Bored? Criticize my hypothetical rig.

[mzulchvor]

Here's the meaty part of the lineup:

Case: Lian Li PC-65
Motherboard: DFI NF4 UT Ultra-D
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+ Venice retail (If it ever comes out! I'll probably get impatient and order the winchester...)
PSU: OCZ PowerStream 420W
Video Card: ATI Radeon X800XL (Built by ATI)
RAM: Corsair Value Select Dual Channel Kit 1G(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB SATA w/ NCQ
Optical Drive: NEC ND-3520A 16x DVD+/-R and CD-RW
CPU Fan: Zalman 7000B Al Cu

All suggestions are very much appreciated.

Edit: Maybe I was wrong about overclocking. If I use an aftermarket CPU HSF and some better ram, would that be enough?

 

[Corporate Thug]

i would criticize, but all looks well

 

[Penguinus]

why use tt silent boost? I haven't heard the greatest things about tts... Zalmans, on the other hand... Or Thermalright if you have cash to burn heh.

 

[imported_Tick]

Sounds good, but the mobo might be a little overkill, you could save a little there. Other than that, good. Think about going with 2 gigs of ram.
Oh, and perhaps a Zalman cooling solution....

 

[Maluno]

I posted a question earlier regarding the bios updates needed to run a venice. Apparently you will need to get someone to flash the bios for you, with their own chip or use an old 939 chip you have laying around. Just wanted to make you aware.

 

[piroroadkill]

You've done your homework, there's nothing to truly criticise.

Infact the spec I recommended to a friend of mine (and he then went and bought everything exactly I said) is almost identical.

Although he has a Vapochill Lightspeed (I Didn't recommend this, he flipped out and went insane and bought it).

 

[MobiusPizza]

Perfect choice on both CPU and graphic card. Excellent config for a first timer. I am impressed.

 

[Megatomic]

I particularly like your choice in GPUs. I just got myself an AGP model of the same card. :thumbsup:

But I do much prefer EPOX to DFI. I got two stinkers (no POST DOA) in a row from them back in the NF2 days and I've sworn them off since.

 

[mzulchvor]

Edit: Post moved to top, as people were not reading it

 

[JoLim24601]

Originally posted by: mzulchvor
Here's the meaty part of the lineup:

Case: Lian Li PC-65
Motherboard: DFI NF4 UT Ultra-D
CPU: Athlon 64 3200+ Venice retail (If it ever comes out! I'll probably get impatient and order the winchester...)
PSU: OCZ PowerStream 420W
Video Card: ATI Radeon X800XL (Built by ATI)
RAM: Corsair Value Select Dual Channel Kit 1G(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200
HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB SATA w/ NCQ
Optical Drive: NEC ND-3520A 16x DVD+/-R and CD-RW
CPU Fan: Thermaltake Silent Boost for Athlon 64 and Opteron

All suggestions are very much appreciated.

Edit: If anyone is wondering, I don't plan on overclocking, but I do plan on gaming. If any of this is overkill, I'd love to shave some off the price.

Stick with retail hsf since you're not ocing.

As for ram why don't you go with twinmos tmsp 400 or g.skill? Good value ram with low latencies

The power supply is good but if you want quiet go for the Seasonic S12 430. Again you'll find reviews on the powerstream and seasonic on silentpcreview.com

These are all just small little boosts and not that significant but I thought I would point them out.

 

[JMWarren]

Ummm, isn't there a problem with Corsair VS ram and the DFI board?

Mike

 

[Lonyo]

DFI board = unnecessary if you're not overclocking.
Go for something cheaper.

 

[Jon855]

Originally posted by: Tick
Sounds good, but the mobo might be a little overkill, you could save a little there. Other than that, good. Think about going with 2 gigs of ram.
Oh, and perhaps a Zalman cooling solution....

I disagree 2 gig of ram would be overkill. 1 gig is more than enough for everything today.

 

[Melchior]

Perhaps a different set of RAM. But still, that rig begs to be overclocked.

 

[akugami]

Unless it's significantly cheaper, why not go for the newer Seagate 7200.8 series of drives instead of the older 7200.7?

Forget the Zalman 7000 if you're not overclocking. The retail HSF on the Winchester (and presumably it'll be the same for the Venice) Athlon 64's are pretty good. They're not the quietest things around but they're not that noise. They also provide darned good cooling for being stock cooling. My system which is overclocked by over 700mhz is running on stock cooling.

 

[S Random]

DFI board is good for OCing infact it was made for it, if you dont want to OC then go with MSI nf4 plat, also you might wanna go with an nvidia gpu cause the ultra board can be modded rather easily to SLi, so that would open up future upgrade path

 

[imperium95]

Originally posted by: Jon855

Originally posted by: Tick
Sounds good, but the mobo might be a little overkill, you could save a little there. Other than that, good. Think about going with 2 gigs of ram.
Oh, and perhaps a Zalman cooling solution....

I disagree 2 gig of ram would be overkill. 1 gig is more than enough for everything today.

If you do go 2 gigs go 2x1024 instead of 4x512. From what I gather you lose performance if you have 4 instead of 2 sticks of ram...

 

[DfiDude]

Originally posted by: S Random
DFI board is good for OCing infact it was made for it, if you dont want to OC then go with MSI nf4 plat, also you might wanna go with an nvidia gpu cause the ultra board can be modded rather easily to SLi, so that would open up future upgrade path

What are you talking about? Msi is a good oc'er too..Just no as good becuz it doesnt have 4V vdimm thats it other than that they are both good boards.