Finally about ready. New Comp.

And that tool I linked to makes it easy as pie. As far as I know it should be peachy with the mods too.

You just put it on a thumb drive. It copies your activation stuff for the machine, then you reinstall w/o a key and it puts the activation back on. It makes life easy, but you have to ensure you install the correct version of windows as when you install w/o a key you can install any version ( they are all on the image), but you can only reactivate the one your license is for.
 
New built system.


* CAS: ATX MEDIUM TOWER CASE 350 WATT (BLACK COLOR)
* CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit
* CD: (Special Price)LG 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
* FREEBIE_CU: FREE! 1GB USB 2.0 Portable Flash Drive
* FAN: CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling System (Superior Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dba)
* HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD )
* MOTHERBOARD: (QX9650 Support) Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
* MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
* NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
* OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition )
* POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies (Xion SuperNova Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready )
* RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
* SERVICE: Standard Warranty: 1-Year Limited Warranty Plus 24/7 Life-Time Technical Support
* SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD
* SPEAKERS: 600Watts PMPO Subwoofer Stereo Speakers
* USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
* VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
* VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card

* _PRICE: (+1393)
+$65 Shipping = $1,458.00

What do you think?
 
Ugh, pretty nasty to tell the truth. 350 Watt is dangerously low for the PSU, most enclosed water cooling solutions are crap (there are a couple of good ones, but with tower coolers being as good as they are it really doesn't make much sense nowadays). Why such a small HD?

Why not just build to order from a shop like Mwave? :) They have decent components, the only thing they really lack is good VGA coolers (the Accelero S1 and HR03-GT are in a class of their own).

Here is what I would suggest as a basic setup :

Antec Solo case
Modu82+ PSU
evga 750sli FTW mobo (although maybe you should wait deciding on SLI vs Crossfire till after the dust settles on the 4870)
Q6600
2x2 GB 6400 DDR2 of whatever is cheap at the time
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 cooler
 
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I think you missed this part of the list.

"* POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies (Xion SuperNova Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready )" The 350 just comes with the case, which I imagine will be left out or shipped unused.

Edit. The small HD is because I can add another later but even now I have a 120gb HD & it has 80gb free. I've never been one to fill up a HD. & the water cooling is at least silent & in the long run be fairly dust free.
 
Oops, didn't notice the PSU.

Water cooling doesn't do diddly about dust :) For that you need a good case with filters on the air intakes (Antec Solo or P182 for instance). Also a single 120mm radiator doesn't really have much more cooling surface than a 120mm tower cooler, so it needs the same kind of airflow/noise. Water only becomes advantageous with larger radiators. A good tower cooler with a good fan (say the Scythe Ultra Kaze) will have very similar performance to the Aquagate S1 and no chance of leaks or pump failure.

Also if you want quiet, PSU and videocard cooling are just as important as CPU cooling. SPCR was very impressed with Zalman's new 1 KWatt power supply, and as I said the the Accelero S1 and HR03-GT are in a class of their own.
 
Heh. well honestly I haven't been able to keep up on what's hot for the past couple years. This was stretching my knowledge from the past trying to play a fast catch up. Also I do not have a lot of money to oder much better parts. I was trying to compromise while still getting a decent system. So $ was an issue which this has to be a lot better then my current rig which looks like this.

Dual Core AMD Opteron 165 @ 1.80Ghz.
2gigs Mem.
nVidia 7900GT
Sound Blaster XFI sound.
120 gig SATA Hard Drive.
80 gig ide storage drive.
16x DVD burner.
500w Power supply.
 
1500$ is a very decent amount of money for just a box and no monitor ... there's really no reason not to pick good components. Looking for reviews for the Xion I could only find one for the 600 Watt version, and it was pretty poor.

From Mwave :

Antec Solo
Modu82+ 625 Watt
EVGA 750i FTW
Q6600
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
PATRIOT PDC24G6400LLK 4gb kit (2gb x 2)
SAMSUNG 750GB
Gigabyte GV-NX88T512HPV1 GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Assembly

$1,142.63 before shipping, with 75$ in rebates.

If you later decide you want to make it a bit more silent get good fans to replace the CPU and case fans and an Accelero S1 for the GPU (tie wrap a decent ball bearing fan the to it, sleeve bearing fans are not a good idea for horizontal mounting). After that it should be whisper quiet.
 
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Wrong. Water cooling requires fans on the radiator. So unless you run the radiator completely external to your case, you still have fans in the case.
 
But a radiator fan like this one should be easier to clean since its not mounted to the CPU & typically I leave the side door off on my comps so that would make cleaning it pretty easy as well if the radiator isn't mounted.
 
You should really have the radiator mounted somewhere. It has to have plenty of clearance on the opposite side so air can flow through it. However, it's lessened somewhat if you mount it external off the back of the case. And you should really keep the side door on the case to enable proper airflow inside to keep the internals cooled.

What little time you gain from not having to de-dust your PC, you lose in having to clean out the water loop periodically. This should be done at a minimum once every 6 months. Most will suggest once every 3 months.

I run 2 water-cooled systems.
 
Come on.....

