Evaluate my interim build please

[pernicious]

I'm waiting for the July 22nd price drop for my new CPU, but as I need to rebuild Windows Vista now, I'm getting a new motherboard and RAM now, and hopefully a CPU change isn't enough to force it to do a rebuild/reactivate.

Money isn't tight, but I'm trying to keep expenditure moderately low. So I'm not skimping, but there has to be demonstrable bang for buck. All dollars are in AUD, so knock off about 20% to get equivalent US pricing.

Motherboard
ASUS P5K-iP35 M/board -

ASUS P5K-iP35 Socket LGA 775 Motherboard - Supports Intel Core 2 Extreme/ Core 2 Duo/ Pentium Extreme/ Pentium D/Pentium 4/ Celeron D; Intel P35 / ICH8R Chipset, 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB, 4 x 240-pin Dual Channel DDR2 1066/800/667 (non-ECC, Un-Buffered) DIMM sockets, 1 x PCI Express x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 3 x PCI 2.2, Southbridge: 4 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports, RAID 0, 1 and JBOD, PCI-E Gigabit LAN controller, IEEE 1394, ADI 8-channel Audio, Upto 12 x USB 2.0 ports, Software included, ATX Form Factor 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm)

- Doesn't explicitly say it supports Quad core, but don't all P35 MBs support Quad?

$201.

RAM
Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5D 2GB

(2x XMS2 1GB), PC-8500 (1066MHz) DDR2 RAM, 2x240-pin DIMMs, Non ECC, Unbuffered, 5-5-5-15, 64Mx8 DRAMs, Dual-path Heat Exchange (DHX) Technology, E.P.P Technology, Lifetime warranty

$275

CPU
Current CPU - Pentium 4 3.4Ghz HT
Proposed CPU - Q6600 (After July 22nd)

GPU
Current GPU ATI 9800 Pro PCI-E
Proposed GPU 8800GTS 640 (After July 22nd)

Hard Drive
2x200gb SATA II in RAID 0 for programs - Mother board
4x60gb SATA in RAID 5 for critical data - External HighPoint 1640 Controller

PSU
550W High Efficiency PSU.
May upgrade to a Antec 650Watt version, or relay in a 2nd PSU to run the 8800 alone.

This computer will be used for hard core password cracking and hash reversal (essentially the same as password cracking), so I will be installing Windows Vista Premium 64 Bit (and recompiling all my ethical hack tools into 64 Bit mode). I also want to play some games on it, though it's a bit of a secondary focus.

I have a 320Watt Peltier on a separate 450Watt Switch Mode, and a Corsair water cooler which I will use to immediately overclock the P4, and eventually overclock the Quad core. I'm hoping to overclock the bejesus out of this thing - 400Mhz FSB+?

Anyone have any comments before I hit the "Buy Now" button?

 

[dragonsprayer]

Rather then just totally slaming you - i just easy slam

1) buy a good gpu 8800gts min
2) get a good psu - 600-800w
3) get a cheap mobo - p35??? why?
take a p5n-e and add nb cooler and memory fans
4) 8500 ram?? dumb get 6400 low latnecys or even ddr 667 - 1.8v ram run it 2.2v and save a ton

i suggest you copy something good!


PS - i picked a micro velocity 2215 - to part out - custom tuned! wow there web site says "custom tuned" "like our founders philosphy???! scammers

what junk! stock settings -$2100 for junk!

stage 1 mod:

i pulled the corsair value seected and added some 4-4-4-5 ddr 800 running 4-4-4-8 ddr 875 - added memory cooler. 23% increase in bandwidth

custom tuned the e6600 was running the stock 2.4ghz - i added nb cooler and cranked it up 3.4ghz np! o ya 35% faster

pulled the boring black fan and added a nice blue led one
added uv lights.

rerouted the amature wire job!

time less then 2 hours = warp your system warpedsystems.net

after credit for the memory, $100 and 2 hours
------
VISTA NO ANTI VIRUS NO SPYWARE
NO VISTA TWEAKS
NO EXTRA GADGETS, EVEN
----------------------

CUSTOM TUNED??????????????????????????

QUOTES FROM m v:

"Meticulous assembly procedures. Velocity Micro utilizes a unique, customized assembly process for each system. Every computer is hand-crafted from start to finish by trained technicians" WHAT A JOKE

"custom-designed, custom built," HOW IS SCREWING PARTS TOGETHER NO MODS AND STOCK SETTINGS - CUSTOM???? ITS NOT!

"Velocity Micro systems feature only the finest brand-name performance parts" LOW END 550W PSU AND CORSAIR VALUE SELECT IS NOT THE FINEST!


MICROVELOCITY ARE SCAMMERS!

 

[pernicious]

8800GTS is already on the cards, so I'll ignore point 1.

I may just relay two 450W PSUs together, because I have spare PSUs coming out of my *cough*. It'd be a pain having 3 power cords running into my computer (Main PSU, booster PSU and Switchmode for Peltier) but once it's set up, should be okay.

P35 is not significantly more expensive than P965 and I wanted the highest chance of forward compatibility as possible.

After reading some THG guides, I actually did settle for Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12 memory. Will mount a fan on top of it, and see how fast I can get it. With any luck to 1033 or above anyway?

 

[fasteddy111]

Hi,

I'm having a problem with my HighPoint 1740 card. Could you look at forum Hardware/hard disk/ how do I add a PCI raid card (a posting by FastEddie111).....

Did you have any of the same problems? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

Ed

 

[pernicious]

Hey mate... Can't believe I'm about to hijack my own thread... But here goes.

