Final spec check please

[miracleboy]

Almost ready to buy...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)

[OS+GAMES] Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-069-WD)

[DATA] Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)

NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)

Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower (No PSU) (CA-031-LL)

Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU (CA-021-EN)

 

[muckymick]

That should be a heck of a beast !!
Good luck with the build.

 

[Bennah]

Its going to be certainly fast, thats for sure.

Are you going to use the stock heatsink and fan from the X2 4800+ ?

I would change the PSU to a Tagan U22 SLI 580W. Great for CF and SLI modes and also single GPU mode. Has 2 12v lines with 20a+ on each line when using CF / SLI. It can be switched to single mode for a single gpu to a single 12v with 40a+ on that line. Nice and strong for a high powered system like that.

I would also change the WD 250GB that you plan to use for data and get a Hitachi 250GB (T7K250) they are super quick. Quicker than the WD anyways.

Apart from the PSU and hard drive (data drive) and if your not using stock air then everything looks good.

 

[miracleboy]

I was going to use the stock h/s and fan - would you recommend something else? Not very up on cooling etc - happy to take some advice there.

Good shout on the Tagan, I'll take a look.

Would you recommend ditching the Raptor in favour of 2 of the Hitachis in RAID0?

 

[Bennah]

Tbh, I would keep the raptor. You cant get any faster than them for SATA. If you can aford it, I would get 2 74GB raptors in Raid 0 for your OS and apps, games etc and use the Hitachi 250GB for data. The raptors in raid 0 would be blistering quick, the Hitachi are the quickest drivers you can get apart from the raptors.

For air cooling, I would get a ThermalRight SI-120 and 120mm panaflo fan. The panaflo's on 7v are pretty quiet, if you want top notch performance then change it to 12v and off you go.

The panaflo's arn't sold here, but can get them at a competitor.

 

[BigDom]

Personally I'd just stick with something like a Samsung Spinpoint. Whilst Raptor's are quicker they are also very noisy and the real bonus of the Raptor isn't THAT much.

 

[Bennah]

I wouldnt get the spinpoints. They are slow. Why build a system with a FX60, X1900 XTX and get a slow HD. You might aswell get a Raptor or 2. Who says that the X1900 XTX aint gonig to be quiet

My choice of HD's would for this setup would be:

Ideal:
2x 74GB Raptor's Raid 0 (os, apps etc)
1x Hitachi 250GB SATA II (data)

or

Second:
1x 150GB Raptor (os, apps etc)
1x Hitachi 250GB SATA II (data)

 

[BigDom]

I wouldnt get the spinpoints. They are slow. Why build a system with a FX60, X1900 XTX and get a slow HD. You might aswell get a Raptor or 2. Who says that the X1900 XTX aint gonig to be quiet

My choice of HD's would for this setup would be:

Ideal:
2x 74GB Raptor's Raid 0 (os, apps etc)
1x Hitachi 250GB SATA II (data)

or

Second:
1x 150GB Raptor (os, apps etc)
1x Hitachi 250GB SATA II (data)

I used spinpoints and honestly never think that they are slow. Raptors are expensive, noisy and IMO pointless. I like em cos they're reliable solid little drives and as a plus point ( which I didn't consider when I bough them but I do now appreciate ) darned quiet. X1900XT WILL be the noisiest thing in it but if everything else is quiet then it doesn't really matter .

 

[Bennah]

I dont a bit of noise myself so it doesnt bother me that much. The Hitachi's are faster than the spinpoints, which arn't the slowest drivers by any means. Its dont to user perference really.

Im saying that if hes got a X1900 XTX in there, then he isnt gonig to notice the noise from the Hitachi and Raptor's that much tbh.

 

[valerian]

losing confidence in samsung for many reasons

 

[BigDom]

I dont a bit of noise myself so it doesnt bother me that much. The Hitachi's are faster than the spinpoints, which arn't the slowest drivers by any means. Its dont to user perference really.

Im saying that if hes got a X1900 XTX in there, then he isnt gonig to notice the noise from the Hitachi and Raptor's that much tbh.

Didn't think the spinpoints where particularly slow - just wasnt' sure. Hitachi's sound like a nice drive just got no experience of them reliability wise. Spinpoints are pretty proven to be reliable and solid.

 

[Sim]

If your looking to overclock the CPU, might the PC3200 RAM hold you back?

 

[BigDom]

If your looking to overclock the CPU, might the PC3200 RAM hold you back?

No it doesn't particularly. Miost will run to at least 230HTT with timing tweaking and you can run it at a slower frequency to the HTT without any noticeable loss in performance.

 

[Bennah]

Nah, I would'nt. Remember he will have an FX60. x13 multi and downwards availible

230x13 = 2990MHz. He can run that 1:1 with his ram, I should think. Hence why I did'nt say change the ram. Thats the beauty having an FX, the high Multi. Running the ram @ 1:1 is an option.