Lean, mean <$1k rig to replace old box.. please critique!

G

Gouken

n00b
Joined
Sep 19, 2006
Messages
11
Already have:
19" WS 1440x900 LCD
Antec P180B ($99 shipped at Outpost!)
Lite-On DVD burner
Seagate 7200.10 400GB SATAII 16mb $110 - 26 MIR = $84 AR, not too shabby (people are reporting to get 7200.10's in a .9 box, luck of the draw, I guess..)
GeIL GX22GB6400DC 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 DDR 2 Series Dual Channel Memory Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $199.00

The rest of the puzzle:

1) AM2 strategy (SLI, K8L quad-core drop-in)

AMD X2 3800+ AM2 $150
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Motherboard $200
XFX 7950GT (passive-cooled) $300
Seasonic 500 or Corsair HX520 ~$120


A few points,
- Silence is one of my top goals in this project; passive video card, passive northbridge and a good efficient PSU are a must

- Is there a NON-wireless Asus M2N32-SLI?

- I don't care about DX10, I need the system now.. besides, I'm coming from a "Radeon" 9000 here, lol.

I appreciate any of your tips. This is a great community, and I've lurked on and off here for quite a few years, but now it's time to step up to the plate!
 
I'm pretty sure there is a non-wireless version of the M2N-32SLI, but I'd need to check around a bit to be sure.

Since the Intel board you list doesn't support SLI, I've got to ask why you need this praticular feature on that board. I would think it would add a fair bit to the cost of the system. (Of course, I should point out the M2N-E, or base model of that board, has severely limited RAM voltages. Can be a problem with high end modules, not sure if the higher M2N series boards are like this or not).

Unless you're fairly certain you're going to upgrade, I'd say paying more for the Ballistix memory is a waste... from what I've heard the difference between memory speeds on AM2 is pretty slim.

As for the Raptor... from what I hear it IS faster then 7200RPM drives, but it's still mechanical storage and will still be subject to seek times and the like... you're system will still perform poorly when use of the page file is needed, and while it would probably speed up boot and loading times a bit I'm not sure it would be worth the capacity hit and price premium.
 
I threw that Asrock in there because it seems relatively cheap for its feature set, but I'm still leaning on AM2.

RAM prices suck right now. Sadly, that Ballistix is actually the cheapest pair that turns up on Dealram. There are some OCZs on newegg for a little less, but even those are shooting up. I'm open to any suggestions here! RAM is becoming the biggest obstacle in getting this build done.

Everything you said about mechanical storage will always be true, so I'll just do what I've always done, and stick to the best current bang/buck on HDD's, which now means a SATA 3Gb/s 250 or 320 drive. However, I'd really like it to be quiet. The Samsung Spinpoints appear to be the quietest, but come at a premium and I'm not sure to trust that brand.
 
Well, I can't really say much about RAM prices (for one thing, I'm Canadian and keep track of the Canadian market prices rather then the US ones), but I remember back when I was helping my dad put together his new AM2 rig some of the guys here recommended getting DDR2-667 when I told them it would cost me a fair bit less then DDR2-800. Not sure if US market prices have similar discrepancies, but I'd at least look into the price diffference. The added bandwidth makes pretty much no difference to current AM2 chips from what I hear. Can't really speculate too much on what effect it might have with future CPUs because I'm not in the know in that regard.

I'm a Seagate man myself, but when I did a brief co-op placement as a computer technician, the store I worked at used a lot of Samsung drives, and while I know they sold some stuff that had high failure rates, I never heard such complaints about the Samsungs. Now, admittadely, that was 3.5 years back, so it may not apply nowadays, but I personally wouldn't have a major objection to them.
 
I'd probably go with conore, but get a 'nicer' mobo and skip on the raptor, or see if I could score a dell rebrand for cheap.
 
I took care of the HDD part, see the first post. Great link there, enginurd. It cleared up all my questions about today's RAM. :)

I'm looking forward to order all the parts by the weekend, and hopefully we'll see some deals on RAM, but I doubt it.
 
I got a notification from ZZF and ordered this RAM

1 x (85002-54) GeIL GX22GB6400DC 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 DDR 2 Series Dual Channel Memory Retail ***Free Shipping*** @ $199.00

Specs
* Retail
* 2GB Dual Channel Kit
* PC6400 800MHz CAS 5-5-5-15
* 64x8 DDR2 FBGA Chips
* 240pin, Non-ECC, Un-buffered DDR2 SDRAM DIMM
* Aluminum Heat-spreader
* 6 Layers Ultra Low Noises Shielded PCB
* 1.8V Power Supply

Did I mess up? I thought it was a good deal in this hectic RAM market.
 
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