nanofever

So I finally broke down and decided my trusty starter computer (Compaq k2-6 500mhz, geforce 2 mx pci... ect) is just too old and need to be sent to the big server farm in the sky. That being said I have 1000 dollars to spend and this is what I'm thinking of buying.

Motherboard: Biostar nforce 2 ultra 400 socket A, sata, raid, agp 8x, max fsb 400, 86 dollars

Proc: Amd Barton 2500+, going to be oc'ed to 3200+, 90 dollars

Ram: OCZ premier duel channel 184 pin DDR3500 2x512, 219 dollars (cheap ram bad so I went for good stuff)

Video: Geforce FX 5900XT, going to oc and bios flash to a 5950U, 200 dollars

Hard drives: System use: WD raptor Sata 36.7 GB 10,000RPM 122 dollars Storage: WD IDE 160 GB 7200 RPM 115 dollars

CD drive: LG electronics Dvd-R Cd-RW 52x24x52x16 58 dollars

Sound: Audigy 2 pci, Firewire and other assorted sound card goodies, 74 dollars

Case: Maxtop (has two massive back fans, a side fan and a top fan) Midsize ATX, 4 internal drives bay, 40 dollars

Powersupply: 350w, with case - This is where I need input, will a 350w power supply feed my system with oc'ing ?

So that is what I am thinking of building, input please.

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

tritium

350w might be able to pull it off, but without seeing the amp info for each of the rails, I can't tell you any more than that. I usually drop in nothing less than 400w, but that's me...

Why not get an ATI card instead of the geforce?

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Silverbrain

I too second a 400watt PSU, their not that much more expensive and with the oc your doing will be worth the extra investment. All the rest looks fine to me )

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nanofever

Cost, a 200 dollar 5900 is quite cheap and can become a 5950U with a little bit of luck and prodding.

Went looking and found the same case sans-PS for 20 dollars and a pretty good 450w ps for 40 dollars

Type: ATX
Maximum Power: 450W
PFC: No
Power Good Signal: 100-500ms
Hold-up Time: Not specified
Efficiency: 65% minimum, 75% typical, at full load
Over Voltage Protection: +3.3V, +5V, +12V
Overload Protection: Not specified
Input Voltage: Select 90-132VAC or 180-264VAC
Input Frequency Range: 47-63 Hz
Input Current: Not specified
Output: +3.3V@28A;+5V@50A;-5V@0.8A;+12V@18A;-12V@1A;+5VSB@2.5A
MTBF: 50,000 hours
Approvals: UL, CSA, TUV, NEMKO, DEMKO, SEMKO, FI,CE

Would that work ?

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

sailor

Looks good to me. Id watch out for noise though, with all those fans, that case is going crank out some serious decibels.

Other than that, its a nicer computer than what I have

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nanofever

I'm a fan of my headphones and winamp so the sound won't bother me much, but my dormmate/s might kill me come september...

Also, do you guys think it is worth it to have two hard drives, a sata for system and an ide for storage ?

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

yakimushi

Two hard drives is a very good idea, its a system I use myself.

I suppose it comes from being wary of Windows crashes back in the days of Win95/98. With the OS sitting like a ticking time bomb, it only made sense to leave all the important stuff on a separate drive.

Those Raptors are hella kick ass, I'd love to RAID 0 a couple of those for an OS drive.

Also, have you researched that motherboard any? I don't know a whole lot about Biostar, but the first thing that comes to mind isn't overclocking.

I think the Abit NF7-S was the king OC'r for Bartons, and can be had for about the same price ($100 @ Newegg).

Gotenks

I'm liking most of it, I would however stray from the nvidia card, but that's just my opinion. The maxtop case w/ psu though... I'm not sure if that would be a good idea. A 40 dollar case bundled with a psu couldnt be anywhere near quality, and i've had more psu's die out on me then any other computer part (excluding peripherals). There is only one true fact that i've learned when dealing with psu's, and that's that "antec" can be a lifesaver.

As well with the computer case, you said it also comes with 4 fans (or does it just have the slots for fans?), which would leave me to believe that either these fans are going to break in a month or two, or possibly not work at all. Try and look into some panaflo fan's, and if you have any animals get some filters (fan's are like $6, filters are like 3 for $2).

What are you going to do about your Heatsink Fan? You say your going to oc the barton to 3200 speeds, but so far i've seen stock (cheap) case fan's, and i'm assuming stock heatsink fan. If anything, the thing you'll regret the most is not spending the extra $ for a good hsf. I'd reccomend the volc 7+ if your not worried about dB's.

I'd also like to ask you a few other questions, but before doing so i'd like to know what you'll be using this system for?

Hope I helped =)

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nanofever

This is going to be a gaming system and then media center/gaming when I get to college.

Heatsinks and fans are going to be important but I'm worried about the size of the fans/sink, PS and the case not being compadable .

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

oberon

I would strongly recommend *not* overclocking your hardware (CPU, video card in particular). You're just asking for trouble.

Also if you're going to spend the bucks to get a WD Raptor, I would suggest spending it on SCSI instead. My Maxtor Atlas 10K IV 36GB U160 disk transfers at 60MB/sec, whereas my Raptor (and WD etc.) can barely do 20-30MB/sec. What's more, it costs only $10 or $15 more than the Raptor. IMHO the Raptor is a piece of crap.

You can get a cheap U160 controller, the LSI Logic LSIU160 is good, and only $40.

Additionally, as I understand it, the FX 5900 etc. don't perform much better than a GF4 Ti4200 on today's games. Something to consider when you spend that hard-earned money.

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Arbiestsheft04

I would defenitly suggest a ATi vid card. Ive got a geForce fx 5600 and im very dissapointed with the card. ATi all the way.

nanofever

The suggestion on the SCSI drive is well taken however the Ti4200 is well below the FX5900 in power. The 5900 plays Halo at 50 FPS, the Ti4200 won't even run Halo. In battlefield 1942, the Ti4200 pulls a respectable 60 FPS but the 5900 pull 160 FPS. (all from Tom's hardware)


And to the guy with the 5600, is that the horride green dustbuster model ?

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

blockmaan2000

For a case try an Antec, something like a Sonata or 3700. Much quieter and great airflow.

Lasereth

You have a nice setup, but I'd make a few changes if I were you:

Get the Abit NF7-S 2.0 motherboard. It's simply the best overclocking Athlon XP motherboard on the market. NewEgg has it for $99. Definitely get the Barton 2500+; you can get it to 3000+ speeds with a CPU fan.

Don't waste the money on the soundcard. The Abit NF7-S 2.0 has onboard SoundStorm sound which will perform as well as any soundcard on the market. It also has 5.1 Dolby Digital outputs for fiber-optic cable.

The videocard will do very well. Someone said it didn't perform much better than the TI4200...that's just not correct. The midrange newer NVIDIA and ATI cards don't perform much better than the TI4200, but the newer high-end cards do. The FX 5600, Radeon 9600, etc. are the ones that don't do much better than the TI4200. Even a regular GeForce FX 5900 will do a hell of a lot better than a TI4200. At $200, it's a steal. If you really know what you're doing with overclocking the videocard, then get it. If you're not sure about it, I'd go ahead and get the Ultra.

It doesn't matter what wattage the PSU is as long as it's over 300w. The thing to watch for is quality over quantity. If you want a good PSU, buy a Sparkle or Enermax. Do not buy a POWMAX or RAIDMAX and expect quality -- it's not gonna happen. My brother has a 400w Enermax. It's 100% silent with TWO fans on it. He's running FIVE hard drives, CD-ROM, tons of fans, lights, etc. A 400w POWMAX wouldn't even turn his computer on.

The RAM looks great. Another choice would be Corsair if you're gonna go into overclocking (I assume so with that CPU ).

The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra is the dustbuster model. It's pretty powerful (around 9700 Pro status), but way too damned loud.

Good luck!

-Lasereth

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irateplatypus

advice:

check out any reports on how much sound that case makes. if you're going to be in a dorm room, take it from me, a quiet computer is a blessing.

with 2 HDs, a big vidcard, and whatever disk drives... i would definitely go with at least 400W. inadequate system power creates a lot of problems over the long run, even if it it boots fine... there are more complications. plus, if you know you have the right power it always eliminates another factor when diagnosing any system instability.

personally, i wouldn't OC your computer till a couple years down the road. a 2500 will pretty much do anything you ask it to these days. wait till it becomes too slow to run a few applications before you overclock it. that way any residual heat damage that occurs after it has had a useful life. by then, you'll be able to pick up a 3.X Athlon for less than fifty bucks if it breaks.

Any ideas on speakers? don't want to let that sweet audigy 2 go to waste.

am i correct in interpreting a single combo disk drive? if so, pick up a cheap 52X cdrom drive. it is nice to have two for burning purposes with very limited additional cost.

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

nanofever

Wow, thanks for all the replies. I'm going to go with the Abit motherboard, the SCSI HD, and I'm think of getting an Antec case but they are pretty expensive. I would like to get Corsair Ram but it is quite expensive. As for speakers its going to be my Grado SR-60 headphones. I'm going to wait for a bit more money and then get a DVD-RW so thats why I only have one cd drive.

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I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

oberon

Ok, as Lasereth said, I was thinking of the FX 5600, not the 5900. Sorry.

But my recommendation against overclocking still stands. You'll waste less time setting it up and if it doesn't work it's not your fault (usually) and you don't lose money...

Also, if noise is a concern, SCSI disks do tend to be slightly louder. Though I couldn't really tell you the difference between my 10K IV and my Raptor, sound wise...

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"There are finer fish in the sea than have ever been caught." -- Irish proverb

Lasereth

My SCSI 10 GB in my server PC is incredibly loud. It sounds like a dustbuster. I'm not sure if it's the same with the newer SCSI's, but mine is very, very loud. It's a 10,000 RPM Seagate.

-Lasereth

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

cheesemoney

Not to be mean, but you don't really have much to lose by overclocking the athlon 2500+. Its only 90 bucks now, and if it dies in a year, it will be 30 bucks to replace. You don't modify the chip at all--since all you are doing is upping the fsb since they are all now multiplier locked.

It is *virtually* risk free.
Hell, a year from now the 3200+ will be 50 bucks and you could just buy that.

If you don't wanna use arctic silver 5 or whatever AMD tests for, the same company makes grease that you can use that AMD is OK with and will still cool your cpu just fine.

No offense, but you would be a moron NOT to OC that chip.

As long as you have fans/ventilation on it, you're much safer than buying a Dell and running it at stock speeds with their crappy ventilation.

As long as you go in increments, you will be just fine.
Thats why AMD is great... if you fuck up the cpu, you can pop another one in for real cheap. Fuck up an intel and you're out a coupla hundred bucks.

Oh... oc the graphics card too. It's MADE for it. Just make sure that you cool the ram enough, etc.

And now way is the 5950 ultra or whatever worth it over the 5900. Slight increases in clock speed and 128 megs more ram you'll never use.

You can OC the 5900 just fine. Flash that bios and go to town.

cheesemoney

... and Oberon, you do realize that with that motherboard (an NForce2 mobo) you don't have to modify ANYTHING hardware wise to oc, right?

All you do is up the FSB in bios.

And put fans in your case and a heatsink on the cpu which he would be doing anyway.

Lasereth

Since when are the Barton 2500+'s multiplier locked? Do you mean that you can't change the multiplier in BIOS? When did this happen? That's freakin horrible if it's true. Some PCs (mainly depending on the RAM) won't accept high FSB changes. My old PC with the Barton (before it was locked!!) let me change the multiplier with ease. If I raised the FSB too high, my RAM wouldn't allow it, and I actually lost performance. The multipliers were EXTREMELY important in getting the best performance.

Does it matter which motherboard you have, or are the new Bartons locked on all systems?

-Lasereth

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"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert