New build

Usual Suspect · 8 Nov 2006 at 12:18

Anyone see any problems with this build?

MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£139.99 £139.99
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£187.99 £187.99
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£89.99 £89.99
GX-050-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 XT-X SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR4 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-050-CO)
£249.99 £249.99
HD-095-WD Western Digital Raptor 36GB WD360ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-095-WD)
£66.99 £133.98
CA-010-TT Thermaltake VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-010-TT)
£63.99 £63.99
CA-025-EN Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN)
£61.99 £61.99
CD-047-LG LG GSA-H22NBAL 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-047-LG)
£19.99 £19.99
Subtotal £947.91
VAT £165.89
Total £1,113.80

Couple of questions -

Power supply good enough?
Ive heard there is a new GPU coming out (today?) Will this drop the prices of the other cards?
Whats the difference between the DS 4 and 3?
Im going to raid the 2 raptors (raid0 performance) Theres not issues with this is there?
The 1950XT... Worth getting or go for Nvid? ill be playing at 1280*1024 and maybe 1600*1200 when i get my new monitor.

Any advise will be apprieciated.

Usual

edit. forgot a Q..

The E6600. I would like to run it a 3 ghz. Is this quite easy to reach. Would i need a AM heatsink and fan? Also.. is it really safe to run such a high OC perminatly?

semi-pro waster · 8 Nov 2006 at 12:31

It all looks good although I'd query the need for the Raptor(particularly 2 of them) as they are pretty expensive for not much in the way of capacity or indeed much extra speed compared to a Seagate 7200.10.

The DS3 doesn't have the dual PCI-E 16x slots for Crossfire of the DS4 nor does it have firewire and a couple of other slightly less important changes.

The PSU will be fine.

The new graphics card being released today is the G80 chip e.g. the 8800series and I doubt it will alter the prices much for a while anyway.

The graphics card is good although not a huge amount of difference in speed terms between an X1900XT and an X1950XT, if you can find a 512mb X1900XT at a good price I'd probably buy that and overclock.

Finally overclocking can lead to shorter lifespans for components but it is unlikely to matter much as it usually isn't that significant so run the overclock permanantly if you want. An aftermarket heatsink and fan is a good idea, an Arctic Freezer 7, Scythe Ninja or Tuniq Tower are all worth looking at.

Usual Suspect · 8 Nov 2006 at 14:22

Ok might knock the raptors on the head. Im upgrading from :-

p4c 2.8
asus 9800 XT
1 gig corsair ram
P4800C deluxe MB

Should i see quite a large improvement or would i be worth waiting a bit longer?

GazD · 8 Nov 2006 at 15:00

Usual Suspect said:
Ok might knock the raptors on the head. Im upgrading from :-

p4c 2.8
asus 9800 XT
1 gig corsair ram
P4800C deluxe MB

Should i see quite a large improvement or would i be worth waiting a bit longer?

You will see a vast improvement my friend :cool:

The conroe alone makes it a flying machine!

Usual Suspect · 9 Nov 2006 at 14:27

Another Question..

I have 2 160 SATA drives that are going to be raided.

I want to get another SATA drive (400gig) and a SATA DVD-RW.. Theres not problem connecting these up to the MB.. and it wont interfere with the raid will it?

semi-pro waster · 9 Nov 2006 at 14:38

As long as you have enough ports on the motherboard then it won't be a problem, I'd set up(build) the Raid array before connecting the 400gb hard drive though so that it doesn't accidentally use the wrong drive as Murphies law says that it would happen.