Check this spec please. Ultimate sub £1500?

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:25

Thoughts on this please. The case is because my wife likes the look and so do I so unless it's something 'nice looking' this can't be changed. Everything else is open to suggestion.

I am an NVidia fan, but am leaning towards ATI for this rig, although quietness is a BIG consideration in this system as is a HEFTY overclock...

Fire away!

2xHD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£69.95 £69.95
MY-093-CS Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL Pro TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-093-CS)
£159.95 £159.95
CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£249.95 £249.95
CD-000-BQ BenQ DW1655 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LightScribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-000-BQ)
£30.95 £30.95
CA-009-TT Thermaltake VA7000SWA Shark Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-009-TT)
£69.95 £69.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
GX-053-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-HT)
£259.95 £259.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£109.95 £109.95
Subtotal £1,199.50
VAT £209.92
Total £1,409.42

SiriusB · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:29

Looks like a good spec there mate. Excellent choice of graphics card too. The X1900 is the best card out at the moment

SiriusB

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:33

Is that RAM going to hold back on any overclocks?

If I had another £80 where would you put it to better that rig?

semi-pro waster · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:34

I personally think the case looks horrible but if your wife likes it then that is what you need to go with

I'd probably change the PSU to the 600w version to allow for the watercooling system and I might change the DVDRW to either an NEC or Pioneer but other than that it is a good system.

Explicit · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:44

Glad you ditched the Intel 805 from the other thread

Looks like a solid rig now (remember you won't be able to crossfire on the SLI board but it will still run one ATI card). Not sure how good these new GX2 cards are (going to read reviews later on after NDA ends) but you might want to consider one at £349+vat which is pretty cheap for what it is.

split · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:50

I know many on here use Seasonic, but you can't ignore the fall out between DFI and Seasonic.

See thread (25 pages of it)

Looks like OCUK Tech Dept has picked up on it as well.

Then you see posts on here that say...

My DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D and Seasonic S12 600W get on just fine. Never heard of a problem with Seasonics and DFI boards

SiriusB · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:53

split said:
I know many on here use Seasonic, but you can't ignore the fall out between DFI and Seasonic.

See thread (25 pages of it)

Looks like OCUK Tech Dept has picked up on it as well.

Then you see posts on here that say...

My DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D and Seasonic S12 600W get on just fine. Never heard of a problem with Seasonics and DFI boards

Well they do get on just fine

And I never heard of any problem either, until recently anyway

SiriusB

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:53

split said:
I know many on here use Seasonic, but you can't ignore the fall out between DFI and Seasonic.

See thread (25 pages of it)

Looks like OCUK Tech Dept has picked up on it as well.

Then you see posts on here that say...

My DFI Lanparty UT Ultra-D and Seasonic S12 600W get on just fine. Never heard of a problem with Seasonics and DFI boards

Can anyone recommend an alternative for this setup then? Cable management and sound are premium! In otherwords, I don't wanna hear it!!!

Explicit · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:00

sprognak said:
Can anyone recommend an alternative for this setup then? Cable management and sound are premium! In otherwords, I don't wanna hear it!!!

Tagan Modular PSUs, all very good!

split · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:03

Maybe the best way to pick a PSU is to find something that has the power, and then see if anyone on DFI street has problems with it.
This just doesn't seem a seasonic problem, but they seem to be pointing the finger at DFI rather that finding a solution.

I have had a similar problem with an MSI board and an OCZ PSU and it's a nightmare.
The thing is (as SiriusB and others can confirm) it doesn't happen to everyone.

Also that thread on the DFI forums was closed on 01-30-2006.
Maybe Seasonic have a newer revision?

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:07

Updated v1.1

Still got £90 in budget, anything that could be improved?

