New system

[Darzil]

Any thoughts on this potential system ?

Aiming not to break the bank, but to have a decent, solid PC for the next couple of years, that also runs very quietly. Generally aiming for the best performance I can get whilst not running loud. It's based roughly on my wife's PC (Same graphics - though hers not SLi, same power supply, and they both run very quiet).

Bought Stuff

Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
DabsXtreme Zalman Aero Flower Cooler CU
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB PCI-E x 2 (SLi - this product uses a Zalman heatpipe, not a fan, for cooling)
Corsair Memory PC3200 2 x 512 Mb Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200Gb SATA150 x 2 (Running in RAID 1 for redundancy and read speed performance)
DabsXtreme Zalman 400W Ultra-Quiet PSU

Stuff from old PC

PCI Network Card (100Mb)
Corsair Memory PC3200 2 x 512Mb Kit
Case
DVD Drive
CD Writer
Floppy Drive

Darzil

 

[Saggy]

Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB PCI-E x 2 (SLi - this product uses a Zalman heatpipe, not a fan, for cooling)

6600GT SLi isn't worth it (and if you are using display with <1600x1200 resolution its kinda wasted cash) Get 6800GT or similiar and upgrade to another one when need be.

Apart from that it looks nice (I would go for DFI motherboard though).

 

[Roalith]

If you're going to be playing mostly DAOC on it, I'd buy a higher end GFX card, and use the extra cash to get 2 gig of some tasty CAS2 latency ram. Way I understand it, DAOC DR client is much more memory intensive than GFX intensive, so 1 x Geforce 7800 GT + faster ram vs 2 x 6600 GTs should leave you with a better frame rate, and especially loading times.

Then again, you're slapping in 2 gig of PC3200 stuff - I take it the board can only hit 400 FSB without overclocking? In which case two gig of CAS2 PC3200 might be a waste of cash, if you plan on using it in another system in the future as it will bottleneck a newer motherboard.

How important is redundancy to you? Will you have a backup drive on an IDE or other SATA channel? Could just as well go for two 120 gb Barracudas in RAID 0 for the faster performance and greater capacity.

400W PSU be enough for that system? Especially with SLI Graphics cards, two SATA drives, etc etc?

Note I'm not recommending, just throwing some alternate ideas out

 

[Darzil]

Well, find me some low noise cards higher than 6600GT and we'll talk about them (Though I was looking at the custom Zalman coolers for 7800 cards - though I suspect fitting them invalidates manufacturer warranties - so that is a possibility).

Redundancy is reasonably important to me, storage space isn't an issue (running happily on a 40Gb Barracuda at the moment), speed is important. RAID 0 = Double failure rate over no RAID (either drive fails and you've lost the lot). RAID 1 = Same speed write, double speed read, and redundancy thrown in.

Darzil

 

[Darzil]

Couple of options. As at present that Camelot doesn't benefit from SLi (though it may in the future), I'm looking at these two :

Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
DabsXtreme Zalman Aero Flower Cooler CU
Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB PCI-E
Corsair Memory PC3200 2 x 512 Mb Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200Gb SATA150 (2 as RAID 1)
DabsXtreme Zalman 400W Ultra-Quiet PSU

Which is a bit over £720.

Or this one, with far better graphics, but also noisier

Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+
DabsXtreme Zalman Aero Flower Cooler CU
Gigabyte GeForce 7800 GTX 256Mb
Zalman VF700-CU LED Quite Copper VGA Cooler (Reckoned to be able 10dB quieter than the standard VGA fan)
Corsair Memory PC3200 2 x 512 Mb Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200Gb SATA150 (2 as RAID 1)
Nesteq Semi-fanless ASM PSU, 520 W

At a bit over £1050.

Darzil

 

[Chronictank]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+

Darzil

If you are comfortable with overclocking you are better off with operton

and for a motherboard i strongly suggest you go ASUS or the DFI Lanparty range

 

[Roalith]

How about a Tagan 530 watt PSU? They're relatively quiet (I seem to recall hearing 18dba somewhere), and nice solid, reliable power supplies. Bit on the pricey side at £70, but one thing I would recommend is a >400w PSU.

 

[Chronictank]

How about a Tagan 530 watt PSU? They're relatively quiet (I seem to recall hearing 18dba somewhere), and nice solid, reliable power supplies. Bit on the pricey side at £70, but one thing I would recommend is a >400w PSU.

Hiper 580W Type-R is a nice buy (runs at near silent),
but a Tagan is ok also

 

[Naffets]

Also if your using SLI, make sure the board you get has two true 16x lanes.

My next upgrade will be a RD580 board with a X1900XTX and my X1800XL running in crossfire

Currently i have:

P180 Case
Abit AN8 Ultra
AMD A64 3700+ @ 2.8ghz
1GB ocz platinum (on order) edit: x2
2 x 600gb sata drives in raid 0
600W modular psu (ultra x i think it is)
X1800XL

Stock cooling other than case.

 

[confused]

Personally i'd stick with an Asus mobo, i've never had any problems with them, also atm ATI gfx cards are better bang per buck, so i'd stick in an x1800. Also as amd are now doing a 3800+ 2x chip without fan it i'd recommend that as its only very slightly less powerfull than the 4200+ 2x, and unless you're going for a 4400+ 2x with its 1mb cache then its the best value one there. If you're looking for a good Modular psu i'd definitely go for an Enermax liberty 500w one.

GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£199.95 £199.95
CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£164.95 £164.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
MY-006-OK OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£89.95 £89.95
HS-015-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA)
£29.95 £29.95
CA-025-EN Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN)
£63.95 £63.95
HD-017-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2004C 200GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-017-SA)
£57.95 £57.95
Subtotal £676.65
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £120.16
Total £806.76

edit: specced same comp at dabs/OCuk/scan.co.uk and Ocuk is quite abit cheaper on the total

Also you'd need a gpu cooler, but the new zalman one is coming out soon and thats going to be significantly quieter than the stock one