my refined list - advice requested

[lancer]

the last time I built a full system was 3 years ago

I currently have

Intel 875 board socket 478
intel P4 2.8 HT cpu
1gb (2x512mb pc3200 sticks)
nvidia 5200 gpu
creative 5.1 platinum with external bay
3 250gb eide ata 133 drives
1 250gb sata
2 dvd -rw (1 DL, 1 SL)
21" mitsubishi 2020u pro screen

proposed system with areas of difficulty regards choice still outstanding

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail 2x 2.40 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775 BX805576600 £169.89

Zalman CNPS9500-AT Intel LGA775 Aero Flower Cooler LGA775 £25.75
3½" Black Floppy Drive £3.65

Asus P5W64-WS Pro motherboard £151.95

memory choice 1

2x1GB PC6400 Elixir DDR2 800 SDRAM M2Y1G64TU8HB0B-25C £115.90

memory choice 2
OCZ 600W SLI Ready GameXStream PSU OCZ600GXSSLI-UK-OCZ £162.50

case choice 1
Antec Nine Hundred U £64.95

case choice 2
thermaltake armour tower with 250mm case side fan £89


graphics choice 1

sapphire radeon x1950xtx 512mb £244.50

graphics choice 2

Powercolor Radeon X1950XT 256MB £151.95

questions

1. the 1950xt against the 1950xtx is quite a bit cheaper, but how much performance am I giving up. I was originally going to go for a 1950 pro but the 1950 xt is pretty much the same price.

is the 1950 xt an okay choice or am I giving up too much performance to the XTX and the extra 256mb of graphics memory?

2. now, I was going for a P5W DH motherboard but it doesn't have a parallel port so I can't hook my three printers up. I refuse to pay the premium for the asus striker board although it is nice as it is an extra £50 over and above.

the P5W64S seems to get a bit of criticism for being very stable and not quite as fast as some boards but it does have 2 PCI slots for me to add my eide 133 controller card for all my drives.

is there another board I should consider? it needs to be 975x chipset for the conroe chip I have selected.

it needs to have an EIDE slot for my optical drives and at least one PCI slot for an EIDE controller card (if it has onboard firewire) two PCI slots if it does not as I can then add my PCI firewire card.

3. someone on another thread put a link up for a system power calculator and according to that, I need something like 700W+ for all of this, but on the forum, some have said a 580W hiper is fine so for the moment I've plumped middle ground and picked an OCZ 600w pack, but they do do a 700W one as well.

will 600W be enough for all this? I have no long term intention of going crossfire. is ocz a reasonable make of psu? I had heard this psu was on both the aTI and nvidia certified lists.

4. I was going to go antec 900 all the way until someone put up a thread saying 'the cabling was a pain, look how I've modded my case to look pretty' so I started considering the thermaltake armour or armour junior which is a bit more in money terms.

alternatively is there another case that looks like these two to be worth considering. I'd like a side window to see everything if possible.

5. the ocz memory looks pretty but am I gaining any performance over the elixir memory with that price premium?

6. I haven't setup xp pro with serial ATA before. as I'm transferring my drives across are there any areas I need to be aware of as it is a while since I installed a full system from scratch and the hardware will be quite different.

I'll be using my 3year old XP disc then applying SP2 again but I know there is a way to compile an XP disc and include drivers into its loading routine. anyone got any advice on this one? or should I install and use an EIDE drive as my master driver still? will a 3 year old XP PRo disc even recognise the duo core CPU on startup?

are there any good pages to link to for the process to double check myself.

 

[almerac]

the last time I built a full system was 3 years ago

questions

1. the 1950xt against the 1950xtx is quite a bit cheaper, but how much performance am I giving up. I was originally going to go for a 1950 pro but the 1950 xt is pretty much the same price.

is the 1950 xt an okay choice or am I giving up too much performance to the XTX and the extra 256mb of graphics memory?

2. now, I was going for a P5W DH motherboard but it doesn't have a parallel port so I can't hook my three printers up. I refuse to pay the premium for the asus striker board although it is nice as it is an extra £50 over and above.

the P5W64S seems to get a bit of criticism for being very stable and not quite as fast as some boards but it does have 2 PCI slots for me to add my eide 133 controller card for all my drives.

is there another board I should consider? it needs to be 975x chipset for the conroe chip I have selected.

it needs to have an EIDE slot for my optical drives and at least one PCI slot for an EIDE controller card (if it has onboard firewire) two PCI slots if it does not as I can then add my PCI firewire card.

