Speccing my new box

po0k

Latest version can be found here.

Motherboard:
Manufacturer's Part Number: NF7-S VER 2.0
bit NF7-S V2.0 Mainboard Socket A S-ATA nForce2-SPP/MCP-T2/Ultra 400, ATX,1394 (clicky)
Euro 91

or

MSI K7N2 DELTA-ILSR Mainboard Socket A nForce2SPP/MCPT2/Ultra 400,SATA,IEEE1394 (clicky)
Euro 92


CPU:
Athlon XP 2500 Retail (clicky)
Euro85

Heatsink:
Thermalright SLK900A
(clicky)
Euro 42.70

Fans:
Lots of Papst 80-120mm fans, some fixed at 7V (provided they start at that voltag), possibly the rest (main intake and exhaust fans) link via a homebrew PWM controller mounted in the 2nd 3.5" bay

Memory:
Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 512MB CL3 5ns Unbuffered, Non-parity, 2.5V, 64Meg x 64 (clicky)
Euro 96

Case:
Chieftec CX-04 Medium Tower Blue/Alumini no PSU, CX-04BL-BL-AW-OP, w/USB and Fire (clicky)
Euro 95

PSU:
Fortron Powersupply ATX rev2 400W 120mm, 24pin,SATA Special Edition (clicky)
Euro 79


Anyone have any comments?
Looking at getting some sort of Radeon 9*00Pro gfx card.

duridian

Go for the NF7-S, it's a better mobo than the MSI

Jammer

Originally posted by duridian
Go for the NF7-S, it's a better mobo than the MSI

I'd agree with that

po0k

Yeah, I've been seeing alot of people with that board in their sigs.

For disk I'm planning 1x 36Gig raptor as primary drive (OS, the few games I play alot), 1x 250Gig Hitachi sata as secondary (Games don't play a whole lot/where load times aren't too long, docs and stuff) and then 2x UDMA100 WD1200JBs in a raid0 array (bulk cheap 'n nasty storage) as long as the S'bridge does Raid0.


What's linux support like for the SiliconImage Sata controller, not to mention the nForce2?
Anything I should watch out for?

What's the sound like from the Abit?

Col_Loki

Id definetly stick with the Abit NF7-S , it looks like overclocking is on the cards so why not pop a mobile Xp2500/2600 in there? Unlocked and better overclockers.

www.excaliberpc.com for the cheapest delivered mobiles ive seen. (think it works out not far off €85 incl delivery)

The Crucial is pretty bad on the timings side of things but should be very stable. Since price is prob an issue its not a bad choice. There is also A-Data stuff for €93 delivered here http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/memory/ddr-ram-pc3200.asp irish company aswell.

Normally tighter timings is better with an AMD system but if you go with a mobile chip and the NF7-S you might be able to take advantage of the fact that ADATA will do much higher FSB than its rated for and prob at the same stock timings as the Crucial........... might be a good option?

A 350w Fortron should power that system pretty easily BTW (you might need a cable doubler as it might not have enough connections, but power shouldnt be an issue).

Im not sure about Linux support, its something i will be going into when i get time and get my dual rig up and running but im not much help at the min im affraid.

What's the sound like from the Abit?

Its a little annoying but you prob wont hear it unless your rig is pretty quiet. Might be worth getting a little NB passive cooler with the thermalright incase your pretty picky (like me).

duridian

Originally posted by Col_Loki
Its a little annoying but you prob wont hear it unless your rig is pretty quiet. Might be worth getting a little NB passive cooler with the thermalright incase your pretty picky (like me). [/B]

I think maybe he meant the audio rather than the sound of the NB fan there Col Loki

The sound from the NF7-S is Soundstorm certified Dolby Digital 5.1 and is the best u can get in integrated audio for Athlon XP boards. My cousin has this board rigged up to his 5.1 speakers and it sounds great, very close to the Audigy cards.

By the way just so you know, there is a newer Abit board the AN7 which is almost the same as NF7-S but has more USB and Firewire connectors, costs about a tenner more.

Col_Loki

I think maybe he meant the audio rather than the sound of the NB fan there Col Loki

Doh !! Yea basically exactly what duridian said.

po0k

Originally posted by Col_Loki
Id definetly stick with the Abit NF7-S , it looks like overclocking is on the cards so why not pop a mobile Xp2500/2600 in there? Unlocked and better overclockers.

www.excaliberpc.com for the cheapest delivered mobiles ive seen. (think it works out not far off €85 incl delivery)

Wouldn't that require a BIOS update and a lowering of the Vcore?
As for the unlocking, is that totally unlocked or locked maximum, but unlocked for underclocking it (to balance with a high FSB for example)??

