Advice on new P182 build: ALMOST DONE! (Kind of.)

[Konnetikut]

Update III

Budget is now $1500 with tax (ie. $1327). Current configuration below comes to about $930 without hard drive(s) or video card. With this slightly relaxed budget in mind, here are the main questions that remain:

Q1: CPU/MOBO - I don't think the DS3R needs to be upgraded. What do you think? How about Q6600? Is it good now or should I stick with E6750 and upgrade to quad later?

Q2: VGA? - I really don't know here. The one game I really want to try is Supreme Commander...and I only have a 17" LCD right now. 8800 probably isn't worth my money. What should I get (from what is available at NCIX.com)?

Q3: HDD(s)! - To RAID or not to RAID? Current prices for WD hard drives are (in CAD):

WD2500KS $68.99
WD2500AAKS $72.80
WD3200AAKS $85.98
WD5000AAKS $109.99

I'd like to know what my options are. Combined budget for graphics card and hard drives is about 300-400.
Big Question: KS vs AAKS for silence?!!??

Q4: RAM - 2x1GB, 4x1GB, 2x2GB?

I know that's quite a mouthful. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Case: Antec P182 $139
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-520HX $108
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R $137
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Q6600 $276
RAM: Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 $142
VGA: ???
HDD: !!!!
HSF: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme $60
Fans: Nexus RS, YL D12SL-12, S-Flex?
DVDRW: Pioneer DVR-212D $33
+ OCZ Ultra 5+ $7


For Reference:
Update II

Following some availability issues, I have revised my build once again. Case remains P182, PSU back to 520HX. Changes are underlined.

Case: Antec P182 $139
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-520HX $109
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R $137
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 $148
RAM: Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 $145
VGA: Asus 8600GT Silentcool $149
HDD: WD SE16 2500KS 250GB $69
HSF: Scythe Ninja Rev. B $35
Fans: Nexus RS $14.5 x 2 $29
DVDRW: Pioneer DVR-212D $33
+ OCZ Ultra 5+ $7

Update I

I've done my research and decided what I should get on a slightly tighter budget than previously thought (~$1000 down from ~$1500). Note that in getting the P182 I am feeling safe in buying a non-modular PSU while hopefully having more space for expansion in the future.

Case: Antec P182 $135
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-450VX $75
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R $145
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 $220
RAM: Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 $150 (+$25 MIR)
VGA: Gigabyte 8600GT OC Passive $140
HDD: WD SE16 2500AAKS 250GB $70
HSF: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme $50
Fans: Scythe S-FLEX E 1200RPM or Nexus RS $13/$14 ea

+Arctic Silver 5 $10

I decided on the 450VX based on positive early reviews - notably by johnnyguru - although no official review from SPCR yet.

Awaiting your opinions

[ck8-04]

Looks good. I wouldn't change a thing.

[jeepescu]

Why not go with the Q6600 for a few dollars more ?

[bonestonne]

i see no reason to change it.

i have the SATA-I version of that HDD, you wont be disappointed by it.

[Konnetikut]

Why not go with the Q6600 for a few dollars more ?

That would be $80 to go quad. If my budget was higher I'd jump on it, but I figure I could just upgrade later to a penryn.

Unless if I can save $80 elsewhere on my build, dual-core's here to stay.

[khtse]

It seems that most people on this forum is using a P182!

I am building a new PC with P182 too, and I should got everything and start building tomorrow.

While I can't save you $80, I can save you $20: Buy from newegg, use the promotion code PAYPAL20. You will get $20 off if you check out using paypal. Expiring 9/5.

I learn about this promotion code today... I am thinking whether I should return some of my stuff in order to get the $20 discount. Or I should just go ahead and purchase more stuff?

[Bootay]

I built a 182 system recently that I'm THRILLED with (best PC I've ever owned), using the same MB and CPU you have spec'd.

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=4675414

You can cut $50 off my price list by chopping one DVD drive and one extra fan. I already had 2GB of RAM sitting around (G.Skill, I think 2x1gb was $90 or so), and an 8800GTS 640mb. If you add the same RAM and and the 8600GT you spec'ed, that's still near your $1000 spec.

I used the stock 3 fans + 1 scythe on the cpu cooler, set the hard drive to AAM 128, cut the DVD drives to medium speed, and it's TOTALLY silent no matter what I do - can't tell it's on. And it's overclocked to 3.2ghz (8x400).

[Jason W]

I've done my research and decided what I should get on a slightly tighter budget than previously thought (~$1000 down from ~$1500). Note that in getting the P182 I am feeling safe in buying a non-modular PSU while hopefully having more space for expansion in the future.

