New Computer (Intel Build)

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:17 am

Well its finally time that I upgrade my comp. my budget is about $900 (which includes the parts i already purchased and my estimated shipping fees). this is gonna be a budget gaming rig. ive done all of my homework and heres what im looking at:

*Edited because of purchased PNY 8800gt, removed DVI cable as the vid card comes w/ one and OCZ StealthXStream 600W as PSU considering, changed to p35 mobo, added IDE to SATA Bridge

-Case: Cool Master Centurion 5 *Already purchased, grabbed it at my local CompUSA because if i ordered it though newegg i would of paid about $60 shipping (im in Hawaii). plus there was a $30 MIR.

-Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L

-CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz

-RAM: OCZ SLI-Ready 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 *Already purchased from Newegg, grabbed it early because there was a $40 MIR.

-Video Card: PNY VCG88512GXPB G92 GeForce 8800GT 512MB *Already purhcased (Comes with DVI to VGA adapter)

-PSU: OCZ StealthXStream 600W

-HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB

IDE to SATA Bridge: Rosewill RC-204 IDE to SATA Mini Vertical Bridge

you can view my newegg wishlist here (which are basically the same items i have listed above).

im resuing my Samsung SyncMaster 931BF 19' LCD Monitor, 2x PATA DVD+RW drives, 1x WD 500gb PATA HDD, 1x Floppy Drive, Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 SE sound card and Keyboard+Mouse.

My main reason for posting this thread is because im a first time builder and i just want to make sure all i have listed is compatible. i plan on ordering this either the week before, week of or week after christmas, depending on when i have all the money.

all the mobos listed are nForce 650i SLI chipsets, im undecided on what brand i want, either the gigabyte one or the MSI one, even though the asus one is cheaper. and im getting either of those mainly because these are the only few on newegg that have 2x PATA connectors (which i need cause as i mentioned above im reusing my old PATA DVD drivers and PATA HDD).

does anyone know if there is any real difference between the core 2 duo E6550 and the E6750 besides the higher frequencies? im leaning toward the E6750 cause it does have about 300mhz more than the E6550 but i dont know if its worth $20 more...

im unsure about the PSU, but antec is a reputable brand and im pretty sure 500W is enough for this setup. i did use this psu calculator, but im still paranoid that i might need a beefer PSU. im leaning toward the earthwatts 500W but as stated above i might get the truepower trio at compusa this week.

i might get a VGA cooler for the 8800gt as some reviews says it can run hot (any suggestions for a cooler thats compatible with the 8800gt?). however i also read a simple fix to this is tune up the stock fan's rpm using rivatuner.

Thanks in advance.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:26 pm

I wouldnt consider the MSI, dont like their stuff.

Also for the PSU consider this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341010

Dont limit yourself to a board because of the ATA cables, you can get serial to IDE adapters for liek 12 bucks or so if theres another board you want more that only has one ata connector or something.

serial to ata: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812107112

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 2:30 am

that psu look real nice i think im going with that one. yeah i didnt think about the ide controllers. i think im going p35 after all. also, i just ordered this 8800gt from newegg. i decided to get it because i havent seen the 8800gt in stock at newegg for that price since thanksgiving. it doesnt come with company of heroes, but i aint complaining

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:07 am

looks good so far...I was going to suggest what Yos did as well about the ide issues...get the p35 board, foshizzle

as far as cpu goes, see if you can't work this one into the budget:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117129

pcuse5 · Post by **pcuse5** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:20 am

You can have a look at the INTEL BOXDP35DPM Core 2 Quad 1333MHz ATX motherboard, it is on sale for $106 now :

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 6:34 am

loop2kil wrote:looks good so far...I was going to suggest what Yos did as well about the ide issues...get the p35 board, foshizzle

as far as cpu goes, see if you can't work this one into the budget:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117129

yeah after researching now im def going with the p35. and thanks for pointing out the ide controller/bridge, never knew about those.

i wish i could afford that quad core, afraid ill just have to stick with the core 2 duo.

thanks for pointing out that intel board pcuse5, but im looking at getting this one. just hope i can grab one before it gets sold out at the egg again.

