Please help with my First Time Build

[Sinnerx96]

I have been very patient for some time now. Gathering all useful knowledge I can find on every one of the parts I need, and a lot of researching reviews and forums. I think it's coming Very close to the time I want to finally order my new system. So I'd like to see what you guys think of how I'm doing so far. The only thing I will be using from my old system is my Hard Drives possibly. I would like to use the 250gb SATA HD I'm buying as storage, video and such. Then use one of my existing ATA100 HD's to run Windows.
This system will be used for a few different things. General Usage & Browsing, Audio Production/Editing (Cubase SX), Video Editing(Adobe Premiere Pro), some Gaming, and as much of an OverClock as possible.

I am coming from an old P4 2.4C and p4p800 deluxe, so I'm sure I will notice a huge improvement. Anyway,...Here's what I got so far;

-CPU: Core 2 Duo E6400

-MoBo: Gigabyte DS3 (Maybe something else? DQ6? P5B Deluxe? AB9 Pro?)

-RAM: Super Talent DDR2 800 4-4-3-8 2gb(2x1024)

-Vid Card: Sapphire 1950 Pro 256mb

-PSU: Silverstone SST-ST50EF-Plus 500W

-HD: WD Caviar 250gb 7200rpm 8mb cache SATA

-Case: Lian Li PC-60APLUS W This has 2 120mm fans, 2 80mm fans, and one is on a cpu air duct. Does this mean I wouldn't need an upgraded CPU Cooler? What about a North Bridge Cooler?

-DVD: NEC 3550A DVD Burner

-Cooling: Arctic Silver 5, NB Fan??? CPU HS & Fan???

I would like to OC this as far as possible. 3.5+ghz with 1:1 maybe? I would like to know what you guys think of this. And also,...Seeing as how the Case I have seams to have ample cooling and a CPU Air Duct,...Would I benefit from getting an upgraded CPU HS & Fan? What about North Bridge Cooling?

Thanks A Lot in advance guys. I'd Really appreciate the help.

 

[pkme2]

You got PM. Good luck on your build.

 

[LouPoir]

Looks good -

 

[Sinnerx96]

Originally posted by: pkme2
You got PM. Good luck on your build.

Thanks A Lot! I saved all of that. Some great info there. I appreciate it!

-Tony-

 

[benplaut]

Please don't give all your advice in PM... for those doing research, it's nice to have it all there for scanning through

If you can get your hands on one, see if you can find a Tuniq Tower 120 HSF. It's considered the best of the bunch, although the differences really aren't that large.

 

[caberguy]

Not that there's anything wrong the the DS3 (I'm running an S3 myself). But I'd at least look at the Biostar Mobos. Based on the Anandtech review you should get better OCing for less money.

 

[de8212]

you mention video editing so I thought I would add that the DS3 does not have a firewire connection. this really only applies to if you are wanting to import video from a DV camcorder or similar. Not a huge deal as I'm sure you can buy a pci firewire card for pretty cheap.
Just wanted to point that out.

 

[JoPalm]

What's faster, running the OS off the ATA drive or the SATA one?

 

[de8212]

Originally posted by: JoPalm
What's faster, running the OS off the ATA drive or the SATA one?

sata is faster

 

[brikis98]

if you do audio and video editing, you'll probably want to max out your hard drive speed. i recommend getting a SATAII 7200.10 16mb cache hard drive from seagate in the 300gb range, as they use perpendicular recording, have decent platter density, and should be very fast. they are a better investment than the 250gb you wanted to get, as newegg has them for around $95 routinely and special deals on them pop up all the time. although the difference in day to day use won't be huge, definitely go with the SATA drive over the ATA drive for any kind of hard drive intensive tasks, such as the audio/video editing you mentioned. that is, install windows & everything on the SATA drive and use the ATA for backup or storing data other than whatever audio/video you'll be editing.

 

[JoPalm]

Which would be faster, him running one SATA hard drive vs the OS/apps on the ATA and the storage on the SATA?

