New Spec for Commenting....

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 21:58

All,

Please could you comment on the selection below before I get buying. Comments on all or any components would be good, and whether I can get any better performance for a little more or less cost....

Also, comments on the compatibility of the build....

Cheers..

CoolerMaster Wavemaster
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
XFX GeForce 7800GT Extreme Edition 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT70G-UDF7) (GX-070-XF)
SpeedLink Ultra SL-6465 Flat Metal Keyboard (KB-000-SL)
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 4.0A - OEM (N48-00022) (KB-003-MS)
Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN)
Pioneer DVR-111DSV 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Silver) OEM (CD-039-PO)
OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Silver (CD-001-AP)
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-048-WD)

Andy

MG42Maniac · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:05

Very nice spec there mate, the PSU is abit of an overkill as your GPU isn't a power sucker like a X1900XT, but other than that a good all round system. Whats the main use for the system?

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:22

Will be mainly CAD, gaming, and general application use at university.

My current P4 2ghz is struggling with the fact I have about 4 CAD/CAM packages lol

A

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:37

good setup there... just noticed the price on the XFX7800GT... absolute steal! :eek:

only thing worth noting is that a few months ago there were people saying that their Enermax Liberties weren't working with the DFI LanParty SLI motherboards (think it may just have been the Expert board though), not sure if the issue has been resolved.
other than that, all is good

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:40

Cheers, my main thoughts are with the mobo, and whether this is the best choice for the price.

Would an Asus Premium be a better choice?

Andy

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 22:55

depends on what you want to do.

i built my mates PC with the ASUS A8N-SLi Premium motherboard a few months back, its got some nice features and is solid as a rock... although saying that so is the SLI-D (which i run myself).

The ASUS mobo has 8 SATA ports compared to the DFI's 4, and the ASUS uses the silent heatpipe to cool the northbridge... its pretty much just as effective as a fan but of course doesn't have any noise.

main thing that swayed me away from the ASUS Premium to the DFI SLi-D is that i wanted a board that i knew i could really overclock on and get the most out of my overclocking potential.

the ASUS will let you overclock, but not as much as the SLi-D.

if overclocking isn't an issue, then its up to you whether you want to spend the extra cash on the ASUS board for what is essentially 4 SATA ports and a silent cooling method.

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:00

Right ok, although the only issue with the silent cooling pipe is that i will run a wavemaster, traditionally not superb for cooling and thus might not be so good...

I aint looking to overclock, and if i were, want it to be easy as never done it before....comments?!

Andy

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:19

overclocking isn't hard at all... its more or less a case of trail and error... and a test of patience more than anything.

start at stock speeds, push a little here, see how it goes, move slowly up and run stress test programs to see how the PC handles under stressful situations... if it passes, push a little further etc...

its all about finding a) the max limits of your components (ram and cpu more than anything, but your motherboard does obviously come into play) and b) a limit that your comfortable with it running at.

theres lots of guids on overclocking on the web, so have a quick google...
alternatively take a look in the overclocking forum on here, lots of helpful people that will be willing to give advice on what to do... check out the stickied threads at the top of the page though, as they do give some good information.

overclocking isn't for everybody of course... but its nice knowing that say... if you've paid £150 for an AMD processor (say a 3700+) and get it to run comfortably at 2.6GHz, you've got your £150 cpu running at the speeds of something that could cost £500 or so (an FX55) if you can make it reach 2.8GHz you've essentially got an FX57, and they cost £600

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:22

Right ok,

So mobo wise its a toss up between SATA ports etc....

Andy

Monstermunch · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:33

Be aware that DFI mobo's have conflict issues with Corsair Ram! Try looking at something like the OCZ PC3200 Platinum instead. £164.44inc

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:36

pretty much mate, at least in my opinion.

if you were definately serious about overclocking its the DFI hands down...

but apart from overclocking they're both good boards, both stable and packed with features.

if you NEED a lot of SATA ports then obviously get the ASUS... if you want to save some cash get the DFI.

are you going to be using the cooler that comes with the processor, or do you plan on buying a seperate one?

i use an Artic Freezer 64 Pro to cool mine, (same as i've got on my mates ASUS ironically as well... in fact we have near identical machines apart from processors, motherboards and hard drives lol

) but it doesn't fit 100% well on the DFI mobo, the cable to power it is about half a CM too short, and i needed to slightly pull out some of the cable... only annoying thing about the cooler is that because its a blower style cooler it sucks in the air from the graphics card direction and blows hot air out directly over the ram (meaning my fan on my case works overtime to suck out the hot air)...

gah seem to be getting hugely off topic

in short, the ASUS and the DFI SLi-D boards are both great boards for their price... not much between them in my opinion...

