Last Questions Before Building!!!!

toco123

By the way please take into account that this will be used only as a gaming rig and will be overclocked? Also please relise i do not have the ability to 5#17 money!


Okay I am thinking highly of getting a Xeon X3210 but am wondering what is the best way of cooling this?
I know the cons of both Water-Cooling and Thermo-Electric but which cools the processor more effiently?


Can anyone find me a site that sells the Thermaltake Armor VA8000SWA or a place near the Cork area?
I can't seem to find it on Elara, Komplett, Amazon or Ebay!

Can anyone reccomend me a HDCP widescreen monitor (must be HDCP) with a resolution of about 1600 x 1050 around the 20" and about 5ms?
Can anyone reccomend a good set of reliable powerful speakers?
I am getting a 680i motherboard but can't decide which RAM..
Any suggestions?

Is the Xeon compatible with the 64 bit or the 32 bit OS version of Windows Vista?
Do you believe I should buy the OEM version for €200 less or the retail version?


Thanks very much!!!

If you believe i should modify my choice also make a desicion but I do like the monsterous size of that PC case and the Xeon does seem great value for money!

Ginger

Speakers.. try the Logitech z-5500s .. feircely powerful. Playing NFS carbon with them and it sounds like a Grand Prix when you crash!

Get the VA8005 it comes with a 25CM fan .. its the one I am using here. Got mine from www.overclockers.co.uk.

I have a spare Thermaltake XaserIII which is just gathering dust... i really must do something about that

toco123

VA8003? looks very similar...

Xaser III as in:
http://admin.xicle-moding.com/items/XASERIII.jpg ????


Speakers sound good!!!

Ginger

The only difference between the 8000 and the 8003 is the case fan on the side panel which is 25CM!!!

Thats the one here http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-046-TT&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=715 ... notice the side panel fan

Yup thats the Xaser3 ..same size as the Armor case, just a different styling

8T8

Why bother with a Xeon, if you want a decent overclock without breaking the bank the Core 2 E2160 easily reaches 3Ghz with air cooling and only at low resolutions does the CPU speed make any major difference with games. Now thats not to say that it doesn't help of course but at high resolutions the CPU is less important as GPU is doing the heavy work.

Your not going to be served that well by a quad core CPU with gaming only in mind as most games are optimized if you can even call it that for 2 cores, only the rare showpiece title will actually make use of more than one core so don't waste your money. (That is unless you actually have other tasks in mind which make use of quad cores)

Not sure about the Thermaltake case but OcUK sell a variant of the Armour case. Edit: Ginger already pointed that out while I was typing this : )

For the monitor the Samsung 226BW fits the bill though there are a few variants of it out there, the Dell 2007WFP is another ignore the response time listed as it's somewhere around 6-8ms rather than 16ms.

For RAM Corsair or Crucial BallistX will do the job just fine.

Is the Xeon 64 bit yes it is and will work with either the 32 or 64-bit editions of Windows same goes for the E2160.

Retail vs OEM means that the retail can be reinstalled without calling MS up to something like 10-15 times I think it's at (after that you must call), with the OEM if you reinstall and need to re-activate you must call MS each time and tell them the mobo died to get them to activate it.

toco123

The 8003 is available on Komplett but the silver version is €50 more expensive!!!!


Hmm... i'm thinking about housing a watercooler or thermal electric in a second case... How much for your dust catcher?

Ginger

My current rig is an AMD based platform but I have the Dell 2007FPW, the Armor varient case and the Logitech Z5500s .. speakers that double as foot massagers

Go with the Intel Core2s better value and easier to play with. Also the whole dual - quad core thing. I had major hassle when I was using my 4400 because I had it before dual core became mainstream but now its still only a few games that can use both even then it was ropey (Anyone remember Serious Sam 2's issues with dual cores)

Silver version is Aluminum meaning lighter .. and man those black cases are freakishly heavy.. thank god I dont move mine that often

Ginger

toco123 wrote:

Hmm... i'm thinking about housing a watercooler or thermal electric in a second case... How much for your dust catcher?

Based in Dublin so it will be a bi%%h to transport to Cork. Thinking of doing a wee bit of generosity and raffling it away on Boards ala UncleRosco

toco123

Samsung and Ram sounds okay as well as the Case. As for the E2160 seems a bit weak even with overclocking but i'll think about finding at least core 2 duo E6300. The Xeon is supposed to have very good overclockablity and at €350 its not that much of a problem with price and won't become obselete easily..

toco123

Ginger wrote:

Based in Dublin so it will be a bi%%h to transport to Cork. Thinking of doing a wee bit of generosity and raffling it away on Boards ala UncleRosco

No prob:o

toco123

Ginger wrote:

Silver version is Aluminum meaning lighter .. and man those black cases are freakishly heavy.. thank god I dont move mine that often

Silver means good conductivity.

Both are aluminium?

8T8

toco123 wrote:

Samsung and Ram sounds okay as well as the Case. As for the E2160 seems a bit weak even with overclocking but i'll think about finding at least core 2 duo E6300. The Xeon is supposed to have very good overclockablity and at €350 its not that much of a problem with price and won't become obselete easily..

Have you seen the benchmarks of the E2160 it beats the X6800 is most tests and despite the lower cache it still only a very small bit behind in the ones were the X6800 retains the lead, not bad with just air cooling no fancy water or tec cooling required & I'd rather put that money towards a good GPU.

toco123

Sorry i meant to state i am also using the computer for 3d Graphic design and game design.

toco123

Do you reccomend Thermo Electric or Water cooling? Which benefits the processor more?

Gloopy

Bah, only seeing this thread now, so this point is probably null and void, but if you're still looking for your original case, it's available on Pixmania and HardwareVersand

Ginger

Considering that I am not selling the case I am guessing they will help mate.. @Gloopy You dont do music engineering by any chance do you?

toco123

Cheers gloopy! No, sorry. Why?

Mmm... I think the speakers maybe a little over budget. Is there a possible alternative?

Gloopy

Ginger wrote:

@Gloopy You dont do music engineering by any chance do you?

Sorry mate, must be a different Gloopy

Gloopy

Ginger wrote:

@Gloopy You dont do music engineering by any chance do you?

Sorry mate, must be a different Gloopy

toco123 wrote:

Mmm... I think the speakers maybe a little over budget. Is there a possible alternative?

Are you definitely after a 5.1 set of speakers toco?

toco123

I might be able to pick em up for cheaper if i can as there really seems to be no alternative!!!!

nibble

toco123 wrote:

Do you reccomend Thermo Electric or Water cooling? Which benefits the processor more?

Erm, you can't do thermo electric cooling or water cooling. If you're setting up a TEC you must also watercool the TEC because while one side gets cold the other gets hot and that needs to be cooled. And honestly you don't want to set up a TEC, far far to much trouble/cost/power consumption to justify it and then you have to worry about condensation and a whole host of other things. These days chips put out a lot of heat meaning you need a damn powerful TEC to handle the load, it was doable in the PIII era but these days you get virtually no return for your efforts. To sum it up just go water if you want to try something a little more exotic than air

toco123

nibble wrote:

Erm, you can't do thermo electric cooling or water cooling. If you're setting up a TEC you must also watercool the TEC because while one side gets cold the other gets hot and that needs to be cooled. And honestly you don't want to set up a TEC, far far to much trouble/cost/power consumption to justify it and then you have to worry about condensation and a whole host of other things. These days chips put out a lot of heat meaning you need a damn powerful TEC to handle the load, it was doable in the PIII era but these days you get virtually no return for your efforts. To sum it up just go water if you want to try something a little more exotic than air

I have just bought a water cooling kit...