Final Conroe Build (minus proc)

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talk2farley

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 5, 2006
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I'm building a new PC from scratch (first time in several years), and though I was originally planning to go for a Pentium D (which is a steal w/ price cuts, and plenty of power for todays games) I couldn't resist Conroe. So while I wait for the E6600 to go on sale, I went ahead and put the order in for everything else today.

ATX Computer Cases
1 Lian Li PC-S80 Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
$289.99

CD/DVD Burners (RW Drives)
1 PLEXTOR 18X DVD±R DVD Burner included Replaceable beige front bezel Black
$97.99

CPU Thermal Paste / Grease
1 Arctic Silver ASTA-7G (2-PC-SET) Premium Silver Thermal Adhesive - OEM
$10.99

Fans, Heatsinks (Case, CPU, Chipset)
1 ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink - Retail
$62.99
1 ZALMAN VF900 - CU LED 80mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light VGA Cooling Fan/Heatsink
$48.99

Intel-compatible Motherboards
1 ASUS P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard
$224.99

Internal Hard Drives
1 Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM
$319.99

Memory - System
1 CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
$297.00

Power Supplies
1 Antec Phantom 500 ATX12V 500W Power Supply - Retail
$154.99

Sound Cards
1 Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
$111.99

Video Cards
1 ATI 100-435801 Radeon X1900XT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
$404.99

Very psyched I am. Grand total came to just over $2000 with shipping, so we are looking at a final price of about $2400 with processor. Not bad given that the same system from a good OEM would cost you over 3k.
 
check your thermal paste. you have the glue suff like 2 part epoxy you will never get your heatsink off :p
 
Nice rig, but if you can still change your order I'd save 120 bucks and go with the adfd harddrive.
 
Regarding the RAM timing - it is 4-4-4-12. Not the lowest numbers on record, but it is DDR2 800. You can check it out here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010170147+1052308477&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=147

The G.Skill is faster, but signifigantly more expensive.

Regarding the HDD - the Raptor 10k is, imho, the only way to go if you aren't going Raid 0 (which I'm not for noise and power reasons). Per MB it is mighty expensive though, especially these days.

Regarding the thermal paste - you are correct that it is a permanent adhesive! Thanks for pointing that out. I will pick up a tube of the Arctic Silver 5 from Fries and use that instead.
 
I'd rather have a Seagate 320GB SATA II Perp Tech drive for $99 than that 250GB 10k SATA I raptor.
 
talk2farley said:
Regarding the HDD - the Raptor 10k is, imho, the only way to go if you aren't going Raid 0 (which I'm not for noise and power reasons). Per MB it is mighty expensive though, especially these days.

instead.
Click to expand...


The adfd is a 10k drive. ;)


Check it out, for 120 dollars less the only difference is no window.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

Unless of course you just really want that window.
 
Oh I see what you meant, but that is the enterprise model. It has those enterprise error-correction features that you don't want in a desktop HDD, or any non-server, non-raid config (slows down read/write speeds).
 
fusionrs said:
I'd rather have a Seagate 320GB SATA II Perp Tech drive for $99 than that 250GB 10k SATA I raptor.
Click to expand...

If SATA II is that SATA 3.0, then what good is SATA II at 7200 RPM? The serial connectors only you give you bandwidth, or potential speed. If the HDD can't read/write at 3.0gb/sec, there's no need for the SATA II, since you arent going to be using that much bandwidth in the first place. Frankly, even at 10k rpm, you arent getting anywhere near the upper limit of 1.8gb/sec.

Zero advantage to upgrading to 3.0gb/sec at this point in time.
 
This review puts the ADFD ahead of the Raptor X and it is a pretty thorough review. I have never found one to put the Raptor X ahead of the ADFD. Note that this is all in single drive mode. So the server/raid features you believe should be slowing down the drive aren't slowing it down enough to be slower than the Raptor X.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/raptor-wd1500/index.x?pg=1


This is all of course ultimately your decision, I just want to make sure you're fully informed about your options. They're both awesome drives.
 
Nice rig! most of that stuff i saw on the [H] Forsale forum save a few bucks. :)
 
00ber_m00 said:
The adfd is a 10k drive. ;)


Check it out, for 120 dollars less the only difference is no window.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

Unless of course you just really want that window.
Click to expand...

I think there's more to it than just the window, but the drive has instructions or whatever that are better geared to perfomance in something like a gaming rig while the other models are more designed for servers and such. Not that it's that much of a difference.
 
00ber_m00 said:
This review puts the ADFD ahead of the Raptor X and it is a pretty thorough review. I have never found one to put the Raptor X ahead of the ADFD. Note that this is all in single drive mode. So the server/raid features you believe should be slowing down the drive aren't slowing it down enough to be slower than the Raptor X.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/raptor-wd1500/index.x?pg=1


This is all of course ultimately your decision, I just want to make sure you're fully informed about your options. They're both awesome drives.
Click to expand...

Ok, we were just confused. The AHFD actually IS the Raptor X, sans window, and NOT the Raptor 10k Enterprise edition as I thought you were refering to. So we are talking about the same drives; I did order the AHFD model. So, yeah, that clears it up. But for others considering similar builds, there is NO REASON to opt for the X, unless you REALLY want a drive window. With the window, your drive will run LOUDER, and according to tech report, slower (though I dont understand why).

To give an update on the order status: Bank of America actually blocked the purchase on my credit card automatically as part of its TSP program, which I just found out about when I checked my email today. So I had to call the bank to clear that up, and then call Newegg to give them the go ahead. But it worked out to my advantage, because the price of Ati-manufactured X1900XTX on the 'egg has been dropped by $140, to a mere $40 over the Ati X1900XT. I can't see the reason for buying anything but an XTX at that price-point, especially since we're all using aftermarket coolers probably anyway (eliminating the need to buy a third-party model). In order to keep my rig on budget, I canceled the order for the Plextor 18x DVD and swapped in a Lite On 16x, and then upgraded to the XTX. And that should (assuming no more bank troubles) go through before this weekend.
 
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