Yet another begging pleading attempt to have highly trained pros point out flaws

[Diasper]

I'd go as cheap as I could and with the rest of the money saved either put it in a pot for future upgrades and hence the computer would go alot further.

Or else spend it on something that would make me happy.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: dguy6789
If you have the money nowadays, there is absolutely NO reason to get a non dual core system. He has the money, he is getting it, it is a good choice.

Absolutely, but let me play Devil's Advocate here

Why blow $1000 (or so) for a 4800+? You could get the 4400+ and easily clock it to (and probably past) 4800+ for 400 less. That extra $ could be put in to more system RAM, another 7800, et al.

Or for $350 you could get a 3700+ San Diego core, overclock it, and have a SMOKING gaming machine. The $700 savings on the CPU alone could get you a lot!

But I'm just playing devil's advocate

But that involves that whole overclocking process again. And I am just not willing to do that at the moment. Maybe when this system gets too outdated to be functional I'll try overclocking it, or if I build another system. But this will be the very first from scratch build and I need to keep expectations on my skill nice and low and feasible.

But I understand what you are say completely. On the OCing side, I have been reading about people OC's the 4800+s to 3.1 GHz... (On phase change and such though, which is way more than I want to ever deal with on a computer. I get enough of liquid handling HPLC)

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
With only a 19" monitor the 7800 is total overkill, save money elsewhere and get a nice 24-30" widescreen Cinema monitor.

I am hoping that with a 19 in LCD that I'll be able to just keep turning down the eye candy (AA/AF) over time and get more use out of it in the long run.

24-30"! Very nice. I think I am going to be very happy with the 19 in though, the biggest TV in my house is a 19in and my last monitor was a 15in CRT. 19in LCDs seem monsterously huge to me at the moment. Lol.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Originally posted by: Diasper
I'd go as cheap as I could and with the rest of the money saved either put it in a pot for future upgrades and hence the computer would go alot further.

Or else spend it on something that would make me happy.

Lol. The computer is my big hobby (outside of hockey, and I have a full set of equipment for that already) that I decided to blow cash on. I agree that, longest term, saving money and upgrading as you go seems like the best strategy for long term computer functionality. But in practice, anything I don't spend of my $3,600 budget will end up getting eaten up by trivial things in the next year... (Baby clothes, food, car repairs, etc...) So its use it or lose it.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I like everything just the way you picked it, with the exception of the monitor/GPU.


If you can't go with a big monitor don't waste the money on the 7800. All the reviews I.ve read indicate that at 1600 x 1200 and lower there is zero difference between a 6800GT or 6800U and the 7800. Only at 2000+ resolutions does the 7800 begin to shine

 

[svi]

I am hoping that with a 19 in LCD that I'll be able to just keep turning down the eye candy (AA/AF) over time and get more use out of it in the long run.

Something just occured to me... why not get a 6800GT so you can play today's games comfortably, then spend the extra hundreds you saved on an upgrade in a couple of years? Today's top-of-the-line card is generally worse than tomorrow's midrange (GF3 Ti200 < GF4 Ti4200, GF4 Ti4600 < R9500 Pro, R9700 Pro < 6600GT ...), and today's top-of-the-line is no match for tomorrow's mid-high-end ($300 range).

But in practice, anything I don't spend of my $3,600 budget will end up getting eaten up by trivial things in the next year... (Baby clothes, food, car repairs, etc...) So its use it or lose it.

But otherwise, other money will go towards clothes, food, or car repairs. You'll end up down the same amount of money in the end run, and with a better computer three years from now.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
I like everything just the way you picked it, with the exception of the monitor/GPU.



If you can't go with a big monitor don't waste the money on the 7800. All the reviews I.ve read indicate that at 1600 x 1200 and lower there is zero difference between a 6800GT or 6800U and the 7800. Only at 2000+ resolutions does the 7800 begin to shine

My understanding of the comparisons at 12x10 is that today's games are not GPU limited at that resolution. Would this be the case with the next few though? BF2 shows differences (90 vs 60 fps is not noticable, but it shows that there is a difference already with the cards abilities). I could be totally off base here though.

Originally posted by: svi

I am hoping that with a 19 in LCD that I'll be able to just keep turning down the eye candy (AA/AF) over time and get more use out of it in the long run.

Something just occured to me... why not get a 6800GT so you can play today's games comfortably, then spend the extra hundreds you saved on an upgrade in a couple of years? Today's top-of-the-line card is generally worse than tomorrow's midrange (GF3 Ti200 < GF4 Ti4200, GF4 Ti4600 < R9500 Pro, R9700 Pro < 6600GT ...), and today's top-of-the-line is no match for tomorrow's mid-high-end ($300 range).