GhettoChild · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:36

Well is the DFI my best choice as a mobo if it maybe has conflict with RAM as well as PSU's?

Not being an overclocker, but potentially one in the future, what would be best? I'm getting lost with decisions!

Andy

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:40

Monstermunch said:
Be aware that DFI mobo's have conflict issues with Corsair Ram! Try looking at something like the OCZ PC3200 Platinum instead. £164.44inc

i'm not aware of any issues between DFI and Corsair ram?
infact its widely recommended ram on the DFI-Street forums :confused:

nikebee · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:45

have just done a quick look on the DFI-Street forums and realy can't see any mentions of Corsair being a bad choice for the LanParty motherboards, a lot of people use Corsair and a lot of people recommend Corsair...

as far as me saying the Enermax Liberty PSU's had troubles, they did have troubles but they seem to have been fixed now after Enermax released a new batch of PSU's... the exact same issue was happening with the Seasonic S12 PSU's and again, Seasonic released a new batch of "fixed" models and the problems have gone away... much like they have done for Enermax it would seem.

Monstermunch · 30 Mar 2006 at 23:53

nikebee said:
i'm not aware of any issues between DFI and Corsair ram?
infact its widely recommended ram on the DFI-Street forums

I posted several questions in the Ram forum about a month ago regarding which ram to buy from a choice of Mushkin, Corsair and OCZ with that same Mobo. I have 4+ people commenting on having issues. Plus nearly everyone said that the OCZ is the best PC3200 ram about and generally seems to be more reliable with less RMA's than others.

nikebee · 31 Mar 2006 at 02:47

Monstermunch said:
I posted several questions in the Ram forum about a month ago regarding which ram to buy from a choice of Mushkin, Corsair and OCZ with that same Mobo. I have 4+ people commenting on having issues. Plus nearly everyone said that the OCZ is the best PC3200 ram about and generally seems to be more reliable with less RMA's than others.

I'm not talking about whether OCZ is better than Corsair or not, IMO at least I'd choose G.Skill ZX over OCZ's platinum range purely because they're almost identical performers with the same latencies and the G.Skill ZX is cheaper... but never-the-less... i'd hardly say 4+ people having troubles with Corsair memory means you can say

Be aware that DFI mobo's have conflict issues with Corsair Ram!

I mean, is that all DFI motherboards? All Corsair memory?

Monstermunch · 31 Mar 2006 at 06:44

nikebee said:
I'm not talking about whether OCZ is better than Corsair or not, IMO at least I'd choose G.Skill ZX over OCZ's platinum range purely because they're almost identical performers with the same latencies and the G.Skill ZX is cheaper... but never-the-less... i'd hardly say 4+ people having troubles with Corsair memory means you can say

I mean, is that all DFI motherboards? All Corsair memory?

Hey man, it's up to you.

I've just heard there are conflicts and some people have had problems. Plus i'd avoid the Gskill like the plage, it get RMA'd a lot, it's not very reliable.

GhettoChild · 31 Mar 2006 at 07:19

Well thanks for the info guys, sadly I'm still stuck on my mobo choice at the moment, can't decide whether having an ultimate o/c board is required or whether the asus with more features is preferred...

A

no_1_dave · 31 Mar 2006 at 08:09

I have the Asus board & it's very stable & does overclock very nicely. Yes there aren't as many memory dividers as on the DFI & apparently you can't pust the HTT (FSB) as high, but thats all. My HTT is up at 260 (it could easily go further) & people in the overclocking section have been know to push 300 HTT with it. I'd say its easily more stable then the DFI if the DFI is anything like the last one I had...