Case: Antec P182 $135
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-450VX $75
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R $145
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 $220
RAM: Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 $150 (+$25 MIR)
VGA: Gigabyte 8600GT OC Passive $140
HDD: WD SE16 2500AAKS 250GB $70
HSF: Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme $50
Fans: Scythe S-FLEX E 1200RPM or Nexus RS $13/$14 ea

+Arctic Silver 5 $10

I decided on the 450VX based on positive early reviews - notably by johnnyguru - although no official review from SPCR yet.

Awaiting your opinions

If you've mentioned this in another thread I apologize, but what will this computer be used for? If you're not doing a lot of gaming or 3D work, a lower-end video card like the GeForce 7600GT or 7600GS could save you come cash. That's what I did (the 7600GS is $84 at Newegg). You could also go with the stock Tri-Cool fans to begin with, see what the noise is like, then upgrade later if needed and when you have more cash.

I'd stick with the E6750 even if you save the cash, and put the savings towards a 74GB Raptor for your OS and apps, then keep the 250GB drive as your data drive. Unless you already have other drives you didn't mention.

Also, I don't see an optical drive mentioned... you must have mentioned this in another thread - the one I haven't read yet.

Regards.

[Konnetikut]

Unfortunately, no Newegg for me - I live in Canada. I'm buying from NCIX.com (with two convenient pricematch locations)

If you've mentioned this in another thread I apologize, but what will this computer be used for? If you're not doing a lot of gaming or 3D work, a lower-end video card like the GeForce 7600GT or 7600GS could save you come cash.

Yes I do a little 3D work, and some gaming as well...supcom is bundled too with the Gigabyte 8600GT OC so I thought I might try that out.

for future reference:
-almost 24/7 machine
-graphic design (2D + little 3D)
-bit of gaming
-downloads
-F@H

You could also go with the stock Tri-Cool fans to begin with, see what the noise is like, then upgrade later if needed and when you have more cash.

I'll only be getting 2 fans max - The Tricools I will use elsewhere.

I'd stick with the E6750 even if you save the cash, and put the savings towards a 74GB Raptor for your OS and apps, then keep the 250GB drive as your data drive. Unless you already have other drives you didn't mention.

I don't need the performance of Raptors - and their added seek noises. I think that just the one 250GB should be fine for my needs just now. My old drives? Quantum Fireball 5GB and WD400 40GB I won't be using those.

I have an optical drive. 3, in fact. They're IDE, but I can live with that for now.

[Aris]

its a good setup. If it were me personally, id probably drop the P182 for an Antec Solo, and go with a single platter 2.5" sata samsung drive instead of the WD 250g. With your setup a P182 seems a bit too much case. You'd get the same noise level with less space and less money in a solo. The 2.5" drive would be quieter, about the same price, but less space. This would really depend on how much space you actually need. I havnt been able to get much above 20gb for a while now, and unless i start storing all my video's on my computer, or start using it instead of my TiVo's for recording purposes, i dont really see a need for more space arising anytime soon.

[Lensman]

I've been very happy with my Samsung Spinpoint T166 HD501LJ. Very quiet.

BTW, I happen to love Supreme Commander. I paid $60 for it on pre-order so you could consider your video card to be $80 in my eyes.

Just to add my confirmation of your solid choices, I'm building:
Antec P182SE - same as you
Corsair HX-620 - similar
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R - similar
Intel Q6600 G0 - different, but hard choice depending on needs
Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 - i got a great deal
EVGA 8800 GTS 640 KO ACS3 - different needs
Samsung Spinpoint T166 HD501LJ - should think about this one
Thermalright Ultra-120 extreme - same
Scythe S-FLEX E - same

[Konnetikut]

I would really love to get a samsung - but that isn't the case. They're kinda hard-to-find in Canada. I also considered 2.5" drives, but at $70, the 250GB WD is a much better value. In fact, NCIX doesn't have many 2.5" drives left in stock, let alone any samsungs.

As said before, I'm getting the P182 while sacrificing the modular 520HX because there's a lot more room for expansion. Plus, I don't really like glossy sidepanels on the Solo because I'm a fingerprint monster.

[Konnetikut]

Build Revised - See OP

[Aris]

im just curious, why'd you go from the corsair 450 up to the 520? Both would be more power than your system would ever need, and they would both be very quiet at your systems power usage.

[Konnetikut]

I don't really have solid arguments either way...

modular 520...
and people saying how the 450VX is the same as S12II and that they aren't too quiet...



So how much is my system using at load? (If you add another hard drive and up the CPU to E6750)

[christopher3393]

Looks like your memory rebate is no longer available. If you are not going to OC the Corsair 6400 has a good rebate at NCIX and will save you a little. I think the Corsair HX520 is a better choice: quieter and modular, room for upgrades. I have one I'm thinking of selling and I also have some Scythe S-flex E fans I don't need. You can pm me if interested. I'd upgrade the cpu. I'm using the Asus 8600GT and am happy with it. You've chosen a solid motherboard.

