Your thoughts and tips.

[FX25]

I am looking to put together a system for when i go away to school. the system will be used mostly for high end games and school work.

the parts that i have already gotten are as follows.

17 inch Veiwsonic monitor
Thermaltake Xaser III case
Antec TruePower 430 watt power supply.

Here is what i am thinking of getting.

1 X 80 Gig Sata seagate barracuda 72000RPM 8MB (upgrade to 2 of these when money comes in)
1 X Abit IC7-G
1 X Corsair XMS3500 512 (upgrade to 2 sticks when money comes in)
1 X Intel CPU with 800 FBS (will decide when i buy in May, prices may drop)
1 X 9700 Pro from old computer, willing to buy a new Vid card if needed

what do you think? i want to overclock this and will be useing only air, my case has 7 Case fans and i will be useing 2 x tornato fans on the blowhole in the top and on the CPU. the heatsink will be stock or something from thermalright.

 

[Dude]

I'd say that sounds like a winner. I would just get that extra stick of RAM ASAP. That extra stick of RAM when you get it will definately take it from really good to uber kick ass. Must have dual channel with the P4s, or so I'm told.

 

[Hades16x]

well id borrow some money and pay back

Intels kinda suck with 1 stick o ram

And id get a 160gig wd sata hdd

wait though that segate is 72000 rpm rofl...... sonic boom
9700pro should be fine

 

[Petra]

Two tornado fans in the same case?!?! Jesus fucking christ! Either you enjoy pain or plan on wearing earplugs a lot... I had one of those things in my case and it was so damn loud that I threw it away.

Oh, and as a side note, if you put tornados in your case and then decide to use the stock Intel HSF... I think I would have to question your sanity/intelligence.

Anyway, yeah, I'm also going to suggest that you look into picking up a second stick of RAM for that rig and, personally, I'd prefer a Maxtor 120GB SATA HDD to one of the Seagate SATA HDDs (they seem to be a bit faster and cooler...plus, they don't require an SATA power adapter, if I remember correctly).

 

[Seraphim974]

are you saying that he could possible use the tornado as a heatsink fan? can you do that? (easy?)

 

[Petra]

Originally posted by Seraphim974
are you saying that he could possible use the tornado as a heatsink fan? can you do that? (easy?)

No...I mean, yes....Wait...Aw, hell... What I'm saying is that it'd be stupid to put two tornados in your computer just to be used as case fans while you're using the stock Intel HSF to cool the CPU. If you're going to have your computer make that much noise, then at least do it for a reason (like putting a tornado on a good CPU heatsink like a Thermalright SP-94). The Intel HSF is a piece of shit no matter how much air you have moving through your case.

 

[FX25]

yea i didnt mean stock, i dont know how that got in there, i ment swifttech or thremalright heatsink. 1 tornado on my CPU and 1 as a blow hole.

as for the HD i dont use much storage on my comp as is, i need 80 gigs max really. when i get the 2nd one i am going to put it on raid.

for the RAM do you think 2x256 would be better then upgrade in the winter to 4x256? or get 1 x 512 and then upgrade in the winter. spending 400 on ram is not an option right now.

 

[Petra]

I suppose going with 2x256 now and then adding more later to get to 4x256 would be a pretty good idea... I don't think there should be any performance difference between 4x256 and 2x512. The only real drawbacks that I see would be 1) using all of your DIMM slots just for 1GB of RAM 2) needing to find RAM that is identical to the RAM that you previously purchased when the time to add more comes (though, this problem exists no matter what) 3) price difference? (check and see if 4x256 would cost more or less than 2x512)