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
MY-093-CS Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL Pro TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-093-CS)
£159.95 £159.95
CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£249.95 £249.95
CA-009-TT Thermaltake VA7000SWA Shark Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-009-TT)
£69.95 £69.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
GX-053-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-HT)
£259.95 £259.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£109.95 £109.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-032-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-032-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
Subtotal £1,193.50
VAT £208.87
Total £1,402.37

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:18

Around £90 could take this system to an AM2, DDR2-1066MHz, 3800 based system.

Any reasons why I should/shouldn't do this?

hp7909 · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:25

sprognak said:
{snip}Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) £119.90{snip}

If planning on RAID, maybe add another one or the 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £58.69 for backups/etc. Rest looks sweet

Hope you have a decent monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc that won't spoil the look/performance/etc :rolleyes:

kmistry · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:26

the only reason i can think you should take this up is because AM2 is the "new technology" and also takes DDR2.....though there are a million threads about pros/cons of the AM2

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:30

hp7909 said:
If planning on RAID, maybe add another one or the 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £58.69 for backups/etc. Rest looks sweet Hope you have a decent monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc that won't spoil the look/performance/etc

Hehe, Samsung 19" - not the worlds best but still a very nice screen with good ratios etc - looks great gaming. And Logitech wireless desktop.

I was contemplating an extra hard drive to setup RAID-5 although this would take a write performance hit without dedicated cache memory...

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:32

kmistry said:
the only reason i can think you should take this up is because AM2 is the "new technology" and also takes DDR2.....though there are a million threads about pros/cons of the AM2

Erm... This is interesting. If I go for 800Mhz DDR2 over 1066MHz DDR2 I save £150.

Forget overclocking for a second, as a basic setup is an AM2 with 800 DDR2 likely to outperform a standard 939?

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
CA-009-TT Thermaltake VA7000SWA Shark Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-009-TT)
£69.95 £69.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
GX-053-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-HT)
£259.95 £259.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-032-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-032-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
CP-167-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-167-AM)
£194.95 £194.95
MB-142-AS Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-142-AS)
£114.95 £114.95
MY-011-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 ZX PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-011-GS)
£149.95 £149.95
Subtotal £1,133.50
VAT £198.37
Total £1,331.87

split · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:33

There are some good points in this thread why you should / shouldn't go AM2.

Also would the WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW) fit AM2?

Explicit · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:37

sprognak said:
Forget overclocking for a second, as a basic setup is an AM2 with 800 DDR2 likely to outperform a standard 939?

Nope, current AM2 CPUs are roughly on par with 939 CPUs in terms of performance. So, the AM2 rig won't outperform 939.

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:49

Hmmm, but for some odd reason the AM2 is coming out £80 cheaper than the S939 for the same speed processor (2GHz, 1Mb Cache) which gives me £170 to play with. With that kind of difference I could whack in a 7900GX2 and still have change from £1500....

sprognak · 5 Jun 2006 at 14:52

sprognak said:
Updated v1.1

Still got £90 in budget, anything that could be improved?

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
MY-093-CS Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3500LL Pro TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-093-CS)
£159.95 £159.95
CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£249.95 £249.95
CA-009-TT Thermaltake VA7000SWA Shark Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-009-TT)
£69.95 £69.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
GX-053-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-HT)
£259.95 £259.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF)
£109.95 £109.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-032-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-032-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
Subtotal £1,193.50
VAT £208.87
Total £1,402.37

Or this:

HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£59.95 £119.90
CA-009-TT Thermaltake VA7000SWA Shark Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-009-TT)
£69.95 £69.95
WC-014-SW Swiftech H20-220 Apex "Ultra" Watercooling Kit (Socket 462/478/LGA775/754/939/940) (WC-014-SW)
£128.95 £128.95
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-032-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-032-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
CP-167-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-167-AM)
£194.95 £194.95
MB-142-AS Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-142-AS)
£114.95 £114.95
MY-011-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 ZX PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-011-GS)
£149.95 £149.95
GX-039-GW Gainward BLISS GeForce 7950 GX2 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-039-GW)
£349.95 £349.95
Subtotal £1,223.50
VAT £214.12
Total £1,437.62