My new computer - Suggestions would be helpful.

[Natoma]

Strange. I could have sworn I posted this, but for some reason it disappeared. Maybe I'm going crazy. Anyways, the specs are below:

Samsung LCD Monitor 210T (silver) 21.3"
Pentium 4 3.0Ghz (800Mhz FSB)
Swiftech MCX4000 + Four Thermaltake Smart Fan II (3 Case/1 Cooler)
Gigabyte GA-8KNXP
1GB CMX512-3200LLPT Corsair PC3200 Memory
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB DDR
4 Western Digital SATA 36GB 10,000 RPM HD
Samsung SD-816B 16x/48x DVD-CD Combo Drive (512KB Buffer)
Samsung SW-252BRNS 52x24x52 Retail CD-RW Drive (8MB Buffer)
VAV W-X1W ATX Silver Case
Enermax EG651P-VE 650w Power Supply
Enermax's Whispersys System Exhaust Blower
Two Hard Disk / CD/DVD/CDRW Drive Cooler, for 5.25 bay. 3 fans.

This is what I've been able to come up with after a few hours of researching. All together, with S/H, it comes to $3,812.00. I think I'm going to purchase the parts in the next few days. So if anyone has any ideas, please state your opinion. Thanks!

 

[Natoma]

Ok apparently I posted it to hardware talk instead of here.

Definitely going nuts. I guess that's what I get for staying up all night.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

The LCD is a total waste of cash IMO, unless your going to LAN parties alot it just doesn't make sense to spend that much more on a LCD, and space is not an issue it nvr is, I'm sure you could easily fit a 21"+ CRT somewhere on your desk. You'll need s DVDRW, any high end PC should have one of these I wouldn't go with the P4 either, but I'm a AMD fan. 650watt PSU is complete overkill, totaly uneeded even for heavy ocing. Get a 430 watt antec tru-power. I Got one and I really like it.

EDIT: Originally I said not to get the WD raptor, well I just checked the updated review @ anand and its goten much much better So go for it! But its only liek 37gigs so get at least 4, and put em in raid.

 

[MuFu]

Reduce the spec and buy an iPod with the money you save. That would be my advice.

Just bought one yesterday and they are sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

MuFu.

 

[horvendile]

If a dramatic increase in revenues can be seen next time the computer industry reports financial results, this will be the explanation!

 

[RussSchultz]

I know its not manly to buy a already put together unit, but try looking at what Dell has. If you catch them at the right time, they have pretty good deals.

 

[indio]

I would get the
then take the $1700 I saved and buy this http://www.pcnation.com/asp/details.asp?affid=303&item=899774
a better power supply and upgrade the video card to 256MB

Make: DLJ SYSTEM
Part#: -


Processor: Intel P4 3.0G (HT) 800Mhz 512K

Mainboard: INTEL D875PBZLK P4 3.0 800FSB S-ATA/RAID/Gblan

Memory: KINGSTON 1GB 400MHz DDR PC3200 CL3A

Hard Drives: Seagate 120GB Barracuda Serial ATA

Case: ATOP ATX 350WATT POWER SUPPLY w/NEON LIGHT

Display: KDS RAD-5P 15

Video: ATI 9800 Pro 128MB

Sound: CREATIVE LABS SB Audigy 2- 6.1

CD/DVD: DW-U10ABK DVD±RW/±R / LTR-52246S 52x24x52 Black

Software: Windows XP Pro


Please allow 24 to 48 Hour Burn-In time. Includes Shipping Box and Insurance.
Parts have a 3 Year warranty.

Availability: Ships in 24-48 Hours
$2,100.00

 

[Gollum]

I am with Panda on this one. The Samung its a great monitor, but still way overpriced IMO (like all TFTs in its class). I guess you need/want a resolution of at least 1600x1200, but is it really worth paying 5-10x as much as for a good CRT that could hande even higher resolutions? I guess if it had to be a TFT I'd settle with a 19" instead (e.g. Samtron 91S) and live with the 1280x1024 resolution, knowing that with the money I just saved I could just buy 2 or 3 more of the same TFT and still pay less than for the single bigger one.

 

[P4-Fan]

I agree with the others. I would scrap the 21" lcd. But I would get 2 21" CRTs. Or 2 19" LCDs if you really like the look. You can never have enough desktop space.

 

[demalion]

Aside: I wasn't aware that there was a problem with this type of thread in the Hardware talk forum. The traffic is low enough for there to be room for both this and architecture discussions, IMO. I mention this because I saw you refer to a B3D thread on this elsewhere and was surprised when I didn't see it there.

