Help me upgrade to (maybe) 6800GT, AMD 64 3200+

[jasonh]

First time caller, long time listener here...

So, I'm about to press the "buy" button at Newegg before the
weekend and need some sage advice from the SPCR experts!

It's a typical love story with respect to my PC: my much
beloved AMD Athlon 2100+ system with GeForce3 Ti 200 has
fallen off the edge of the minimum requirements for
the recent crop of games (Far Cry, Quake 4, FEAR, BF2..)
and, although this is not a hardcore gaming machine, I hope
to be able to play the new titles for the next year or two on
my Dell 2005FPW LCD (1680x1050) display.

The plan - and this is where I need your help, please!

- MOBO: Motherboard ATBIT AN8-ULTRA, 939
- CPU: AMD 64 3200+ 90nm Winchester (or maybe 3500+)
- Cooler: Scythe Ninja (probably not passively)

For graphics, either a passive GPU like
- GIGABYTE Radeon X800XL GV-RX80L256V
- GIGABYTE Geforce 6800GT GV-NX68T256DH

Reviews on Newegg seem to complain about the heat of the
passive Geforce a lot more than they do about the Radeon.
Also the NVidia is out of stock with no ETA. Maybe there
is nothing to a heat difference between them, however and
maybe they're just both super hot.

Or.. adding Artic Cooling NV Silencer 5, Rev 3 to some
6800GT 256MB (recommendations here??) to vent that heat
directly out the back.

Scavenged parts that I hope to be able to reuse

- PSU: Nexus NX-3000 (300W) - can I get by with this?
- RAM: 2x512MB DDR PC2700, Kingston - too slow for this?
- Disk: Samsung Spinpoint 160GB
- Case: Coolermaster TAC-T01

My case exhaust is 1x80mm fan plus the PSU fan with 2x80mm
intake fans, so the extra exhaust fan of the AC seems like
it would keep the case much cooler and still be rather quiet.

Important considerations:

- I want to support Cool N Quiet because, although the
system will be running 7x24, it will often be idle.

- How to quantify my desired noise level?? Silence is overkill
for me, but a low-ish whisper would be wonderful...

- My monitor is Dell 2005FPW LCD (1680x1050) and I'd like
run most games at this resolution, even if I have to
turn off the advanced effects.

- Thinking of PCI-E and 939 to "future proof" it (ah, somewhat)

- The case is on the floor about 3-1/2 feet from my ear,
so it's not all that far away.

- Would like to be able to underclock/undervolt the
system to run it cool when it's not used for games (which
I think the ATBIT board may allow)

Budget is somewhat flexible, but I'm not ready to buy the
bleeding edge of graphics and CPU (at least yet).....

--Jason H

[~El~Jefe~]

anything after 2003 for vid cards should not be passive. i dont care what anyone says about anything on here. it just is a bad idea because the cards get very hot. the point of cooling is to safeguard your system and increase the lifespan of the item. a cold electronic board last 2-3x as long minimum.


aka, dont bother with passive new cards unless you have a spcr rated quiet fan blowing on them. THis way you get the best factory installed heatsink possible, and the best fan for the job. this really works well. and is inaudible. which is the point of it all.

Winchester is a terrible chip. Buy a venice. it will work with any ram you throw at it, winchester had problems with corsair ram on my friends system. imagine that! This was a common problem with winchester. Now, if the chip is free, well heck make it work. If new, the prices are equal for winchester and venice.

the board i recommend is from ASROCK. it is the one with the uli1695 chipset. Just flash the bios and you are off. it has both agp and pci-express at record speed levels. has sata-II, comes with preconfigured for Venice, winchester and dual core (most abit/gigabyte/asus are not yet).

and it is 75 dollar shipped. go read a lil about it on ocworkbench.com if you want. I has a separate north and southbridge. nforce4 has only 1 really, which is why it is hard to cool passively/safely.

[stromgald]

I think the ABit board is fine. For the graphics card, I'd just get whatever 6800GT floats your boat and put a Zalman VF700Cu on it. The AC NV Silencer Rev 3 is good, but I think the Zalman is quieter.

I'm not really even sure if you need a 6800GT. The plain 6800 runs much much cooler and should handle all the games that the 6800GT can, albiet at lower frames per second. Cost/performance wise the 6800 is a pretty poor choice since the 6600GT can match its performance at about $50-75 less, but for heat generated/performance the plain 6800 is excellent. I have a passive AGP 6800 from Gigabyte that's doing great. Those are kindof hard to find now. If you can find a PCIe, passive version of the 6800 at a good price, I'd seriously consider it.

[jasonh]

I think the ABit board is fine. For the graphics card, I'd just get whatever 6800GT floats your boat and put a Zalman VF700Cu on it. The AC NV Silencer Rev 3 is good, but I think the Zalman is quieter.

The advantage of the AC is that it seems like it will vent the hot
air directly out of the case, which might be very handy because
I only have 1x80mm exhaust fan (plus the PSU fan.)

What about my Nexus 300W power supply and 2700 DDR RAM?