But in practice, anything I don't spend of my $3,600 budget will end up getting eaten up by trivial things in the next year... (Baby clothes, food, car repairs, etc...) So its use it or lose it.

But otherwise, other money will go towards clothes, food, or car repairs. You'll end up down the same amount of money in the end run, and with a better computer three years from now.

So what you are saying is that a $300 card now and another $300 card in 2 years will go farther than a $600 card now. I can see the logic in that. I just really know that although we can see the splurging of $3,600 now when the unexpected influx has made us briefly flush, spending $3,300 wouldn't be seen as a savings and then $300 down the line would be harder to come by. Basically, if the $300 were needed later and I didn't have it because of this purchase, I would just manage to do without for a bit.

I know it doesn't logically (or mathematically) play out, more of a psycological thing with me I guess.

 

[Cheezeit]

Wow, you really have money to burn.

I would really get the p180 since you're spending so much. TT fans aren't that good, get panaflo, nexus or yate loon.

for sli, I sould definatley go with dhe DFI board. Its just so much better and has less problems.

Why use Maxtor? they fail so much. get a WD or seagate

Otherwise, man that thing is awesome and have fun building it!!

Last, why build that for yourself? Build it, try it out, then send It to me

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: BeakerChem

But that involves that whole overclocking process again. And I am just not willing to do that at the moment. Maybe when this system gets too outdated to be functional I'll try overclocking it, or if I build another system. But this will be the very first from scratch build and I need to keep expectations on my skill nice and low and feasible.

But I understand what you are say completely. On the OCing side, I have been reading about people OC's the 4800+s to 3.1 GHz... (On phase change and such though, which is way more than I want to ever deal with on a computer. I get enough of liquid handling HPLC)

If I only had $.05 for everyone that comes to these forums saying "not interested in O/C" and a week later they are posting "how's my O/C" or "help me maximize my O/C"

The simple truth is if you hang around here long you will realize that with a little common sense overclocking poses no risk of damaging you equipment, and is a free and easy performance gain.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: Cheezeit
Wow, you really have money to burn.

I would really get the p180 since you're spending so much. TT fans aren't that good, get panaflo, nexus or yate loon.

for sli, I sould definatley go with dhe DFI board. Its just so much better and has less problems.

Why use Maxtor? they fail so much. get a WD or seagate

Otherwise, man that thing is awesome and have fun building it!!

Last, why build that for yourself? Build it, try it out, then send It to me

I looked at the P180, but I liked the look of the Aspire case more. It was close though for a while. Look at some Lian Li cases too, but they just seemed so plain looking, even with the side window. The Aspire case has a lot of good features as well. Probably more of a design enjoyment decision here. The Aspire case has a good feature set as well, even if it doesn't have the, "tri-cooling zone" system.

The Maxtor Maxline III is the server HD version of the 'highly' rated DiamondMax 10 drive. It comes with a 5 year manuf. warrenty on failure.

Thanks for the good wishes! I am mostly concerned with two parts of the building process: seating the HSF and zapping something with static. Lol.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy

Originally posted by: BeakerChem

But that involves that whole overclocking process again. And I am just not willing to do that at the moment. Maybe when this system gets too outdated to be functional I'll try overclocking it, or if I build another system. But this will be the very first from scratch build and I need to keep expectations on my skill nice and low and feasible.

But I understand what you are say completely. On the OCing side, I have been reading about people OC's the 4800+s to 3.1 GHz... (On phase change and such though, which is way more than I want to ever deal with on a computer. I get enough of liquid handling HPLC)

If I only had $.05 for everyone that comes to these forums saying "not interested in O/C" and a week later they are posting "how's my O/C" or "help me maximize my O/C"

The simple truth is if you hang around here long you will realize that with a little common sense overclocking poses no risk of damaging you equipment, and is a free and easy performance gain.

Lol. I hear you. Just wait, once I get past the fear of putting the thing together and manage to do that successfully, I'll be OCing what I have...

While I have everyone here, does anyone have any experiences with moving good distances (~500miles / 800 km) with a system. I don't want to damage anything, but I don't want to take it back apart and put it back in the styrofoam either.

 

[Cheezeit]

Static risk is next to nothing. I even made a thread about this in OT asking if anyone had actually fried anything. the HSF really is't that hard it just requires some force.

Maxor DM10 is not highly rated, they're just good performers. Still, whats performance when it fails 1 yr later? Review sites don't review drives long enough to see how long it lasts.

Aspire is really not a good brand, but if you really like the looks, just be careful and know that it dose;t cool as well or is as quiet as other cases.

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: Cheezeit
Static risk is next to nothing. I even made a thread about this in OT asking if anyone had actually fried anything. the HSF really is't that hard it just requires some force.

