JayJay wrote:
The parts ive decided for after weeks of reading are:
Case: Antec P180B (looking good, silent and had great reviews)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775
PSU: Seasonic S12 550W energy+ (very low noise at 200W-250W)
Soundcard: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum (fit my needs)
CPU Cooling: Thermalright Ultra-120 with a Nexus Real Silent 120mm fan (had great reviews)
Grease for cpu: Arctic Cooling MX-1
Any opinion of those?
And the things
I need help with from you guys are:
Harddrives: Need fast drives here so the load/start times of my programs and windows do not lag. I am thinking of 2x WD raptor-X 150gb in raid, but ive noticed they are not sata2.Will that do any difference since they are in raid already? Or are 2 sata2 drives better?
The seek noise doesnt affect me, it is the idle noise that needs to be low.
Motherboard: Should not conflict with my setup. Should have built in gbit lan.
Ram memory: 2x2048mb or 4x1024mb? Brand? latency? I have _NO_ idea what the differences are and what to get.
Grafic card: I am not a gamer, but the gfx card need to work with upcoming vista without any flaws/lag.
Various fans/cooling: I need a good airflow in my pc to the lowest noise possible.. what type of fans should I get, which type of fan controls, at what speeds/volt should they run to be as effective as possible to the lowest noise generated by them, how many? and where should they be installed?
Please help me in this jungle folks
Thanks... Jay
SATA 2 is just a gimmick. seriously, it makes no difference whether you are running sata 1 or sata2. if someone tell you that sata 2 performs better, he has to be a cyborg to be able to notice that. raptor is by far the fastest hdd for consumer. wow 10000 rpm.. but man, if u want anything faster, u will be looking at those enterprise/server based hdd, those 15000 rpm scsi hdd
mobo.hmm. i can give u 3 recommendations. if are on budget, i mean extreme shoestring budget, consider asrock 945g mobo. it supports gigabit lan, and the whole usual bunch. just dont expect to OC it. again it is dirt cheap.i think it is around 100 US$. Moving up to perfomance sectorm u can go for abit ab9 (around 160US$). this mobo, is really stable. when u do a google check, u probably realise that this mobo has lots of problems. but they are all fixed after updatint the bios to the latest version. btw, i am using this mobo for building up my brother computer so, i know that it is stable. but with your e6600, don't expect to be able to OC it to anything higher that 370fsb. all 965 chipset have troubles OC-ing to 400fsb using high end CPU(E6600,E6700,E6800). But, if u use e6400 and e6300, u can certainly reach 400fsb. Moving on to the extreme sector, we have asus P5WDH DELUXE(yeah baby, yeah, thats my motherboard).this mobo, is the best mobo out there atm. stability, OC capability. man this mobo has all the gimmicks and best of all, it has built it wireless. Of course, all these comes at a premium (around 300 US$). but, if money is no object to u, this is the one mobo that won't let u down.
ram. omg are u insane. everyone know that dual channel memory is the best. never ever put more than 2 memory in your system without sacrificing performance. personally, i go for 2*1024 ddr2 ram. in terms of speed it depends on your budget. if u plan to OC, go for ddr800, if not u will be better off with ddr667. using ddr 667 and stock cpu speed, ur ratio will be a 1:1. comparing it against ddr800 and stock cpu speed(2:3 ratio), the ddr667 wins on latency test, but loses out in syntethic test and extreme gaming. what i mean by extreme gaming is playing cod2 or oblivion at 1600x1200 with full aa, af, etc.
most of the graphic card u buy know will work with vista, but it won's support directx10. maybe a bios update will fix this, but there is no guarantee on that. if i were u, i will go for a dirt cheap gfx now (6200TC or 1300pro) and wait until dx10 gfx card comes out and then spends my money on them. i just build a new comp for my brother and he has the same needs as u. so i get him a 6200 as he only play warcraft then when dx10 comes out, i will get him a good dx10 gfx card.
coolings.hmm. how i love these. if u don't intend to OC, i would suggest getting a thermalright Ultra-90 and then u can either whack a Nexus and run it at 5V or run the heatink passively. there is no point in getting the best CPU cooler out there if u are not doing OC at all. the stock intel hsf will also do a good job. even though it is noisy, but after underclocking it to 5v, its all good. the same goes with intake and exhaust fans. ANtec p180b comes with tricool fan. these fans are loud at 12v, but it is silent at 5v and 7v. if u dont do OC, u just need 1 intake and 1 exhaust fan and underclock them to 5v or 7v.regarding your gfx, i recommend getting zalman vf-900cu. this cooling is among the top gfx cooller out there. but, at full speed this cooler is a bit noisy. however, all zalman cooler colmes with fan speed controller, so u can lower the voltages to 5V. and if u are more adventerous, u can go for silent heatsink for your gfx.just make sure u dont use it for heaviy 3d task for too long.
moving on to OC now baby this is what i love. i assume u are looking at performance and silent. so u can get these: thermalright Ultra-120 +Nexus at 12V, Nexus fans for intake At 12V and Nexus fans for exhaust at 12V and Zalman Vf-900CuLed. ANtec p180b allows u to put a number of fans. while more fans mean cooler cpu, but more fans also mean more noise. even if u are using nexus, if u put like 7 nexus in there, it will be noisier than putting in 3 nexus. so its all up to u. for fan controller, any fan controller should be ok. u can go for thos fancy ones with temperature monitor and built in lcd and card reader etc, or u can go for those cheap ones with onyl handle knobs to turn up the voltages or turn them down
).