New Rig - Some opinions needed

jesus_thats_gre

Hi Lads,

Am gonna be ordering parts for a new rig soon and I just wanted some input from you lot..

Am going for an X2 machine running a X1900XT and 2GB of RAM..

Few things set in stone are:

- Lian Li V1200 - bought already from Wiz
- 4200+ AMD X2 processor
- ATI X1900 XT

I want suggestions regarding what motherboard to get and what RAM.

It would obviously make sense to go with a Crossfire board and have been looking at the DFI LanParty UT RDX200CF-DR Crossfire Edition. Any opinion on these?

I am a bit miffed as to what RAM would be the best to go for.. I will be overclocking the CPU a bit so obviously need some quality RAM. Any suggestions?

I am thinking of going for the new 620W Enermax PSU.

Finally, am definatly getting the X1900XT and will prob settle for Sapphire.. I know the card is only out so information is a little loose on the ground but does any particular brand offer better cooling or OC'ing potential?

Appreciate any input lads.

What I have priced on overclockers.co.uk comes to just under €1800 with this ram: Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR PC4000 Ballistix Dual Channel Kit

Willing to spend 1900 or so.

Mr. Presentable

Recent reviews suggest that Crossfire isn't ready for its public yet. That SLI is way ahead

jesus_thats_gre

It is unlikely that I will ever buy a second card to be honest but its more of a just in case.

Inquitus

Hey,

I am selling some G.Skill TCCD RAM on the FS Board. It is, along with BH5, the best RAM out there for AMD CPU's.

Check out the tweak guide here.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=57317

and review here

www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=330

Let me know if yer interested, I am selling 2 x 512 LE (PC-4400) and 2 x 512 LA (PC-4800) they retail for 230yoyos a gig at PC-Memory-upgrade. I am selling for 150yoyos a gig (2x512).

Reason for sale is that I want to get 2x1GB sticks as I cannot get my mobo to like all 4 dimms filled.

Inqui

Dooom

First suggestion I'd make is to go for the Asus Crossfire board. It's supposed to be a lot better than the majority of the other ones.

In terms of different graphics cards, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference, if any, between the lot. It basically comes down to personal preference.

Finally, would you not consider going for an X2 4400+? IIRC it's the best X2 to go for in terms of balance between cache and speed of the lot of them.

jesus_thats_gre

Inquitus wrote:

Hey,

I am selling some G.Skill TCCD RAM on the FS Board. It is, along with BH5, the best RAM out there for AMD CPU's.

Check out the tweak guide here.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=57317

and review here

www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=330

Let me know if yer interested, I am selling 2 x 512 LE (PC-4400) and 2 x 512 LA (PC-4800) they retail for 230yoyos a gig at PC-Memory-upgrade. I am selling for 150yoyos a gig (2x512).

Reason for sale is that I want to get 2x1GB sticks as I cannot get my mobo to like all 4 dimms filled.

Inqui

Surely the RAM is way too fast for what is needed?

jesus_thats_gre

Spike wrote:

First suggestion I'd make is to go for the Asus Crossfire board. It's supposed to be a lot better than the majority of the other ones.

In terms of different graphics cards, I don't think there's a whole lot of difference, if any, between the lot. It basically comes down to personal preference.

Finally, would you not consider going for an X2 4400+? IIRC it's the best X2 to go for in terms of balance between cache and speed of the lot of them.

I didn't notice the cache so I will defo go for the 4400 in that case. Is the Asus Crossfire board out yet? I have not seem it anywhere.

Inquitus

I have a DFI Lan Party Expert and an X2 4400+

the X2 4400+ uses a HTT of 200mhz and a multi of 11

Using this memory and dropping the multi can give you massive memeory bandwidth improvements.

eg

HTT 300mhz and Multi of 8x (an easily acheivable CPU OC on air) will give you your X2 Running at 2.4ghz and your RAM at 300mhz (DoubleDataRate 600mhz)

This will give you massive memory bandwidth something like 7-8 gb/s which is well over double the amount you would get from PC-3200. This will also be achieved with super tight timings around the 2.5-3-3-6 area.

And at 150yoyos per GIG you couldn't even buy **** ram for this price.

Inqui

Dooom

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Is the Asus Crossfire board out yet? I have not seem it anywhere.

3rd from the bottom.

jesus_thats_gre

Spike wrote:

3rd from the bottom.

I read some reviews on it and it does seem like a very good board.

dent

Very nice rig. If your planning to stick with the rig for a while though it might be worth waiting around for Socket M2 to come out.

Dooom

dent wrote:

Very nice rig. If your planning to stick with the rig for a while though it might be worth waiting around for Socket M2 to come out.

Yeah but a few weeks into M2 being released, a new technology will be announced for release. It's the way things are.
Tbh, if you upgrade to a decent S939 system now, as he has planned out, it'll last a good while. Scary new technologies (Vista, DX10 etc.) won't be out till next year sometime. So it'll be just fine until at least then.

It's futile trying to stay at the cutting edge in this industry, best you can do is go for what'll get you through a while, and stick with it.

dent

Spike wrote:

Yeah but a few weeks into M2 being released, a new technology will be announced for release. It's the way things are.
Tbh, if you upgrade to a decent S939 system now, as he has planned out, it'll last a good while. Scary new technologies (Vista, DX10 etc.) won't be out till next year sometime. So it'll be just fine until at least then.

It's futile trying to stay at the cutting edge in this industry, best you can do is go for what'll get you through a while, and stick with it.

