Building a SFF System

[ToastMaster]

I'll be building my new system soon, and was hoping to get some thoughts on it:

Silverstone SG 01 case
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (already have)
2 GB Corsair DDR 400 (have 1 GB already)
Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 (although I'm trying to find out when the GA-K8N51PVMT-9 is going to come out to see if it's worth waiting since the DVI would be nice to have if my actual graphics card goes down)
NEC 16x DVD+/-RW DL Drive
74 gb WD Raptor (already have)
300 gb Seagate Barracuda SATA
eVGA GeForce 7800 GT (already have)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Gamer (already have)
Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550
Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
Logitech G5 gaming mouse

All the stuff I don't already have, I'm purchasing within a couple of days.

For the SG 01, I'm also planning on replacing the 60 and 80 mm fans with Antec fans of higher dB (around 27 dB or so), and greater airflow (having the computer be "super-silent" isn't a concern to me), and adding in an extra Antec 60mm fan for the top, as well as a system blower in the rear, two spots beneath the 7800GT. I'm going to have the top 60mm and the 80 mm bringing air in, with the system blower, rear 60mm and the fan on the Neo HE taking air out.

 

[ToastMaster]

The only thing I'm not certain of is the heatsink and fan to use. I want as much room between the PSU and the fan as possible, so I narrowed my choice down to 3 cpu coolers:

MASSCOOL 5F521B1M3CG
Thermaltake CL-P0075
ASUS X-Mars

The Thermaltake would give me the greatest clearance, while at the moment, I think the best choice is the ASUS X-Mars (I'd still apparently have roughly roughly 15-16 mm of clearance).

I'll gladly listen to any suggestions.

 

[CRaZYMoFo]

I think the best cooler is the Zalman 7000B-Cu (or AlCu if you want).
I never heard of the MASSCOOL or Asus X-MARS before.
The thermaltake looks like a decent performer, it is rated for the FX-55 and Opterons.

I would say check out the zalman or the thermaltake

 

[Pierre]

Now I have been wrong before... so take this with a grain of salt...

looks like you are planning ot use 4 dimm modules to get to 2 gigs of ram?

I have heard that the Athlon 64s don't like 4 modules on some boards, and kick the command rate down to 2T... Have you looked into this specifically for your system????'

May not be an issue, but thought I would mention it...

HTH

 

[ToastMaster]

Now I have been wrong before... so take this with a grain of salt...

looks like you are planning ot use 4 dimm modules to get to 2 gigs of ram?

I have heard that the Athlon 64s don't like 4 modules on some boards, and kick the command rate down to 2T... Have you looked into this specifically for your system????'

May not be an issue, but thought I would mention it...

HTH

I hadn't really heard about that issue, so thanks for bringing it to my attention.

 

[Soymilk]

its true, a64's do that, but in real-world performance you won't notice any difference. eclipse did some testing on it a while back, i have no clue where the thread is now. i think it was like "robberbaron and eclipse's truth about athlon64 memory controllers" or some crap like that.

 

[ToastMaster]

I looked into it, and apparently all Athlon 64s up through the D revision had problems running 4 DDR 400 modules, but the E revision and onward have had this problem corrected.

Dual-Cores are E revisions, so thankfully I'll be fine.

 

[ScHpAnKy]

Wow! Lots of misinformation tonight!

Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9

Gigabyte boards are garbage, expecially for Athlon 64.

(although I'm trying to find out when the GA-K8N51PVMT-9 is going to come out to see if it's worth waiting since the DVI would be nice to have if my actual graphics card goes down)

Considering you're getting a GeForce and not a second-rate company like SiS for a video card, you wouldn't see a lot of graphics card downage

300 gb Seagate Barracuda SATA

However, SATA implementation on all of the nForce chipsets is quite lackluster at best, if you plan on going SATA I highly recommend getting a controller card, or simply going IDE.

Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
Logitech G5 gaming mouse

If you must...

For the SG 01, I'm also planning on replacing the 60 and 80 mm fans with Antec fans of higher dB (around 27 dB or so), and greater airflow (having the computer be "super-silent" isn't a concern to me), and adding in an extra Antec 60mm fan for the top, as well as a system blower in the rear, two spots beneath the 7800GT. I'm going to have the top 60mm and the 80 mm bringing air in, with the system blower, rear 60mm and the fan on the Neo HE taking air out.