To the topic, I have some thoughts related to the decisions I made in building my new system...your choices should work pretty well, but maybe some alternatives will open up some possibilities for you:

I assume from your CPU, cooler, and RAM choices that you are going for serious overclocking. Otherwise, with the quality of your components, a cheaper P4 with overclocked FSB would work pretty well (I'm running a 2.4 @ 3.0 right now with now heat issues, and I'm using an Antec Sonata with 1 case fan, and have a SATA RAID Raptor setup with an additional Maxtor 7200 RPM 200 MB EIDE drive).

Regarding CPU/RAM choices:

cooler - I considered the funky "radial pin" design for a while, but went with a Zalman CNPS7000 instead. At full fan speed, it is still pretty quiet, and I'm getting similar or better cooling results than those reported in the feedback for the one you chose (80 F ambient, 34 C case, 38/41 C CPU idle/FAH...I'm also assuming the hyperthreading CPU usage figures are illusionary wrt to the amount of load the CPU is under for maximum thermal output). NOTE: I recommend using Arcticsilver "Ceramique", whatever your choice.
RAM - I bought the TWINX1024-3200LLPT...unless there is some sort of quality sacrificing scam going on (doesn't seem to be, it is working well at 250 MHz so far), this seems a better deal. Newegg pricing has it cheaper than two 512 MB sticks, and there is "testing" for dual channel usage. I recommend you look for that, unless someone here recommends against it for some reason.

Regarding storage:

I purchased an Asus P4P800 Deluxe, but your choice is just plain better from what I can see. Assuming price is no object (seems a safe bet), my recommendation is to reconsider your tradeoffs.
I didn't find confirmation that it could support more than 2 drives in RAID configuration. In any case, I'd advise changing two of those Raptors to 7200 RPM SATA drive(s)...if the SATA channels can be assigned independently for two different RAID arrays, two Maxtor drives configured as a second RAID array. Of course, you have the possibility of IDE RAID as an alternative that should be as suitable, though I'm not sure about throughput limitations of of the implementation.
I think your current storage figure is a bit low for the cost, is all. Certainly not slow, though...I'm happy with my 2x WD Raptor SATA RAID so far.

I also recommend a DVD R/RW swiss army drive.

Regarding PSU:

Yep, I'm pretty sure cost is a distant second to quality for ya. If it isn't too noisy, and if I'm correct in presuming a relative disinterest in cost, I guess there isn't much reason not go "overboard" as you are. Maybe you could get only two SATA raptors, get 2 IDE drives for IDE RAID, then wait for 15000 RPM SATA drives to come out...leeway is a good thing.
Have you considered PC Power and Cooling, though?


No comment on the LCD, etc...that's between you and your wallet. I will throw in a for the heck of it, though.
...

Your system doesn't look like it will be very quiet...maybe you should look into some dampening materials to help that out. I'm guessing (without researching the Enermax unit) the PSU fans will be loudest component, but this solution should help with the case fan mounting positions and hard drives.

 

[Hanners]

So if anyone has any ideas, please state your opinion. Thanks!

Sending it to me seems like a pretty good idea...

 

[Natoma]

The LCD is a total waste of cash IMO, unless your going to LAN parties alot it just doesn't make sense to spend that much more on a LCD, and space is not an issue it nvr is, I'm sure you could easily fit a 21"+ CRT somewhere on your desk. You'll need s DVDRW, any high end PC should have one of these I wouldn't go with the P4 either, but I'm a AMD fan. 650watt PSU is complete overkill, totaly uneeded even for heavy ocing. Get a 430 watt antec tru-power. I Got one and I really like it.

EDIT: Originally I said not to get the WD raptor, well I just checked the updated review @ anand and its goten much much better So go for it! But its only liek 37gigs so get at least 4, and put em in raid.

1) Actually right now I have a Hitachi CM814 SuperScan monitor sitting on my desk. But it is far too big for our desktop area, so we decided to go LCD. Unless of course there are smaller CRTs nowadays than this one. I remember that Hitachi made it a shortneck CRT. Only 17" deep.

Besides, it's only $1,355 at Newegg. I didn't think that was bad at all?

2) I considered a DVD-RW as well, but I didn't want to get stuck with a rewritable format that could be dead within a year. Besides, we're probably going to keep this system for another 3-4 years, which would put us squarely in Blu-ray country in terms of high storage rewritable medium no?

Do you know of any drives that might combine DVD-RW, DVD-RAM, and DVD-R? Or something along those lines. With the standards wars the way they are, I just don't want to get something that will be unsupported and obsolete within a year. That's why I went the safe route and stuck with a CD-RW.

3) I intend on doing a lot of gaming at home (hence the sapphire. ). Also, my partner and I spend a lot of time in the Office Suite (mostly him though. He works for S&P) and doing Photoshop work. Will a 400Mhz FSB Athlon be better for our usage patterns?

