Choosing my new system. Feedback appreciated !!

heros · Post by **heros** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:14 pm

Hello. I currently want to buy a new system, pc which will be my new DAW, so I want it to be silent enough.

I leave my current computer on, even when I go to sleep, so something silent and tough enough to last 24/7 would be good for me :p

I still cannot choose a good psu and case (the shop I'm going to buy it from doesn't have entecs)
Well :

THERMALTAKE VB1000BWS SOPRANO
CRUCIAL BALLISTIX 2 GB 1066MHZ DDR2 PC8500
Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0
THERMALRIGHT HR-01 HEATSINK
Samsung 500 GB Sata2
Samsung 500 GB Sata2
SAMSUNG SYNCMASTER 225BW along with my old samsung syncmaster 151s
LOGITECH CORDLESS DESKTOP

How do you find it so far ? Any changes ? Also, which fans should I choose ?

2. Graphic card (I want to play some games but it is not a priority) ASUS EN8600GT silent htdp 256mb or ??

3. Motherboard : ASUS P5N-E SLI or ASUS P5K SE or GIGABYTE P35-DS3P or ????

4. Which PSU to choose ? I heard good things about TAGEM, which models ?

5. Anything else to add/remove/change ?

laguz1 · Post by **laguz1** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:55 pm

haha, i like how you're assuming you are going to get a G0 stepping Q6600...thats very optimistic of you

heros wrote: How do you find it so far ? Any changes ? Also, which fans should I choose ?
2. Graphic card (I want to play some games but it is not a priority) ASUS EN8600GT silent htdp 256mb or ??
3. Motherboard : ASUS P5N-E SLI or ASUS P5K SE or GIGABYTE P35-DS3P or ???
4. Which PSU to choose ? I heard good things about TAGEM, which models ?
5. Anything else to add/remove/change?

overall, nice build...looks damn fast. for fans, stick with yate loon D12SL-12's in my opinion --> best bang for the buck...if you can't get those...nexus, noctua, and (sometimes) scythe are good as well

2. Yeah, any 8600GT/S version card is good, but not intensive gaming...now it just depends on your vendor preference. I usually stick to evga or bfg, but i'm guessing asus isn't bad either. I'm not a fan of passive video cards, so i would get a plain evga 8600GT, and plop on a zalman vf900 for cooling and for quietness.

If you really don't need DX10 support, the 7900GS/7950GT is a huge steal right now...since the DX9 platform is clearing out, and at that price, 7900/7950 series >> 8600GT/S on almost all DX9 games.

3. Go for the Gigabyte P35-DS3R if you don't intend on SLI, and the P version if you want SLI in the future (but honestly...SLI on most P35 boards is 16x and 4x...which won't really give you a huge gain). Gigabyte boards are excellent.

4. I would go for a Seasonic S12II model (its not modular, but high efficiency and dead silent). If you want modular, get a Corsair 520HX...this probably is a bit overkill, but it's the best modular psu at its class (made by seasonic too).

5. Your cpu heatsink is sorta questionable...since the newer ultra 90/e >> the HR-01. If you opt for the ultra 120, i'm not sure if the soprano will fit it...but this case will:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -SortPrice
Lian Li's are great cases too, albeit a bit more $$$.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 4:54 pm

if you're going to go with the HR-01, at least get the Plus version, it's quite nice.

heros · Post by **heros** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:49 pm

Well, the point is that the two main shops in the country where I live don't actually have everything. Particularly, they have many items missing. So, the one of them only has the H-01 heatsink and all the good cooler fans, and the other has only the good heat-sinks and only silenX fans. Are the Scythe SCNJ and SCINF so much different in performance ? (which one is better ?)

I'm too bored to order from two different shops :p

Apart from LIAN LI PC-A16, do you have any other good cases to recommend which are adequately silent and don't heat much ?

Lastly, what is your opinion about samsung,seagate and western digital hard drivers. I want to buy 2x500 and I chose samsung. Do you think that western digital are better in any way ?

PS. Are there any news about a fall of prices ? When should I buy my pc ?
PPS. Thanks guys, so very much.

Plissken · Post by **Plissken** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:12 pm

heros wrote:Well, the point is that the two main shops in the country where I live don't actually have everything.
...
Apart from LIAN LI PC-A16, do you have any other good cases to recommend which are adequately silent and don't heat much ?

Lastly, what is your opinion about samsung,seagate and western digital hard drivers.

Where do you live, and what is available? If you're looking at mid-tower ATX the first stop is the Antec Solo.
The Samsungs are awesome. I don't know about the WDs, haven't used them in a while. I've used the Seagates, they're noisier.

mrinsane19 · Post by **mrinsane19** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:39 pm

Nice case, have one at home (wife's PC).

One tip.. the 80mm side fan has no fan controller plug at all (molex adaptor/passthru thingy only). It's probably the loudest of the fans also so definitely be planning on replacing this one.

Also a tip on the hard drives... I wasn't happy with the stability of the drives with just the quick release thingy only. Take the back cover off and screw the sucker in... only takes a sec just needs to be taken into consideration.