Maxor DM10 is not highly rated, they're just good performers. Still, whats performance when it fails 1 yr later? Review sites don't review drives long enough to see how long it lasts.

Aspire is really not a good brand, but if you really like the looks, just be careful and know that it dose;t cool as well or is as quiet as other cases.

Interesting about the static. More urban legend, eh? I still do the rituallistic touching of the grounded pipe before handling each component though, superstition if nothing else. Lol.

Where do you go to get good reliability data for drives? I have been reading through The Storage Review, but their reliability data is pretty incomplete for the newer drives (7800.8, the new caviar, etc...) I haven't been able to find (google) any good sites with that kind of info. I guess it is sort of like Consumer reports 1 year road tests. Expensive to do, and then you still only get statistics of one unit.

I am getting a fan control module, so noise shouldn't be too much of a problem. The case passed the cucumber test as well, so I should survive the build process, but thanks for the warnings!

 

[Cheezeit]

You can see from user expierence if drives are good or not. Heres one poor guy that had 6 maxtors including his RMA's die on him link

YEah, its always good to ground yourself on the case or PSU to make sure, even though theres like no threat.

 

[svi]

Actually, it's a very bad idea to go by user experience. Sample sizes are simply too small, and people are more likely to remember the drives that failed.

SR's reliability survey says that the DiamondMax Plus 8 and 9 have had consistently low reliability. That doesn't mean that the same will apply to the 10, but it could indicate production issues with that line. Something to think about, at any rate.

 

[BeakerChem]

Hmm, I was unaware of the potential drive problem with the Maxtor line.

I might get a 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 then instead. They are even on sale at Newegg today for $50 cheaper than the 300GB Maxtor III...

Thanks again!

 

[Cheezeit]

Yes, seagate and WD are good

 

[BeakerChem]

Originally posted by: Cheezeit
Yes, seagate and WD are good

I like the look of the big warrenty. Maxtor was 3 year, not five (my bad), so the 5 year Seagate sounds good. Lol. My current HD is a 3 GB. I'll probably just image it into a partition on the new drive.

 

[Cheezeit]

lol, 3 gb

 

[Diasper]

I'd recommend getting Seagate if only for their 5 year warranty, lower noise and better reliability...

Gte the 4400+ - it's only 200mhz difference regardless of overclock - the 4800 does not justify the price increase for an extra 200mhz - 100% more for 10% extra - no thanks.

If the p180 doesn't do it for you I'd check out the Silverstone cases - they're very stylish, elegant and built to very high quality. They'd be my favourite cases when it came to looks. They're pretty damn good with cooling too given their 120mm fans.

Seriously I'd get a bigger monitor if you're using that graphics card - you need *at least* 1600x1200 even if you're waiting for future games to gradually mean you have to lower performance.

Better yet get the 6800GT and skip the 7800GTX and wait for the next generation (save the money towards it) when they will really be able to support HDR which will be a real evolution.

Also keep some money in the bank for the PPU

Please get the DFI for all the reasons everyone's said.

The rest I say as I said first. SImply don't pay 100% more for 10% gains - that's pure bad economics - unless you're going to always have $3000 to spend every 3 years save your money for upgrades.

 

[kitkat22]

I would seriously take the previous advice into consideration. $1000 is really too much, and as was said as soon as you get it going you might very well show up asking how to OC or how the OC looks. Save yourself the $400 bucks and take your wife to a bed and breakfast or something.

 

[Diasper]

of course the best route I'd take for getting the cheapest price for the best components in the long term - a recommendation I wrote

Best bang/buck while retaining high performance and future upgradeability (Barebones)
eg you have $2000 but rather than spending that all now we work how what is the maximum that money in the long run . So this means having a speedy enough machine to fit needs now but also into the future by allowing good upgrade paths.

CPU AMD64 3000+ Venice as the cheapest CPU that can overclock well - reports seem to indicate that it overclocks easily to 2.6+ghz on air. Other Venice chips typically score about the same so it is not worth spending 50% more etc on less than 20% difference.

Upgrade To dual-core later on when prices have come down say in about a year. AMD might also be offering 65nm dual-cores by then allowing for even greater overclocks than currently on the X2 - perhaps more cache might be added as well with the smaller process. Either way price, tech and timing (for games coming out) it would provide far better timing/cost.

Motherboard DFI Ultra D because of it's excellent quality build, overclocking options including the ability to handle high overclocks well. Moreover, it can be very easily modified to SLI and so retain great flexibility if so chosen.

Upgrade possibility With a second PCI-Express slot available it should allow you to include a PPU at a later date as you may wish to (Another reason not to spend all your money now). Certainly the PPU is extremely promising technology and may be of far more benefit to systems in the future over CPU upgrades.