3. someone on another thread put a link up for a system power calculator and according to that, I need something like 700W+ for all of this, but on the forum, some have said a 580W hiper is fine so for the moment I've plumped middle ground and picked an OCZ 600w pack, but they do do a 700W one as well.

will 600W be enough for all this? I have no long term intention of going crossfire. is ocz a reasonable make of psu? I had heard this psu was on both the aTI and nvidia certified lists.

4. I was going to go antec 900 all the way until someone put up a thread saying 'the cabling was a pain, look how I've modded my case to look pretty' so I started considering the thermaltake armour or armour junior which is a bit more in money terms.

alternatively is there another case that looks like these two to be worth considering. I'd like a side window to see everything if possible.

5. the ocz memory looks pretty but am I gaining any performance over the elixir memory with that price premium?

6. I haven't setup xp pro with serial ATA before. as I'm transferring my drives across are there any areas I need to be aware of as it is a while since I installed a full system from scratch and the hardware will be quite different.

I'll be using my 3year old XP disc then applying SP2 again but I know there is a way to compile an XP disc and include drivers into its loading routine. anyone got any advice on this one? or should I install and use an EIDE drive as my master driver still? will a 3 year old XP PRo disc even recognise the duo core CPU on startup?

are there any good pages to link to for the process to double check myself.

1. a noticeable amount (between the XT and XTX), there is not much of a difference between a X1950Pro and a X1900GT (a XT is slightly more powerful than either), if you are really concerned just get an XTX, mind you a 8800GTS is not much more (it may even be less, i dont keep up to much on higher end cards), and will pound any ATI card into the ground.
either will probably be more then you need. i would go for a 8800GTS tho, if i was building a system like yours.

i would put them in this order (of least to most powerful) X1900GT, X1950PRO, X1900XT, X1900XTX, 8800GTS.

2. i do not keep up with motherboards or intel chipsets sry.

3. 600 watts will be fine (even with a 8800GTS), 700 if you want your PSU to outlive everything else in your system.

4. a case is a case, often you will trade looks for functionality (unless your willing to spend $200+ for a case) if you want bling and flash, dont get to picky about ease of use, unless your willing to pay for it (mind you i personally dont care and just want a case that is easy to use and lug around for LAN parties)

5. no it is not. the first thing you should be concerned about with ram, is that it will work with your system. you do not need terribly fast ram for even extreme overclocks. but it is helpful to have ram that will play nice with odd timings, and frequencies when you do OC (actually its extremely helpful to have well behaved ram). as such almost any enthusiast ram will do, DDR800 should be a minimum tho if your planning on overclocking. (i would be concerned about warranties to)

6. you should not have any problems installing XP on a SATA drive. worst case scenario, is that you will have to put a driver on a floppy and hit F6 when you install windows to load it. since you have XP pro, it should play nice with your CD key.

 

[lancer]

having looked at prices. I can get an 8800 GTS 640mb for about £5 more than a 1950 XTX 512mb.

now I know long term the 8800 will rule as more dx10 games come out and I'm assuming performance is comparable on older stuff too.

I do do a lot of vid editing though and had heard that ati's are better in this area.

I've also settled on the 965 DS4 gigabyte board as a good medium. I'm reading too much about problems with asus boards my tummy aches.

I was considering an SLI nforce board but although a bios revision has come out for the 680 boards, its put me off to be honest.

 

[evongugg]

Here's how to calculate the Power Supply you need:

Go to:

http://extreme.outervision.com (Power supply calculator)

and add one Hard Disk, one optical drive, video card and CPU, use high end motherboard,
calculate Watts and divide by 12 to get amps. Add 2-4 amps for safety.

Compare to your power supply 12v rails.
Combined should not exceed requirements.

Max power output on 12v rails: look at box, subtract 3.3v + 5v maximum output from total
wattage of PSU and divide by 12 to get maximum amps on 12v rail. Should be higher than
requirements. That's why we add 2-4 amps.

