the generic "NEW SYSTEM" thread (what do you think?)

[fbiguy]

I wanted a gaming/recording setup, amature recording only (small time webcam stuff ) j/k! lol eeer its guitar i swear.

Anyway here is what i have lined up right now, and its pretty much breaking bank as it is currently at $1582.96 off newegg shipped...


Monitor ViewSonic G90FB 19inch PerfectFlat CRT Monitor -RETAIL
Case Lian Li PC-60 Plus (not the pc-60)
Speakers logitech z-2300
dvd-r NEC 3520
Motherboard MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (get the none SLI board)
Videocard Sapphire Toxic Radeon X700 Pro (near silent operation)
Soundcard Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
CPU AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache, 939 winchester - Retail
RAM TWINX1024-3200XLPT 2-2-2-5
UPS APC 725VA BACK-UPS ES, Model "BE725BB" -RETAIL
Hard Drive Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 Model HDS728080PLA380, OEM
Hard Drive Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA2 Model HDS728080PLA380, OEM
total off newegg.com with shipping = $1,582.96

Basically once i get all this, i'll spend another ~$400 at www.silenxusa.com buying the case fans, cpu fan, gpu fan (zalman), HD cases, PSU, so i can have my silent air cooled computer

The hitachi's will be RAID mirrored and that one speed thing lol (i've not researched too much into raid)

Im pretty much building this so that i can still have fun until the Dual Core AMD 939 chips come out whenever they do. At that time i'll upgrade CPU and Videocard to something pimpin (high end video assuming the prices are not jacked at the time)

Anyone notice any serious flaws?

thnx

PS. the parts are pretty much cut and paste right from my excel spread sheet so it may not make much sense.

(unedited, the silenx/zalman stuff i plan to get)
2 120mm x 25mm 11dBA iXtrema Fan 49.9
2 80mm x 25mm 11 dBA iXtrema Fan 29.9
1 520 W <14dBA iXtrema Pro A-PFC PSU 164.95
1 CPU Heatsink Iextrema 120mm Cu 46.95
1 GPU Heatsink Zalman ZM80D-HP 34.95
2 HD Silencing: Luxurae Hard Drive Silencing Solution 73.9
1 Zalman ZM-NB47J 4.95

 

[HvyMtl]

get bigger hard drives 160gb or better as games/songs take up space.
IF you are music recording look at the creative emu (think that is what they are called) cards as they will do better with the recording - but poorer at gaming...

 

[fbiguy]

i forgot to mention, those two 80's will just hold me off and be my primary/system drive (mirrored) and when larger SATA2 drives become available i'll throw a ~400gig drive in there for storage and stuff.

Edit: Just checked out those EMU cards, way nice cards. They are a bit expensive though (for my budget, not true pro recording ) im eyeing the 1212m, but i'd probably just annex a sound card in this system then save and buy later

 

[DamienThorn]

Ok, I don't know just how quiet you want things, but the parts that I'm going to recommend WILL move you towards having a quiet rig so that ambient computer noise doesn't interfere with your recordings.

Video Card: Dump the x700, and replace it with the Gigabyte 6600GT that is completely passively cooled; located http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Products/Products_GV-N66T128VP.htm

HDD: I'd recommend that you get some seagates if you're concerned about noise; they run a little hotter than WD drives, but are quiet in comparison to WD and Maxtor. Here is a link for a decent faq about silencing noisy drives: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=8240
Here is a link that discusses HDD noise: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page1.html

Fans: I'd recommend that you either get some lowflow panaflo fans, or some vantec stealth fans; both brands are commonly available and are nice and quiet. Also, you can be certain that their ratings are accurate, which isn't necessarily the case concerning other fan manufacturers/resellers. Here is a link for other recommended fans: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page2.html

CPU Cooling: If you can, I'd get either the XP-90 with a panaflow low or medium on it, or get the Zalman AlCu. Both offer excellent, quiet cooling. When getting a CPU cooler, make sure that it weighs in below the maximum weight that the socket can take. This will mean that you don't get the pure copper heatsink, as most are significantly heavier than AMDs weight maximums. For more info on cpu cooling, you can go here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article30-page1.html

PSU: Check out the following link for a list of decent, and reasonably quiet, PSUs:http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

 

[fbiguy]

wow thanks for the excellent feedback/links...annnd here we go

Video Card: Dump the x700, and replace it with the Gigabyte 6600GT that is completely passively cooled; located http://www.giga-byte.com/VGA/Produc...V-N66T128VP.htm

Only problem i saw was the card you suggested is AGP 8x where i need a PCI-E card (PCIe?) But i did a little looking and your suggestion led me to this card, the Gigabyte X800 GV-RX80256D.

