Building New System - Looking for Your Input

[john6305]

Hi all,

I'm new to these forums. Well, in the posting sense I am. I have been reading these forums for quite some time. This is just the first time I've ever posted. Be gentle.

I am building a new system and I would like you guys/gals' input on it if that would be okay? I could use any help or advice you have to offer.

Here goes the list:

DFI Lanparty UT Nforce4 motherboard (155.43 preorder via ncix.us.com)
Amd Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Core (193.00 with free shipping)
Mushkin 512x2=1GB DDR400 PC3200 RAM with heat seperators unbuffered (136.00 with free shipping)
MSI GeForce6600 GT 128MB RAM PCI-E (184.99 with free shipping)

For a grand total of $669.00 give or take a dollar. Seriously.

At the moment, I have:

Thermaltake Xaser III case
512 DDR PC2100 RAM
AMD Athlon XP 2200 (i think. Too lazy to check)
Vantec Aeroflow Heatsink
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
240GB WD 8MB Cache special edition
Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard (old, I know, but a classic)
Asus A7NX Deluxe motherboard
Thermaltake PurePower 420W with 12V

Now, in my opinion, I think its a big upgrade from what I currently have. But, I'm just looking for input.
My budget max is 700 bucks. I don't want it to go over.

My questions are: Is this a big, I mean, big upgrade from what I have? And, do you agree with the items that I have chosen and the prices that I am getting them at?

is there a different setup I could do that would be superior and fall in to my 700 budget?
I do plan to OC a little bit. I'm new to OC so I don't want to mess up anything, but what are my chances of getting a decent OC out of the above things I plan to purchase? And with me having the Vantec Aeroflow, will I have to get a new heatsink for the 939?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Much appreciated.

 

[Dijital]

Originally posted by: john6305
Hi all,

I'm new to these forums. Well, in the posting sense I am. I have been reading these forums for quite some time. This is just the first time I've ever posted. Be gentle.

I am building a new system and I would like you guys/gals' input on it if that would be okay? I could use any help or advice you have to offer.

Here goes the list:

DFI Lanparty UT Nforce4 motherboard (155.43 preorder via ncix.us.com)
Amd Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester Core (193.00 with free shipping)
Mushkin 512x2=1GB DDR400 PC3200 RAM with heat seperators unbuffered (136.00 with free shipping)
MSI GeForce6600 GT 128MB RAM PCI-E (184.99 with free shipping)

For a grand total of $669.00 give or take a dollar. Seriously.

At the moment, I have:

Thermaltake Xaser III case
512 DDR PC2100 RAM
AMD Athlon XP 2200 (i think. Too lazy to check)
Vantec Aeroflow Heatsink
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
240GB WD 8MB Cache special edition
Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard (old, I know, but a classic)
Asus A7NX Deluxe motherboard
Thermaltake PurePower 420W with 12V

Now, in my opinion, I think its a big upgrade from what I currently have. But, I'm just looking for input.
My budget max is 700 bucks. I don't want it to go over.

My questions are: Is this a big, I mean, big upgrade from what I have? And, do you agree with the items that I have chosen and the prices that I am getting them at?

is there a different setup I could do that would be superior and fall in to my 700 budget?
I do plan to OC a little bit. I'm new to OC so I don't want to mess up anything, but what are my chances of getting a decent OC out of the above things I plan to purchase? And with me having the Vantec Aeroflow, will I have to get a new heatsink for the 939?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Much appreciated.

it sounds like a pretty good setup. you may want to check your power supply to see if they have all the proper connectors for your motherboard.

 

[john6305]

Anybody else have any input?

 

[kindest]

Originally posted by: john6305
And with me having the Vantec Aeroflow, will I have to get a new heatsink for the 939?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
Much appreciated.

uhh ya.. the vantec aeroflow aint going to fit over a new a64 chip.
you can use the retail hs/fan with the amd64 processor you get.. its just not going to suffice for extreme overclocking. everything else is ok. its going to be a vast improvement i dont know about BIG.
xp2200 is pretty fast.. the new ram and video card setup will probably be the biggest improvement you see.. but once windows xp 64bit comes out youll be ready at least.