See this PSU 101:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/PSU-101-ftopict198276.html

Top Tier PSU
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088

 

[lancer]

thanks for the pointer to the calculator. that settles things there.

refined my list again taking into account 8800 gts is only £5 more than a 1950 xtx

Zalman CNPS9500-AT Intel LGA775 Aero Flower Cooler LGA775 £25.75
3½" Black Floppy Drive £3.65
2x 1GB PC6400 Elixir DDR2 800 SDRAM M2Y1G64TU8HB0B-25C £115.90 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail 2x 2.40 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775 £169.89
Albatron GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3 320bit PCI-E Dual-DVI VIVO £249.95
Asus P5W DH Deluxe i975X Socket 775 WiFi EDITION / CONROE READY / CROSSFIRE / DUAL Gb LAN / SATA(II) RAID / ATX MOTHERBOARD £123.97
OCZ 600W SLI Ready GameXStream PSU OCZ600GXSSLI-UK-OCZ £62.50
1x Parallel 2x Serial Port PCI Card £19.95
thermaltake armour black with 250mm side fan £85

 

[skyguy]

Looks great, GOOD CALL on the GTS instead of the 1950!!!

A floppy?!? Going retro are we??

 

[lancer]

I wouldn't even say retro. it's just a good old fashioned boot disk has got me out of trouble on more than one occasion so I still think it's a godsend to have one.

 

[almerac]

thats actually a good idea, 5euro is a small investment to avoid a bad headache later. i must agree with the other posters i am glad you decided on a GTS.

 

[lancer]

okay, the plot thickens.

the missus in her infinite mercy/wisdom, take your pick has authorised moi to spend a bit more.

now I know that means a bit, not obscene.

I priced up obscene just for a laugh. ie, top everything I fancy without spending something silly on some of the components and it topped out at £2250 without even trying (that's $4500 for our american cousins)

that was a drool worthy system in a thermaltake armour case, 2.93 duo core 2gb obscenely expensive, infinitely Overclockable memory, 2x 320GB sata dries to go with the 8800 GTX, 850W enermax psu etc.

like I say, I went silly.

so, scaling down a bit, it means I can get a few bits extra and I think I can swing or the other of the below which bears some thinking.

either

e6600 2.40 conroe with
8800 GTS
2GB elixir DDR2 RAM
2x sata 250gb hard drive (1 I got already)
1 x sata dvd-rw DL
thermaltake armour case
asus p5w64-ws pro board

or

e6700 2.67 conroe with
ati 1950 xt 256mb pci-e
2GB elixir DDR2 RAM
2x sata 250gb hard drive (1 I got already)
1 x sata dvd-rw DL
thermaltake armour case
asus p5w64-ws pro board

you see my dilemma, I think the budget can stretch to either

2.67 with a 1950

or

2.4 with a 8800GTS

now, my head says get the 2.67 becaues 18 months to a year down the line the DX10 graphics card price war will be raging. after all, at the moment, we only got one flava of card to play with and despite its stonking performance, it is first generation dx10 card and there are basically zilch dx10 games to shake it down with. time will give us more cards with better capabilities and also drive down first gen card prices.

soooooo, why not plough the pennies into basic horsepower that will last me longer, and worry about upgrading the graphics later while at the same time going for a reasonably priced card that will still deliver good performance.

bear in mind I am coming from an FX5200 so after that anything's gonna look good anyway.

does that make sense.

to me, sitting in the hot seat with the glare of the lights on me making a choice etc, I think e6700 conroe with 1950 xt is the logical choice. plus mate that cpu with the motherboard from asus and I have a lot of Overclock opportunities to really ramp the speed up further.

oh this is off an artic cooling freezer 7 and fan which most seem to say, get over the zalman 9500 and 9700 if I am going to air overclock.

PS. on a side note, are there any good, complete idiot guides to overclocking because until now I have basically always played safe not wanting to fry my hardware because the tolerances were so exact.

but from what I have seen with the conroes on xtremesystems forum, it is safe to ramp up the 6700 to something like 3.5ghz quite comfortably without really killing the chip while air cooling.

 

[AMDThunder]

2.4 and 8800. Any of the C2Ds OC like mad.

 

[lancer]

really? that choice? well I get what you say that the duo's overclock great, but long term, if I'm starting from a higher base line speed, won't that stand me in better stead regards future software requirements for basic raw CPU power?

 

[AMDThunder]

I don't recall if you said you did much gaming or not. If you do, the 8800 is the logical choice.

Example, my primary use for my rig is gaming. So I went with the cheapest C2D I could get, and spent the extra cash on a better vid card. I could see no reason at all to step up to the 6400 or 6600. I'm OCd to 3.0, which is faster than the other 2 at stock. You obviously have more cash to spend than I did.

The 1950 is by no means a weak card, and would play just about everything out there superbly. It's the future you're looking at with the 8800.

Do you really think you'll notice a difference between the 6600 and the 6700 in anything you'll be doing? Your GPU drives most games, and the 6600 is definitely high powered enough for just about anything you could throw at it.

This is just my oh so humble opinion. So remember, opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one. :twisted:

 

[lancer]

hey, I'm not knocking the advice.

my basic day to day stuff these days is high end graphics ( 4000px wide images is not uncommon) and vid editing with flight sim's, fps and tactical gaming thrown in.

I hear what you're saying with the GPU but isn't a counter argument

there isn't anything out there that can really challenge a 8800 GTS yet, and by the time there is, there could be 2nd and 3rd gen dx10 cards out there which will a) make the 8800 cheaper anyway and b) be better than it.

therefore, if I start from a higher base speed that deals with the other stuff, the gpu takes care of itself later?

I know the 8800 turns in figures much better than a 1950 xt singleton and only in crossfire mode can they 1950's come close to it.

I'm torn, help.

another consideration, is 6400 800 1gb sticks made by elixir good enough for overclocking or should I spend a bit extra on some OCZ or corsair memory, course if I do that, i'm looking at a 2.4 AND a 1950 instead.

 

[Statross]

next year there will be better and faster processors and the prices will come down.

In a few years time the graphics card market will have completely changed, may be on DX11...who knows.

anyway, the way i see it is a 6600 + aftermarket hsf = you want to OC.

for that reason alone you should save money and OC a 6600 and buy an 8800 Gcard.

the thing with raw horse-power is that, yes...it's important to furture-proof, but the analogy with the graphics card...people use 1/2 year old then-high-end Gcards very happily now and will do so in the future.

same with processors, i dont notice much of a problem with my P4 even when doing enormous photoshop files, it takes a little while but thats down to processor, RAM and HD.

for the 750/800 you're playing with it's obvious you should get a nice mo/bo in 100-150 range, some DDR2 800 memory with 4-4-4-12 timings for OCing 80-130 for 1GB (better RAM and DDR2 1000+ increases prices exponentially from this point on - also, 1GB is probably all that will fit in your budget if you want good RAM...get another 1GB stick ina couple of months time so it seems like less money spent to your missus), a 6600 £200 and then the 8800 £300+

OMG! i just checked ebuyer...there's 132 pounds price difference between the e6700 and the e6600.

you can OC that much for free on stock, probably...let alone with a better hsf and maybe a couple of extra case fans (£1 for a pack of four 80mm on ebuyer)

**EDIT** that £132 difference also = another 1GB of RAM which will provide much more extra horse-power than .27Ghz

 

[almerac]

dont waste to much money on your ram, 2GB is fine, just dont get ripped off by buying something like DDR1000 $600 USD for 2GB, i think you should go for a GTS, they overclock really nice, and are worth the money (in my humble opinion). as for the proc its really up to you, just to give you a base of where i come from, (cuz im a poor MF ) i push my 3700 to 3ghz, simply because i can, and because if it breaks it will cost me a whole $90 to replace. so i would get the 6600, for no other reason then a 3.5 or 4ghz overclock will feel that much better. :twisted: ,

 

[lancer]

refined list part 3

based on what advice i've had regards cpu, gpu and memory, how does this baby look

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO Intel Socket 775 Heatpipe HSF £12.55
3½" Black Floppy Drive £3.65
3x Serial ATA with Red EL String £16.50
Round Floppy Drive Cable NLRB-376B £0.77
Albatron GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3 320bit PCI-E Dual-DVI VIVO £249.95
16x Liteon SATA DVD±RW Black SH-16A7S-05C £19.95
Asus P5W64-WS Pro Socket 775 QUAD CORE READY!ATX M/B £151.95
Belkin 125MB Wireless ADSL M/Router AND 125G USB Adapter Kit F5D7633uk4A + F5D7051UK Mfr# F5D9017UK £59.95
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail 2x 2.40 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775 £169.89
OCZ 2GB kit EL DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 Gold Gamer eXtreme / XTC Edition / Life time warranty OCZ2G8002GK 2x1GB £159.95
300Gb Samsung / 7200 / 8 SATA £53.95
OCZ 600W SLI Ready GameXStream PSU OCZ600GXSSLI-UK-OCZ £65
thermaltake armour tower in black £85

+

my existing

250gb SATA drive
2 x 250GB EIDE 133 drives
MAXTOR PCI ULTRA ATA 133 EIDE controller card
Soundblaster 5.1 PLatinum PCI with external 5.25" connection bay
21" mitsubishi 2020U monitor

overclock wise, I think that 3.4-3.6 depending on yield from individual processor is entirely realistic on air cooling without putting the CPU under too much pressure and OCZ memory should be able to deliver that in conjunction with the asus board i've picked.

this shit hot enough now? bear in mind all this is coming for the sum of about £1300 sterling.

 

[skyguy]

Very nice specs!

 

[Statross]

refined list part 3

based on what advice i've had regards cpu, gpu and memory, how does this baby look

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO Intel Socket 775 Heatpipe HSF £12.55
3½" Black Floppy Drive £3.65
3x Serial ATA with Red EL String £16.50
Round Floppy Drive Cable NLRB-376B £0.77
Albatron GeForce 8800GTS 640MB DDR3 320bit PCI-E Dual-DVI VIVO £249.95
16x Liteon SATA DVD±RW Black SH-16A7S-05C £19.95
Asus P5W64-WS Pro Socket 775 QUAD CORE READY!ATX MOTHERBOARD £151.95
Belkin 125MB Wireless ADSL M/Router AND 125G USB Adapter Kit F5D7633uk4A + F5D7051UK Mfr# F5D9017UK £59.95
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Retail 2x 2.40 4Mb 1066 MHz LGA775 £169.89 OCZ 2GB kit EL DDR2 PC2-6400 / 800 Gold Gamer eXtreme / XTC Edition / Life time warranty OCZ2G8002GK 2x1GB £159.95
300Gb Samsung / 7200 / 8 SATA £53.95
OCZ 600W SLI Ready GameXStream PSU OCZ600GXSSLI-UK-OCZ £65
thermaltake armour tower in black £85

+

my existing

250gb SATA drive
2 x 250GB EIDE 133 drives
MAXTOR PCI ULTRA ATA 133 EIDE controller card
Soundblaster 5.1 PLatinum PCI with external 5.25" connection bay
21" mitsubishi 2020U monitor

overclock wise, I think that 3.4-3.6 depending on yield from individual processor is entirely realistic on air cooling without putting the CPU under too much pressure and OCZ memory should be able to deliver that in conjunction with the asus board i've picked.

this **** hot enough now? bear in mind all this is coming for the sum of about £1300 sterling.

yum

 

[lancer]

well, that's it. order made after much deliberation and site price comparison.

I ordered from Novatech, Scan and Overclcockers.

Thermaltake Armor Full Tower in Black
Intel Bad Axe 2 Motherboard
Intel E660 C2D 2.4ghz CPU
scythe infinity CPU cooler
Geil 2GB DDR2 DRAM 4-4-4-12
BFG 8800 GTX
3.5" Sony Floppy Drive
2 x SATA DVD-RW
Western Digital 320GB 16mb cache SATA drive
Netgear Rangemax 834pn modem router + usb dongle
OCZ 700W Gamestream PSU

to match with my existing

1 x seagate 250GB SATA
2 x seagate 250GB ATA 133 EIDE
1 x mator external 250GB using firewire
Creative Labs 5.1 Platinum with Live Drive
21" Mitsuibishi Diamond Pro 2020u monitor

a shade over £1300 incl VAT which isn't bad. if I hadn't price shopped and got it all from one place, it would have been more than £1480.

 

[lancer]

well there was a lot of vacillitating from me.

last night I nearly went for a gigabyte DQ6 but felt intel bad axe 2 would be the safer bet. I can do quad's, it MIGHT do penryn later. it's rock solid and support is there.