Ordering today, sanity check, please

[bmgoodman]

OK, I think I'm about to pull the proverbial trigger and order today. I'm now leaning away from Dell because their XPS will hold only 2 HD and does not appear to support eSATA. Here's what I have put together. Please note I am NOT a gamer. I may want to run Vista w/ Aero, though.
I MAY want to experiment eventually with minor overclocking (so long as I can use the stock cooling system). My biggest concern is whether the memory I've listed will work well with the Asus P5B-E motherboard. I've heard that the P965 chipset has some RAM compatibility issues.

Anyway, at this point, I'm looking for MAJOR PROBLEMS with what I have put together, rather than a different part that will get me a 3% performance boost. I am hoping what I have here will run stably, reliably, cooly, and quietly for many years. Does anybody see any glaring issues?

Thanks!!

Antec Performance One P150 Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430-Watt ATX12V v2.2 Power Supply - Retail

ASUS P5B-E Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Standard System Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail

MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal USB 2.0 digital card reader with Floppy Drive - OEM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/ LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S - OEM

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1600XT Ultimate Edition PCI-E 256MB DDR3 VGA DVI-I TV-Out

 

[godman]

perhaps think about the 7600gt or an x1650 pro, or a 1900gt rev.2
try and get the premium p965 motherboard, thenormal ones aren't that good, AFAIK.... greenjellywas it, yeah

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=204164&highlight=

not sure about it PM him, to see what he thinks of it, if its not too good then perhaps go for the abit 9d max or abit 9 pro, or the gigabyte ds3.

get 533mhz or 667mhz ram, 800mhz provides l;ittle performance increase for the price, especially if you aren't overclocking. And its not very cheap at the moment.... Anyhow if you get 533mhz or 667mhz then make sure you get it from a reliable brand, eg corair value select or crucial stuff or Gskill* etc..

whatever you do you dont really want real generic ram, it is not good. :lol: Ive got some lol and i get the BSOD occasionally...

*EDIT

 

[4745454b]

g0dman gots good advice. Not sure about his rant about Gskill ram though. Its not generic, its just not as popular as OCZ, Corsair, etc. I use Gskill in my current rig, it works fine.

If your video use is light enough, you can get away with the x1600. As was suggested, you might want something with more of a punch.

 

[godman]

i meant if he chose to get 533mhz or 667mhz ram dont get generic ram not that gskill is generic

generic ram would be this:

or this type, basically a no name (or not well known) brand, and by no accounts is Gskill generic....




good Gskill ram, it looks nice... :lol:

 

[p90m16mp5a4]

For not being a gamer you are choosing high end parts. What exactly are you going to do with this computer that demands maximum speed? If your computer tasks consist of burning cd's or watching movies then you have extreme overkill here. Extreme.

 

[4745454b]

Oops, thats what I get for trying to post first thing in the morning. Caffine must not have kicked in yet...

 

[godman]

awake yet?

haha okey dokey :lol:

 

[TSIMonster]

Looks great to me. an e6400 would save you some bucks without a big performance hit. Just a consideration I guess.

One thing you should definately do is switch to the 7600gt for that build. No question. Otherwise, looks good, have fun with your build.

 

[bmgoodman]

For not being a gamer you are choosing high end parts. What exactly are you going to do with this computer that demands maximum speed? If your computer tasks consist of burning cd's or watching movies then you have extreme overkill here. Extreme.

I want to be able to transcode .tivo files (from TivoToGo) to DVDs quickly and still be able to do basic other tasks like e-mail and web surf. It was suggested that ATI's AVIVO technology may be faster at transcoding .tivo files IF THEY EVER SUPPORT .TIVO FILES. At the moment, AVIVO won't work on them. ATI may add support later, though. That's the reason I plan to stick with ATI.

I also went with the E6600 because should I choose not to overclock, I still want to speed my transcode times.

I went with the DDR2 800 RAM in case I want to experiment with overclocking. It looks like Asus includes some Windows utilities to overclock moderately and on-the-fly. My hope is that when I am in the middle of a transcode, the Asus utility will boost my performance ~15%, but otherwise will leave it at default speeds.

 

[gm0n3y]

I would also suggets a 7600gt instead of the 1600. Much better card.

 

[Doughbuy]

How about the 18X Samsung DVD burner:

http://www.directron.com/shs182m.html

Shouldn't be much more than the one you have now.