DFI Lanparty UT Nforce4 motherboard (155.43 preorder via ncix.us.com)
what site is ncix.us.com. it doesnt exist.

also think about getting the sli version just in case down the road you want to throw another 6600GT in it.

 

[Vtach]

1. Do not install ide drivers yet.
2. Learn how to reset your cmos b4 you do anything your going to need it.... <at least i did> lol
3. Stay away from sw drivers from nividia crashed my system could not get is up until I did a reformat.
4. Leave everything on auto for bios.
5. Come here and cry alot like I do and hope and pray that somebody can help you when the system does not work.
6. Write down the serial number of you mb b4 you install it and all other products serial numbers b4 you install makes tech support calls easy for you and makes you look like you know what you are doing to the tech guys.
7. Do not update your bios until you have had the system running for 24 hours.
8. Pray that it works when you hit that power up button for the first time.
Thats all folks !!!

 

[john6305]

Ok thats what I thought. SO thats another 30-50 bucks for a heatsink. Ok.. What do you people recommend? Whats a good low-budget heatsink that works well for OCing?

Yeah I'm happy with my XP2200 so it will probably just go in another system. Since I'm pretty much building from the ground up, etc.

NCIX.com is actually Canadian but they have a US merchant here. I thought it was something like ncix.us.com. Anyways, it exist. Do you recommend the DFI?

Also, I have a ThermalTake PurePower 420 model # HPC-420-102-DF
I have been doing research but I cannot tell if it has the necessary connectors. Or can I just use adapters? I'm lost in this area.

As for the SLI recommendation, I thought SLI had a lot of bugs that needed to be ironed out? Like lack of profiles, distortion on the 6800GTs, etc.? Plus, the DFI Ultra can be modded to be SLI (hard part is finding the SLI bridge chip).

Thanks for the input so far! Please keep it coming!

 

[imported_slippy]

Price is good. I don't think people have tested that board for OCing and memory compatibility yet, so I don't think you'll get many answers on that. I have the msi6600gt and even though I like it, I wouldn't recommend it. The documentation is some of the absolute worse I have seen for any product in history. There is no input device like they advertise on their website, so watch out for that too. I feel their advertisement was a bit false, and they've compromised their integrity with me. The chip works though, and the fan is quiet like most reviews point out.

 

[kindest]

Originally posted by: john6305
Ok thats what I thought. SO thats another 30-50 bucks for a heatsink. Ok.. What do you people recommend? Whats a good low-budget heatsink that works well for OCing?

Yeah I'm happy with my XP2200 so it will probably just go in another system. Since I'm pretty much building from the ground up, etc.

NCIX.com is actually Canadian but they have a US merchant here. I thought it was something like ncix.us.com. Anyways, it exist. Do you recommend the DFI?

Also, I have a ThermalTake PurePower 420 model # HPC-420-102-DF
I have been doing research but I cannot tell if it has the necessary connectors. Or can I just use adapters? I'm lost in this area.

As for the SLI recommendation, I thought SLI had a lot of bugs that needed to be ironed out? Like lack of profiles, distortion on the 6800GTs, etc.? Plus, the DFI Ultra can be modded to be SLI (hard part is finding the SLI bridge chip).

Thanks for the input so far! Please keep it coming!

http://www.highpowersupply.com...-ps-hpc420102df.htm#sp
is your power supply.. it has a 20 pin connector which wont work for the new boards since its 24 pin.
however i know with my OCZ psu i can use the 20 pin connector along with the 4 pin one and it becomes a perfect working 24 pin. and yours has the 4 pin so that should work? you should get confirmation on that because i do not know 100%. it says recommended for a64 bit boxes. the heatsink/fan combos you will hear a lot of praise about are the Zalman 7000's / 7700's all copper or aluminum copper as well as XP 90's and 120's. they are all super quiet and do massive cooling. but you can use the stock heatsink and fan at first and always add another one later. the stock one is actually pretty darn good i just wouldnt try to overclock it to EXTREME speeds on it.