I've been pretty happy with the Nexus but I also have a Toshiba
DVD burner at the moment that I will put into the new system,
and I'm worried that 300W may not be enough when the system
is under load.

I'm not sure how to quantify what the performance hit of using
this older RAM will be.

Thanks!

[jasonh]

the board i recommend is from ASROCK. it is the one with the uli1695 chipset. Just flash the bios and you are off. it has both agp and pci-express at record speed levels. has sata-II, comes with preconfigured for Venice, winchester and dual core (most abit/gigabyte/asus are not yet).

and it is 75 dollar shipped. go read a lil about it on ocworkbench.com if you want. I has a separate north and southbridge. nforce4 has only 1 really, which is why it is hard to cool passively/safely.

ocworkbench.com has interesting articles on a ASRock. I did not
realize there were combo AGP PCI-E cards out there.

The reviews on Newegg are numerous and mostly positive, but this
has the downside of giving me even more options to consider.

--Jason H

[GlassMan]

The nV5 always runs at full speed, perhaps an ati 800xl? would be a better choice. it uses less power and I believe the ati version of the AC hs-fan is temp controlled. The nv5 although not loud will be the loudest fan (24/7) if your 80's are quiet.
Don't worry about cnq, as the bios controlled fan turns off at idle (on the chaintech vnf4 at least) because the venice chip runs so cool (default V and speed)
The performance hit of 2700 ram is minor, you can upgrade when people sell off ddr for the M2 socket

[silence]

Welcome to SPCR

Some others have given good advice thus far, but I disagree with a few suggestions and would like to make some of my own. All prices are from Newegg unless otherwise noted.

MOBO - The AN8-Ultra will work fine for you. If you like the idea of SLI in the future and don't mind spending a little more money, check out the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium; it retains passive SB cooling and is a much better built motherboard. The AN8 does not have a reputaton for being exceptionally stable, although I'm sure their engineers are still working out the bugs. The ASRock motherboard mentioned already is a good motherboard, but I cannot justify why anyone would spend money on a product that is intended to act as a go-between for users of legacy hardware. It has a AGP 8x slot, which will be useless to you and uses space better reserved for an extra PCI or PCIex slot. It also has only one SATA "2" port as compared to any NF4 board which has 4 that are capable of RAID 0/1/0+1. The ASRock board also does not support 1T memory timings with X2 CPUs; all of these disadvantages do not bode well for future compatibility and upgradability.
-AN8-Ultra $112
-A8N-SLI Prem. $170

CPU - While I wouldn't claim the Winchester core CPUs to be outright trash, there is no reason to get one when you can have the Venice core for $40 less (3200+). It has a better memory controller and runs just a bit cooler at idle and load compared to the Winchester. Considering AMD just implemented some serious price cuts, there is no reason NOT to go with a 3500+ Venice. It will run you $200 from Newegg and is a good combination of fast gaming performance and cool, energy efficient operation.
-Athlon64 3500+ Venice $201

GPU - Like others have said, you're best off steering clear of modern passively-cooled video cards. A 6800GT is honestly what I would consider the bare minimum to play recently released and future games at your intended resolution, but if that is what your budget allows then so be it. While the AC Silencer is definitely a good solution for your low-airflow quiet setup, please be aware that it is not the quietest solution available for passive cooling. I have found that the Zalman VF700-Cu is quieter when undervolted to ~1000 RPM, and provides adequate cooling at this speed for light to moderate use. However, considering the environment the card will be operating in, I suggest you do use the AC Silencer.
-eVGA 6800GT $284
-NV Silencer rev. 3 $31 (out of stock right now)

PSU - I definitely recommend you upgrade from the Nexus PSU you have now. It supplies less than 18A on the 12V rail, has only one 12V rail, and is not ATX v2.x compliant. I would recommend either a Seasonic S12-380 ($77 from Newegg) or the Enermax Noisetaker EG375AX ($79 from Newegg). Both have more-than-sufficient power for your needs and are said to be exceptionally quiet while maintaining cool temperatures. The 120mm fan on the S12 will likely help a bit more with case exhaust, but it may also ramp up in speed depending on what the intake temperature is. One of the two fans on the Enermax unit is adjustable, so perhaps you could turn the speed of the fan up when gaming to give a boost in airflow when it is needed most.
-Seasonic S12 380 $77
-Enermax Noisetaker EG375AX-VE-SFMA $79

RAM - You theoretically could use the RAM you have already, but you'll have to underclock the system quite a bit to make it compatible. All 939-pin A64 chips use dual channel PC-3200 RAM, so it would be a good idea to invest in at least 2x 512MB of HIGH quality (read: Corsair, OCZ) known-good RAM. If you come across any extra money, 2x 1GB is good for the newest games such as BF2, which use most if not all of 1GB total RAM during gameplay. When shopping for RAM, look for voltage ratings; generally, RAM that requires 2.7 or more volts to run will operate at a higher temperature than that which requires 2.5 or 2.6 volts. My OCZ Platinum 2x 1GB sticks generate a considerable amount of heat at 2.8v compared to the minimum required 2.6v.
-Corsair 2x 512MB 2-3-3-6 1T $114 (Black heatspreader = faster )