* CAS: ATX MEDIUM TOWER CASE 350 WATT (BLACK COLOR)
* CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit
* CD: (Special Price)LG 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
* FREEBIE_CU: FREE! 1GB USB 2.0 Portable Flash Drive
* FAN: CoolerMaster Liquid CPU Cooling System (Superior Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dba)
* HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD )
* MOTHERBOARD: (QX9650 Support) Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard
* MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
* NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
* OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition )
* POWERSUPPLY: 800 Watts Power Supplies (Xion SuperNova Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready )
* RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
* SERVICE: Standard Warranty: 1-Year Limited Warranty Plus 24/7 Life-Time Technical Support
* SOUND: 3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD
* SPEAKERS: 600Watts PMPO Subwoofer Stereo Speakers
* USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
* VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
* VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card
* _PRICE: (+1393)
+$65 Shipping = $1,458.00
With a warranty.

Is this not a pretty good deal? The following list here is missing 64bit Vista, a 2nd V-card, speakers (don't need but others in the house can use them & it was only -$4 to remove) & shipping costs. So how much extra would that add & would the power supply in this list need beefing up with a 2nd V-Card? Not to mention I would have the extra hassle of mail in rebates.

Antec Solo
Modu82+ 625 Watt
EVGA 750i FTW
Q6600
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
PATRIOT PDC24G6400LLK 4gb kit (2gb x 2)
SAMSUNG 750GB
Gigabyte GV-NX88T512HPV1 GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Assembly

$1,142.63 before shipping, with 75$ in rebates.
Click to expand...

Maybe water cooling wasn't the best option, but it was only 54 bux more & I always wanted it years ago. This can't be all that bad. Quad Core, 8800GT SLI, Asus P5N-D, 4 gigs Corsair mem, 800 watt PSU, & 64bit Vista most likely without the HP, Dell, Gateway style bloat. So what my HD is only 320gigs. I don't fill up my 120 gig, so if I am ok with 320 that's all that matters I think.
 
D3v0ur3r said:
But a radiator fan like this one should be easier to clean since its not mounted to the CPU & typically I leave the side door off on my comps so that would make cleaning it pretty easy as well if the radiator isn't mounted.
Click to expand...
You will need more fans if you do that ... you will need a fan on both the HD and the northbridge (normal airflow in a good case will cool them, but with the side off there isn't a lot of airflow away from the fans).

I don't know what kind of cooler you are used to ... maybe Zalman? Tower coolers with parallel fins don't gunk up with dust nearly as fast as the radial zalman coolers.

My P182 has been running for 6 months and there is no dust build up inside it to speak off (well except on the dust filters, but that's what they are there for). I did have the side panel off for a day or so though when installing some components, and I quickly corrected that when I first touched my HD. The P182 is a bit special though, there are not a lot of cases where there are no unfiltered air inlets (most have those nasty side gratings, even the Solo has an open grating on the back).

PS. it's not a bad deal ... I just think that not buying quality components is a very bad idea which will in the end come back to haunt you. Get a good case, get a good PSU ... don't get watercooling unless you are enthousiastic about it and it makes sense (for it to make sense you need a larger radiator and you need to be overclocking).

PPS. even if you change nothing else, get a good PSU (the modu82+ and pro82+ are both very fucking good). Skimping on that is a phenomenally bad idea. It will be noisy and it might become unstable if you do decide to go for a setup with high power consumption. Just read this horror story.
 
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Cosair, Asus, Intel, are all pretty quality names I think. Over all I got good parts where it count's (V-cards & HD names are unknown), but I had to skimp in some area's. Not all of us can afford top of the line all the time. & peacing together systems sucks if its done over any real period of time which I would have had to do if I could spend up to 4k.

Are there reports that Xion SuperNova PSU's are bad?

Edit: I didn't want much hassle like building & keeping track of mail in rebates.
 
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Why are you so bent on going SLI? A single video card is less of a hassle. You do know the brand new video cards from Nvidia and ATI will be released in the next week, right? Have you read any of the AMD HD 4850 threads? It seems to be an interesting choice for $200ish as it holds its own with the 9800-GX2.

If you're hellbent on the old gen, then maybe you should do some bargain shopping. A 9800GTX can be had for $219 after $75 rebate (if you can order from NewEgg). So perhaps you could look at going 9800 GTX SLI instead. Or if you want lesser cards, you could pickup some 8800 GT for $122 or $129 after $30 rebate.

Also, here's one review of that PSU, that I've never heard of, at Hardware Canucks. After reading it, I'd certainly pass it up and get a nice quality PSU. It drops voltage majorly once it's loaded up, as you want to do with SLI. The 12 V rail drops to below 11.76 V. It also ripples like an earthquake. This is bad.
 
Well. I am hell bent because I've been waiting for over 2 years (money issues mostly). If I didn't get it now, I wouldn't be getting it for possibly a long while more. Basically my current system can't play anything new with any detail (at least at my monitors 1680x1050 resolution). Always waiting for the next great hardware release gets old.

Meh. At any rate, I don't think its a bad deal for the $. Sure there are better parts for more $ or maybe even less $ but with more hassle. Anyway, thanks for the help.

Edit: I ordered this @ Extreme Gear where they build it. I didn't order this piece by piece. Some of the parts recommended are not offered. I did the best for what I could afford & they offered, Aside from maybe the water cooling. Along with not wanting to build myself.
 
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D3v0ur3r said:
Well. I am hell bent because I've been waiting for over 2 years (money issues mostly). If I didn't get it now, I wouldn't be getting it for possibly a long while more.
Click to expand...

So waiting 1 more week, or at least until Tuesday, would have killed the entire deal?
 
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