[Konnetikut]

Looks like your memory rebate is no longer available. If you are not going to OC the Corsair 6400 has a good rebate at NCIX and will save you a little. I think the Corsair HX520 is a better choice: quieter and modular, room for upgrades. I have one I'm thinking of selling and I also have some Scythe S-flex E fans I don't need. You can pm me if interested. I'd upgrade the cpu. I'm using the Asus 8600GT and am happy with it. You've chosen a solid motherboard.

I'll be overclocking - although my experience is somewhat limited. Thanks for the offer - I'll have to confirm that this build is ready to go before I say anything though

[Aris]

SPCR recently reviewed the corsair 450w, saying its one of the quietest PSU's they've ever reviewed. you should read the review. The nicest thing about it is that the fan doesnt ramp up until over 250w, which most people never get to. You have to be careful when you read stuff on this site that says one thing is louder than another, in situations like this its a very minute difference. Most people wouldnt be able to tell them apart, the 450 and 520.

Your system will probably draw around 180w at load. HD's are usually around 10w load each, so an extra one wouldnt add much. Even with a heavy overclock and an extra HD, you'll probably never peak over 200w.

Modular is a gimmick honestly. You will have plenty of empty space on both sides of your PSU who's existance is soley for stuffing cables and nothing else. You dont really gain anything with a modular PSU unless your enclosure is clear, or you have lots of windows that expose the area around the PSU. Which most people dont have. For the most part, Modular is just a way for PSU manufacturers to charge more money.

As far as "room for upgrades", lets take a hypothetical upgrade that is power hungry, a new video card. Even if you went and got a new 8800GTS, your peak power draw would only increase another 50w or so over the 8600gt. So even then, with an extra HD and a heavy overclock your still under that 250w sweet spot on the corsair 450w before the fan voltage begins to ramp up.

In the end its your system, your money, your perogative. I just think this is a good place to save some money. There both good quality PSU's, and you'll likely be satisfied with either, one just costs a bit more than the other and they will both work for your system.

[JohnFL]

One thing i don't see much of here on SPCR, is people buying a second hard drive, strictly for making a weekly mirror image of their boot drive.

It's great to see all the latest PSU's, and video cards, etc etc.... yet no one seems to be putting in a second drive as protection, incase your boot drive gets corrupted with a virus you can't get rid of, or the drive goes belly up, or you accidently delete something you didn't mean to delete, or your OS goes south..... or MANY other reasons.

Today's hard drives are so cheap, that not to have a mirror image drive, is actually kind of dumb ( that ought to bring the flamers out of the wood work ).

Anyways, for the amount of money your spending on your system, to make it fast, and quiet, why not another few dollars for the second hard drive, and get yourself a program like casperXP, and you will be able to make a mirror drive very easily. It takes me like 2 minutes, once a week, to make a backup ( you can't complain about 2 minutes and the rewards that backup would give you). Then you will have peace of mind in knowing you won't have to re-install your OS, or whatever.

I love your choices, but the next system i will be building ( for my son ), is going to have the Abit IP35 Pro in it. We are choosing that one strictly cause of the ability to control 5 different fans ( if we choose to use that many ).

I also agree with jeepescu.... getting the Q6600 would make your system pretty much future proof.

[nick705]

One thing i don't see much of here on SPCR, is people buying a second hard drive, strictly for making a weekly mirror image of their boot drive.

It's great to see all the latest PSU's, and video cards, etc etc.... yet no one seems to be putting in a second drive as protection, incase your boot drive gets corrupted with a virus you can't get rid of, or the drive goes belly up, or you accidently delete something you didn't mean to delete, or your OS goes south..... or MANY other reasons.

I guess the clue would be in the title of the forum...

There can be performance advantages to having more than one internal HDD, as well as the backup convenience you mention, but if you already have a very quiet system, HDD noise tends to be difficult and sometimes costly to eliminate.

If a second drive is purely for backup, you could use a USB/eSATA enclosure which could be powered down when not in use, or better yet you could back up to a remote NAS (not always an option, admittedly).

[seemingly.random]

The wd250ks runs hotter than the quieter wd_aa's. The sweet spot is currently at 0.20-0.22/gb - wd320aaks or samsung spinpoint 400gb for 80-85usd are reasonably cool and quiet.

If you're on a budget (and even if not), you might consider downsizing to a uATX mb/case. There's some nice stuff out there now at attractive prices - both Intel and AMD. It's fun having the full blown/big stuff, I've got one, but find myself using my uATX pc much more - it uses 20-50% of the 300w psu (less heat = less fan noise) with an 8600gt. This is just one example of a uATX case.

