Total rehaul - any thoughts?

quickfix

quickfix

quickfix

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Joined
27 May 2006
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27
A dying three year old system means I have an excuse to upgrade. Decent-sized budget, but I'm basically at my limit with these components...

AMD X2 3800+ (AM2)
Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX
BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC 256MB
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache (maybe two..)
Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter
Zalman VF900-CU Quiet Copper VGA Cooler
Akasa AK FC-03 Fan Controller Pro
Akasa AK FC-06BK Fan Controller Junior
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case
Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.2 Power Supply
Viewsonic VX2025 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64
Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000

Fans and keybaord are the only two things I don't need and there's the usual cables and thermal junk on top of that list...

Couple of other things: it's supposed to be quiet, which is why I need the new VGA cooler and the seasonic psu. Also, I know the screen is reasonably large, but I've been on a 21" Trinitron for the past few years and I can't face peering at something small or reasonably bad quality, and I've seen good reviews for the VX2025.

So what do you think? I'm not sure whether the extra price for the CAS4 RAM is worth it... Also, are there any decent coolers for AM2 out yet?
 
If your wanting to save a bit of cash, drop the case down to a Lian Li PC7+, just as good really.

The Seasonics cables should be long enough for the P180, but you may need to buy extenders for the mobo connections.

I am not sure the FC03 fan controller will fit behind the door on the P180 either.
 
Have you checked there are drivers for all your gear under XP 64? Even silly little things like printer drivers can drive ya crazy :p
 
I'm not sure about the fan controller either, but I think I read somewhere that it will fit behind there, and if not then I just need to get the file out and use some elbow grease. Or just leave the door open, either one.

And if some of my stuff doesn't have the proper drivers I'll have to lump it I guess. I really want x64 because I'm not upgrading to Vista and so I want something that'll be able to cope with future 64bit programs. But if they don't work, I've got my old retail version of xp pro, I can just set my old comp up as a linux server, I was meaning to anyway.

But really, does anyone know whether the effect of cas4 over cas5 would really be noticable with the AM2, I know there's been a lot said about how DDR2 doesn't really show any improvements over DDR, so is there much improvement between different latencies of DDR2?

And everything else looks okay?
 
If you are buying the 7900GT with a VF900 cooler, i would highly recommend that you buy the OCUK edition of the 7900GT. This is what i did, and i got an overclock to 550/1800 without volt mods. The only real advantage of the BFG model is the lifetime warranty, but then thats up to you.
 
Yup, but such is life. The warranty is probably void if you overclock it as well, but does that stop many people? I mean anyone who doesn't have the stock cooler on their chip has anulled their chip's warranty, but who has that lump of junk on there? Sadly there are prices to pay when you want something more than you can buy from dell or similar companies.

And what with the OcUK 7900 GT card being withdrawn I'm not in much position to choose anyway.

Decided to go with the CAS5 Corsair in the end. Means no SLI-ram, but means I'm actually within my budget...
 
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