My new uber monster pc! Well sorta.

[leecho7]

Well, I'm in the process of getting a new system and here's what I got so far.
(All from Newegg.com)

ATX Alluminum Mid Tower Case by Cooler Master $49.99
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 nforce 4 etc. $164
Aspire ATX 600W PSU $93
GeIL Value 2GB (2x1gb) DDR400 Ram with Heatspreaders $199.71
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Toledo 1GHZ FSB 939 Dual Core Proc. etc. $534.01
XFX Geforce 7800GT 256mb GDDR3 PCI Exp x16 $384

Cooling
Zalman CNPS 7700-CU 120mm $39.99
Zalman VF700 VGA Coller $30.99
Antec 120mm case fan $11.99
Arctic Cooling 80mm case fan $3.99
Artic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $7.99

Total $1514.66
Shipping $55.45
Total $1570.11


I'm going for a smooth running rig that is highly capable of video editing and of course, high end gaming. I already have a 300gig harddrive with a 16mb cache from Maxtor and several DVD drives and the sort along with a floppy.
I'll be able to afford this badboy in about 2-3 months, so hopefully the price will go down by then. I'm also getting a 300gig external drive from a friend for 50 bucks.
Any recommendations are welcomed though, not sure what I'm getting myself into.
If you know of any other cheaper and better brands, let me know. I'm trying to shave off as much bucks as I can.

 

[madstork91]

Not bad man!

You do realize in the 2-3 months though your going to find something that cost $30 more here and there to trade out on that rig though right?

When I'm saving up for a PC I force myself not to look at everything thats out untill after I know I have enough.

 

[Rob Williams]

Got some great choices there! I agree with Stroke 100% though.. wait until you have all the money before you decide what to do. Chances definitely are that the Toledo will be down even more in price at that time, and same with the 7800GT, especially with the X18's around the corner.

You may want to make sure that the PSU has a PCI-E connecter built-in, only because it will make less clutter in your case. Is that the Geil with 3-4-4-8 timings? You may want to OC that, and could likely hit 2.5-3-3-8 timings if you tried hard enough.. because that would also help editing and such.

 

[leecho7]

Yeah I was thinking the same, but this is just a general idea of what I want.
If you guys know of any decent psu's or memory, I'm all ears.

Oh yeah, one more thing...
Was wondering if an AGP card can work on an PCI-E x16 slot. I know you can use SLI cards on an AGP slot (or at least I heard), but was wondering if it worked the other way around.

 

[Jakal]

no


just "no"

 

[Rob Williams]

Welcome to the forums Jakal!

Lee, heck no. There's no such thing as AGP SLi either

 

[Jakal]

Well I did try to edit that to include some more info BUT forgot the submit button.. figures

Anyway, I'd be wary of the Aspire power supply if you check the NewEgg forums their life expectancy isn't long.
And I'm going to suggest that you get either a peltier heatsink or water cooling system. They cost a little more but are better than the zalman.. Nothing against it but the other 2 should keep the system cooler, and quieter.

If you do plan on overclocking the DFI lanparty mb would probably be a better buy. It's stability overclocked and oc'ing options are better than the Asus. I'm not downing Asus they make a fine mb but for oc'ing purposes I'd suggest the DFI.


This is what I've got planned for my next rig:
Aspire Turbo Bue Full Tower Alluminum ATX Case
Asus A8V Deluxe
Radeon x800xl
1gb Geil 2x512
200GB SATA WD
AMD 64 3800
Kingwin AWC 3000 Water Cooling System (cpu and vga)

I'm not particularly ready to goto the x2 core yet or pci-e for 1 they're more money and B I need to use more than 1 regular pci slot.

 

[SgtSethiol]

I would agree with Jakal as far as the Aspire PSU goes, Antec or PC Power & Cooling are better power supplies. I know they are more expensive, but think of it this way. Cheap power supplies+expensive parts=bad power supply and broken or burnt out parts. Cheap PSUs dont always put out "clean" power.

I also got into the Asus motherboard or DFI mobo, but I have a friend that runs his own PC store that has been in business for over 15 years so I listen when he talks, get a gigabyte motherboard.

As far as the cooling goes, peltier are alright. Water cooling is good if you wanna take the time to setup it up, but honestly Zalmans heatsink units will keep it just as cool if you dont plan on doing any major overclocking. Stick with the air cooling for regular useage.

One last thing, if you are planning on doing alot of the video editing, you might wanna look at setting up a RAID configuration. I have never done a RAID before so telling you how is outside my realm at the moment, but after some searching and researching I think you might enjoy RAID 1 or RAID 5 here is a link

http://codebetter.com/blogs/raymond.lewallen/archive/2005/06/29/128571.aspx

This will decrease your access times and allow for faster editing.

And unless your buying the Geil just for the heatspreaders, go with the Corsair RAM. Same speed, same Latency, just cheaper and higher quality.

Just my thoughts

 

[Jakal]

Well I've just bought a pair of dual channel Patriot Pc3200 512 sticks. ~$70 after rebate including shipping. Included heat spreader, and from reviews and articles I've read they overclock well. 40mhz+ is attainable with the ram. I'm hoping to hit close to 2.8 or better with the 3800 but I may go for the San Diego 4k seeing how prices are steadily falling. The ram I can use now on my mb now and I think I'm going to get the video card soon as well.

The only reason I mentioned the water cooling and peltier are a little quieter and you can find reasonable systems that have a vga and cpu block. You're right the zalman is fine for everyday use and slight overclocking, but he's already bought a Mac.

It's been a while since we've played with this topic lol.

 

[SgtSethiol]

where did you read he bought a mac?

 

[Jakal]

Right here.

http://forums.techgage.com/showthread.php?t=247

I've been looking around for other options and I've found a Raidmax Scorpio full tower for under $100 without shipping. I'm considering that instead of the Aspire case. I've also been looking around for large, nice, cases that don't have doors. I'm thinking of mounting the water cooler inside the case only because I don't want it being pushed off the top. I'm not quite sure yet as how I'm going to mount it. Either way if the case had a door I couldn't close it with the water cooling unit mounted in the drive bays. I'm hoping to pick up an aluminum full tower with a psu for under $130. Not an easy task. Any suggestions are welcome.

Ok so I've been looking around. TigerDirect is offering oem 6600's starting at $80. Xfx 256Mb cards without fans. Coupled to an Asus A8N-SLi I'm wondering how much damage I could do? That setup would be around 300 where as the A8V and the X800 card would be the same price. SLi is the new standard in video processing and now the prices have actually become reasonable. My only question is the reliability of the Xfx cards. It's one massive heatsink without a fan. For 90 I can pick up an eVGA 6600 LE with heatsink fan etc. I'm really wanting to build the whole system at once because I don't know how long I'll be living/working here. I'd go for a dual 6800 setup if I could find a pair around $100 each. Help appreciated.