Everything else looks fine, 320 gigs should be enough... for a couple of weeks (I go through 200 gig hdd's in less than a month, but then again, I don't delete anything).

Also, where are you buying from, I would recommend www.directron.com since their prices are usually cheaper than Newegg and they also have a great customer service program.

 

[p90m16mp5a4]

To OP:
To me, the 6600 is overkill for just about everything. The 80$ difference between the 66 and the 64 isn't marginal, the upgrade is very small. If you are transcoding 200gb of files a month you might spend an extra hour total at your computer with the 6400 than you would with the 6600. Then again if you have 80$ lying around you can reclaim an hour of your life each month

You also don't need DDR2 800 for overlocking headroom, you can simply slow down your memory speed and accomplish the same thing without a performance loss (that is if you loosen timings). 2gb of 667 cl 4 is about the same price as 800 cl 5, they perform the same and cost the same so it doesn't really matter. To me expensive memory is a waste of money, the biggest performance gain from them is in synthetic benchmarks >.>. Everything else is a minute amount of performance difference. As for 965 compatibility, two guys say it worked fine for their P5b's, although customer reviews do not have any credibility to them.

You also need a windows xp cd to install the os.

The x850XT is the card you need to be buying. It smashes the 7600gt with a giant warhammer, and it's cheaper. Downsides are it takes up two slots and it is noisier and uses more power. I don't really think it matters though since you wont be playing games >.> Wait, there won't be any noise since the fan will never have to kick up due to heat. That only happens when you are playing games or something like that. x850XT is 120$ on newegg, the 7600gt is around 130$.

To the guy who likes directon:
From what I looked at from Directon, memory, vga's and cpu's are cheaper on newegg, I didnt' bother looking at their other stock. Perhaps they sell 19" lcd's for 20$. That would be cheaper than newegg... I think.. let me check : P

 

[gm0n3y]

I own an x850xt and it is great. That being said, I still think that the 7600gt would be at least as good. Since he said he won't be doing any major gaming, I think that the 7600gt would be the better choice. It only takes one slot, its quieter (I think there are even passively cooled ones), and given that, I think it also consumes less power (not sure though).

Personally, I prefer the x850xt since I am into overclocking. I bought an acrtic cooler for it (the stock one was bloody loud) and the temps dropped about 15 degrees on average, which has allowed me to achieve a healthy overclock.

 

[p90m16mp5a4]

Only heat and noise wont be an issue, the fans only come on when the core gets hot. Performance wise omg it pwns the 7600gt. But either way it wont matter since he wont be playing games

 

[gm0n3y]

2 things.

1) My x850xt (a sapphire) was noisy even one idle fan speeds of around 15%. It has a kind of loud rattle/hum.

2) If you check out the VGA charts here on THG, you will see that they split the benchmarks pretty evenly. Some games (especially at lower resolutions) go to the x850xt and others, to the 7600gt.

Like you said though, he isn't really going to gaming, so its not really a big deal. However, for the noise alone, I would say get the 7600gt. I have never had one, so if it is also loud, somebody let me know. Also, I can't vouch for the noise of any other x850xt (non Sapphire). These 2 cards have probably 5-10 thread already dedicated to which is better. I think cleeve even did a review of the 2 and came to the same decision. Get which ever is cheaper, they perform the same.

 

[rwpritchett]

However, for the noise alone, I would say get the 7600gt. I have never had one, so if it is also loud, somebody let me know.

I have a 7600GT and its completely silent. It's the Gigabyte Silent Pipe II which uses passive heat pipes to cool... that's 0 dBA.

I don't know about the actively cooled 7600GT's though.

 

[gm0n3y]

0 dBa is alright. I bet it would be even quieter with water cooling though!

 

[mad-dog]

Mine goes to 11 :twisted:

 

[rwpritchett]

Mine goes to 11 :twisted:

Spinal Tap fan? :lol:

 

[godman]

Only heat and noise wont be an issue, the fans only come on when the core gets hot. Performance wise omg it pwns the 7600gt. But either way it wont matter since he wont be playing games

the 7600gt and 850xt are of almost equal performance, only reasons why to get the 7600gt over the 850xt:


a) The 7600gt core is 90nm compared to the 850xt which has a 110/130nm core. This means the 7600gt will undoubtably be cooler and thus produce less noise.

b) The 7600GT is new, the x850xt is old, the 7600gt supports DirectX9.0c whilst the 850xt only supports DirectX 9.0b. The 7600Gt will do SM3.0 (shader model 3.0) whilst the 850xt cannot.

