[ninty]

Guys, need you to look over the projected system:

I think what I need advice most on is RAM. Need 4gb for vista 64? should I do vista 64 or stick with 32 bit?

I just used newegg here because everyone knows it. i'm not buying from them and i'm getting the parts for cheaper than what they say on the site so don't really worry about cost.

the only other thing i heard is the creative gamer soundcard might not be good, but i'm not sure.

i'm already set on the tower and stuff like that so i don't really need advice on that, mostly the ram.

thanks.

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad 750W ATX V2.2 EPS12V 24PIN SLI Active PFC Power Supply


Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive


Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box


ASUS P5K Premium WIFI-AP ATX LGA775 P35 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA RAID Sound WLAN 1394 Motherboard


EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800 Ultra 612MHZ 768MB 2.16GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card


Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW w/ Lightscribe, SATA, Black (Retail)


SilverStone TJ09B Aluminum Tower w/ Window, Black


Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI


Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory


Vista 64 bit

[geRV]

Spec looks good, im using vista 64 primarily now 2 gig is fine for most things, some games like company of heroes can thrash the hard drive a bit when exiting to windows.

The ultra is really not worth the cash over the regular gtx, might want to pick up an evga 8800gtx and use their stepup program to get the 9800gtx when thats out. http://evga.com/stepup/default.asp

Sound card probably isn't needed, the integrated audio on the p35 is pretty decent.

Ram im using is the following OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz "sli ready". How ram can be sli ready is pretty funny, marketing gimmicks ftw.

Might want a decent cooler for that quad, they run pretty hot, stock coolers definately not worth a shit. thermalright 120 ultra extreme is meant to be the best (have to buy fan seperatly) i had one and it had a concave base and wasn't worth a shit, if you cna get one without the concave base theyre supposed to be really good.

[ninty]

when is the 9800 supposed to be out? i can get the ultra for $10 cheaper than a gtx because of a special going on now.

should i go up to 1066 with the ram?

yeah i will be getting a cpu cooler for sure. thanks gerv.

[geRV]

1066 ram just gives you some overhead for overclocking so its probably worthwhile.

9800 is supposed to be around november sometime but its not been confirmed, just the usual "net info" thats going on. Possible it wont be here till feb, which rules out the evga stepup as its 90 days from time of purchase.

Penryn is also due late this year which is "true" quad core on 45nm so meant to run a lot cooler, might be worthwhile waiting a bit if you cna hold on for that long.

[ninty]

before, i was thinking of waiting a while for x38 boards, penryn and g92 before i built, but i read a bit and didn't think it was worth it. no real advantage for x38 or p5k for me, penryn would be nice, but thats a while away and g92 would also be nice but maybe i can get lucky if they release it within 90 days.

edit: hah i think we posted at the same time.

yeah with penryn though i would need a new board, right? x38. can't run penryn off p5k right?

[geRV]

Originally Posted by ninty

before, i was thinking of waiting a while for x38 boards, penryn and g92 before i built, but i read a bit and didn't think it was worth it. no real advantage for x38 or p5k for me, penryn would be nice, but thats a while away and g92 would also be nice but maybe i can get lucky if they release it within 90 days.

edit: hah i think we posted at the same time.

yeah with penryn though i would need a new board, right? x38. can't run penryn off p5k right?

p5k supports 45nm cpu's so should work with penyn. Afaik the main thing that the 38 boards brings to the table is true dual x16 pci-e slots. p35 has 1x16 and 1x4, its billed as having 2 x16 slots but one only has x4 bandwidth. And afaik it also (rumoured) to support crossfire AND sli on the one board so no bullshit of having to buy specific mobo's for sli or crossfire.