Fyi, I had intended on waiting until the fall to check out the Prescott/Athlon64 systems, but our machine now is a piece of crap that always crashes at the most inopportune time, so we kind of need to upgrade immediately.

4) 650w is overkill even for four hard drives (going to RAID them into two RAID0 arrays), a CD-RW, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM combo, and 5 case fans? I just want to make sure I've got enough power. Actually I just checked again to make sure. The PSU is 550w, but peaks at 650w in heavy load conditions apparently.

The enermax PSU costs $158.

5) Yea that's what I was going to do with the raptors. The Gigabyte board has four serial ATA ports. Two from the Intel ICH5-R and two from the Silicon Image controller. So I was going to RAID0 two on the Intel and two on the Silicon Image for two logical drives, each 72GB.

Mainly for speed. That's why I was going Raptor. We currently use roughly 60-70GB across two hard drives, so I figured doubling the capacity would be more than enough for us. It would mostly take into account the games

 

[Natoma]

Btw, wrt the LCD issue vs CRT. Space is an issue on our desk. We currently have a Hitachi CM814 Superscan Shadowmask monitor that is 17" deep, but it still pushes our keyboard slightly off the desk, and it takes up easily 1/2 of our desktop.

So unless there are smaller 21" CRTs, or cheaper, but as good quality LCDs, we're kind of in a bind wrt to the LCD purchase. The price was really no object, but I thought $1,355 was a relatively cheap price for a 21" LCD these days? From the reactions it seems like I'm mistaken on that point.

Hmmm..

 

[Natoma]

Reduce the spec and buy an iPod with the money you save. That would be my advice.

Just bought one yesterday and they are sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

MuFu.

Actually my partner likes the Nomad Jukebox Zen. He likes the way it looks better than the IPOD, though I like the look of the IPOD better. But then, who am I to argue with him on this matter? I'll just end up on the couch.

Besides, it'd match our case.

Here's a photo from NewEgg of the case:

http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage...02-06.jpg/11-189-002-05.jpg/11-189-002-04.jpg

 

[Natoma]

I know its not manly to buy a already put together unit, but try looking at what Dell has. If you catch them at the right time, they have pretty good deals.

Yea we went through Dell, Alienware, Gateway, and Falcon Northwest to see if we could customize our system. Frankly at this point I kind of wanted a warranty on the whole thing just in case something fubars. While Alienware came closest in terms of what we wanted, they unfortunately tacked on hundreds of dollars of software we don't need (Windows XP Pro, Office XP, etc etc) that jacked up the price.

In the end that's why we decided to build our own system instead. Are there any respectable companies out there that let you completely customize your machine part by part, and then build it for you for a nominal fee? I'd consider greatly going through a company like that.

 

[RussSchultz]

I just priced a dell 4600 3.0HT w/512 meg (DDR400), Dell 20" LCD (1600x1200), 9800 pro, XP home, 60GB HD for $2149. Comes with a 1 year warranty, etc.



That would leave you $1700 to buy crack with.

 

[kyleb]

3) I intend on doing a lot of gaming at home (hence the sapphire. ). Also, my partner and I spend a lot of time in the Office Suite (mostly him though. He works for S&P) and doing Photoshop work.

two good reasons not to get that monitor. first off gaming; is not cool when with native 1600x1200 and you want to play new games that even a 9800pro cant give decent framerate at such resolution and also the with any lcd that big response times are such that you are going to get mad ghosting. second is photoshop, color accuracy on lcds is still well below a good crt. i highly recommend a big trinitron/dimontron monitor and if desk space is an issue i recommend a new desk.

 

[Bogotron]

Natoma:

"4) 650w is overkill even for four hard drives (going to RAID them into two RAID0 arrays), a CD-RW, CD-ROM/DVD-ROM combo, and 5 case fans? I just want to make sure I've got enough power."

My disk server runs on a 430W Enermax PSU and it powers 13 harddisks, 7 case fans and a P3-700. The 650W/550W is overkill.

Will a 400Mhz FSB Athlon be better for our usage patterns?

Won't really matter much. For office use anything over 1GHz is more than enough, and for games sometimes the P4 is faster and sometimes the AMD is faster. Unless you have a favourite game that runs much better on one than the other there is no big diff.

What I'd look into is what kind of cooling solution you are going to use and find something quiet. The stock HSF on a 3GHz P4 is anything but quiet or comfortable IMO. In general, dropping the GHz by 0.2 and buying a more expensive and quiet cooling solution is the way to go. You are supposed to be in the same room as the computer, right? Then again, if you're gonna OC you can just forget this last paragraph. (PS: The P4 3GHz isn't the best CPU if you're gonna OC, the 2.4 seems to be the rage these days).