------------

Up until about 10 years ago I _always_ had two hd's in a pc - backed up every day - quick and painless. Had a few disk failures and never lost anything important. At one time, a head crash was virtually guaranteed if the hd was jostled while seeking. They've become so reliable these days that I've settled for just one per pc for reduced power usage, heat and noise. Probably don't backup enough though...

[Konnetikut]

Update III. (See OP)

Probably the last update, my build should be finalized over the weekend. I'd like to thank everyone for their patience - obviously I'd like everything as perfect as possible. This is my first build ever.

seemingly.random: Do you mean that I should get the AAKS version? See my other options in my update please

[seemingly.random]

Do you mean that I should get the AAKS version?

Yes - 250ks is 'old' tech. I have experience with the 250ks, 320aaks and 500aaks. Testing in the same pc one at a time, the 320aaks temp is 35-39c. The 250ks is 40-42 and is nominally louder than 320 (and 500). Among other things, what makes the aa's better/cooler is simple: fewer platters. Also, don't be tempted by the js versions. I recently acquired a samsung spinpoint 500gb (and a 400, cheaper $/gb). My first samsungs and have been impressed - slightly cooler, quieter and faster then wd's. Haven't had them long enough to know about reliability but reportedly is excellent. All of these hd's (including wd150: very fast, hot and noisy; seagate: hot like 250ks) are pretty damn fast and reliable. I wouldn't throw out an existing 250ks but would not purchase one new. I wouldn't skimp on hd space nor would I mess with raid unless redundancy is desired (eg. raid5 server). If there is the slightest inkling that you will be collecting lots of music/videos/movies then go with 500gb - the unused space will evaporate rapidly.

The P35 mb's are 1333 FSB - why not a cpu to match? Unfortunately, procrastination will allow for prices to drop a little further. My gut says to go with a higher freq. dual core unless there will be a _lot_ of processes running simultaneously. You could save some money by oc'ing a lower freq. but then spend it on better cooling.

GPU: 8600gt or 2600xt. Either will be good enough to get a taste of gaming at lower settings/monitor resolutions and be very fast for the other 99% of usage. Depending on later gaming desire and resolution, a much better/expensive gpu might be required. The hx520 (modular cabling is very convenient; curious that the p18x psu compartment is so small) will be more than sufficient.

RAM: 2gb should suffice (one of the easiest, apparent speed upgrades for an existing machine is 1 -> 2gb). Another one or two can be added later in the unlikely event it's needed. 4gb in 2gb modules doesn't offer value. I predict that most home users won't need a 64bit os for years. It appears that DDR3 doesn't gain much performance but might generate slightly less heat.

DVD: They're cheap enough now that you can try another brand if the current one is not acceptable.

case: the p18x is excellent. One thing to consider though is that it's pretty big to be sitting on the desktop - need to check for sufficient video cable length if floor placement is desired.

There's no mention of a mouse or keyboard in the budget. Such a nice rig deserves good ones. I really like the (wired) logitech mx518. The MS wireless explorer does better on my mousepad-less desktop surface than the logitechs. Keyboards are difficult to recommend since they're so subjective. I've tried ~10 different brands - not fond of the huge ones. My all time favorite is a discontinued, compact ViewSonic - who would have guessed that a company that makes excellent, expensive products could make such an excellent, inexpensive kbd. Also, for tweaking and generally useful info., get a kill-a-watt (120v only) or equivalent.

In general, future-proofing attempts are usually foiled by new/incompatible technology.

It appears that expectations are high with the impressive amount of research. Don't be surprised or disheartened if things don't turn out exactly as planned after the system is assembled and has been used for a while - few get it just right on the first attempt.

[christopher3393]

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? ... uctDetails
I think that the Gigabyte 8600GT Silent comes boxed w/ Supreme Commander and will probably perform well on a 17" screen.

[Konnetikut]

Ordered!

Thank you everyone that posted (and everyone that didn't but made contributions to SPCR). Of course, I can't really conform to everyone's suggestions, but thanks for everyone's input. Hopefully I can report my successes soon in the General Gallery!

Final Specs:
Antec P182
Corsair CMPSU-520HX
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (B3 or G0 unknown - keeping fingers crossed)
Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 2x1GB
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme + Scythe S-FLEX E 120mm + Arctic Silver 5
Gigabyte 8600GT OC Passive GV-NX86T256H*
Western Digital SE16 500GB WD5000AAKS
Pioneer DVR-212D
2x Yate Loon D12SL-12 ($1.49 ea!)

*Not sure if GV-NX86T256H includes supcom - evidence on GB's website shows that only GV-NX86T256D bundles supcom. Oh well.