Your Perspective and Experience Welcomed Here

[Ecoli]

Hello to all tech heads here. First post so wish to make it a good one since I see my self visiting here more often in the near future.

I have the following specs for my 2007 workstation/game machine, with a budget of US$1400.00, no monitor is currently on the budget since my Sony 21" CRT is still live and kicking. This machine will be used for video editing (Vegas/Premiere), watching TV, listening music, ripping music and movies and yes, gaming! Reason for the upgrade is to be able to use the latest versions of above software and playing the following on at least 1600 x 1200 32bit 4x4x minimum @ 40 FPS on heavy 3d demand :

Storm of War: The Battle of Britain
MS: Flight Simulator X
LockOn
Armed Assault
Silent Hunter III\IV
Battle Field 2142
Medieval II: Total War

As mentioned before, I will be bringing over the Sony 21" CRT, Audigy 2 PCI, Sony DVD IDE burner, Logitech 5.1 Z680, Logitech G5, MS ForceFeedback 2 Stick and CH Pro Throttle.

So here is my picked specs, I would just ask for your collective perspective and experience to review it and comment on them with the information provided. I thank you in advance for all you could contribute, assist, point out or just applaud!

[CASE] CHENMING CMUI-P-601AEB-0 Black 1.0mm SECC Server Case $59.99

[MOBO] MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard $164.99

[CPU] Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 $222.00

[RAM] Patriot eXtreme Performance 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PDC22G6400LLK - $154.99

[VGA] EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - $259.99

[HS] Thermalright Ultra-120 CPU Cooling Heatsink - $48.99

[FAN] Thermaltake A2029 120mm Case Fan - $11.49

[PSU] SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT ATX12V / EPS12V 650W Power Supply - $159.99

[HDD] Seagate Barracuda ES ST3320620NS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $94.99 X 2

TOTAL = US$1272.41 + S/H

 

[RichPLS]

Just a suggestion...
I would consider this board for $28 more...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131028

and this cooler is better, but costs $11 more too...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

That combo works well for me, easily OC'ng past 3.2GHz.

 

[sarsoft]

Just a suggestion...
I would consider this board for $28 more...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131028

and this cooler is better, but costs $11 more too...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

That combo works well for me, easily OC'ng past 3.2GHz.

ASUS P5B Deluxe is a very good board, stable, oc well. Great reviews. I had it and it has not give me any trouble. I would go with this board.

 

[dhvd79a]

The only thing I'll warn you about is that Front IO port. I have two of the ANTEC version of that case and the IO port just can't stand up to too many pluggings and unpluggings. It's not the USB or firewire ports themselves but the way the circuit board it is mounted in the case. I have to remount mine every couple of months. It is not a big deal, just a pain.

May not be an issue for you.

Dave

 

[Ecoli]

Thank you all for your individual contributions to my request!

Dave, point taken on the case, I currently own similar one from Antec but it does not have the front USB ports and only has two 80mm on the front and back of the case. I need better airflow so I opted for the economical Chenming with a 120mm on rear, two 80mm on front and room to add two more 120mm on the side door.

RichPLS, thanks for those suggestions! I like Asus mobos so I will look further into this series of their boards. I haven't seen it before since I was just looking at Nvidia North Bridge chips (for their native SLI support, just in case I needed for more horsepower with an extra card). I also look for support on two legacy PCI cards (1 for the Audigy 2 and the other for the ATI TV tunner), as well as support of legacy IDE for at least two devices (DVD and HDD).

I originally looked at the Zalman 9700 since I have used their HSF before and had no issues but compared to the Thermalright Ultra 120 it comes in 3 or 4th place when overclocking (something that I plan to do when more horsepower is needed and when I upgrade to a Quad CPU within a year or two).


Sarsoft, as mentioned previously with RichPLS, I will look into this board more in detail and compare it with the MSI P6N SLI Platinum and Asus ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus.

Any further suggestions, changes, opinions are welcomed! Keep them coming

 

[Crashman]

Do you really need a 650i board? The old, cheap P965 is probably a faster chipset.

 

[Ecoli]

Hello Crashman,

What P965 board do you recommend, besides the Asus, that meets my requirements :

- Min. 3 Legacy PCI
- SLI Support
- Legacy hardware IDE Support for at least 2 devices
- Supports C2D up to Quad
- Support for FSB: 800 / 1066 / 1333 Mhz
- Priced at less than US$200 brand new

I appreciate your contribution!

 

[Crashman]

Most of them are good now, I'd pick the cheapest "preferred brand" board that has all the features you want

 

[AdamBomb42]

Gigabyte DS3

 

[Crashman]

Not to forget that Asus has the P5B Deluxe, which is pretty darned deluxe, and MSI has the P965 Platinum, which is pretty darned fast.

 

[Ecoli]

Thank you gentlemen!

So it seems to be a fight between the following Mobos:

MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel - US$165

and

GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel - US$116

A US$49 difference with the following physical differences:

MSI:

North Bridge NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI
South Bridge NVIDIA nForce 430i

PCI Express x16 2 SLOTS
PCI Express x1 1 SLOTS
PCI Slots 3 SLOTS

PATA 2 x ATA100 up to 4 Devices
SATA 3Gb/s 4 x Internal SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports
1 x External SATA 3.0 Gb/s port
SATA RAID 0/1/0+1/5


GIGABYTE:

North Bridge Intel P965 Express
South Bridge Intel ICH8

PCI Express x16 1 SLOT
PCI Express x1 3 SLOTS
PCI Slots 3 SLOTS

PATA 1 x ATA100 up to 2 Devices
SATA 3Gb/s 6
SATA RAID 0/1



The Gigabyte seems like a great OC board compared to MSI but it does not have RAID 5, No native SLI support, only 1 legacy ATA100 for PATA.

MSI is US$50 more expensive, has 2 SATA less ports compared to the DS3, RAID performance is not as good as the DS3, OC is marginally less than the DS3. Besides these obvious differences, do anyone here have anything else to add? Recommend? As always, all of your help and contributions are welcomed.

 

[blunc]

my $0.02; you don't need an SLI mobo if you're only gonna run one video card.

spend the $50 you save on mobo to get an external drive enclosure (that has an internal fan) and large HD to save your music and viseo projects off to.

 

[Crashman]

Add? OK, I'd like to add that you won't be running RAID5