Kyle · Post by **Kyle** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 4:48 am

loop2kil wrote:as far as cpu goes, see if you can't work this one into the budget:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819117129

If he's a heavy gamer the C2D is probably the better choice due to the higher FSB as well as clock speed. (Not to mention the better price!)

The Xeon is better for heavy multitasking, but not many (any?) games utilize dual cores yet, let alone quad cores. It's better to throw higher clocks and higher CPU-to-memory FSB ratios at today's games.

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:01 am

yeah im building this rig as a mid-end gaming rig (high end would be 8800GTX, 4 gigs of RAM and a X38 mobo) so im going with the c2d. most games or at least the ones that i play (Battlefield 2, Half Life 2) dont need multiple cores. however ive been reading reviews and having a dual core for crysis helps a lot.

and i also just got crysis today, i had $50 of gamestop store credit to spend (even though i dont have my rig yet). this is gonna be a good christmas indeed

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:29 pm

Kyle wrote:If he's a heavy gamer the C2D is probably the better choice due to the higher FSB as well as clock speed. (Not to mention the better price!)

The Xeon is better for heavy multitasking, but not many (any?) games utilize dual cores yet, let alone quad cores. It's better to throw higher clocks and higher CPU-to-memory FSB ratios at today's games.

I was assuming he would be o/c'ing which would get him the higher fsb's...these g0 cores have been known to hit 3.6 without much effort...but yeah it is a bit more expensive and might not be worth it to him...wished I had waited to get this myself though, quads were not out when i purchased though...I'm stuck with an e6320 @ 3.2

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:34 pm

i just ordered the Gigabyte DS3L since i saw it in stock. i also grabbed the E6750. at least with this mobo ill be able to upgrade to quad core or even the new 45mn cpu's in the future.

so all i have left to order is the PSU, HDD and SATA to IDE bridge thingy. however i might just get a SATA DVD drive, it would only be $15 more than the IDE bridge. hopefully ill have the rest of the money by next week.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:03 am

Jerry_03 wrote:i just ordered the Gigabyte DS3L since i saw it in stock. i also grabbed the E6750. at least with this mobo ill be able to upgrade to quad core or even the new 45mn cpu's in the future.

so all i have left to order is the PSU, HDD and SATA to IDE bridge thingy. however i might just get a SATA DVD drive, it would only be $15 more than the IDE bridge. hopefully ill have the rest of the money by next week.

looks very nice so far!!!

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 7:21 pm

ive been thinking about getting one of those fancy raptor hard drives. do you think it would be worth it in terms of performance in games (shortening loading times)?

i would only be able to fit in the 74gig one into my budget

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136067

A_old · Post by **A_old** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 7:44 pm

I have a 74GB raptor. It's pretty fast but you should also note that it's loud. If I did it again, I'd just grab a decent 500GB sata drive instead

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:09 am

I got a 150Gb raptor and wouldn't recommend it. Not worth the money imho.

For the same price id get one of the new 32Mb cache drives.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:40 am

THere are newer verisons of the 74 gig raptors that are as fast as the 150gigers, but the 32meg cahce 750 gig and 1 TB Hitachi drives are so close, and offer so much more space the raptors aren't really worth it anymore.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:00 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:but the 32meg cahce 750 gig and 1 TB Hitachi drives are so close, and offer so much more space the raptors aren't really worth it anymore.

Bah...no substituting for the far superior seek/access time of the Raptors.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:29 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Bah...no substituting for the far superior seek/access time of the Raptors.

Its not superior enough to make it the ideal drive unless your you're gonna snag 1 for an OS drive, and even then I'd rather raid 2 750 gig drives.

Everyone has reviewed the 7K1000 model of the 750 and 1TB drives, I see no review of the A7K1000 drives yet, waiting on that.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:54 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:Its not superior enough to make it the ideal drive unless your you're gonna snag 1 for an OS drive, and even then I'd rather raid 2 750 gig drives.