HSF/Chassis Cooling - The Ninja *could* work in your situation, but you would absolutely have to mount a 120mm fan to it to create some airflow through the fins. A Nexus or Yate Loon mounted on the drive bay side of the heatsink blowing towards the exhaust vent would adequately cool a 3500+ so long as there is sufficient cool air being supplied from the intake. For insurance, you might want to use two quiet 80mm intake fans to be sure your components stay within reasonable temperature limits. I would use 3x Panaflo L1A fans connected to a Sunbeam Rheobus fan controller. This would allow you to run the fans at very low RPM to maintain minimum airflow at idle (you could even shut off one or both of the intake fans, but keep an eye on temps if you do). The Rheobus controller is a 4-channel controller that supplies up to 18w per channel, more than enough for your needs. I would recommend using it to run 3 L1A Panaflo fans for the chassis. Plug the 120mm fan mounted to the Ninja into your motherboard and control its speed with Speedfan software; you can program the fan speed to increase/decrease with the temp. of the CPU.
-Ninja $45 @ SVC
-Panaflo L1A $7 @ SVC (x3)
-Rheobus $10 @ SVC


If I forgot something, someone else will likely chime in and add it. I hope this advice helps; I feel like I just took (another) midterm!

Take care and good luck,

-DG-

[~El~Jefe~]

the asrock dual sataII board has no less card slots than other boards. it has more though, which is nice. it even has a daughter board expansion card slot that can be used for a pci-e card but mainly for socket M2 expansion.

the board is the cheapest out there and compares to overclocking and undervolting with boards that cost 160+ dollars and are "l33t". I havent bought this board yet, but it is my board in the next few months.

it splits functions of north and south bridges making it only mildly warm on the passive heatsinks. 70-80 degrees on a passive nforce4 is crappy to deal with in a silent system.

i wish they would break up the chipset but that wont happen until uli or another company starts pushing their very good and cheap southbridges.

[jasonh]

Silence -

Thanks for all of that! Wow! I am very happy.

The A8N-SLI Premium is looking pretty attractive for heat and
BIOS tweaking reasons now, although I don't see myself actually
needing the SLI part. Am pretty sure I will go with that.

On the subject of memory, this board seems to be
somewhat sensitive, with a lot of people saying
"get quality memory".. not sure what that exactly
means to the lay person (asus web site is not helpful.)

I was thinking of this TWINX1024-3200C2PT = $117

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820145450

For 512MB x 2... I want something reasonably fast, but
don't want to spend an aweful lot...

But honestly, I have no idea... don't even know what 1T is..

If I went with the 7800 GT, would a 430W Seasonic
power supply be too low?

Thanks!

[GlassMan]

RAM - You theoretically could use the RAM you have already, but you'll have to underclock the system quite a bit to make it compatible.

Not true, the system will automatically detect and run the memory at 333, with no latency hit. Cpu wll run at default speed, and the a64 is not bandwidth limited, so the performance hit is minor. Search anandtech for a s754 vs s939 (50% lower bandwidth) comparison. (problem at the site so I can't post link) In games a fps or 2.
There is no question that 3200 would be better, but the performance differences are minor. It's you money, If mine I would go 7800 with the difference.

Since your pc wil be idle much of the time, why don't you Fold?

[hravn]

The A8N is nice, just don't get a P150 with it

1T is the command rate, you can either run 1T or 2T, 1T gives you maybe 2-3% performance increase. See this link.

That PSU should be more than enough, depending on what it supplies on the 12V rail. I'm actually running the system in my sig (plus DVD and hard drives) on a $25 "400W" noname PSU that supplies 17A on the 12A rail right now, since my Antec Neo HE 430W is not compatible (at the moment at least) with the A8N-SLI Premium.

[jasonh]

The A8N is nice, just don't get a P150 with it

What is the issue with the Antec P150? It seems like it might be
a nice alternative to the P180, but I haven't read anything else
about it yet (or even seen one yet) except for the SPC review.

-JasonH

[stromgald]

There's an issue with Antec NeoHE PSUs and the ASUS A8N-SLI or A8N-SLI Premium motherboard. ASUS thought they solved it with a revision to the motherboard, but the fix isn't working for everyone. They're currently working on a solution.

The P150 comes with a 430W Antec NeoHE included. Unless you swap out the PSU (expensive unless you can eBay the 430W NeoHE off for a decent price), you probably shouldn't get an ASUS A8N-SLI and a P150.

[~El~Jefe~]

I desperately despise current crops of Corsair memory.

i have had a few fail on me, or not work in pairs properly. totally shocked. yes they take it back, but I can tell you soemthing:

My value ram from Centon in 1 gig chip size at ddr400 can be pushed tighter than the corsair did. how why who knows, just is. and it passes memory tests. my old memory and my friends memory, both corsair samples, didnt at times. one piece did the other didnt.

Kingston is good, crucial is good, centon is good, and the best probably is OCZ. i thought it was old hat then realized it always scores well, and seems to be error free.

patriot memory is a sleeper brand that has very good results in gaming. anandtech people love it.

its cheap too