I'd like to get the box to 2.2-2.4Ghz if possible with the Thermalright and a good air-flow system.
Don't have the money or the time to go with watercooling.
Yet.

The Crucial is pretty bad on the timings side of things but should be very stable. Since price is prob an issue its not a bad choice. There is also A-Data stuff for €93 delivered here http://www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk/memory/ddr-ram-pc3200.asp irish company aswell.

Normally tighter timings is better with an AMD system but if you go with a mobile chip and the NF7-S you might be able to take advantage of the fact that ADATA will do much higher FSB than its rated for and prob at the same stock timings as the Crucial........... might be a good option?

I'm particularly fussy about the ram at the moment.
I don't want to pay more than €100 for 512Meg of non Registered/ECC ram. Tight 2-2-2-6 timings would be nice, but I'm not particularly pushed. I'll be getting a second identical stick in ~3 months to squeeze what bit of bandwidth I can from the memory controller.
1Gig will be enough for the next while, unless someone knows where I can get decent 1Gig sticks of PC3200 DDR for ~€260??
2Gigs would be nice

A 350w Fortron should power that system pretty easily BTW (you might need a cable doubler as it might not have enough connections, but power shouldnt be an issue).

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure if I *need* 400W, but I've a 360W Chieftec in a dually server (binary) which won't be enough to run the 8 or so hdds I'll be installing over the next few months. So I was going to pop the 400W Fortran into it, put the 360W into my tower (which will have at most 4hdds and a single cpu) and save a bit of cash.
The Chieftec is whisper quiet too

Im not sure about Linux support, its something i will be going into when i get time and get my dual rig up and running but im not much help at the min im affraid.

Np, I'm fairly sure everything will work alright, I'm just worried about the SATA drive.
Does the ATA host adapter in the southbridge do "RAID" ? Even a low-level hardware container would do, don't want to faff about with windows driveManager.

Its a little annoying but you prob wont hear it unless your rig is pretty quiet. Might be worth getting a little NB passive cooler with the thermalright incase your pretty picky (like me).

No man, I mean tthe actual quality from the sound system. I know the board is SoundForge (or whatever™) certified, but that's only the DSP, what about the actual output circuitry?
I'd be looking to have anything from a basic set of headphones up to a 3x 3.5mm jack 5.1 surround speaker setup, both setups with a mic from time to time.
What's the game support like? Hardware 3D accelleration? EAX 1.0/2.0/3.0?? I never hear that feature mentioned in reviews anymore.

duridian - Don't suppose you know the model number of the board?
Are Komplett carrying it?

Thanks for the help lads!

po0k

Oh, and I'll never buy another Creative soundcard again.
shitty, shitty driver installation packaging and limitations.
No flexibility or understanding of real-world practicality was exhibited by the install routine or the driver packagers.

To say nothing of the overpricing of the cards compared to the performance.

po0k

It would appear that there is Kernel-level support for the Silicon Image 3112 SATA "RAID" host adapter.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/18/2003/12/1/66763

Col_Loki

Wouldn't that require a BIOS update and a lowering of the Vcore?
As for the unlocking, is that totally unlocked or locked maximum, but unlocked for underclocking it (to balance with a high FSB for example)??

No BIOS update, just pop it in and off she goes. The chip will run on stock speeds at lower voltage than the desktop chips, just bump it up for overclocking.

The mobiles are fully unlocked, any multi you like.

I'd like to get the box to 2.2-2.4Ghz if possible with the Thermalright and a good air-flow system

The main prob with desktop chips is there locked and require FSB to overclock. 200mhz will get you to 2.2ghz but after that your depending on your Ram to go further. Dividers and high FSB dont work too nicely on the Nforce2 boards ive had.

With a mobile chip and that decent air cooling, people have been getting anywhere from 2.4ghz - 2.8ghz ...... 2.5ghz should be possible but as you know its based alot on luck.
Far better chance with a mobile than desktop chip.

I don't want to pay more than €100 for 512Meg of non Registered/ECC ram

Well the Adata is only €93 and should perform the exact same as the crucial with the possibility of higher FSB and thus better bandwidth..... might be worth thinkin about.

o I was going to pop the 400W Fortran into it, put the 360W into my tower

Makes sence.

Does the ATA host adapter in the southbridge do "RAID" ?

Dont think so , but i might be wrong.... havent looked at that.


As for the sound its pretty damm decent, especially for on-board. I dont see much point in getting another sound card until you try it out and see what you think. Its not as good as an Audigy2 but its not 2 far off.

po0k

Right, I'm planning to get a Mobile XP2500+ so and run it at 400FSB/400Mem at 11-12xmulti
From the 1Gig stick Ram POV, I don't see any modules with timings tighter than 3-3-3-8.
I don't plan on raising the FSB past what's available as standard. I don't like the idea of PCI, AGP and everything else running with clock-drift.
Purely mutl should be fine.

