New PC - expert advice please!

nickgreg

nickgreg

nickgreg

Associate
Joined
23 May 2006
Posts
6
Location
Oxford
Hi, first post here, so be gentle.

I am looking for a second opinion on a pc I'm planning to build in the near future. My plan is for something that is very quiet, and biased towards media usage without being a full-blown HTPC. I'm not really a gamer, I just want something really fast and reasonably futureproof. The budget is pretty flexible. My first draft of a spec is:

Antec P150
Opteron 146 + Scythe Mine HSF
Asus A8R-MVP
7600GS 256 (silent heatpipe cooled)
2 Gig OCZ value
2 x pioneer dvdrw
2 x 250 Spinpoints
19" wide tft

These are just the main bits - I'll get onto other peripherals at another time.

I'm not a complete n00b to building my own stuff, but am not (yet, at least :D ) a serious modder, so would appreciate any advice on anything I've overlooked, or that could be easily improved.

Also, is it wise to go for S939 just as it's being replaced? The AM2 stuff doesn't exactly look a huge jump up in performance at the moment.

Cheers,
NG
 
Welcome to the forums, I know you say you aren't really a gamer but even still I'd suggest a better card than the 7600GS which isn't all that good, maybe an X800 of some description although they aren't passively cooled they ought to be reasonably quiet.

AM2 isn't much of a jump from what I've seen yet, it may be in future but the CPUs are basically ported 939 chips at the moment and there may well be teething troubles for early adopters.

Other than that it looks fine, I don't know anything about OCZ value Ram so I'll assume it is standard DDR PC3200 or similar :)
 
That's basically a very nice spec. S-P W makes a fair point about the gfx though. I have an X800GTO and it is good and quiet (fan never goes above 50% - idles at 37%, which is it's lowest setting) and will do admirably for DVDs etc. If ever you wanted to game though, it is a pit poor in this department :(.

On a different note, people will probably say get a scythe ninja or a freezer 64 pro - unfortunately having done little / no research on the subject :rolleyes: :p. The Scythe mine is excellent - all reviews I've seen show it to be better than the ninja, so don't be swayed!

I wouldn't worry about going S939 at the moment - the old dog will be around for a while yet!
 
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Thanks for the advice, good to know my research so far wasn't hopelessly off the mark!

When I say "quiet", what I really mean is "I've been browsing SPCR" so the silent graphics may well be overkill. If I got an X800 and it was too noisy (it'll be in my bedroom) I guess I could mod it with a heatsink. I take it the silent x1600 is no good either? Also, I suppose I should mention that I would probably be connecting to a 32" lcd for movie viewing in conjuction with the tft for general use - do all cards suit this setup? And is it easy to configure 2 displays to run at the same time?

The OCZ value is just standard pc3200 stuff, so if I wanted to ever exploit the clocking potential of the opteron would it better to splash a few quid more on some better RAM?
 
from what I have seen the 7600 outperforms the x1600.

the ATI cards have been reduced recently. for about 20-30 more than the 7600 you can get the

GX-061-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-061-PC)
£99.95
 
The 7600GS is about the speed of an X1600pro, but the X1600XT is a fair bit quicker.

The Asus ATI Radeon EAX-X1600 XT SILExtreme NT/TVD 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-090-AS) is a very good card.
 
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