I think a socket change is a pretty big change. If I'm not wrong socket M2 will also use DDR2 memory. If you are going to upgrade might as well do on something thats going to be current for at least a little while instead of building a new system thats already out of date.

Dooom

M2 does support DDR2. Your points are valid, but there's still a good bit of life left in S939. It's far from out of date.

DemonOfTheFall

Yeah it's doubtful that the move to DDR2 could net AMD more than 5-10% performance. Especially since theyre doing a half assed job of the move and going to such slow DDR2 as their standard speed.

Woden

after months of hmm and more hmm i'm finally getting a new system myself. budget is a couple of hundred euro less or so but i though i'd leech from this thread then bother with another one.

ram anyway was looking at that crucial stuff myself but now after look at a few threads on overclocks seems that they are having a lot of problems some people easily on there 3rd set of sticks.

people seem to be recommnding the mushkin redline stuff which is out of stock atm and is 252 pounds. was looking at the g.skill stuff myself some good threads about it and seems to have a good balance between price and performance.

also not sure myself whether to get a shuttle or a full system.

does anyone know if the 16mb sata - 2 WD hdd's are any use can't seem to find 16 mb drives by anyone else that have sata 2 and are around the 200-300gb point

data

Alkers

I have a 16Mb WD drive - 250Gb and it's class, very fast and not loud at all. Would reccomend it and they're not very expensive either.

jesus_thats_gre

dent wrote:

Very nice rig. If your planning to stick with the rig for a while though it might be worth waiting around for Socket M2 to come out.

Cheers for the advice.. If the new socket was going to be around within the next 2 or 3 weeks I would have held off but I am not waiting until April.. In the PC world there is always something you could hold off and its never ending..

unkel

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

In the PC world there is always something you could hold off and its never ending..

Wise words from an experienced man

Not sure myself about the benefits of M2. Guess we'll wait and see. I predict Intel is gonna take the upper hand in the medium to high end market and hold it until some time next year...

jesus_thats_gre

unkel wrote:

Wise words from an experienced man

Not sure myself about the benefits of M2. Guess we'll wait and see. I predict Intel is gonna take the upper hand in the medium to high end market and hold it until some time next year...

I could just upgrade again if the performance is so much better anyway!!

DemonOfTheFall

Yes, Intel do seem to be back on the ball. 920s hitting 4.5ghz on stock cooling sounds too good to be true. Might even make me go to the darkside.

jesus_thats_gre

So I need to make a final decision on the motherboard... After looking at the reviews on anandtech, I have decided to go with the Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire motherboard... Its a decent price and if the new ATI chipset comes out in the next few weeks and majorly trumps it, I will consider upgrading..

Have settled on the new 4200+ X2 with the 512KB cache and I am not convinced the 4400+ X2 is that much better to justify the cost - especially when it comes to games or overclocking potential..

Settled on an Sapphire x1900XT also..

Inquitus

Big mistake, the larger cache is considered to be vital in the X2 range.

jesus_thats_gre

Inquitus wrote:

Big mistake, the larger cache is considered to be vital in the X2 range.

Considered by who though. I have seen many benchmarks now and performance is minutely better in windows but minimal in games.

Again, I am not against getting the 4400+, I am just yet to be convinced..

jesus_thats_gre

Anyway, placed my order tonight...

Went with the following:

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939)
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-046-AN)

Have the Lian Li V1200 Case and 2GB of Corsair's TWINX2048-3500LLPRO memory..

Everything costing me just over €1900 and will go perfect with my 24inch Dell Widescreen monitor

All I gotta do now is decide whether to sell my Dell XPS laptop..

Woden

heard good things about that memory.

not sure what psu to go for myself lot of people recommending the seasonic stuff. whats this atx 2.2 thing i've seen on some of them a lot of them seem to be atx 2.0. is this important?

jesus_thats_gre

Dataisgod wrote:

whats this atx 2.2 thing i've seen on some of them a lot of them seem to be atx 2.0. is this important?

http://www.formfactors.org/FFDetail.asp?FFID=1&CatID=1

ATX Specification v2.2 Revision 2.2 - [432 KB] Key changes for the ATX Specification Version 2.2 include Main Power Connector changed from 20 pin to 24 pin ( 2 x12) to support PCI-Express* requirements and removed Aux Power Connector Recommendation if using a power supply designed using ATX12V Power Supply Design Guide Rev 2.0 or greater. Also updated the +3.3 V tolerance.

Dooom

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

Anyway, placed my order tonight...

Went with the following:

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939)
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU (CA-046-AN)

Have the Lian Li V1200 Case and 2GB of Corsair's TWINX2048-3500LLPRO memory..

Everything costing me just over €1900 and will go perfect with my 24inch Dell Widescreen monitor

All I gotta do now is decide whether to sell my Dell XPS laptop..

Sounds very nice indeed. I really have to find some more money to get a 24" screen. That Dell 24" LCD won't get out of my head.

Anyway, good luck with the build.

WizZard

I saw the 30" in person the other day. Now that is some monitor. It's HUGE!

jesus_thats_gre

WizZard wrote:

I saw the 30" in person the other day. Now that is some monitor. It's HUGE!

As i said on the other thread - The 24 inch is bordering on being too big for gaming so the 30 inch one would be way too big!!!

Dooom

Lads...this isn't helping. I can't afford to buy one, but with this carry on I will.

Althought tbh I agree with jesus on this, 30" is too big for gaming. For me anyway, I'd stick with the 24" screen.

Then again Oblivion on the 30" one....drool..