[ninty]

Specs I went with:

[quote:5c465]Silverstone TJ09 Case
Corsair 620hx Power Supply
Intel Q6600 Processor
Asus P5K Premium Motherboard
Corsair 6400C4 2x1GB RAM
EVGA 8800 Ultra Video Card
Seagate 500GB HHD
Pioneer 18X DVD Drive
D-Link 10/100 Router
Vista Ultimate 64bit
Klipsch Promedia 2.1 Speakers
Gateway 21" LCD (already had)
Yate Loon 120mm Fans
Silverstone Bay Converter
Silverstone 3 Port Fan Controller
Thermalright 120 Ultra CPU Heatsink with Scyth S-Flex Fan
[/quote:5c465]

Motherboard tray and rear pillars painted flat black. Turned out decent. Looks better than the bright aluminum. Everything else in the case will be black so I figured a black motherboard tray would be nice as well. Can really see the 5" or 3.5" bays up front with the door on, so I didn't paint them, and it would be a big pain in the ass so I left them alone.

[img]http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/27321/2002794227372876440_rs.jpg[/img]
[img]http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/23202/2001312805508146476_rs.jpg[/img]


Last night I was kind of messing around to see how I will arrange things with the dvd and the 120mm fan/bay converter. I think I like this set up better than having the dvd drive on top.

[img]http://aycu11.webshots.com/image/26490/2002775736937483864_rs.jpg[/img]



The bay converter can hold 4 hard drives. Right now in this rig I have room for 10 hard drives which is insane. I have 2 500gig seagates and not entirely sure where I will put them. Either in their normal spot under the fan controller where there is a separate fan bracket for them, or in the bay converter. Right now i'm leaning toward their original spot because of cable management. I can make it so their plugs face the rear panel of the case, which I think is better than facing the rear of the motherboard tray where the exhaust is. I can then use the bay converter solely for intake air.
[img]http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/25575/2002704855011480173_rs.jpg[/img]

[geRV]

Starting to take shape nicely. beer:

[ninty]

I decided on the hard drives in their normal spot so I could leave the bay converter solely for intake.

What I did want to do on the drives was flip them so I could run the cables at the back, not across the gpu fan in the front. So I marked out a couple holes and drilled and countersunk them. Didn't want to leave it with just 1 screw on either side, even though they fit nice and tight in the cage with the weather stripping.

[img]http://aycu39.webshots.com/image/25438/2000076112961728587_rs.jpg[/img]

Nice and clean on the windowed side
[img]http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/23135/2001460714637513274_rs.jpg[/img]

back side
[img]http://aycu20.webshots.com/image/25659/2001409370135935287_rs.jpg[/img]

Power supply was next just to get it in there.

[img]http://aycu16.webshots.com/image/26295/2004717706039053192_rs.jpg[/img]

And then started work on the mobo tray.

[img]http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/26841/2004779072372476352_rs.jpg[/img]

Didn't really take many pictures of my adventures with the mobo, but I probably screwed that thing down and took it back off 8 or so times because I found something I wanted to do each time after I had screwed it down that required it to be unscrewed.

Took me a little while to get the placement of fan wires and such under the mobo, and the one thing i didn't realize is that the thermalright 120 required the backplate to go underneath the mobo, so that required me to unscrew the whole thing again and unplug everything to get that on there. The last after market heatsink I installed was on an AMD 3500+ and that just clipped onto the top side. So thats how I was thinking it would go in my head, but I really should have looked first. This is actually a much better way to do it rather than trying to force that clip down being afraid you're going to slip and smash a hole through the mobo.

I installed the CPU heatsink while the tray was in the case because I had heard some people could fit and some couldn't, so I didn't really want to do the whole thing outside the case and then have to take it off again.

Here you can see the top of the case where I ran the 8 pin power and the top 2 case fans and the rear case fan. The 8 pin has just enough slack from the corsair 620 to go behind the mobo tray. I would like to kind of tidy up the fan wires, but I think it looks pretty decent. With the window on you probably wouldn't notice.

[img]http://aycu28.webshots.com/image/27987/2003724127541932341_rs.jpg[/img]

And with that all done I plugged in the SATA cables for the hard drives. I have to wait a while for the black ones I ordered, but the red look kind of cool there. Not sure why I didn't plug one in for the SATA DVD drive.

Video card is like a brick and the EVGA lettering on the side won't stay on. Maybe when it gets hot they'll stick.

