Pieces picked out what do you think?

Farls

OK, as i said in a recent thread i was going to start building my own pc and i've picked out what i want to do now thanks to a lot of posts about places to shop and the likes. Having read Cr8ors post on his pc it is much like the one i want to build but i want a geforce3 and 5.1 sound heres a list of stuff anyways

mobo - Epox EP-8K7A+ DDR (Socket A - AMD Thunderbird/Duron)

chip - AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2GHz (Socket A) Guaranteed to 1.4GHz+

hdd - IBM 60GXP 41.2GB UDMA100

gfx - Gainward GeForce 3 Power Pack !!! 64MB

sound - Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1

RAM - Corsair 256MB DDR PC2400 CAS-2

case - Coolercase Tornado (Macron 300W PSU) (with 4 built in fans looks the biz)

monitor - Hansol 910A 19" Monitor

fan - TaiSol CGK760092 CPU Cooler


ok need some honest opinions on this set up...i dont need floppy or cd-rom as i already have spares in that department i can see this is going to be an expensive set up around a grand i'm hoping to get it built at question is, is there anything i'm leaving out or could do with? and also if Tarzan reads this how much could u get stuff for in the states?

Farls

chernobyl

i dont see the point in spending on DDR RAM, it really doesnt deliver.

i know AMD gives speed for small money but intel machines are always more stable.

looks a great system anyways.

---

Ashley...if only

Ashley Lyn Cafagna

tarzan

mail me abuot it if you want. email address is in my profile

Zee Dude

looks like a nice system Farls, one option I would change is the PSU, get a 431W Enermax.

This will provide you with al the power you need and they have been known to absord spikes better than other PSU's.

You can get it from
http://www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk

Gerry

I personally think that getting a 431w psu is a waste of time, UNLESS your existing psu proves to be insufficient. The spec looks extremely good, I'll just warn you that the case will more than likely be quite noisy, but that goes with the territory.

Atreides

looking at that rig I have to wonder, are you getting it all from ocuk. don't!
especially the monitor, they will charge you 80 pounds to ship the monitor, dabs with ship the same monitor for a flat 20, nearly same prices to,

the Gainward Geforce 3 is a very nice make, but keep in mind hats doesn't have dvi

sound, the only difference you get with the platinum is the bay unit, make sure you have the space,

Case, the Tornado isn't to noisy, their only dual 80mm ys tech,

fan, personally id go for a ThermoEngine V60-4225 rather then that TaiSol

Chernobyl, at the moment ddr ram is on level price wise with sd ram, and new motherboards are getting even more out of it


Edit yea 300watt will be more then enough for that rig edit


[This message has been edited by The Chief (edited 27-07-2001).]

Farls

Thank you for all the replys and i think 300watt would be loads. Also with the geforce 3 i could get a model with DVI support but what does this add to it?

I have emailed ocuk to see what their costs are on shipping, if it turns out to be more than 20 squid sterling i'll turn to dabs.

Also on this issue of RAM...is it better to have 256meg DDR or PQI 512MB PC133 (dimm)i dont know a while pile about RAM so if somebody could explain it would be class.

And if i dont get DDR RAM is there any point in getting a mobo that supports it?

And don't even mention monitors, their the most expensive things i've ever seen in my life!

Farls

The Big Chief

Name change,

Anyway, you can check shiping on the site, and it is 80 pounds to ship that monitor and 60 for the case,

You cant use sd ram (the PQI) on that board
PQI isnt the best make either,

The Big Chief

o and definitly look into a different fan, yours is just sub standard

Farls

totally lost me on the PQI subject as well, like i said before i don't know a lot about RAM and if someone could explain it i'd be grateful hey

Farls

Gerry

The motherboard you picked only supports ddr ram, so you cant use sdram on it. DDR is almost as cheap, and a bit faster, so I'd go for it. PQI is cheap sdram, which works fine, but is not the fastest. Basically it may not be able to overclock very much, though your luck may vary.

However, with the crucial pc2400 ddr, and the epox 8K7a+, you should be able to run nice high bus speeds. Overclocking the bus up to 150 or 160 will give great performance gains, as the performance of the memory and the motherboard in general determines the performance of the whole machine as much as the cpu does. Go with the list you have there farls.

The Chief, perhaps you should read a few reviews of the taisol before jumping to conclusions? Maybe he doesn't want a whining delta? The taisol is a capable heatsink/fan, and will do the job perfectly.

The Big Chief

far from jumping to conclusions, the TaiSol doesnt compare to the ThermoEngine, ive seen both in action,

but i suppose for a 1.2ghz system which probably wont be overclocked its more then enough, i did say personaly id go for it,

Farls

Gerry seems to be the leading hand on this type of thing, and I do intend on on over-clocking the system.I just don't know how to do that yet all i've overclocked so far is a voodoo3 gfx card. But im sure i'll work it out when i get the pc together, also im thinking about running two OS on it...Windows 2000 being the main one and also Linux because i seriously want to learn how to use Linux. These should work fine on it?

Farls

Gerry

In fact, I've just seen the taisol working this evening, and its not even the latest model, as it lacks the copper insert. It keeps a tbird 1gig @ 1.41 @ 1.825 volts, at 53 degrees under full load. Not too shabby, and doesn't cost nearly as much as a thermoengine. Remember you are (more than likely) thinking about the thermoengine with a 7000 rpm delta fan, which is noisy as hell, and which kinda skews the results a bit. The taisol comes with a fairly quiet low profile fan.

<edit> also, farls, yes win2k and linux will work grand.

[This message has been edited by Gerry (edited 29-07-2001).]

Fand

What about looking at a Santa Cruz rather than the Soundblaster? It's said to be super-stable.

The Big Chief

ive never heard of a sound card not being stable, but ive never tried to give it a good work out

Gerry

the sblive is stable on boards with the via 686b if you get the latest bios updates, and the latest 4-in-1 drivers.