Also have the Q6600 and P35-DS3 (not Pro) combo in mine and it works well... no real issues. Heaps of SATA ports, 1x4pin and 2x3 pin fan headers etc.. Has the solid caps which is nice (if unecessary). Also comes with eSata back plate if you want/need it.

heros · Post by **heros** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 12:01 pm

Is the installation of the 120 ultra and generally of the heatsinks easy ?

laguz1 · Post by **laguz1** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 1:27 pm

Plissken wrote: If you're looking at mid-tower ATX the first stop is the Antec Solo.

antec's are available where he's at...that is if he meant antec when he wrote "entec"...

heros wrote: Lastly, what is your opinion about samsung,seagate and western digital hard drivers. I want to buy 2x500 and I chose samsung. Do you think that western digital are better in any way ?

Is the installation of the 120 ultra and generally of the heatsinks easy

Samsung makes the quietest drives at this moment, so i would just stick to them. Western Digital and Seagate both are slightly faster and use more watts (in ascending order), but generally are louder.

Most heatsinks are easy to install, thats if you don't have a clutter motherboard. Any push pins are pretty much just push and snap, but with the size of the ninja...that is a reeaaall pain. I have a freezer 7 pro, and that was a cinch. Ultra 120s, noctua NHs, and zalmans use screw in/backplate mounting kits, which is pretty easy as well. If you follow the directions, and use a bit of common sense, i doubt you can screw up...

heros · Post by **heros** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:40 am

Semi-Final, what I will buy in a few days unless you have better stuff to recommend which I can buy (most I can't) :

-Armor Junior Black : (really limited here, unless you have a cool and cooled media pc to recommend [soprano was not recommended by a lot of you], I will buy this sh*tty thingie)
-Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Hopefully, with a G0 :p)
-Asus 8600 Silent GT 512MB
-Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 (instead of an asus ?...)
-Crucial Ram 2GB Ballistix 1066 5-5-5-12 (cellshock and ocz are near and have a 5-5-5-15 instead of a 5-5-5-12, should I prefer cellshock ?)
-Two Western Digital Caviar SE16 7200, 500+500 (not much to choose here...)
-LG Lightscribe dvd-rw
-Quiet case fan Skythe C-Flex (I think SSF21F. The silentX are double the price, but I heard that they over exaggerate in here...so, between those two, delta, bgears I should choose this one, right ?)
-A samsung 2232BW...

That's all...Need reassurance

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 7:28 am

i have no experience with that case, otherwise it sounds good. Are you going to stick with stock intel cooling?

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:20 am

heros wrote:Semi-Final, what I will buy in a few days unless you have better stuff to recommend which I can buy (most I can't) :

-Armor Junior Black : (really limited here, unless you have a cool and cooled media pc to recommend [soprano was not recommended by a lot of you], I will buy this sh*tty thingie)
-Core 2 Quad Q6600 (Hopefully, with a G0 :p)
-Asus 8600 Silent GT 512MB
-Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 (instead of an asus ?...)
-Crucial Ram 2GB Ballistix 1066 5-5-5-12 (cellshock and ocz are near and have a 5-5-5-15 instead of a 5-5-5-12, should I prefer cellshock ?)
-Two Western Digital Caviar SE16 7200, 500+500 (not much to choose here...)
-LG Lightscribe dvd-rw
-Quiet case fan Skythe C-Flex (I think SSF21F. The silentX are double the price, but I heard that they over exaggerate in here...so, between those two, delta, bgears I should choose this one, right ?)
-A samsung 2232BW...

That's all...Need reassurance

I'd go with the 2 core 6600,the Quad is overkill for a DAW...and more heat/noise.

The Armor with the big fan is pretty spiffy. Look at some of Felger Carbon and Bluefront's threads to see what the big fans can do. A BIG deal is they undervolt below 4v...which is under 300 rpm. Somewhere Felger noted how slow he got. A big fan is a real plus for a hot but passive vid card.

Gigabyte "D" boards have solid caps which are nice for audio stuff. A little less prone to hum + noise. That P35 mobo really got remarkable reviews from a large number of users in the New Egg reviews. Lately-Newegg reviews have been a bit less favorable to Asus. Asus has put out boards with bios and driver troubles,boards where the LAN craps out after a few weeks or where a Vista based bios update renders the board totally fried.
Meanwhile.....this Gigabyte board just has a lot of happy campers who got quick and easy success..

I can advocate M Audio for soundcards. Mine has never been a dissapointment.

RAM?

Again......visit Newegg....it's not about buying from them...it's that there may be 100+ reviews of that mobo. READ UP. You will find a dozen users who have something important to say--one thing is "I used brand Z RAM and it worked great". While it seems this is not a fussy board---there WILL likely be a certain RAM VOLTAGE that is important. In this regard...if your mobo wants t see no RAM at over 2.0 V and you stick in some hot rod 2.2 V stick....you will NOT get a good outcome. Many of the Asus boards won't even post. Some Gigabyte boards will reboot and try to auto configure themselves to make that RAM functional...so maybe you get 2 reboots--then you are okay. Still-not what you want. I'd find SOME option that someone HAS used with zero complaint. Never heard of "Cellshock" so that's out. I'd tend to stick with Crucial-Corsair-Kingston-Mushkin and not get too fancy. You have overkill here in terms of speed/power. Look to RELIABLE as in the big selling mass market item rather than the niche "max overclock" RAM.