 

[john6305]

Thanks for the responses. I do appreciate it. I've ordered the RAM, the graphics card, and the processor. Now I just have to decide about the motherboard. I do want an NF4 board, but with all of the stuff I've been hearing lately about how expensive they are (which doesn't seem to be the case for the non-SLI boards. They are a little bit more expensive than the NF3s, so thats not too bad.) and the problems that they have been having with supplying them. I don't know what to get. If I knew I could get the DFI board, I would settle for that and probably be happy...

Anyways, as for the PSU, I will try the one I have. If it doesn't work, I will upgrade.
Thanks for the info about the heatsinks/fan combos. I am getting OEM processor so I will have to buy one. Any other recommendations? Good links to find a good price?
Thanks again!

 

[kindest]

Originally posted by: john6305
Thanks for the responses. I do appreciate it. I've ordered the RAM, the graphics card, and the processor. Now I just have to decide about the motherboard. I do want an NF4 board, but with all of the stuff I've been hearing lately about how expensive they are (which doesn't seem to be the case for the non-SLI boards. They are a little bit more expensive than the NF3s, so thats not too bad.) and the problems that they have been having with supplying them. I don't know what to get. If I knew I could get the DFI board, I would settle for that and probably be happy...

Anyways, as for the PSU, I will try the one I have. If it doesn't work, I will upgrade.
Thanks for the info about the heatsinks/fan combos. I am getting OEM processor so I will have to buy one. Any other recommendations? Good links to find a good price?
Thanks again!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...F1/103-6279846-7146209
http://www.xoxide.com/zalman-7...cu-led-cpu-cooler.html

zipzoomfly.com another good place.

 

[Ctrl Z]

Would a Amd Athlon 64 3200+ be any advantage over an Athlon 64 3000+ if the intention was to overclock the CPU? In other words, is the 3200+ a better or worse overclocking than the 3000+ with current revision chips?

 

[john6305]

From my understanding, the 3200 is a better choice because its not priced that much higher than a 3000+ and you are closer to the 3500 originally so when you do overclock, you don't have to overclock as much. Thats what I've read. I may be way off though. But I am 99.99998 percent sure that the 3200+ is the best ratio for bang for buck.

 

[Ctrl Z]

I keep reading of those with a 3000+ who can reliably overclock them to 2.6Ghz (9 x 293fsb) or close to it with air cooling and stock voltage. I have not read of this level of success as often with the 3200+. The 3200+ uses a 10 multiplier so at the same speed, the fsb would be clocked considerably lower which would not offer the same overall performance correct? Perhaps the choice may partly depend on the quality of the RAM you use and if the RAM can run at such high fsb speeds. Though in most motherboards the RAM can always be set to a lower ratio than 1:1.

 

[john6305]

Ahh I did not know this. I'm ignorant when it comes to OCing so maybe I should keep my opinion to myself in that matter. I myself will not be OCing THAT much. I'll see what I can figure out and if the temps are right, I'll stay as high as I can go without overheating or feeling like I'm pushing it too much.

How significantly does it reduce the life of your components when you OC like people say you can with this hardware?

 

[Dijital]

Originally posted by: john6305
Ahh I did not know this. I'm ignorant when it comes to OCing so maybe I should keep my opinion to myself in that matter. I myself will not be OCing THAT much. I'll see what I can figure out and if the temps are right, I'll stay as high as I can go without overheating or feeling like I'm pushing it too much.

How significantly does it reduce the life of your components when you OC like people say you can with this hardware?

as long as you keep your parts sufficiently cooled, you should be fine.