Double checking my new SFF rig

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Dayvon

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
117
Ok... I'm selling my old system and basically doing a SFF new build. Here's what I've decided on and why.

Case: Microfly Ultra mATX *NEW*
PSU: 400w, with case
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 *NEW*
MoBo: ECS P4M890T-M2 mATX *NEW*
RAM: 1 GB Corsair DDR400 ...Owned...
GPU: Sapphire X1950Pro 256MB *NEW*
HDD: 250GB Maxtor 7200RPM ATA-133 ...Owned...
HDD: 160GB Maxtor 7200RPM SATA-150 ...Owned...
DVD: LiteOn DVDRW LightScribe ...Owned...
Sound: Creative Extigy USB ...Owned...

So yeah. I really want Core2Duo encoding power for H264 encoding. And I want a step up in GPU to handle Oblivion well. So this would be my system.

I want to overclock my C2D eventually, but obviously, this is not the MoBo to do that with. Since there doesn't seem to be any C2D overclocking mATX boards out, I figure I'll get this MoBo and use my old RAM for now, and eventually I will upgrade to DDR2 and a good OCing mATX board when one is released. This way I get a solution to the above needs now, and with plans to eventually toss the $50 MoBo.

Is there anything that I'm overlooking for this system? It's gonna total me about $534, for a new case, CPU, MoBo, and GPU. I'm selling off some of my old system to pay for this upgrade and it's looking like everything should run smoothly. Any thoughts?
 
Man...so much of your stuff got OWNED. Must be a difficult time for you.

Haha...nice build, hopefully a good c2d board comes out so you can ditch that pitiful ECS board.
 
Thanks for the confirmation Zoogle...

Any other thoughts out there?
 
yes,

Don't get that mobo and get a new PSU.

Doing a gradual upgrade is going to be a waste of time and money IMO. I suggest you hold off a month or so for a good Core 2 board and then get DDR2
 
Microfly PSU is mediocre. It's not great but I don't think people have had that many terrible problems with it either.
 
Steeeeve said:
yes,

Don't get that mobo and get a new PSU.

Doing a gradual upgrade is going to be a waste of time and money IMO. I suggest you hold off a month or so for a good Core 2 board and then get DDR2
Click to expand...

I would agree, accept your scenario would require at least $150+ more dollars then what I have to work with. Not to mention the wait for who knows how long for a good OCing mATX board.

I can't afford to purchase RAM too right now. But in 4-6 months it would be possible along with a new MoBo. I'm sure that a 2.13Ghz Conroe and a X1950Pro will hold me over. The memory bandwith on the system won't be the bottleneck.
 
Steeeeve said:
then why upgrade now?

What is your current system?
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Well I made a link to it "old system" in the OP. Real quick though,

I'm upgrading from
3Ghz P4 w/ HT
2GB DDR400 Corsair RAM
ATI X800XT-PE 256MB AGP
Via PT880 MSI MoBo

Why do I want to upgrade? Again, it's in the OP... I encode alot to H264 and encoding times are slower than sloooowww on a P4. Also, I have a 1360x768 HDTV that runs on this rig, and my Oblivion performance is not quite as high as I want it to be. 20-27 fps with no HDR at native resolution is just not good enough. Also, my current case is a b*tch to work with and so getting the Microfly will let me keep the small form factor, allow me to use ATX PSUs, and look awesome next to my HDTV.

The only money that I will waste buying this rig is the $50 mobo which will get replaced like 6-12months from now with a good OCing mATX board. I'd rather wait to buy DDR2 that will match that board rather than spend money I don't have on specific DDR2 RAM that runs 1.8v for the crappy G965 chipset.

I do get your point about waiting, but who knows how long until a good mATX Mobo will come along? I've been dinking around with poor Oblivion performance for a year, and with poor h264 encoding for 2 years. This is a cheap, affordable, and highly effective way to solve these issues now. I am interested in any ideas or suggestions that you have, but unfortunately spending more money on RAM is not an option. And waiting is something I could do if I knew when a P965 mATX board was coming, and that it OCed well. Otherwise, I'm going to upgrade now.

Oh, about the MicroFly PSU, I agree I would like to buy a PSU. In fact, its in my plan but I probably won't get one initially. Changing out a PSU on the MicroFly case will be easy to do when I can get one.
 
hmm I'm thinking that I'll end up doing the gradual upgrade as well, with the same reason that there's no good c2d mobo. I'm all for the "feel" of the system seeing how I often have over 30+ ie/ff windows/tabs open, mp3s playing, email, a mmorpg in the background doing macro tasks like trade bot or whatnot, and playing cs in the foreground, I figure c2d would definitely be an improvement over an am2 x2? However, I can't see myself sitting with a e6400 and bogus motherboard only to wait until a good mobo comes out to find that i got a dud e6400 that won't oc for beans (been there too many times. celery 2.0 that wouldnt go higher than 2.7 (average was 3.0-3.3), sl6rz (the p4 2.4 costa rica with multiple vid that people were seeing 3.4-3.8 easy) that wouldn't go higher than 2.7 again, and p4 2.6c that wouldn't go higher than 3.0 (trend was seeing 3.2-3.6). hell, i understand the abit matx board for am2 is absolutely astounding and would be able to easily max an amd, and figure i'd give that a shot. The jump in the past from p4 to p4+ht was huge, and I regretted selling it and moving to a dothan, which I can't stand anymore. I figure am2 x2 3800+ would hopefully o/c to around 2.7 if I can figure out a decent hsf for the microfly, and that'd hold me out until a good p965 comes out for matx and c2d prices fall even more and then transition over.
 