That goes to opinion, preferences, and expectations. Raptor is roughly 1/2 of the seek time (4.something versus high 8.something to 9.something). For booting up, for launching programs, for changing/loading levels of games, seek time is just as important as read times IMO. I enjoy being one of the first, if not THE first, to spawn when a public game server changes levels.

After having Cheetah SCSI drives and Raptors at home...I just couldn't deal with going back to a 7,200rpm drive as my primary drive. Call it being spoiled on the sheer speed via RPMs.

Drawback of the Raptors...size limitations. For some people it's a drawback. I STILL have an old 36 gig Raptor in my gaming rig here. 20.5 gigs free at the moment...on an XP install that's not been reinstalled in over 3 years. Pagefile and storage on a second drive, and more storage on my SBS server at home.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 9:27 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:That goes to opinion, preferences, and expectations. Raptor is roughly 1/2 of the seek time (4.something versus high 8.something to 9.something). For booting up, for launching programs, for changing/loading levels of games, seek time is just as important as read times IMO. I enjoy being one of the first, if not THE first, to spawn when a public game server changes levels.

After having Cheetah SCSI drives and Raptors at home...I just couldn't deal with going back to a 7,200rpm drive as my primary drive. Call it being spoiled on the sheer speed via RPMs.

Drawback of the Raptors...size limitations. For some people it's a drawback. I STILL have an old 36 gig Raptor in my gaming rig here. 20.5 gigs free at the moment...on an XP install that's not been reinstalled in over 3 years. Pagefile and storage on a second drive, and more storage on my SBS server at home.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 556,00.asp

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 935,00.asp

Now the tests are different, pcmark05 VS pcmark vantage. But you can see its improved just from the firmware update, and still this is not the Ultrastar drive, just the Deskstar.

I love my raptors, but except in elite geek offs, the hitachi is hanging in there.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:01 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2131556,00.asp

Now the tests are different, pcmark05 VS pcmark vantage. But you can see its improved just from the firmware update, and still this is not the Ultrastar drive, just the Deskstar.

Access Times in test...
Raptor 8.1, Hitachi 13.

I'll stick with my 10krpm.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:15 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Access Times in test...
Raptor 8.1, Hitachi 13.

I'll stick with my 10krpm.

12.5 as of the second test

And they still dont say if AAM is on or off.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:55 am

There's a saying in the automotive world.."Ain't no substitute for cubic inches"....

I'll bring it over to the hard drive world..."Ain't no substitute for RPMs"

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:52 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:There's a saying in the automotive world.."Ain't no substitute for cubic inches"....

I'll bring it over to the hard drive world..."Ain't no substitute for RPMs"

Unless the bigger engine is old and outdated, like is happening to the raptors

WD needs a new raptor, 32meg cache or hell even more if it'll help, and some other new goodies, dos the latest use perpendicular storage?

Shagster · Post by **Shagster** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 12:21 pm

I load faster than everyone and watching people with dells still managing to stay like 4 seconds behind you makes me wonder why I spent twice the money for a third the disk space.

They won't come out with a new raptor....the low amount of memory they use on them will be walked all over by solid state in a few years.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:11 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:
WD needs a new raptor, 32meg cache or hell even more if it'll help, and some other new goodies, dos the latest use perpendicular storage?

Yup..would be nice...I'll agree I think they've been resting on their laurels...but they still do own the crown.

Or....see Seagate port the 15k Cheetah to SATA or SAS.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:14 am

Shagster wrote:I load faster than everyone and watching people with dells still managing to stay like 4 seconds behind you makes me wonder why I spent twice the money for a third the disk space.

I wouldn't presume I load faster than EVERYONE....and if Dells are only 4 seconds behind you...I'd be rebuilding wondering what I built wrong.

On serious performance rigs...most people don't worry about the size of the %system% drive..as pagefile and storage is put on a second spindle.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:15 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Or....see Seagate port the 15k Cheetah to SATA or SAS.

Heh, I so wish.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:34 am

for me lower seek time is noticible after going from 7500rpm IDE drives to 15000rpm ultra320 scsi drives, much faster in things like video editing, no lags at all

never had a raptor but i assume they would be faster than 7500rpm drives.

when i build my new system i am going to get a ultra320 card instead of this 160 card i have now to see the full benefits.