As you can see i had the Zalman GPU heatsink listed on the Silenx list...which is about $35, if i got the x800 i'd have a more powerful card with 0 dBA, yesss (pricewatch lists the card at $254 which is not a bad price to pay for the jump in performance

HDD: I'd recommend that you get some seagates if you're concerned about noise

I remember reading the seagates were quite drives , but i also have read quite a bit on the Hitachi drives and with their fluid ball bearing ... bearings? they are supposedly very quite drives. The other reason i chose those drives was because they are Serial-ATA2 and i wanted the extra bandwidth with the RAID configuration (even though i dont know that it will help anything right away)


and thats all i had to comment on, thank you and keep the suggestions coming

 

[fbiguy]

bump it

 

[DamienThorn]

If you're dead set on getting the Hitachi's, then get a third party RAID controller; while it doesn't happen too often, the onboard ones have been known to drop dead every now and again, and it would suck to have all you HDDs for a while. Also, I have to echo what a previous poster said; you're going to probably want to get larger HDDs. A friend of mine who just mucks around is in the process of putting together a CD, and is using probably between 70 and 90GB for his music alone; this doesn't include other bands' music, nor his software, nor the other programs on his computer. It's frightening how quickly a drive can fill up when your recording in high quality sound.

And I guess I just have to say "whoops" on the video card. Are you sure that you want to get the x800? You had previously said that you wanted to get a lower end video card this round, and get a high performance one when you got a dual core processor.

Oh, and if you decide to get the iXetreme fans, get a fan controller as well....you may well find out that you need to dial them down a little while recording.

 

[fbiguy]

If you're dead set on getting the Hitachi's

i've not looked at the seagates yet, i'll have to make a final decision, but i want SerialATA2, and hitachi does not have thier larger models out with SATA2 and i dont think seagate has any drives period with SATA2 yet......

then get a third party RAID controller; while it doesn't happen too often, the onboard ones have been known to drop dead every now and again, and it would suck to have all you HDDs for a while.

damn, lol, any recommended brands?

And I guess I just have to say "whoops" on the video card. Are you sure that you want to get the x800? You had previously said that you wanted to get a lower end video card this round, and get a high performance one when you got a dual core processor.

You are correct, but there was something that i forgot to take into consideration. I was planning to buy a ~$200 "low-end" video card (the x700 pro) and then putting a $35 fanless heatsink on it. Which brings the price to ~$235, i did not realize that there were cards out there that came fanless. The X800 i pointed out is only $20 more than my stated option. Which if i wanted to stay more in my budget im sure that they have an X700 fanless option, so i'll have to consider that too...

But/Now, what i am hoping, is that if i go with the X800 i would have better gaming. And hopefully when i upgrade to the dual core, the x800 will be doing fine, so then i could spread out my spending a little, maybe wait a few more months after buying dual core to upgrade my video card.

thanks for the feedback

 

[DamienThorn]

As for RAID controllers, I'm pretty ignorant concerning it....I don't do server purchases at work, so I've never had to look into them. A buddy of mine mentioned that Adaptec does reasonably reliable ones, but you'll want to check that yourself.

Concerning dual cores, you do know that they're not going to offer terribly significant performance increases until programs are coded for them, right? Also, there are likely to be the standard teething problems that come with all new technologies. My 6800GT, for example, doesn't have Purevideo on it because it wasn't working properly when it went to market. I'm not saying that there will necessarily be problems with dual core CPUs, but waiting a while after they come out will probably be a good idea, just so we can see the benches and actual real world performance that comes out of them.

 

[fbiguy]

Yes, i've read all there is to read (ok just a LOT) about dual cores and how they dont "Double" performance, and they dont offer any significant increase per application. But most every review or article i read does mention that in multi-tasking, things are improved. That is exactly what i want it for, thanks for the heads up, and hopefully we wont experience too much of a rough introduction.

I just want to be able to encode a video or audio file and then go load up a game and play...that would be sooo pimp, then of course im a big multi-tasker anyway. I've usually got tons of stuff going at once, and i've never worked on a Hyper threaded station, i hear they help with multi-tasking stuff, buuuut anyway too much info here....

 

[DamienThorn]

Yes, i've read all there is to read (ok just a LOT) about dual cores and how they dont "Double" performance, and they dont offer any significant increase per application. But most every review or article i read does mention that in multi-tasking, things are improved. That is exactly what i want it for, thanks for the heads up, and hopefully we wont experience too much of a rough introduction.