What voltage do the mobile chips run at? 1.3V

Will the chip determine the voltage the board has to supply or must it be set in the bios prior to installing the cpu?

If I get 2.4Ghz I'll be happy enough.
Anything that runs stable under load with core temps of 50*C or below is acceptable.


I'm unsure as to the exact layout of the case, but for airflow I'm looking at 2x92mm fans behind the (rotated through 90*) drive-cage. I forget if it's 2x92 or 2x80mm. Probably the latter as it's only a Mid-tower.
Another 92mm above the ATX I/O panel blowing exhaust, there'll be another 80mm exhaust in the PSU, and I *think* another 2x80mm in the side panel doing intake over the expansion cards.
I still want to reach sound levels of <25dB under moderate load.

<pipedream>
I'll get some time in the next month and write out a schematic for a multi-channel PWM circuit and possibly a PCB overlay/breadboard layout designed to bit to a 3.5" bay......
</pipedream>

ARGINITE

The AN7 is a great board I think also get optical in/out but is €102 nice overclocking tools. Komplett #: 121245
Does the ATA host adapter in the southbridge do "RAID" ? - NO just the SATA.

"Will the chip determine the voltage the board has to supply or must it be set in the bios prior to installing the cpu?" it will determine it, but your best of to check after you have the whole thing set up.
As for the PWM just use a transistor and a variable resistor a TIP30 is a good transistor for the job and a 100K pot very straight forward and can draw upto 3A from it. if you want the schematic just give me a PM.
You should use the FSB as it give more BW but and the board has a pci/agp lock so it wont effect the rest of the system!
Have linux running on my machine with relatively few problems.
Best of luck with the study.

Woden

just a couple of things

you mentioned a gig of ram for 260. get the mushkin level 1 stuff from www.shop4memory.com it does 2-3-2-6 at 200mhz.

also get the U version of the thermalright cooler this is generally the prefared version as the A version has the hooks will the U version is screwdown.

due to the weight of the U version the screw down one is prefarred.

the nf7-s has the mounthing holes needed

duridian

Originally posted by SyxPak
duridian - Don't suppose you know the model number of the board?
Are Komplett carrying it?

If you mean the Abit AN7 motherboard then here are some links to it on Komplett and OCUK. I tried JesComputer.de but it was down for maintenamce or something when I tried but they would almost certainly carry it too.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=121245&cks=PRL

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Abit.html

I agree on the driver thing about Creative Labs cards, the drivers suck but the sound is good, I reckon plus the compatiblity with games.

Jammer

I have the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro and the drivers have never given me a problem. Can't argue with all the stuff it does, i.e 7.1, latest EAX, DTS, THX, DTS and all that stuff. Also doubles as a very decent "home-recording" setup too.

Col_Loki

What voltage do the mobile chips run at? 1.3V

You will be changing the voltage anyway so thats not much of an issue, round 1.8v should be safe with your cooling.... you could prob go further depending on the temps.

Will the chip determine the voltage the board has to supply or must it be set in the bios prior to installing the cpu?

Pop it in and it will default to 1.45v . There pretty much the exact same as desktop chips except there picked for their ability to run cooler than the other chips and on lower voltage..... it there better chips.

If I get 2.4Ghz I'll be happy enough.
Anything that runs stable under load with core temps of 50*C or below is acceptable.

Flash the BIOS to the newest version and that 50'C load is a good guideline. If you use the stock version it generally reads 8-10 degrees over what it does with a bios update. (so under say 58'C is fine)

I still want to reach sound levels of <25dB under moderate load.

Well thats pretty much out the window straight away, the PSU produces more than that by itself. Theres also the NB fan, HD's (the raptors have ~32db), the case fans, the CPU fan.........

Ohh and like was said the PCI/AGP is locked on the Nforce2 boards so you can set the FSB whatever way you like without effecting any hard drives / GFX cards etc.

Your getting a 1gb stick , would a higher quality 2x512mb option not be better mabye?

po0k

Originally posted by Col_Loki
Your getting a 1gb stick , would a higher quality 2x512mb option not be better mabye?

I want to get 2Gig in Dual channel eventually

Col_Loki

Dual channel sounds better than it actually is on the AMD XP, your talkin mabye 2-5% bandwidth increase, its not really worth worry'in about.

And wow 2gb Ram .......... what the hell are you going to need that ammount for? 1gb would be nice, 2gb is crazy !!!!!