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 12:06 am

i ordered the rest of the components earlier this week, now im just waiting for it to get here

heres the final wishlist on newegg, its more updated than the one in my original post

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9266187

i went a little over my proposed $900 budget but thats okay cause i got a little extra money for christmas.

i went ahead and got the raptor anyways because YeOldeStonecat convinced me :P and after a bit of research, it does load faster into some games by a substantial margin, i just hope i dont regret it. also i went with the ocz gamexstream 600w psu instead of the stealthxstream cause it had more SATA connections.

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:07 pm

Mark wrote:for me lower seek time is noticible after going from 7500rpm IDE drives to 15000rpm ultra320 scsi drives, much faster in things like video editing, no lags at all

never had a raptor but i assume they would be faster than 7500rpm drives.

when i build my new system i am going to get a ultra320 card instead of this 160 card i have now to see the full benefits.

of course they are still faster.
it would be nice to see 12000rpm raptor with 32mb cache

How much is the ultra320card retail ?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:11 pm

Rivas wrote:.........How much is the ultra320card retail ?

not sure what card i will get, it may be awhile

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:12 pm

Jerry_03 wrote:i ordered the rest of the components earlier this week, now im just waiting for it to get here

heres the final wishlist on newegg, its more updated than the one in my original post

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9266187

i went a little over my proposed $900 budget but thats okay cause i got a little extra money for christmas.

i went ahead and got the raptor anyways because YeOldeStonecat convinced me :P and after a bit of research, it does load faster into some games by a substantial margin, i just hope i dont regret it. also i went with the ocz gamexstream 600w psu instead of the stealthxstream cause it had more SATA connections.

i can't get to your wishlist, ya need to make it public

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:15 pm

Rivas wrote:of course they are still faster.
it would be nice to see 12000rpm raptor with 32mb cache
How much is the ultra320card retail ?

A jump to 12k rpms would be useless, a full jump to 15k would be great! 32-64MB cache, sataII, that prependicular tech stuff, and whatever else they need to blaze it up.

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:29 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:A jump to 12k rpms would be useless, a full jump to 15k would be great! 32-64MB cache, sataII, that prependicular tech stuff, and whatever else they need to blaze it up.

why useless ?
I agree 15k rpm +32-54mb cache would be awesome

I just dont wanna see the price they would be charging for it

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:44 pm

oh screw it and just get the Mtron Solid state drives and be done with it....forget SCSI and standard SATA altogether.
.1 msec seek times (arh arh arh - Tim the toolman voice)

http://www.mtron.net/English/Product/overview.asp

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:15 pm

Rivas wrote:why useless ?

The cost for the switch, and then again to 15k down the road as it would need, just switch once, give them some extra headroom against the competition.

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:35 pm

Mark wrote:i can't get to your wishlist, ya need to make it public

sorry about that. try this link

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9266187

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:48 pm

Jerry_03 wrote:sorry about that. try this link

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9266187

niiiiiiiiice

I just bought coolmaster stacker nvidia edition case, the airflow is amazing, before I had around 42 degree celsia temps (mobo), right now 29 degree celsia.

Jerry_03 · Post by **Jerry_03** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 7:08 am

thanks. btw my 8800GT arrived 2 days early

first time ive seen it in person and wow, it is huge. but im confident it will fit in my case. all im waiting for now is the PSU, DVD drives and HDDs.

and while we're on the topic of the 8800GT i think i am gonna get an aftermarket cooler for it. ive got my eye on the Zalman VF900. i would rather get a VF1000 but newegg doesnt have em yet. i might order the VF900 later next week when i order my headset (old one broke)

Rivas · Post by **Rivas** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:53 pm

Jerry_03 wrote:and while we're on the topic of the 8800GT i think i am gonna get an aftermarket cooler for it. ive got my eye on the Zalman VF900. i would rather get a VF1000 but newegg doesnt have em yet. i might order the VF900 later next week when i order my headset (old one broke)

dont buy it, they are not so great, as long as you have good airflow in your case you are safe.