My Conroe Rig

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Jeffrey903

Originally posted by: emilyek
My suggestions:

1 burner, but if you want 2, then get a pair of them-- that's my motto anyway

Change that PSU to something reliable like fortron, seasonic, antec. Rosewill is bargain basement stuff.

7600GT is ok, but x1800xt or 7900gt would be much better

Thanks for that. The reason I choose the burners that I did was because I wanted a dual layer burner and was interested in lightscribe. Unfortunately (as far as I know), there aren't any drives that can do both. If that was the case, I would've gotten one of those and a DVD/CD-RW drive. They aren't really much more expensive.

Do you have any suggestions for a specific PSU? How many watts do you think I'll need? I definately want a modular PSU, also.

The reason I choose the graphics card was because I don't do any intense gaming, and the one I choose seemed to be really powerful considering the price. I didn't want to spend $250 - $500 on a gfx card.

Thanks for your advice though.

No intense gaming makes the 7600 the ideal card for you. It's all too easy to recommend the fastest card one can think of if you are not the guy paying for it. The eVGA 7600GT OC provides great frame rates at a reasonable price and it does not require a PSU hook up.

 

[iamaelephant]

There's no reason not to save some money and go for the 7600gt. If you're not a hardcore gamer it's a mighty fine video card. I put one in my new system and it's great - I can run F.E.A.R. and DoD:S on max details with FSAA and AF and it's perfect. Unless you're upgrading in anticipation for the next generation of games then I'd go for the 7600GT.

 

[iamaelephant]

There's no reason not to save some money and go for the 7600gt. If you're not a hardcore gamer it's a mighty fine video card. I put one in my new system and it's great - I can run F.E.A.R. and DoD:S on max details with FSAA and AF and it's perfect. Unless you're upgrading in anticipation for the next generation of games then I'd go for the 7600GT.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: Jeffrey903
I realized something for the case. I am probably going to be transporting this around to and from college, so it might be a good idea not to have a huge case.

What does everyone think about the Cooler Master Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW case? It's small has enough room for everything I need, plus it looks nice (with the cheap part being a bonus).

For the PSU, does anyone have any problems with an Antec? I really want to have modular cabling (especially with a small case), and the Antec SmartPower 2.0 SP-500 has enough power and great reviews.

For the CPU, I'll go with either the E6400 or the E6600. I still haven't decided yet.

I'm going to have to choose a new motherboard, and it has to have RAID5 and Conroe support (and I'd prefer not to have to pay $300 for it).

I'll keep the same RAM, CPU cooler, DVD burner, DVD-ROM/CD-RW, and floppy drive.

For the harddrives, I currently have a 400GB WD SATA II drive in my current computer that I can probably pull and put in the new one. Thus I will only have to buy 3 harddrives instead of 4.

I still need help choosing one of these three graphics cards:
eVGA 256-P2-N583-AR Geforce 7900GT 256MB 256-bit - $240
XFX PV-T71G-UCF7 Geforce 7900GT 256MB 256-bit - $250
XFX PV-T71G-UDE7 GeForce 7900 GT EXTREME (520MHz) 256MB 256-bit - $260

Let me know what you think of these changes. Thanks.

The Centurion 5 is an ok case but it's cheap for a reason, for that price range I actually like InWin more. Otherwise Lian Li makes some of the best higher-end cases.

Antec is not the best choice for the PSU, see my post above for more info.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: iamaelephant
There's no reason not to save some money and go for the 7600gt. If you're not a hardcore gamer it's a mighty fine video card. I put one in my new system and it's great - I can run F.E.A.R. and DoD:S on max details with FSAA and AF and it's perfect. Unless you're upgrading in anticipation for the next generation of games then I'd go for the 7600GT.

Day of Defeat Source runs perfectly fine at 1600x1200 on my 9700PRO with a 1.4GHz Pentium 3 Tualatin and 512MB of ram in Windows 2000 Professional.

 

[Googer]

$90 6600 PCI-e! I think we have a winner!

 

[LittleNemoNES]

He says he's not much of a gamer. a 7600 GT will suffice. I recommend a seasonic 500w. The Asus mobo according to Anand is the best of launch conroe mobos.

Personally, I will sell my 2nd PC around the time DFI makes their Lanparty mobo.

 

[Jeffrey903]

I've been doing a lot of deliberating about what parts I was going to use, and here is where I am right now:

I'm still not decided on the motherboard. I may just go with the expensive Asus (also, I heard back from Abit and the AW8D will NOT work with Conroe)

I'm going to go with the eVGA 7600GT. I really don't need the 7900.

For the PSU, I think I'll go with an ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT ATX12V 500W . I really do want to have modular cabling.

Depending on whether I need 667 or 800 RAM, I'll get pqi TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM or CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2

For the harddrives, I already have a 400GB WD SATA II in my current computer that I probably could use in this new one. Considering that and the post that someone made about RAID5 problems, I think that I'll switch to a RAID 0+1 or 10 configuration. I'll buy 2 of the 320GB harddrives, and one 400GB, and then use my existing 400GB. This will give me 720GB of space, which I think is about 670GB once formatted.

For the case, I think I'm going to go with the Lian Li PC-65B Black Aluminum. It's a little smaller than my current one (which is pretty big), and every review on this case is a good one.


I'm not sure whether I'll get the E6600 or the E6400. I'll probably decide once I see the actual prices.

Everything else (CPU Cooler, DL DVD-RW with LightScribe, DVD-ROM/CD-RW, and floppy) are the same.

Let me know what you think and thanks everyone for the help.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: Jeffrey903
I've been doing a lot of deliberating about what parts I was going to use, and here is where I am right now:

I'm still not decided on the motherboard. I may just go with the expensive Asus (also, I heard back from Abit and the AW8D will NOT work with Conroe)

I'm going to go with the eVGA 7600GT. I really don't need the 7900.

For the PSU, I think I'll go with an ENERMAX Liberty ELT500AWT ATX12V 500W . I really do want to have modular cabling.

Depending on whether I need 667 or 800 RAM, I'll get pqi TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM or CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2

For the harddrives, I already have a 400GB WD SATA II in my current computer that I probably could use in this new one. Considering that and the post that someone made about RAID5 problems, I think that I'll switch to a RAID 0+1 or 10 configuration. I'll buy 2 of the 320GB harddrives, and one 400GB, and then use my existing 400GB. This will give me 720GB of space, which I think is about 670GB once formatted.

For the case, I think I'm going to go with the Lian Li PC-65B Black Aluminum. It's a little smaller than my current one (which is pretty big), and every review on this case is a good one.


I'm not sure whether I'll get the E6600 or the E6400. I'll probably decide once I see the actual prices.

Everything else (CPU Cooler, DL DVD-RW with LightScribe, DVD-ROM/CD-RW, and floppy) are the same.

Let me know what you think and thanks everyone for the help.

Sounds good, man. I'd personally go with the e6600 and OC the crap out of it. Of course an E6400 would do too...

Have you looked into the BenQ1655? I have 2 of them -- they are DL DVD+- R/W and have lightscribe.

BenQ 1655 @ Zipzoomfly.com

 

[Jeffrey903]

Does the BenQ have any advantages over the Samsung? The Samsung is a couple bucks cheaper. The Samsung also has DVD-RAM support (even though I'll never use it).

 

[Googer]

6600GT for $70 shipped has almost the same performance of the $150, 7600GT.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=202164158&loc=101&

 

[Jeffrey903]

After reading the latest E6300 vs E6400 article, I'm definately going to get the E6400 and just overclock it. That chip is really impressive.

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: Jeffrey903
For the case, I think I'm going to go with the Lian Li PC-65B Black Aluminum. It's a little smaller than my current one (which is pretty big), and every review on this case is a good one.

You want the Lian Li PC-7B not the 65. The 7B is the same case but with 120mm fans vs. the 65B's 80mm.