New rig - XP64 compatibilty

Stan_Lite

Stan_Lite

Stan_Lite

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Hi guys.

I have decided to have a proper go at this overclocking malarkey so I am trying to spec up a system (this will be over and above the Folding machines I specced up recently).

I have a copy of XP64 I bought for a previous build but I had driver issues so scrapped that idea and went with XP home.

Basically I want to build a system that will have up to date 64-bit drivers and will overclock well.

I have already ordered a couple of bits off the MM as follows.

Opteron 165 - stepping CCBWE 0551 WPMW
1gb Corsair XMS3500 C2PT - BH5 - the guy I'm buying them from says they were hand-picked from many sticks from his work and they are top notch.

Firstly, anyone know if that's a good stepping? I couldn't find much about it when I looked earlier.
Secondly will the 1Gb kit be enough for clocking or would I be better getting a good 2Gb kit.

Next, bits I'm looking at.

Mobo - I was thinking about the DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR Expert - are there any issues with 64-bit?

PSU - I was going to go for the Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU but I read in another thread that the liberty series had issues with DFI boards - please suggest a good replacement PSU (Preferably modular)?

Case - I have been looking with interest at the Thermaltake VB5001SNA Tai-Chi SuperMidi Tower - I fancy having liquid cooling but if I did it myself it would be very untidy and may restrict airflow, I thought this case might allow me to liquid cool whilst keeping things nice and neat (hence the modular PSU) - any ideas?

Graphics - I was thinking about an X1900 XT as I have an X1800 XT in one of my other rigs and am delighted with it. One thing I would like to know is, there are various versions of the same board i.e. MSI, Asus etc. is there much difference between these manufacturers or are they all basically the same? (bit of a graphics noob).

HDD - 74Gb Raptor

The other bits and bobs shouldn't affect the system as far as OCing goes so I won't bother you with those.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Stan :)
 
Get a Seasonic PSU if stability, power and reliabilty are key priorities. If you're dead set on a modular design but not Enermax I'd say a Tagan would be the best bet, at least 500W. The Hipers look good, and are for the most part quite powerful, but recenty there's been a few reliablity and quality issues - I've seen first-hand one with smoke pouring out of the back!

Personally I wouldn't go for a Thermaltake case, let alone one with liquid cooling. They're not fantastic quality (although have improved) and for an ulra-high spec rig like that I'd be tempted by a Lian Li or Silverstone case.
On the water-cooling front, go custom. Most who get pre-built kits later wish they'd gone for seperate parts and far far better performance. Go ask in the Overclocking and Cooling forum:).

BH5 is great stuff, but if you're gaming you might want to look towards getting 2Gb instead. If you've already got the BH5 then fair enough but it'd be a bit of of a crippling factor in a beast of a system like yours if you plan on playing any newer games. I recommend 2GB Gskill ZX. :)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help so far, guys.

I looked at the Hiper PSUs but read somewhere that they weren't the most reliable. I will probably go for the Seasonic and get some of that coil stuff to keep things tidy.

As for water-cooling, I thought that if the Thermaltake case was ok I would give it a go but if it's a case of making up my own then I may leave it just now and go with my original plan of Si120 + Delta 120mm fan (I don't mind the noise :p ). I have box of watercooling stuff I bought from the MM a while back that just needs some hose. I may have a play with that on one of the other rigs before risking the flagship (probably the 2.4 Northwood as it goes to 3.0 on air as it is so might be fun playing with water).

As for the RAM, I have other rigs I can use the BH5 on (possibly the aforementioned Northwood) so that is no great problem. That Gskill looks like the dogs doodas p4radox, I may well give that a go.

As for a case, I had a look at the Lian Li and Silverstone cases and although there were some good functional cases, none of them leapt out at me, so to speak. I think I'll head over to case central and have a nosey around in there.

Any more suggestions?

Stan :)
 
Bigstan said:
Graphics - I was thinking about an X1900 XT as I have an X1800 XT in one of my other rigs and am delighted with it. One thing I would like to know is, there are various versions of the same board i.e. MSI, Asus etc. is there much difference between these manufacturers or are they all basically the same? (bit of a graphics noob).
Click to expand...


The X1900XTX & XT cards are made to a stock design at present so there is no major difference between the makers at present. Having said that at least one review site found that generally the X1900XTX cards could overclock past the X1900XT cards overclocks (the XTX appear to be cherry picked) & also that Sapphire XT & XTX cards overclocked better than the other brands tested. Perhaps Sapphire are even more fussy when picking their GPU (as Sapphire make most ATI cards afaik).
 
ACESHIGH said:
The X1900XTX & XT cards are made to a stock design at present so there is no major difference between the makers at present. Having said that at least one review site found that generally the X1900XTX cards could overclock past the X1900XT cards overclocks (the XTX appear to be cherry picked) & also that Sapphire XT & XTX cards overclocked better than the other brands tested. Perhaps Sapphire are even more fussy when picking their GPU (as Sapphire make most ATI cards afaik).
Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

Looking like a Sapphire xtx then :)

Stan :)
 
Bigstan said:
go with my original plan of Si120 + Delta 120mm fan (I don't mind the noise :p ).
Click to expand...