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: JoPalm
Which would be faster, him running one SATA hard drive vs the OS/apps on the ATA and the storage on the SATA?

depends what the ATA drive is... although SATA allows for more bandwidth, in practice, HD's never even use all the bandwidth available via ATA... so the other specs of the HD are usually more important: the rotational speed, the cache, whether it uses perpendicular recording, platter density, etc...

as i said before, the difference in speed between hard drives is typically unnoticeable to the typical user (aside from OS and game loading times) but it does make a difference in very hard drive intensive tasks... if he has an older ATA drive lying around, a new 7200.10 SATA drive will probably be significantly faster for anything that you need HD performance for... so his OS, speed intensive games and apps and whatever video/audio he'll be editing should be on the new HD. everything else - pictures, music, word documents, etc - can go on the slower drive.

 

[Sinnerx96]

Originally posted by: caberguy
Not that there's anything wrong the the DS3 (I'm running an S3 myself). But I'd at least look at the Biostar Mobos. Based on the Anandtech review you should get better OCing for less money.

I considered that. But the price of the Biostar kind of scares me. I'm looking for Rock Stable Performance and High OC ability. But I don't want to pay more than I Have to. If there's something better for me, I don't think I'd mind spending a bit more. MoBo's seam to be a touchy subject around here, so it's hard coming to final conclusion about the one best for me. Others I was considering are the Abit AB9 Pro, and the Asus P5B Deluxe. Would any of these be more Stable and OC better than the S3, DS3, or the Biostar? And would I have problems with any of these running 4 Case Fans, and a CPU HS & Fan like the Arctic Cooler 7 Pro? That'd be 5 fans total. Unless I'd need a NB fan, which I doubt with the case I'm getting.

Thanks.

 

[Sinnerx96]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: JoPalm
Which would be faster, him running one SATA hard drive vs the OS/apps on the ATA and the storage on the SATA?

depends what the ATA drive is... although SATA allows for more bandwidth, in practice, HD's never even use all the bandwidth available via ATA... so the other specs of the HD are usually more important: the rotational speed, the cache, whether it uses perpendicular recording, platter density, etc...

as i said before, the difference in speed between hard drives is typically unnoticeable to the typical user (aside from OS and game loading times) but it does make a difference in very hard drive intensive tasks... if he has an older ATA drive lying around, a new 7200.10 SATA drive will probably be significantly faster for anything that you need HD performance for... so his OS, speed intensive games and apps and whatever video/audio he'll be editing should be on the new HD. everything else - pictures, music, word documents, etc - can go on the slower drive.

The drives I have now are Two Seagate Barracudas. One has 8mb cache, the other has 2mb cache. I got them with my pc which was back in 2000-2002. I want to keep O/S and Programs on a Completely Separate Drive for performance. Then use the big drive for Video and Storage. I'll most likely be getting 2 SATA drives eventually. One smaller one for O/S & Programs, and a big one for video and storage. I know that keeping the Page File on a completely separate drive boosts performance as well, but I'm not sure how I can do that without buying a 3rd Sata drive.

Thanks A Lot.

 

[Sinnerx96]

I have a question about Ram. Since I'm getting a E6400, I most likely won't be getting much higher than 3600mhz correct? And that would be DDR2 900 with 8x multiplier. Unless I use a 7x multiplier to get to 3600mhz, but then I'd be at DDR2 1028 with looser timings, which wouldn't be as good right? Basically what I'm asking is, wouldn't I be better off getting ram that OC's well to DDR2 900 with good timings, rather than getting ram with abilities that I'd never use?

This is of course only true if it is indeed better to run DDR2 900 with tighter timings with 8x multiplier (3600mhz) than running DDR2 1028 with Loose timings and 7x multiplier (3600mhz). And I'm not sure which is so. I'm trying to find the best place to put my money when it comes to ram. The Super Talent I have listed above(or Team Xtreme) might be more than I need.