RAM Crucial Value sticks (2x 1GB) - Ultimately you'll want 2GB for the latest and greatest (Longhorn will probably benefit from it) and given RAM prices now is an excellent time to buy. As for choosing Crucial Vale 1GB, the reasons are because they are speed-binned Crucial Ballistix 1GB sticks. This means many people have been able to get 250mhz or very close to with 2 sticks at 3-3-3 timings. Dual-core will no doubt benefit from it - certainly 4 sticks is not the way to go as the memory controller is unlikely to take well to handling 4 sticks at 2-2-2 and 250mhz - in fact it won't.

Moreover that 2T timing will take away from bandwidth alot - while that matters less for single -core who don't need much bandwidth this may be far more significant with dual-core which will inherently demand greater bandwidth - either way why chance it. More can be read here. As for timings and their relative importance check Zebo's guide. Still if you want the best sticks Crucial Ballistix 1GB are the best you can do where some people even hit 2.5-2-2 @ 250mhz which is in fact at low voltages so the RAM won't need active cooling or risk shortening it's life.

 

[sapiens74]

I built pretty much the same system, cept for the dual core, no one had them in stock

I went with tight timings and corsair 2-2-2-5 memory, however I'm ordering the ocz and second 7800 now

 

[Fisher999]

Originally posted by: BeakerChem

Originally posted by: Cheezeit
Static risk is next to nothing. I even made a thread about this in OT asking if anyone had actually fried anything...

Interesting about the static. More urban legend, eh? I still do the rituallistic touching of the grounded pipe before handling each component though, superstition if nothing else. Lol....

PLEASE don't listen to this BeakerChem; he is both a fool and highly misinformed.
"Static" as he calls it, more correctly called ESD "ElectroStatic Discharge", is anything but "...next to nothing...". It is one of the leading causes of system instability and component irregularities. There are two general types of negative events that can occur to a component if it is exposed to ESD. One is called "Catastrophic Failure" and yes this form is very rare today; that is, the complete failure of the component when exposed to ESD. However, the second-most common effect of ESD, and the most insidious, is called "Upset Failure". This type of damage, which over time produces UNPREDICTABLE MALFUNCTIONS in components, is often the most difficult to diagnose but can have disastrous consequences in the daily service of one's system.

I cringe when I look at the pictures I took of my FIRST system build in 1997. I built the computer on the carpeted floor of my apartment with no grounding mat or grounding strap. I didn't even know enough to "discharge" myself of electrostatic energy by touching a grounded metal object before touching my computer components. The components that were not yet in use were lying on aluminum foil (I read this recommendation somewhere). Unfortunately I did not have a nice workbench on which to build the system. Also, I did not have the knowledge, or the "tools", necessary to avoid ESD.

Did I have any "Catastrophic Failures" ??? No. But did I experience "Upset Failures"; you betchya. Over a three year period some of the then-expensive good-branded components gave me some of the biggest "headaches" I've ever had. I soon after learned about the danger of ESD at sites like this and through computer courses I took at a local college as a then 40-year-old. The systems that I have built since then, that have been built with ESD in mind and every precaution taken to avoid it's negative effects, have been very reliable over the LONG HAUL.

BTW, by the name of this thread it seems as though you let the know-it-alls at this site get to you. PLEASE don't let that happen. I had the SAME experience here last month when posting for advice on my component options for a system build less than HALF the cost of yours. You can NEVER please these folks here at AT, most of whom are just barely old enough to be out of their diapers.

I may seem a tad contradictory with the following comments but please don't take them as a "slap in the face". They are not intended to be taken with anything more than a grain of salt.

Overall, I think you did fine with your component choices because your logic for choosing them suited YOUR needs.

I do agree with those who believe that the videocard and monitor seem mis-matched . Also, as an audiophile, I agree with the person who was "concerned" with your choice of "surround" headphones. As a person who just had to ponder the DVD burner question, and almost purchased the BenQ you selected, I finally went with the NEC 3540A and I agree with the person who made that suggestion. Besides the NEC drive being quiet in operation and a good performer, it is one of the few DVD burners that will write to DL (dual layer) DVDs of the -R type. This is almost a moot issue as both +R and -R DL discs are extremely expensive; at least for the time being. Furthermore, the last I heard, the DVD Forum had yet to agree on a standard for the writing to -R DL discs. The specs aren't too bad on the BenQ and that package you mentioned includes a stack of 25 52X CD-Rs and a stack of 25 16X DVD +R discs. That's a pretty good combination. The only thing that really concerns me about the BenQ is that NewEgg already has "refurbished" units of the same model for sale. When "refurbished" items of a currently-produced item are available it gets one to start pondering the item's reliability.

Overall, you've made some decisions that are good for YOU, and THAT'S what really matters, NOT the opinions of these know-it-alls, including me, lol.

Greg