by **GUNNER** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 7:17 am

Sounds very similiar to the system I am building right now. I just have a slower CPU and a mobo with 4 memory slots.

Here's my advice, for what it may (or may not) be worth.

Read the case reviews, forums, and look at other websites and pick your case. Other than the P180, what you pick now will be just as valid in October. (I chose an Antec 3700BQE, but I also knew the P180 wouldn't work for me as the full-length door conflicts with where my PC goes.)

I didn't spot a mobo with your specs when I was shopping, but by October I'm sure there will be more. Other than passive chipset cooling and 8 mem slots, you could pick one now and use it to compare any new mobos as they come out. Anything new probably won't have Linux support. By the time you retire it, it probably will. Don't use this as a selection factor today.

Fans....everyone will say go with Nexus if it will push enough CFM for you. There's several discussions on how to open the corners. Try them in your system and if they don't work change to higher CFM/more noise. You'll always find a use for the removed Nexus'....or someone here will gladly take them off your hands. <grin>

Video card.....again, by October there will be more offerings. If a passive card is desired, it may or may not get much better (fewer high-end passive cards are designed). For that, the Gigabyte GV-NX66256DP (in 256mb) or the GV-NX66128DP (in 128mb) using the GeForce 6600 is top line right now for SLI-E. Bookmark it and compare new products to it as it comes out. If you can stand a fan, there WILL be something better/cheaper by the time you are ready to buy.

For HDs, again, pick one now from all the reviews and compare new products to it as they come out. If none beat your reference by October, buy the reference drive.

ceselb · Post by **ceselb** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 4:12 pm

Green Shoes wrote:Honestly, six months in the electronics world is an eternity.

Yeah, this was more of a sanity check of sorts.

the X2 is supposed to come out Q3....

I need dual core and I don't want to spend a fortune on a dual-core opteron setup, so waiting is the only option left. Unless prices drop, hmm.

fixed their memory controller problems with large amounts of ram by that point

This I didn't know, good info. Thanks. Will have to look into that. Does the opteron boards have the same problem?

Graphics card, anything could happen there.

There isn't any integrated solution (GeForce4 ultra or something?) that handles 1920*1200?

Or are all those still utter crap like they were 3 years ago?
- - - -

GUNNER wrote:Read the case reviews

Oh, I have and there's still no good match to my needs. I'll read more and ask in the case forum nearer the purchase. Featurewise the Antec SLK3000B comes close. I suppose the fan mounts can be drilled open for damping, even though I'm not comfortable doing so.

I didn't spot a mobo with your specs

Ok, then I can stop looking for a while. Maybe some DDR2 boards will have 8 slots.

Video card.....(fewer high-end passive cards are designed

I'd rather not have a high-end card, but It might be difficult at my resolution. A passive 6600 might be best if it can't be managed on-board.

I'll continue to investigate. Have already spent countless hours reading reviews and forums over the past few months.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 8:50 pm

ceselb wrote:I'll continue to investigate. Have already spent countless hours reading reviews and forums over the past few months.

As much as you probably don't want to hear the words "just wait a while", that might be your best option. I have known for a while that my next build will be compiled in May and I have driven myself crazy worrying everyday about the release of Venice/San Diego, new memory, the P180, second-gen NF4 boards, etc. etc. If I had to do it again I would have just probably stopped surfing the forums for a bit (or at least for as little as my curiosity would allow) just to keep some of my sanity. But that's just me.

As far as onboard graphics go, I think nVidia's new 6200 Go might be able to support those resolutions...at least I think they can in a 2D environment. Remind me again, is this a photoshop computer? If so you might be able to get by with that. I think ATI is supposed to release their new onboard graphics solution about the same time they release their new AMD chipset (late Q2/early Q3), so you might want to keep your eyes peeled for that.

ceselb · Post by **ceselb** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:02 pm

Green Shoes wrote: is this a photoshop computer?

No, but I won't run any new games so 2d is plenty. The whole thing is going to be expensive, so I'd rather put some more cash into ram than getting an overpowered gpu.
I can always get/upgrade a card later if needed.

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 11:23 am

ceselb wrote:
Green Shoes wrote: is this a photoshop computer?
No, but I won't run any new games so 2d is plenty. The whole thing is going to be expensive, so I'd rather put some more cash into ram than getting an overpowered gpu.
I can always get/upgrade a card later if needed.

If you're not running photoshop you probably won't need much RAM either. Even on games a lot of people don't see a huge improvement between half a gig and a gig....I think the only time it helps much is if you do heavy multi-tasking.

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 7:06 pm

You're probably not going to find a consumer mb with more than 4 DIMM slots; not sure exactly why but I'd imagine it would start to suffer badly from interference/crosstalk much like PCI would with >5 slots. 1GB DIMMs are down to ~$100 now anyways, it's pretty ridiculous. Timings on 1GB sticks aren't usually that hot, but using two of those will at least let you keep a 1T command rate, you'd lose that if you used four 512MB DIMMs.

ceselb · Post by **ceselb** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:12 pm

Green Shoes wrote:If you're not running photoshop you probably won't need much RAM either. Even on games a lot of people don't see a huge improvement between half a gig and a gig....I think the only time it helps much is if you do heavy multi-tasking.

I have 768Mb in my PIV-1.5 currently and it's not nearly enough at times. Very heavy mulitasking, hence the need for dual-core also, since I'm both cpu and mem limited right now.

Straker wrote:Timings on 1GB sticks aren't usually that hot, but using two of those will at least let you keep a 1T command rate, you'd lose that if you used four 512MB DIMMs.

You can only have 1T with one stick per chan? Damn, that sucks. I'll have to read up on memory sybsystems too I gueess.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 9:51 pm

ceselb wrote:Ok, then I can stop looking for a while. Maybe some DDR2 boards will have 8 slots.

AMD64 boards will not support DDR2. The memory controller is on the CPU, so until AMD changes it, nobody will have motherboards that support DDR2 for the AMD64.

And according to this it may not happen.

Some Opteron motherboards support more than 4 DIMMs, but since price is the main reason why you're considering 512MB instead of 1GB modules, I don't think that's an avenue to explore.