So I was going to RAID0 two on the Intel and two on the Silicon Image for two logical drives, each 72GB.

Are you really sure you need the STR of a raid-0 with modern 8MB cache disks? Getting 45-50MB/sec on a single IDE drive isn't farfetched, so will you really notice an increase up to 80-90MB/sec? (Also keep in mind that raid-0 lowers the fault-tolerance of the disk subsystem.) Personally I'd think grabbing a 200GB Maxtor/WD sata disk would be better, cheaper, cooler and less noisy.

 

[Natoma]

Aside: I wasn't aware that there was a problem with this type of thread in the Hardware talk forum. The traffic is low enough for there to be room for both this and architecture discussions, IMO. I mention this because I saw you refer to a B3D thread on this elsewhere and was surprised when I didn't see it there.

Oh I deleted it. I didn't want to have a duplicate thread.

I assume from your CPU, cooler, and RAM choices that you are going for serious overclocking. Otherwise, with the quality of your components, a cheaper P4 with overclocked FSB would work pretty well (I'm running a 2.4 @ 3.0 right now with now heat issues, and I'm using an Antec Sonata with 1 case fan, and have a SATA RAID Raptor setup with an additional Maxtor 7200 RPM 200 MB EIDE drive).

Yea we're probably going to overclock after a little while running it at default speeds. I just want to make sure we've got high enough quality components so that if/when we want/need the extra speed, we can kick the machine into higher gear.

cooler - I considered the funky "radial pin" design for a while, but went with a Zalman CNPS7000 instead. At full fan speed, it is still pretty quiet, and I'm getting similar or better cooling results than those reported in the feedback for the one you chose (80 F ambient, 34 C case, 38/41 C CPU idle/FAH...I'm also assuming the hyperthreading CPU usage figures are illusionary wrt to the amount of load the CPU is under for maximum thermal output). NOTE: I recommend using Arcticsilver "Ceramique", whatever your choice.

Thank you. I did some googling on the Zalman CNPS7000 cooler and found a review of it on frostytech. The sound coming out of it is sooooo quiet!

They said it's only rated at 42 DbA. The Swiftech cooler with the Thermalright fan rates at 45 DbA though, so not much louder, but it does perform a little bit better in terms of keeping ambient case temperature down.

The three coolers that seemed to perform really well, with a 40-45 DbA rating, were the Swiftech MCX4000 + Thermaltake Smart Fan II, the Zalman CNPS7000, and the AVC 117140.

I will do more research on all three. Thanks for the suggestion.

RAM - I bought the TWINX1024-3200LLPT...unless there is some sort of quality sacrificing scam going on (doesn't seem to be, it is working well at 250 MHz so far), this seems a better deal. Newegg pricing has it cheaper than two 512 MB sticks, and there is "testing" for dual channel usage. I recommend you look for that, unless someone here recommends against it for some reason.

Nice! I checked Newegg and it's cheaper by $9. Specs updated.

Have you considered PC Power and Cooling, though?

What's that? A brand of computer maker? Or something else?

Your system doesn't look like it will be very quiet...maybe you should look into some dampening materials to help that out. I'm guessing (without researching the Enermax unit) the PSU fans will be loudest component, but this solution should help with the case fan mounting positions and hard drives.

Our system right now probably puts out a combined LF 70 DbA with the heatsink and all fans running. So anything in the 40s - 50s would not be that bad at all for us.

From what I've read, the enermax unit is as quiet as most PSUs though. Do you know a good DbA level for a PSU that I can reference with?

The other points you brought up I addressed in earlier responses, so I didn't want to duplicate them.

 

[Natoma]

3) I intend on doing a lot of gaming at home (hence the sapphire. ). Also, my partner and I spend a lot of time in the Office Suite (mostly him though. He works for S&P) and doing Photoshop work.

two good reasons not to get that monitor. first off gaming; is not cool when with native 1600x1200 and you want to play new games that even a 9800pro cant give decent framerate at such resolution and also the with any lcd that big response times are such that you are going to get mad ghosting. second is photoshop, color accuracy on lcds is still well below a good crt. i highly recommend a big trinitron/dimontron monitor and if desk space is an issue i recommend a new desk.

Can't get a new desk any time soon. Also dealing with space constraints.

Hmmm. Well, the native resolution is actually 1280x1024 for DVI (though it can be forced to 1600x1200) and 1600x1200 for analog. The response time is 25ms and the reviews I read on it at Newegg said that ghosting was not an issue, even in games like counterstrike.

Are there any LCDs that have a high quality color accuracy wrt CRTs? Thanks for the suggestions. I really don't know much about LCDs and have been trying to follow the specifications the manufacturers put out, then look at different reviews on the web.