New Ultra SLI PC!!!!!!

F

freddiepm61

Gawd
Joined
Oct 19, 2004
Messages
836
For one year, I have dreamed, and then scrimped sold and saved enough to finally get my dream PC. (I am one of the buy the best and then wait 3 years and do it again etc.)

So this is probably my new PC, but if anything is hugely wrong then please say what changes could/should be made. But essentially I am looking for (in this order)
(1) Power
(2) Reliability - so great cooling
(3) Quiet
So,
Athlon 64 4000+
A8N-SLI deluxe
2 x 1gb Geil value ram
2x 74gb raptors
1x120gb western digital caviar
2xleadtek 6800 ultra
thermalright xp-120 with vantec stealth 120mm
mitsumi 7in1 media bay w. floppy drive
aerocool gatewatch
lian li v-1000B with big custom window of the whole side
blue or white cathode lighting ....going for understated elegance and super clean look, so.... which one?
plextor dvd drive
px-716a dvd-r.

With the Lian Li, is the cooling good enough, or should I get a zalman swinging bracket thing for the gfx cards?

also, is the cooling good enough for the HD?

any comment please say
thanks
f
 
mmm.... i'd get better ram, Geil isnt that good. You could just get 2x1gb Corsair cas 2-3-3-6 ram instead, which would be higher quality and actually quite fast without costing too much more. 2 gig is still overkill for games, more of a waste of money but if you have to then may aswell.

If your going to run the 74gb drives in Raid-0, it isnt worth it. If its Raid-1 then yer, but raid-0 isnt that great unless you do alot of phat file swapping, which gaming doesnt do (ive had mine in raid-0 and theres no real increase). My advice is get a 200gb drive in its stead and use a single 74 for boot. You could also get some SilenX HDD shutter-upperers if you want silence.

You forgot a PSU, chuck in a PCP&C SLI if you want the best, could spend the money from the 74gig raptor on it heh.

Cooling for HDD should be ok but im not a fan of the V1000 series, im a Stacker man, partly cause they're steel but also cause they have tonnes of 120mm fans. My advice for cooling the 3d cards is to put a filtered blow hole on the side of the case in the window or to yer, get the zalman mabob. So long as your not going for silent, the v1000 should be good enough when it comes to cooling everything. For the very best case there is for cooling with silence then the stacker is the shit.

I know your going plextor for the SATA dvd drive but if you can live with a rounded IDe cable then the Pioneer A09XL is probably a better choice as they make pretty much no noise and are just as fast as the rest.
 
The DVD writer is IDE, and I am getting red IDE cables.
The PSU is an OCZ 600w powerstream
there are 2 74gb hd, as I will have my page file on a different drive which improves performance, but also, they will be my drives for eveyrhting, and then the 120gb will be for back up, and a film, music etc. dump.

but are there any improvements that could be made?
I am open to all suggestions.
also, blue or white light?
f
 
Geil ram is "POOP". I would say if your going to build up a system like that then why cripple it with Geil? Go quility! :)
 
the vantec stealth is not quiet. you might want to look for a nexus/yate loon or panaflo fan for your xp-120.

for a quiet power supply, check out the seasonic's. reliable, good brand, and quiet.

i'm going to say go white lights... everyone has blue lights.
 
Well, the geil is cheap.......
name me, and give me a link of where to buy the best ram, in 2x1gb sticks.
I just thought that the differene between cas3.0 and cas2.0 was not that great in real life (gaming and photoshop)....
well, give me the link for the best!
thanks
f
 
can you include pictures of each component? for the visual users :D

but, yea, the cheap ram is the only thing that stands out.
 
freddiepm61 said:
Well, the geil is cheap.......
name me, and give me a link of where to buy the best ram, in 2x1gb sticks.
I just thought that the differene between cas3.0 and cas2.0 was not that great in real life (gaming and photoshop)....
well, give me the link for the best!
thanks
f
Click to expand...
Geil is good, but Patriot makes 1GB sticks that do 2-3-2-5. I would drop one of the Raptors and get BFG or Asus 6800 Ultras with the extra cash.
 
In a year it will be outdated, meh...don't care, it will still be able to run games well for some time.
I definately want leadtek, and not asus or bfg, as the cooler on the leadtek is better and quieter.
Could someone please give me a link to the pqi ram to buy it?
thanks
f
 
I say dump the Asus SLI also, my buddy had his second board take a dump last night.

You might want to consider Corsair Value Select ram if your looking for something inexpensive, both newegg and zipzoomfly have excellent prices and service.


As for cooling the Ultras, I'm a beliver in the NV Silencer 5's now. We installed them in my buddies system and measured a 10 degree drop with nvidia's temperature gauge on both cards and he's using a CM Stakcer with two 120mm fans in the front that blow across the cards, a 120mm in the back, and the 300mm cross flow fan installed.
 
If you don't go with the asus board, then the dual slot coolers of the ultras either don't fit, or the back one gets very very hot.
anyway, many people have been fine with the ASUS, i don't want to OC, so the ASUS will be fine.

Also, thanks for finding me some ram....however, could you find me a place that sells this stuff in the UK???

Again, thanks for all the input...my Lian-li v-1000b will arrive tomorrow. It has a really nice custom side window where it is just one big sheet, as opposed to the standard lian li which is only half.

I will order the rest of the components based on your guys advice.
f
 
Well, I could find better ram, but as I could get this ram for so dam cheap £175, and there is not much difference between Cas2.0 and 3.0 in real life, I have gone with the crappy Geil.
However I have upgraded it to an FX-55, and a 200gb Hard drive.
It all arrives tomorrow, apart from the case, media drive, aerocool, and power supply which arrive next tuesday.
Pics soon
f
 
Ditch the ABit POS, Go with the MSI board
replace Geil with something better
lose one of the raptors
make the 2nd drive bigger
ignore the nay sayers who nix the 2GB. 2GB will become the new standard soon enough. Games like WoW already benefit when you upgrade from 1GB.
 
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