Venice Budget OC Build, what would you change?

[D22]

Venice 3000+ - $120
Asus A8N-E - $110 (Official X2 support already is big reason)
Sonata II - $101 ? 30 = 71 (TruePower 480w PSU)
X700 Pro - $115
1GB Geil PC 4000 -$132
250GB Maxtor 16MB cache NCQ - $115
NEC 3540a - $42
Liquid Cooling - $100 (considering aquagate mini)

Total ? 835 ? 30 = 805

Main question was on the RAM. Is it best to have two of the exact same sticks, or if I found 2 cheap used PC 4000 512 sticks would I be fine?

Other area of debate was the cooling. Read great things about the aquagate mini, but was wondering if it would be better to go with a GPU/CPU OC solution. If it was relatively unobtrusive and under $150 I could consider it. Also still considering backing off of the idea altogether and just going with an XP-90 with AS5.

 

[CreativeTom]

Well for a budget PC looks nice, I would change to a DFI Ultra-D board, and some OCZ Value VX. The reason I say this is because you are obviously looking for a large Overclock, nothing does it better then the combo i listed above.

 

[nick1985]

get some regular pc-3200 and use the saved cash for a better video card. the X700 isnt very good...

 

[coomar]

you probably don't need water unless you plan on going above 2.6, the asus board might not be able to go so high anyways, get a dfi and the ocz value vx or the epox board (which did very well in the anandtech review) with some corsair vs and a better videocard, 6800 vanillas and x800's are in the 150-175 dollar range

overall, with the videocard your using, your not going to notice anything significant performance wise over a 2.0ghz, so the water cooling is wasted (if you want a quieter solution, pick up an xp-90/120 and put on a silent fan), personally i would get the dfi nf4 ultra which is 20 bucks more than the asus and either the ocz value vx @110 or the ocz gold vx @140 with an 6800 vanilla/x800 since your getting a 480watt psu

 

[Hacp]

DFI NF4-D LAN PARTY and OCZ value VX. Costs 32 dollars less than your build, and you can spend that money on a x800 or a 6600GT!

 

[SGtheArtist]

For a budget box the water cooling is overkill. I would go with some value ram 1GB=$80. And invest the difference in the video card.

The Venice cores with the stock HSF overclock to an average of 2.5GHz. The overall overclock is about 2.6GHz (air, water, phase change)

Source www.overclockers.com

Would you really want to overclock the X2 processor once you get it?

Just my thoughts.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Get some regular value RAM (Corsair ValueSelect). Or OCZ Value VX if you get a DFI or ABIT board. No need for the PC4000 (Athlon64 supports only 3200, and "unofficially" 3500)

 

[NatePo717]

Originally posted by: Hacp
DFI NF4-D LAN PARTY and OCZ value VX. Costs 32 dollars less than your build, and you can spend that money on a x800 or a 6600GT!

And drop the water cooling. $100 water cooling system will perform at about the level of high end air cooling or just a little worse. You could save yourself nearly $60 and get a Zalman 7000B - Cu and spend the extra $92 you save from switching the board to the DFI and the ram to the OCZ to get the X800 or a 6800 and unlock the pipes to get a GT and then OC the schizzle out of it

 

[D22]

Hmm, okay Value VX is the way to go then? With that and the DFI with my setup what should I expect if I had the aquagate on it?

And yeah I see the point in the video card argument, but I don't have enough time for games, so $115 for a 256MB card that could prob sell for 80-90 still in 6 months is a wise investment me thinks, unless I find a true bargain on a 6600gt or a a 6800.

Oh yea, while I'm at it - budget tv tuner card recommendation?

 

[NatePo717]

If you want the tv tuner just get one of these

X600PRO AIW

 

[imported_Frallan]

Also drop the Maxtor it is not supported for nF4 chipsets... Get a Hitachi SATA-2 Deskstar instead (or 2 and RAID0 them they even beat Raptors in RAID0).

 

[NeonFlak]

Pass whatever you're smoking Frallan, I want to be in lala land too.

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: Frallan
Also drop the Maxtor it is not supported for nF4 chipsets... Get a Hitachi SATA-2 Deskstar instead (or 2 and RAID0 them they even beat Raptors in RAID0).

ignore all of this information. it is flat out wrong

 

[D22]

Maybe I'm just picky, but I hate having my stuff integrated together. If I toss the card and want to keep the tuner I can't. Yeah there is always buying and selling and probably coming out even, but just like the flexibility of doing it this way.

BTW- there are reviews of aquagate showing it smoking heatsinks like the xp-120...it really isn't a bad product.