If you must... but a better idea is to put some rediculously high cfm fans (not anything with high power draw) and get a fan controller

I think the best cooler is the Zalman 7000B-Cu (or AlCu if you want).
I never heard of the MASSCOOL or Asus X-MARS before.
The thermaltake looks like a decent performer, it is rated for the FX-55 and Opterons.

I would say check out the zalman or the thermaltake

NO.
All of the coolers are mediocre and you can get better coolers for less or same funds!

I looked into it, and apparently all Athlon 64s up through the D revision had problems running 4 DDR 400 modules, but the E revision and onward have had this problem corrected.

Dual-Cores are E revisions, so thankfully I'll be fine.

Fine, they are not, some are... but it's a toss-up, many of the RevE's still have memory controller issues.

 

[ToastMaster]

Wow! Lots of misinformation tonight!


Gigabyte boards are garbage, expecially for Athlon 64.

Hmm, considering that I currently have a Giga-byte GA-K8N-Pro SLI in my system, and with the latest bios update, I've had not a single problem with it. Performance is as good as I desire, and my system has been perfectly stable. I've used Giga-byte with Athlon XPs and with my current Athlon 64, and no complaints against them.

Considering you're getting a GeForce and not a second-rate company like SiS for a video card, you wouldn't see a lot of graphics card downage

If you had read properly, I already have the 7800 GT, which I plan on using for my video purposes. The only reason the on-board graphics is nice, is if my 7800 GT were to go down, in which case I would still be able to use my system (albeit not for gaming) until I resolved my issues.

However, SATA implementation on all of the nForce chipsets is quite lackluster at best, if you plan on going SATA I highly recommend getting a controller card, or simply going IDE.

I've been using my current Raptor with the nForce implementation of SATA in my current system, and performance has been just fine (granted, I customized my driver installation).

If you must...

One of my roommates at the moment uses the G5, and it's a very nice mouse for gaming purposes. As for the G15, granted, it isn't necessarily *needed*, but part of me likes it, so I'm giving it a shot.

If you must... but a better idea is to put some rediculously high cfm fans (not anything with high power draw) and get a fan controller

The fan controller is already one of the planned upgrades.

All of the coolers are mediocre and you can get better coolers for less or same funds!

I've spent weeks researching coolers, and most do not have the acceptable performance levels that I desire. If you have any ideas, I'm gladly open to them.

Fine, they are not, some are... but it's a toss-up, many of the RevE's still have memory controller issues.

Perhaps, but all of the dual-cores at the moment appear to be fine, given I could not find memory controller issues related to using 4 DDR 400 modules. Since I have a Manchester-based X2, I feel safe in using 4 modules.

 

[Soymilk]

If you had read properly, I already have the 7800 GT, which I plan on using for my video purposes. The only reason the on-board graphics is nice, is if my 7800 GT were to go down, in which case I would still be able to use my system (albeit not for gaming) until I resolved my issues.

Perhaps, but all of the dual-cores at the moment appear to be fine, given I could not find memory controller issues related to using 4 DDR 400 modules. Since I have a Manchester-based X2, I feel safe in using 4 modules.

he said that since you have a geforce card, you most likely won't see your card down much. it was worded kind of strange; didn't make sense to me the first time either.

for the memory controller, rev E still has issues. well, they're not that bad of issues though. the problem that they have with 4 ddr400 modules is that it runs them at a 2T command rate instead of 1T. im not sure about dual cores, but i think they have em too. most ppl recommend to go with 2x1024 because of this instead of 4x512, but a) if you already have 2x512, then it wouldnt make sense to dump those and upgrade to 2x1024, and b) it doesn't make much of a real-life impact neways. maybe u'll notice the difference in benchmarks, but nothing much else.

 

[cc2096]

Let me just say this, I have a Toledo X2 4400+ and 4x 512mb DDR400 dimms (OCZ Performance 2.5-3-3-6 @2T) and I have not noticed a single performance issue at all. I have however tried to run in 1T and my system won't even boot. So the Rev E comment is false, atleast for the time being.