Sanity check my build, and a couple of questions

Sarduk

Sarduk

Sarduk

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Joined
25 Mar 2007
Posts
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Hi all,

Could you take a few to sanity-check my spec?

Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Sapphire X1650 Pro Ultimate 256MB GDDR3 DVI TVO PCI-E
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)
Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC)
Abit AB9 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
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Now the questions:
1) What do you think of the selected RAM?
2) What advantages does a P35 motherboard give me - do I need one for a little future-proofing (is it worth it at the current price)?

Cheers :)
 
good ram choice there,

as for the gfx card, id ditch that in favour for a 8600gt.

also you may want to reconsider the hard drive, do you really need a raptor or would you be better off with a 500gig seagate for 75 quid?
 
Cyber-Mav said:
good ram choice there,

as for the gfx card, id ditch that in favour for a 8600gt.

also you may want to reconsider the hard drive, do you really need a raptor or would you be better off with a 500gig seagate for 75 quid?
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I find that the speed of my hard drive bottle-necks all of my apps (lots of them) from loading into RAM, especially on start-up. I think I'll benefit from it as I use a lot that accesses the drive frequently (Outlook, Photoshop, many messengers etc.)

The GFX card I picked is silently cooled, which is why I have opted for it. I can't see a silent 8600gt.

Thanks,
 
ahh cool then, also if your after a silent setup that raptor will make you cry, when its seaking my raptor can be heard over all the fans in my system, and thats a 20cm fan, 8cm fan exhaust, and 5 x 12cm fans and the psu. although all the fans i have are very quiet ones but the raptor can be heard over all other parts in the pc.
 
Have you got the Raptor-X? That one is windowed and makes a serious amount of noise. However, this is closed in heavy steel.

I heard the audio tests @ silentpcreview.com and it didn't seem that bad. I'm not after a silent PC, but I do want a fairly quiet one (hence the Sonata). I was hoping the Sonata (with thick rolled steel sides) would turn the Raptor's seek noise into an average-sounding hard drive noise.

Do let me know if I'm incorrect though, I am one to be annoyed by little things like that.
 
no id got the regular raptor not the windowed one. the fulley closed one is supposed to be more reliable, and i always go for performance/reliability over looks.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
good ram choice there,

as for the gfx card, id ditch that in favour for a 8600gt.

also you may want to reconsider the hard drive, do you really need a raptor or would you be better off with a 500gig seagate for 75 quid?
Click to expand...

As far as I have heard, the 8600s are really disappointing.
 
Benjarghmin said:
As far as I have heard, the 8600s are really disappointing.
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depends what they are compared to, if you compare it to a 2900 or a 8800gtx then yea its crap.

but if you compare it to anything else in its price range (65-70 quid) then it just can;t be beat.
 
Mm, I guess so. I personally was planning on taking the 8600, but decided to shuffle my spec around and buy the 7950GT. Couldn't have made a better move, methinks.

I didn't realise the 8600 was so cheap, now knowing that I'd agree it's the best card in that price range.
 
I have updated my specification to reflect my new wants;
1) Overclock my Q6600
2) Add more memory

Questions;
1) Will the graphics card be able to run Vista and Aero with bells and whistles?

Why a fairly high-spec system;
1) I am an impatient sod
2) I want to run some intensive applications concurrently - lots of them, and possibly VMs

Hard Drive #1 Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM 74GB 88.95
Hard Drive #2 Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 66.98
Motherboard Asus P5KC Combo Intel P35 (Socket 775) 99.86
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 170
Memory x2 (4GB) OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 133.92
Case Antec Sonata III Piano + 500W Earthwatts 76.36
Graphics Leadtek WinFast GeForce 7600 GS 256MB 49.33
Click to expand...
 
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i honestly dont think youll see much of a difference between a raptor and the AAKS or Seagate 7200.10 HDDs.
 
SS-89 said:
i honestly dont think youll see much of a difference between a raptor and the AAKS or Seagate 7200.10 HDDs.
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The Seagate is quite noisy and not much less noisy than the Raptor 74ADFD. Seek times are what is important to me for snappy application loading, file loading etc. with a lot going in simultaneously. I think the seek time of the AAKS is 8.9ms where the Raptor is around half that?
 
I think I have made my mind up :)

Thoughts?

Hard Drive RAID0 x2 Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 4000AAKS x2 115.12
Motherboard Asus P5KC Combo 99.86
CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 187.99
Memory x2 (4GB) GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz 141
Case Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium 48.97
Graphics Sapphire X1650 XT 256MB GDDR3 45.81
PSU Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular 64.61
Cooler Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler 31.71
Lian Li C-01B Aluminium CD-ROM/DVD-ROM Bezel 9.39
Acousti Ultra-Soft Arrowhead Fan Mounts 3.51
 
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