Meh, sometimes its better to institute a stopgap measure so you can see how future technologies pan out and still keep something usable. Its kinda like investing to wee what the future comes out with and how things pan out.

Its what big companies did, they bought electromechanical machines to see how digital technology would work out. Its not that great of an analogy if you're looking at the period of a few months but you can get the sense of what I'm saying hopefully.
 
Well, I just pulled the trigger with NewEgg and ordered the ECS mATX board, the 2.16Ghz Conroe, and the Sapphire X1950Pro. I'm kinda giddy :D!!

I'll be getting the MicroFly on Monday so it looks like I'm set. A friend's friend said he'll buy my old rig for $500-550, so I'm essentially paying for my upgrade completely with the sale. I plan to get a Zalman CNPS7700 for Christmas, and possibly a XClio 450W PSU. I also plan on actually trying to get this case quiet and cool, unlike my last build which couldn't get quiet cause of noisy HDDs. Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted on how well the X1950Pro does in Oblivion at 1360x768, and how fast the Conroe e6400 is with DDR-400. Either way, I'm gonna be faster than I was, and now I at least have stuff that is not obsolete (s478 processor, AGP card). So, big step and I'm pumped!!
 
Dayvon said:
A friend's friend said he'll buy my old rig for $500-550, so I'm essentially paying for my upgrade completely with the sale.
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DAMN you ripped him good



Wish my friends had friends like that....
 
Well its a complete system with an X800XT-PE. But yeah... Im getting the upper hand for sure. You just have to know better than the other guy.

Kids, it pays to be [H]ard!!
 
Items are set to deliver tomorrow according to NewEgg. I'll be building myself a brand new Core2Duo SFF system and I'm psyched! My second build, I feel like I actually know what I'm doing this time. I didn't buy a crap case for one, and secondly I decided to buy components that won't be obsolete in a couple months like I did last time (AGP, s478). I will have pictures, but the only camera I have is my RAZR and the only way I can upload those is through my wireless bluetooth connection on my MacBook Pro which I won't have later tomorrow. So picks later impressions sooner.
 
Dayvon said:
secondly I decided to buy components that won't be obsolete in a couple months like I did last time (AGP, s478).
Click to expand...


To late, we have Quad Core and Gforce 8 Series now, your junk is OBSOLETE













JK
 
LOL

Though QuadCore is LGA775 (for now) and 8800 is PCI-E. So I'm good to upgrade later. Though to power my 32" 1366x768 HDTV, I think a X1950Pro will do fine as my resolution is almost 300000 less pixels than 1280x1024 :D!
 
I have this ECS mobo that I got as a placeholder until a decent mATX overclocker comes out and can confirm it's pretty mediocre. But it does run, and if you just want something that 'runs' this will work.

I got it as a Fry's "buy a cpu and get a free crappy ECS mobo" combo deal. Compared to my Shuttle SN25P that I just sold the performance of the SATA drives is poor. It has no real overclockability. Whenever a decent mATX board comes out (mommy?) I'll ditch this one and sell it off to someone looking for a bread and butter box.
 
[LYL]Homer said:
I have this ECS mobo that I got as a placeholder until a decent mATX overclocker comes out and can confirm it's pretty mediocre. But it does run, and if you just want something that 'runs' this will work.

I got it as a Fry's "buy a cpu and get a free crappy ECS mobo" combo deal. Compared to my Shuttle SN25P that I just sold the performance of the SATA drives is poor. It has no real overclockability. Whenever a decent mATX board comes out (mommy?) I'll ditch this one and sell it off to someone looking for a bread and butter box.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you got a nice deal there :)

By the way, could you tell me if the ecs board you got was ECS 945G-M3 ?
After doing some research, it seems that some of the asus 945g boards are semi-competent at overclocking. Pci-e lock fails and supposedly underclocks so a boost is needed. But then from my reading, even artificially boosting it doesn't make onboard sound/lan work beyond certain fsb's and max out around 349.
 
I've got the system up and running now. I don't have a way to put pictures up, and once I do, I'll write up a full report. Man this thing runs quiet! The MicroFly fans are near silent and the Sapphire X1950Pro is 10x quieter than my previous ATI X800XT-PE. CPU is running between 28C - 34C, really good for stock cooling.

I am running Cat 6.11 with no problems.

More later.
 
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