I had a look at your other thread, and I have to say I'm stumped!

I'm gonna ask you to check a few obvious things first, in case they were overlooked.

1) I presume both the integrated RAID controllers are seen by BIOS as a SCSI bootable device - which one does it try to boot from first? Are you sure it's not rebooting because it's finding no bootable MBR on it? Can you fdisk the drive and sys it to make it bootable?

2) Have you upgraded the BIOS on the Highpoint RAID card?

Personally, never had an issue with the HP RAID cards. I did have to constantly (About once every 2 months) rebuild my RAID 5 array, but that stopped when I upgraded my PSU from 450 to 550 watts. I shudder to think what would have happened if I used RAID 0 instead and didn't figure it out fast enough...

Anyway, good luck, let me know how you go in either thread or in PM.

 

[fasteddy111]

Hello!

Thank you for your quick reply.

In answer to your questions:
1. The motherboard bios does seem to see the integrated RAID controller and the drives. I don’t know how it is seen, I presume as a SCSI boot device because that’s the way the device manager sees it. I don’t know which one is trying to boot first. I’m thinking that both of them are trying to boot at the same time. In the Gigabyte (MB) bios, the bios is telling the integrated raid controller to boot the system. But the HP bios has also set its raid array to boot the system. I looked to see if I could reset it not to try to boot. Although the HP instruction book says that this is ignored if the MB bios tells it to boot from some other array or device. I do not want to boot from the HP controller.
2. Yes I did upgrade the HP bios from ver. 1.0 to 1.01

You said that you upgraded your PS for 450 to 550 watts. It was also a concern from another member of the forum. I have a 500 watt PS. So that I would not buy a PS that I may not need was to disconnect two other hard drives and a cd rom. That should have given me more then enough power to run two drives in a raid 0 configuration. Or, does running in a raid 0 setup use up a lot more power?

I also talked to a tech at Compusa and he thought it might be a bad drive. Like I said in my previous memo, I thought it might be drives that are not compatibly with the HP card or a bad HP bios when it came to booting the system. However, I reformatted the drives from the OS when the drives were not plugged into the PH raid card. So, individually the drives are ok, just not together on the raid card. I think.

Do you have any suggestions as to what threads might also be able to help me, or any help outside of Tomshardware?

Thanks for your help.

Ed

 

[Viperabyss]

I would recommend you building your own computer. This way you get to control your budget better, and possibly higher performance with the same budget.

I would say get a mid-ranged SLi motherboard now. Personally I like ASUS better, so I would recommend you P5N-E SLi featuring 650i. However, if you like Intel's P965 better, Gigabyte's also a good choice.

The reason being, if you're not going to buy a Penryn anytime soon, current generation motherboard should suit you just fine. I would advice you against P35 because its the only motherboard on the market now with Penryn support (maybe others will work too, but so far this is the official chipset supporting Penryn).

As for the RAM, 800Mhz should be fine. Of course unless your budget is loose, or 1066Mhz Ram drop like crazy. The place I work for just received the first (yes, one) DDR2 1066Mhz. 2Gb of them would cost 450USD, as opposed to 100+/- for 2Gb 800Mhz.

As for GPU, 8800GTS 320Mb should be fine, if you keep your games at 1600x1200 or below. An extra 20bucks would get you the superclocked ones, and you'll get a decent improvement over the vanilla ones.

As for HDD, two HD running in RAID 5 should be sufficient to store all of your files. You won't get much improvement from RAID 0 (unless you use Raptors of course), so one 500Gb HDD should be fine. They cost about 120 USD now.

If all goes well, a 600W PSU should be sufficient, or even a 500W one if you don't plan on OCing. I'm using normal 500W, with OCed E6700, two HDD, watercooling device, four fans, and a 8800 GTS SC. Everything works like a charm, and yours should too.

 

[pernicious]

The reason being, if you're not going to buy a Penryn anytime soon, current generation motherboard should suit you just fine. I would advice you against P35 because its the only motherboard on the market now with Penryn support (maybe others will work too, but so far this is the official chipset supporting Penryn).

Is that a bad thing? I've ordered it, but it hasn't been processed, so I can still cancel. I know first gen chipsets are usually less stable and lower performance than later chipsets, but this isn't a whole new architecture, isn't it the next generation P965/975?

Thanks.

 

[Viperabyss]

The reason being, if you're not going to buy a Penryn anytime soon, current generation motherboard should suit you just fine. I would advice you against P35 because its the only motherboard on the market now with Penryn support (maybe others will work too, but so far this is the official chipset supporting Penryn).

Is that a bad thing? I've ordered it, but it hasn't been processed, so I can still cancel. I know first gen chipsets are usually less stable and lower performance than later chipsets, but this isn't a whole new architecture, isn't it the next generation P965/975?

Thanks.
Well its not exactly a bad thing. Its just that personally I would like to have 3~4 competitor chipsets from other firms, and pick the one that suit my need best.

Just my personal preference I guess. However, if Intel later released a chipset that's vastly superior than P35, then you'll be hitting your head on the table :lol:

 

[dragonsprayer]

Hi,

I'm having a problem with my HighPoint 1740 card. Could you look at forum Hardware/hard disk/ how do I add a PCI raid card (a posting by FastEddie111).....

Did you have any of the same problems? Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

Ed

i just building, see partially complete photos below, a 4.3TB rig water cooled quad core 3.6ghz 8x500gb plus 2 raptors with onboard raid

we tried 2 areca cards pci-x and pci-e singel 3.5TB raid5 volume

the pci-x works in a pci slot - 30 mins to boot
pci-e 30 seconds to boot

pci is too slow