Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Hi

I'm about to part with some cash for the following specs I put
together. I would be very grateful for any opinons:

Screen Samsung 213T 2x£645.00 = £1,290.00
CPU Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0GHz £123.96
Graphics Card Geforce 6800 GT Dual DVI (PCI-Express) No price - can't
find one!
Motherboard Abit AA8 3rd Eye £120.97
PSU Antec NeoPower 480W £88.07
Memory GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
£264.38
Case Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Silver Windowless £89.00
Optical Drive NEC ND-2510A £69.00
Hard Drive (7.200) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB 2x£84.54=£169.08
Hard Drive (10.0) Western Digital Raptor WD740GD £121.00

Total = £2,588.03 (Bear in mind the screens are £1290 of that, the
same as the whole PC unit)

With this in mind, as well as your general opions/recommendations, I
have the following questions:

1) Is this system overclockable?
2) Is the system quietISH (not 100% priority) Would a Zalman reserator
be a good choice to make it quiet?
3) Are the prices I quoted ok?

Thanks

Marcos

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"Marcos Scriven" <google@marcosscriven.net> wrote in message
news:14e57b17.0411070404.65f208ec@posting.google.com...
> Hi
>
> I'm about to part with some cash for the following specs I put
> together. I would be very grateful for any opinons:
>
> Screen Samsung 213T 2x£645.00 = £1,290.00
> CPU Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0GHz £123.96
> Graphics Card Geforce 6800 GT Dual DVI (PCI-Express) No price - can't
> find one!
> Motherboard Abit AA8 3rd Eye £120.97
> PSU Antec NeoPower 480W £88.07
> Memory GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
> £264.38
> Case Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Silver Windowless £89.00
> Optical Drive NEC ND-2510A £69.00
> Hard Drive (7.200) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB 2x£84.54=£169.08
> Hard Drive (10.0) Western Digital Raptor WD740GD £121.00
>
> Total = £2,588.03 (Bear in mind the screens are £1290 of that, the
> same as the whole PC unit)
>
> With this in mind, as well as your general opions/recommendations, I
> have the following questions:
>
> 1) Is this system overclockable?
> 2) Is the system quietISH (not 100% priority) Would a Zalman reserator
> be a good choice to make it quiet?
> 3) Are the prices I quoted ok?
>
> Thanks
>
> Marcos

Get Ballistix memory from crucial and save some money, my P5AD2 DELUX
overclocks very well on this memory, get the NEC 3500 from savastore
(Watford electronics)
http://www.savastore.com/category. [...] ge=1&pid=1
cheaper and faster dual layer DVD burner.
Get an ATI X600XT, X700XT or X800XT all of these kill the n-vidia cards in
PCI-e format and Savastore have them.
http://www.savastore.com/category. [...] ge=1&pid=1
you just need to buy an adaptor to run dual DVI.
Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
ckccomp25@hotmail.com

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Marcos Scriven wrote:

> Hi
>
> I'm about to part with some cash for the following specs I put
> together. I would be very grateful for any opinons:
>
> Screen Samsung 213T 2x£645.00 = £1,290.00
> CPU Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0GHz £123.96

Why? Get an Athlon 64 instead. Many who buy a 32 bit processor in
'04 or early '05 will regret not having bought a 64 bit one as great 64 bit
software starts appearing. The Athlon 64 is also a great performer
running 32 bit software using a 32 bit operating system, however when
a 64 bit operating system is used, 64 bit software can be run side by
side with 32 bit software.

http://techny.com/articles.cfm?get [...] 0.53769656
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=257&p=1
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=2065&p=6


>
> Graphics Card Geforce 6800 GT Dual DVI (PCI-Express) No price - can't
> find one!

I guess you are a gamer. Notice that a $150 Athlon 64 3000+ socket 754
beats an $800 Pentium 4 3.2 ghz EE running Doom 3.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=2149&p=7

>
> Motherboard Abit AA8 3rd Eye £120.97

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] =2248&p=10

>
> PSU Antec NeoPower 480W £88.07
> Memory GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
> £264.38
> Case Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Silver Windowless £89.00
> Optical Drive NEC ND-2510A £69.00
> Hard Drive (7.200) Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB 2x£84.54=£169.08
> Hard Drive (10.0) Western Digital Raptor WD740GD £121.00
>
> Total = £2,588.03 (Bear in mind the screens are £1290 of that, the
> same as the whole PC unit)
>
> With this in mind, as well as your general opions/recommendations, I
> have the following questions:
>
> 1) Is this system overclockable?
> 2) Is the system quietISH (not 100% priority) Would a Zalman reserator
> be a good choice to make it quiet?
> 3) Are the prices I quoted ok?
>
> Thanks
>
> Marcos

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I note you have 3x HD - 2x 7,200rpm, 1x 10,000-rpm Raptor.

The slowest part of HD I/O is repositioning the head:
o Whilst peak SDTR off 7200rpm or 10,000rpm is 40-80MB/sec
o Head seeking drops this figure very considerably

If you tend to be Application-Heavy, Data-Light:
o Use 1 disk for System/Apps + 1 disk for Data
o So minimising slow (electromechanical) head seeking

If the Data-Set is Non-Video:
o Use the fastest HD for System/Apps
o So offering the lowest system/application latency

If the Data-Set is Video or very large files:
o Use the fastest HD for Data
o So offering the highest SDTR re large file streaming

You may want to look at a couple of makers boards (eg, Asus),
and price out other processor architectures (AMD-64 for one).

Your cooling requirements are not particularly extreme:
o P4 platform will be Prescott which has high idle heat output
o AMD platform has a lower idle heat output (tho not inconsiderable)

The 10,000rpm HD will require some direct cooling.

However, as usual baseline the system re temperatures:
o Identify your Case + CPU + HD temperatures
---- m/b supplied s/w, utilities like MBM or HDDTemp
o Coolers cool based on case temperature, not the lower room ambient
---- a cooler blows case air at a heatsink
---- coolers will recirculate that heated air (lowering efficiency) until case fans
exhaust it
o If Case temperature is tending to 40oC, improving case airflow
---- replace case exhaust grills with round-wire grills (89-91% free air)
-------- punched case exhaust holes can be just 45-55% free air & add noise
---- choose a case which takes a larger exhaust fan
-------- a case that offers a 120mm exhaust fan
---- improve case intake - cases breathe thro the smallest denominator opening
-------- many cases have a 3"x1" cutout - half the c/sectional area of one 80mm fan
o Change 1 variable item at a time, and re-baseline
---- overly fancy coolers or water cooling can be overkill

If you are intending to use a high-end gaming graphics card then you need to
consider graphics card noise - examine reviews, power dissipation can be high.

Since you are planning on TFTs and perhaps gaming use, check response times.
Also worth comparing TFT reviews since £1290 is a large sunk cost, if you do not
need the extreme size (since using 2 displays) it is one area of potential cost saving.
TFTs are larger in viewable area than the correspondingly (miss)-named CRT size.

If the work is commercial, you may want to consider an UPS :-)
--
Dorothy Bradbury
www.dorothybradbury.co.uk for quiet Panaflo fans & other items