New conroe rig advice.

Lt Goody · 24 Jun 2006 at 11:30

Yep another one,please let me know if you would change anything,not to sure about motherboard yet.
REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN) 1
£214.95 £214.95
MB-020-DF DFI Infinity 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-020-DF) 1
£129.95 £129.95
MY-011-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 ZX PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-011-GS) 1
£149.95 £149.95
GX-052-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-052-HT) 1
£299.95 £299.95
HD-007-WD Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD) 1 (windows)
£61.95 £61.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 1
£89.95 £89.95
HS-003-SY Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY) 1
£26.95 £26.95
CA-004-TT Thermaltake VA9000SWA Kandalf Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-004-TT) 1
£112.65 £112.65
CD-015-SO Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM (Silver) - OEM (CD-015-SO) 1
£12.00 £12.00
CD-031-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-031-NE) 1
£21.50 £21.50
CA-024-EN Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN) 1
£84.95 £84.95
Subtotal £1,204.75
VAT £210.84
Total £1,415.59

Stelly · 24 Jun 2006 at 11:33

Hi there,

DFI have never been that good with Conroe boards... have you thought about leaving the mboard out untill later next month then order it seperate... thats what I'm going to do...

I would change the HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) for a spin point... and have a lot more space and not really notice the performance difference

Other then that really good spec...

Stelly

Lt Goody · 24 Jun 2006 at 11:43

Yes really want more choice with motherboards i do like my asus but i want the best for the chip,so keep the 36gb raptor for windows and get a spinpoint for the rest then.

Stelly · 24 Jun 2006 at 11:51

Lt Goody said:
Yes really want more choice with motherboards i do like my asus but i want the best for the chip,so keep the 36gb raptor for windows and get a spinpoint for the rest then.

Asus are supposed to be the best to buy at the moment but like I said I would wait to see what other board OcUk come out with... I'm hoping that they will sotck Intel Bad Axe (Rev 3.04) for Conroe as there has been some really good reviews about it...

I agree with the spinpoint and raptor situation I think its the best set up you can get

Stelly

Lt Goody · 24 Jun 2006 at 13:41

Thanks m8.

Dave · 24 Jun 2006 at 13:55

Lt Goody said:
HD-007-WD Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD) 1 (windows)
£61.95 £61.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 1
£89.95 £89.95
CA-004-TT Thermaltake VA9000SWA Kandalf Aluminium Full Tower - Silver (CA-004-TT) 1
£112.65 £112.65

I'd probably just go for a big hard drive rather than the 37gb raptor.

Also, are you sure on the case? It's expensive, and I think it looks horrible too! (although if you like it, go for it)

-Ad- · 24 Jun 2006 at 15:00

Stelly said:
Hi there,DFI have never been that good with Conroe boards... have you thought about leaving the mboard out untill later next month then order it seperate... thats what I'm going to do...

There has and only is one DFI conroe board atm, and that is the infinity

Im going to wait for the Lanparty board from DFI or the new ati R600 boards which are reported to look very promising. The HIS xt-x looks nice, but surely you could get an XT instead and save the ~£40 and spend it elsewhere, or possibly save up for another XT to use in crossfire (because of the new cat 6.6's scrapping the need for a master card).

Forget the raptors as they are just overpriced and noisy. Look at a the spinpoints as they are very quiet and can get a 300gb drive for ~£70. Or you could get x2 slightly smaller drives and set them up in RAID.

Im holding off conroe until a great selection of well tested boards and memory are out, as buying the latest hardware at launch is silly because of the price premium and unknown reliability and compatability.

have fun

Lt Goody · 24 Jun 2006 at 15:50

I thought the raptors were the best,so are the spinpoints the ones to go with then? i want two in raid with good performance.

Psycho Sonny · 24 Jun 2006 at 15:57

Stelly said:
Hi there,

DFI have never been that good with Conroe boards... have you thought about leaving the mboard out untill later next month then order it seperate... thats what I'm going to do...

I would change the HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) for a spin point... and have a lot more space and not really notice the performance difference

Other then that really good spec...

Stelly

Everything you wrote stelly is just wrong (dont take offense just my opinion), correct me if im wrong though, conroe hasnt even been released yet your saying that DFI have never been good with conroe boards, have they been trying to sell them for the past 5 years without a chip to fit into them? the raptor kills everything i have 2 raptors and 4 spinpoints and i only use the spinpoints for storage, OS and all applications on 1 raptor, games on the other, unless money is an issue i would always buy a raptor

-Ad- · 24 Jun 2006 at 16:42

actually i was wrong about the cat 6.6's negating the need for a master card. They will only allow cards UP TO a 1900GT to be used in crossfire with no master card.

HicRic · 24 Jun 2006 at 21:36

The general word on the street is that the XT-X is a bit of a waste of money - it's the same as an XT, but with a small increase in processor & memory clocks. There's a lovely This Week Only offer on the plain X1900XT from HIS, the ICEQ 3 cooler on it will probably mean you could o/c it to XT-X speeds if you wanted anyway. Save yourself a hefty amount of cash and put it elsewhere.

(£352.44 vs £287.82! No contest!)

jbloggs · 24 Jun 2006 at 22:21

I would get the 16MB cache Raptor with NCQ, and not the 8MB cache version, and put Windows XP on it.

Lt Goody · 24 Jun 2006 at 23:08

Yes going to get the 1900xt and the new 36gb 16mb raptor is supposed to be quieter than the old ones aswell so will probably get that with a spinpoint aswell. thanks