I just want to be able to encode a video or audio file and then go load up a game and play...that would be sooo pimp, then of course im a big multi-tasker anyway. I've usually got tons of stuff going at once, and i've never worked on a Hyper threaded station, i hear they help with multi-tasking stuff, buuuut anyway too much info here....

hehehe....k. I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the likely performance gains, as opposed to adopt early and get burned.

 

[fbiguy]

So am i going to have to go with Serial-ATA150 drives instead of the second generation 300? (i've been refering to them as SATA2) i cant seem to find anything on SATA300 (SATA2) drives or when they are going to be widely available (ie not buttrape expensive)...

 

[DamienThorn]

So am i going to have to go with Serial-ATA150 drives instead of the second generation 300? (i've been refering to them as SATA2) i cant seem to find anything on SATA300 (SATA2) drives or when they are going to be widely available (ie not buttrape expensive)...

I know that a friend of mine at IBM was talking about putting some together for a "home server." I didn't bother asking his price tags because he spents more on computers and electronics every year than I MAKE in a year. If you hunt around you might find a deal, but I have to admit that I'm dubious that you're going to find anything that is at a reasonable price. You might actually want to take a look at some SCSI stuff if you're bound and determined to get extremely fast throughputs. Here's a decent site that may offer some insight for you: http://www.storagereview.com/

 

[fbiguy]

RAID is making my head hurt lol

I think im going to go non-RAID for now, i can always do that later anyway. So i'll just get the 300 Gig Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ as my primary and then keep adding an additional 300 gig's when the need presents itself.

I am also considering the Exos-2 instead of the Silenx stuff. It would cost about $50 - $75 more [than the silenx stuff], and i'd probably want to replace the fans in it with the Silenx ones, that all depends on how loud it is.....so many damn options lol

 

[HvyMtl]

http://3dsoundsurge.com/reviews/Audigy4Pro/audigy4pro.html
you might want to look for this card - read the review as it tells you how good the card is at recording... and since this is the best creative card - you can fathom how well the others do (obviously less than this one) sadly this thingy's costly -$286+5 ship at newegg...
again I suggest the emu (sucky at games - excellent at recording...)
I have little info on m-audio - except that it has better music play and much worse gaming capability than an audigy 2...
never heard of audiotrak -
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=29-152-001&depa=0
and did not know gainward/chaintech had their own cards (both based on via envy)
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=29-120-103&depa=0
for the chaintech
but at that price I doubt it has good recording capabilites
guillemot used to have cards that would have fit your needs, but well, after they made them all hercules cards, uh, not so wonderful anymore. They used to make excellent video cards too, but are now making dj consoles...
their muse 5.1 dvd sound card does come with Acid Xpress - for mixing...
http://us.hercules.com/products/showpage.php?p=45&b=0&f=1

 

[fbiguy]

on my sound here is what i think i'll do.

For now i'll just use the onboard sound. Obviously i wont be able to do any recording (or any good recording anyway) with that, but i have chronic Tendonitis, and i recently (last month) found that i wont be able to play guitar again for another 2~3 years...according to a teacher who went through CT at my age. Sucks yeah, but old dreams die hard. Plus i sing, so i could use the recording setup for that, plus any band-mates etc.

Now that i've justified myself (lol)

I'm thinking if i plan to do any recording, i might as well go all the way the first time (within reason) and get the EMU 1820, and depend on what it adds (only $100 more) the 1820M. That will probalby be down the road quite a bit though buuut its cool, im not big into audio yet, so for my gaming i wont miss the lost performance, once i own my own house i'll go 5.1 or 7.1, but for now its 2.1 :-P

 

[DamienThorn]

RAID is making my head hurt lol

I think im going to go non-RAID for now, i can always do that later anyway. So i'll just get the 300 Gig Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ as my primary and then keep adding an additional 300 gig's when the need presents itself.

I am also considering the Exos-2 instead of the Silenx stuff. It would cost about $50 - $75 more [than the silenx stuff], and i'd probably want to replace the fans in it with the Silenx ones, that all depends on how loud it is.....so many damn options lol

Are you sure that you only want a single drive? I tend to have at least two; that way, if one goes south, I have another drive that I can temporarily install an OS on until I get the old one back from an RMA.

 

[fbiguy]

i have a few IDE drives laying around, which should hold me through in until i get a second 300gig

 

[DamienThorn]

i have a few IDE drives laying around, which should hold me through in until i get a second 300gig

Fair enough.