How many times hve we heard that before... :p

Seriously, unless you've heard one and tried to put up with it, you've got no idea just how annoying they become! :p
 
p4radox said:
How many times hve we heard that before... :p

Seriously, unless you've heard one and tried to put up with it, you've got no idea just how annoying they become! :p
Click to expand...

lol

Last summer I had 4 PCs in the bedroom. One of them was a Prescott which was overheating (surprise surprise) so I had the sides off it and a 14" desk fan blowing directly on to the motherboard on top of all the fans in the 4 PCs. If it makes more noise than that, I'll be very surprised :p

Stan :)
 
Bigstan said:
lol

Last summer I had 4 PCs in the bedroom. One of them was a Prescott which was overheating (surprise surprise) so I had the sides off it and a 14" desk fan blowing directly on to the motherboard on top of all the fans in the 4 PCs. If it makes more noise than that, I'll be very surprised :p

Stan :)
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Don't say you weren't warned ;)

Awaits "Quiet Case Fan Please" thread....
 
Right.
Spec looking favourite at the moment:

CA-016-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ07 - Black (No PSU) (CA-016-SV) 1
£186.95 £186.95
CA-002-SS Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS) 1
£87.95 £87.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF) 1
£129.95 £129.95
CP-151-AM AMD Opteron UP 165 Dual Core San Diego 1.8GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-151-AM) 1
£224.95 £224.95
MY-007-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS) 1
£129.95 £129.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 1
£93.95 £93.95
CB-000-WD Western Digital Secure Connect Serial ATA Cable (CB-000-WD) 1
£4.95 £4.95
HS-023-TR ThermalRight SI-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-023-TR) 1
£26.95 £26.95
FG-003-DE Delta 120mm Focussed Flow Fan (EHE) (FG-003-DE) 1
£14.95 £14.95
CD-036-PO Pioneer DVR-110BK 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-036-PO) 1
£25.95 £25.95
HD-002-MI Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Black (HD-002-MI) 1
£12.95 £12.95
CB-046-GE Akasa Rounded Floppy Cable (0.45m) - Blue (CB-046-GE) 1
£1.95 £1.95
AC-000-AC Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC) 1
£5.50 £5.50
MO-046-VS Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-046-VS) 1
£249.95 £249.95
Subtotal £1,196.85
VAT £209.45
Total £1,406.30

Any comments?

The Opty is already ordered from the MM (saved £15 :p ) but I included it to show full spec.
The monitor will depend on finances at the time of ordering and is intended as a gaming monitor (I have a 2405FPW and another 19" TFT for other stuff).

I will be researching components to confirm XP64 compatibility between now and ordering (probably a couple of weeks - gonna be out here for a while yet).

Stan :)
 
ACESHIGH said:
Looks good, but only a paperweight without a graphics card.
Click to expand...

Oh poo.

I could have sworn I'd added the graphics card :o Thought it looked a bit cheap :D

Try again:

CA-016-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ07 - Black (No PSU) (CA-016-SV) 1
£186.95 £186.95
CA-002-SS Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS) 1
£87.95 £87.95
MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-018-DF) 1
£129.95 £129.95
CP-151-AM AMD Opteron UP 165 Dual Core San Diego 1.8GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-151-AM) 1
£224.95 £224.95
MY-007-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS) 1
£129.95 £129.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 1
£93.95 £93.95
CB-000-WD Western Digital Secure Connect Serial ATA Cable (CB-000-WD) 1
£4.95 £4.95
HS-023-TR ThermalRight SI-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-023-TR) 1
£26.95 £26.95
FG-003-DE Delta 120mm Focussed Flow Fan (EHE) (FG-003-DE) 1
£14.95 £14.95
CD-036-PO Pioneer DVR-110BK 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-036-PO) 1
£25.95 £25.95
HD-002-MI Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Black (HD-002-MI) 1
£12.95 £12.95
CB-046-GE Akasa Rounded Floppy Cable (0.45m) - Blue (CB-046-GE) 1
£1.95 £1.95
AC-000-AC Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC) 1
£5.50 £5.50
MO-046-VS Viewsonic VX922 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-046-VS) 1
£249.95 £249.95
GX-113-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-113-SP) 1
£344.95 £344.95
Subtotal £1,541.80
VAT £269.82
Total £1,811.62

L33T :eek:
Click to expand...

Postcount auction :p

Stan :)
 
That looks good. The Seasonic PSU is particuarly suited to the DFI motherboard as it has an EPS connector which is recommended for that particular motherboard

Everything there should be x64 compatible. You can get 64-bit drivers for the motherboard chipset, graphics card, etc

When I went x64 I had to look around for drivers for my onboard sound (SoundMAX) and ethernet (3COM)
 
ajgoodfellow said:
That looks good. The Seasonic PSU is particuarly suited to the DFI motherboard as it has an EPS connector which is recommended for that particular motherboard

Everything there should be x64 compatible. You can get 64-bit drivers for the motherboard chipset, graphics card, etc

When I went x64 I had to look around for drivers for my onboard sound (SoundMAX) and ethernet (3COM)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

I will have a look for all of the 64-bit drivers I need and get them downloaded ready to install when I get the machine built.

Thank you all for your help. You're all very nice people (except ACESHIGH because he picked up on my mistake :p ).

Seriously though, it makes things so much easier when you have helpful, knowledgeable people to help you :)

Stan :)
 
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