I would get the 7600Gt , if you do get the gigabyte silent pipe 2 version, is 0DBa!

0 dBa is alright. I bet it would be even quieter with water cooling though!

yep it'll be -15DBa ... :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[PC_God]

F
I went with the DDR2 800 RAM in case I want to experiment with overclocking. It looks like Asus includes some Windows utilities to overclock moderately and on-the-fly.

Never use that PC OC crap. OC in the bios only!

 

[pancito]

If you not plan to overclock dont spend extra $100 on memory. Save that to upgrade your video card X1900GT or something.

Stock FSB = 266 = 533Mhz memory

If you are planning on overclocking put FSB to 333 (easy to reach on C2D) Will net you 3Ghz

OC FSB = 333 = 667Mhz Memory

If you plan to overclock even more say 400 FSB (Harder, doable probably need extra cooling) will net you 3.6Ghz or 3.2Ghz if you drop your multi.

OC FSB = 400 = 800Mhz Memory.

BTW 15% overclock is around 300Mhz FSB so with memroy from corsair or gskill or ocz you can achieve that with 533 Memory overclocked.

 

[godman]

BTW 15% overclock is around 300Mhz FSB so with memroy from corsair or gskill or ocz you can achieve that with 533 Memory overclocked.

true, good quaity (reputable brand) 266mhz (533mhz DDR) ram will get to around 315mhz+ (630mhz DDR) when overclocked overclock and likewise, as shown by wusy:

Please also use RAM that’s rated:
-DDR2-667 4-4-4-xx (good for ~400Mhz*)
-DDR2-800 5-5-5-xx (good for ~410Mhz*)
-DDR2-800 4-4-4-xx (good for 500Mhz+*) ->Best for E6300/E6400
-DDR2-1066 5-5-5-xx (good for 530Mhz+*)
-Or any other RAM of the above mentioned speed that has even lower timings
*refer to Part2 for maximum Mhz extraction under 1:1 operation

-wusys core 2 duo overclocking guide:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Core2Duo-Overclocking-Guide-v1-ftopict197995.html

 

[gm0n3y]

0 dBa is alright. I bet it would be even quieter with water cooling though!

yep it'll be -15DBa ... :lol: :lol: :lol:

So that would begin to absorb sound from other components I guess. Now I just to add some more case badges to help my CPU overclock and some more LEDs cause chicks like guys with fancy computer cases. Oh and I almost forgot, gotta get me some of those gold thumbscrews (+10 horse power, -2 agility):

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3525/scr-87/FrozenCPU_Easy_Grip_Anodized_Aluminum_Thumbscrew_-_GOLD.html?tl=g1c157s8

BLING BLING BABY!!! 8)

 

[niz]

OK, I think I'm about to pull the proverbial trigger and order today. I'm now leaning away from Dell because their XPS will hold only 2 HD and does not appear to support eSATA. Here's what I have put together. Please note I am NOT a gamer. I may want to run Vista w/ Aero, though.
I MAY want to experiment eventually with minor overclocking (so long as I can use the stock cooling system). My biggest concern is whether the memory I've listed will work well with the Asus P5B-E motherboard. I've heard that the P965 chipset has some RAM compatibility issues.

Anyway, at this point, I'm looking for MAJOR PROBLEMS with what I have put together, rather than a different part that will get me a 3% performance boost. I am hoping what I have here will run stably, reliably, cooly, and quietly for many years. Does anybody see any glaring issues?

Thanks!!

Antec Performance One P150 Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430-Watt ATX12V v2.2 Power Supply - Retail

ASUS P5B-E Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail

G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Standard System Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail

MITSUMI Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal USB 2.0 digital card reader with Floppy Drive - OEM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner W/ LightScribe and 5X DVD-RAM Write Black ATAPI/E-IDE Model SHM-165H6S - OEM

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1600XT Ultimate Edition PCI-E 256MB DDR3 VGA DVI-I TV-Out

Don't buy a DX9 card. Get one of the new nVidia DX10 cards due out any moment.

Don't buy a 965 motherboard. (no SLI). get one of the new 680i chipset SLI mobos instead.