[img]http://aycu12.webshots.com/image/24411/2003765012793777684_rs.jpg[/img]

I kind of plugged everything in to see the amount of wires i'd have in there. Not that big of a deal. I can run most of them behind the gpu fan because of the way I oriented things, which is nice. Should really only have the one main 24 pin power and the vid card power running up the case where it's visible. All the rest will go right behind. (I know the USB is in the wrong plug. Not sure why i put it there, just to see if it would reach that general area. Not sure if they all will fit nicely. Will have to wait and see)

[img]http://aycu05.webshots.com/image/26644/2003773516652819294_rs.jpg[/img]

With most everything installed i'll just tidy up the cabling and wait for my sata cables to come in and it should be good to go. Maybe load up the OS this weekend and see what she can do.

[img]http://aycu25.webshots.com/image/25184/2003734395809455775_rs.jpg[/img]

I'll post pics when shes all wrapped up.

[gtboys34]

how much did u spend in all?

[Chronic Diarrhea]

Originally Posted by gtboys34

how much did u spend in all?

Probably right around $2000 judging from his specs.

[strvs]

nice

i should take some pics of my build, i'm pretty proud of it.. i also had to put in and take out the MOBO multiple times because i forgot little details.. got pretty frustrating but its all worth it when you fire the beast up

[Mr.Buttocks]

It's only a matter of time until we have to apply for planning permission to build extensions on to our cases to make room for the motherfucking heatsinks.

[ninty]

[quote="Chronic Diarrhea":8df97]

Originally Posted by gtboys34

how much did u spend in all?

Probably right around $2000 judging from his specs.[/quote:8df97]

Everything including shipping, taxes etc etc, around $2,900 cdn.

probably around $2,700 cdn on just components. this includes speakers, operating system, router the extra drive bay and fan controller that you wouldn't normally take into consideration, fans and heatsink.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive 2 $109.99 $219.98
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor LGA775 Kentsfield 2.40GHZ 1066FSB 8MB Retail Box 1 $289.99
Silverstone CFP51-B Black Aluminum 3X5.25IN to 4X3.5IN Bay Converter with 120MM Fan And Blue LED 1 $63.62
Silverstone FP33-B Black Aluminum 3.5 Drive Bay 3 Port Fan Controller 1 $28.38
Pioneer DVR-212D Black DVD-RW 18X6X18 DVD+RW 18X8X18 DL 10X SATA 2MB OEM DVD Burner No Software 1 $37.98
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition 64BIT DVD OEM 1 $205.99
Klipsch Promedia 2.1 THX Computer Speaker System 160W RMS 1 $164.99
D-LINK DI-604 4PORT 10/100 Broadband Router 1 $45.15
Yate Loon D12SL-12 120MM Quiet Cooling Fan 1350RPM 47CFM 28DB 3PIN & 4PIN Sleeve Bearing OEM 7 $7.99 $55.93
EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800 Ultra 612MHZ 768MB 2.16GHZ GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out Video Card 1 $649.99
ASUS P5K Premium WIFI-AP ATX LGA775 P35 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA RAID Sound WLAN 1394 Motherboard 1 $252.99
Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2GB 2X1GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12 240PIN Dual Channel Memory 1 $134.99
Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E 1 $149.95
Silverstone Temjin TJ09-BW Black E-ATX Case 4X5.25 1X3.5 6X3.5INT No PS W/ Windows 1 $319.99
Thermalright ULTRA-120 Extreme 6 Heatpipe Cooler LGA775 Heatsink *Fan Not Included* 1 $64.54
Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120MM Cooling Fan 1600RPM 28.0DBA 63.7CFM FDB 1 $15.75

[geRV]

[quote="Mr.Buttocks":f4737]It's only a matter of time until we have to apply for planning permission to build extensions on to our cases to make room for the motherfucking heatsinks.[/quote:f4737]

Very true, aircooling these days normally means some kind of extreme retardedly sized slab of aluminium or copper inside the case. The stock coolers intel and amd provide aren't worth a fuck so a third party cooler is needed which just adds to the cost.

I always though technology was meant to get smaller require less power and run cooler, so far amd and intel are doing a good job of proving that wrong.
cuss: