After some additional research, I think this will be my next build.
case - Lian Li PC-7B plus II
power supply - SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550
motherboard - Asus P5B-E
cpu - Intel Core2Duo E6600
ram - Corsair ValueSelect 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-667 (PC2 5300)
sound - on board
video - Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO (need advice) nic - on board
hard drives - Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YS
dvd-rw - reuse existing BenQ DW1640
Questions for the forum...
Power Supply: Will that be big enough for a mid-level DX10 card?
Motherboard: Comments on Asus P5B-E -vs- Asus P5N-E?
Video: I've read enough reviews of the Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO that complain about overheating to seriously look at other cards. My options include: Sapphire Radeon X1900GT -or- eVGA GeForce 7900GS
Any opinions on the situation?
Try get the x1950pro ultimate by saphire which doesnt have the heat problem. Its best to avoid that model if possible yet it is still better than a 7900GS. Having said that I have a saphire 1950pro and didnt have this heating issue, it works fine for me. So its a bit of a gamble.
Seasonic isn't generic brand. It'll outperform the majority of generic psus. 450W would be the minimal requirement for 8800GTX. Don't know about R600 (ati's new card).
Despite what other people say, there is a lot of over-rating with the 1950 Pro.
You can't find a good one for less than $200 and right around the corner is the X1950XT which isn't that much more expensive.
There's also the X1900XT 256 MB at Newegg for $214 which in my opinion, pound for pound is the best card near the $200 range. Nothing from Nvidia is worth it post $130 until you either use SLI or 8800 series cards. The 7800GT, 7900GS, 7900GT and 7950GT all get beat by their cheaper ATI counter-parts.
With the budget you have, I'd recommend getting the X1950XT. XT > Pro and it's 100% true in this case as well. There's a X1950XT for $250 on Newegg.
As for the power supply, it's a good brand. The thing is, ATI cards have a tendency to be more power hungry so you'd be better off upping to a 600 of some sort.
Yeah the 1900 GT is also a powerful card. If you plan to upgrade within one year and dont want to waste the money then its a good choice. 550W PSU should be enough even for the r600 cards.
With the budget you have, I'd recommend getting the X1950XT. XT > Pro and it's 100% true in this case as well. There's a X1950XT for $250 on Newegg.
My main concern with the X1950XT is noise level. None of the cards I'm considering are quiet, but from what I've read the dual slot cooling solution is much louder.
I'm not trying to build a silent PC, just being attentive to the noise level.
One final question before I let this thread die and make my purchases.
I've already discovered that I need to jump through some fiery hoops in order to get NCQ enabled.
Are there any other caveats that I should be aware of?
I haven't built an Intel based system since the days of the PII, so I'm a little behind on what software is necessary to install to enable all of the features of modern Intel chipsets. The same is true for PCI-E. I think I'm up to date on SATA. This will be my first ATi video card, so any advice there would also be useful.
I am just upgrading now from an old AMD xp system to a C2D so I am kinda in the same boat as you. Did a bunch of research also so maybe it will help.
Vid card--- I went with an nvidia card (and not the best one) for a lot of reasons
1 BFG Tech BFGR79256GSOCE GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16814143070
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$179.99
1st was price as I was trying to stay under $1000 for the upgrade. I dont really need cutting edge and all the problems/cost that come with it.
2nd was longterm use. It is a PCIex16 card and I will probably end up going SLI with it instead of xfire (ATI card), or upgrading to a GPU greater than or equal to the 8800. How that works out will really depend on how well sli is implemented. Right now that locks me into using a second card of the same kind but if it is under $200 now in a year it will be in the $100 range and a possible a very nice boost to performance with games.
3rd Not real happy with ATI vid cards, not that they are bad cards but my experience with them failing/rma etc is worse than nvid cards.
4th BFG has a lifetime warranty
5th AMD bought ATI. although now this does not affect how either one of them works with an intel platform I expect future chipsets/cpu's will work better with different platforms. AMD=ATI and Intel =Nvid. Why? Intel is not going to help AMD's bottom line in any way shape or form until they get lazy again and vice versus. Nvid will probably make a chipset to work with xfire so they can sell mobos on that platform under eVGA name, and AMD owning ATI will optimize ATI cards with their platform.
Motherboard
1 ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI x 16 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813131031
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
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$219.99
1st I went with this mobo mainly because of upgrade options for GPU due to the sli config and oc ability (havent oc much but I plan to try it out). The P5B-E you have listed has a 965 chipset which (pretty sure)does not support 2 16x PCIe pipelines for dual GPU configs (does 1 16x or 2 at 8x I believe but the P5B-E only has 1 x 16 slot) so no SLI is a waste for me since I believe dual graphics will eventually get me more bang for buck.
2nd I can still OC. Granted you can tweek .00625v on the P5B-E and only .0125v on the P5N32-SLI SE but that is good enough for me since this will really be my first serious attempt at OC. and again i wanted SLI
3rd I like Asus boards and the newer 680i chipset bios has to many problems for me even though I realize most of them have been fixed with bios upgrades, I am not cofident enough with my experience that I won't just be staring at my new $300 mobo wondering what to do next lol.
Hope this helps. Not sure what your 1st attempt at advice was and if you were geared only at OC, but I figured if you were looking at 1950 level GPU you probably do some gaming.
I don't know about the mobo, but it's P965 chipset & it should be the same. To enable NCQ on my board in bios:
SATA RAID / AHCI Mode RAID Set the onboard SATA controller to RAID mode.
AHCI Set the onboard SATA controller to AHCI mode. Advanced Host Controller
Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to
enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and
hot plug. For more details about AHCI, please visit Intel's website.
Disabled Set the onboard SATA controller to IDE mode. (Default value)
On nForce 3/4/5xx/6xx chipset mobos, there are multiple nVidia driver entries where NCQ can be turned on/off in Windows dev. mgr. FWIW, I don't see this option on my PC.
I suggest you download your mobo manual & search for Native Command Queuing & read it up.
MarriedwMortgage - Thanks for the input. Here's my old thread.
I'm not interested in overclocking, SLI, or crossfire. I do play a few games.
I'd like to spend a little less on the case, but I'm pretty picky when it comes to cases. I've had one too many instances where a crappy case caused problems.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to purchase the items in my original post, with the exception of the video card. A Radeon X1900 GT will save me a few dollars and still get acceptable performance.
So its a bit of a gamble.
