Advice needed on new pc buildage

funny

Yo. I was planning on building a new rig with a a64 4000+ and an x850xt pci-e card but what I don't really know what to get is 1) mobo 2) case

As a mobo i was thinking of this one from komplett. I want one thats fairly modern with the ability to support the latest ddr2 ram if possible and maybe sli too in case I go down that route someday. also one that has a decent ethernet port.

For cases I don't really know what to go for only I don't want to get a really big tower again they're not worth all the space they take up. This one caught my attention Does having a smaller xase have much disadvantages? I've got a thermalright xp 120 so I'll be overclocking the cpu by a bit. Will this fit in a smallish case?

Any advice, suggestions or recommendations would be greatly apreciated

BloodBath

I think this is supposed to be the best 939 board you can get atm. It comes in an sli flavour as well but you would have to get nvidia graphics cards to take advantage of that. Smaller cases won't have as much airflow or hard-drive space. Mine holds 4 hard-drives and the airflow is still reasonably good for a small case. It's a lot handier for moving around, bringing to lans ect.


BloodBath

Horsefumbler

product not found

tbh with regards to the board I'm not to concerned with getting the 'ultimate board' or anything don't have a huge amount of money. I saw a different version of the asus one i showed u there which was deerer but had sata II on it or something but I don't think I'd really have much use for that. Or indeed multiple hard drives, i'll probably just get an ould seagate barracuda 120gig. its the ramstein,cpu and processor i'm more concerned with.

I figured the smaller ones wouldn't have as good airflow alright but unless its a major problem I don't think I'll worry about it. Yeah one of the reasons I'm want a smaller case is for lans alright.

Can anyone tell me, I'm not really sure, will the asus board I picked out be able to support any kind of ram faster than pc3200?

BloodBath

Link works for me

Anyway it's Product AID: 19488 MB ATX S939 DFI LANparty UT nF4 Ultra-D

It's actually cheaper than that asus board from komplett.


BloodBath

Optikus

If your going for socket 939 then the DFI Nf4 board/s are the best atm.. They have 10/1000 Lan port, which your after. They also support SLI, which you said you were interested in. Therefore if you want to leave yourself with a decent future upgrade path i'd recommend an nVidia PCI-E based card so that later down the line you can buy another identical card and run SLI. You should go for a bigger than average case though, to increase airflow and to leave space if you want to get a watercooling kit and overclock in the future. No point in getting a sh1tty little thing and you decide in a few months you want to try watercoolong and have to buy a new case all together.

BloodBath

Well he does want a case for lans. He already had a massive case. Small penis though


BloodBath

Optikus

lol... over compensating hey! ..bit like someone else we know.

Optikus

This is quite good case bigger than your average midi, only slightly, good airflow and possibly enough space for a not too mad watercooling kit.

po0k

What about Coolermaster Stacker?

gline

BloodBath wrote:

I think this is supposed to be the best 939 board you can get atm. It comes in an sli flavour as well but you would have to get nvidia graphics cards to take advantage of that. Smaller cases won't have as much airflow or hard-drive space. Mine holds 4 hard-drives and the airflow is still reasonably good for a small case. It's a lot handier for moving around, bringing to lans ect.


BloodBath

thats a nice board, not too expensive either....hmmm maybe i need an upgrade :rolleyes:

funny

That case isn't too expensive either... is it really that good? Does it have a 10/1000 lan port?

julius

funny wrote:

That case isn't too expensive either... is it really that good? Does it have a 10/1000 lan port?

A case with a LAN port???
What are you typing about???

All Mobos have LAN these days as default.

Dundhoone

funny wrote:

As a mobo i was thinking of this one from komplett. I want one thats fairly modern with the ability to support the latest ddr2 ram if possible and maybe sli too in case I go down that route someday. also one that has a decent ethernet port.

QUOTE]


That board has gotten good reviews, was planning to go for it myself. I'll have to give that DFI a good googling first though!
You 'll need some decent 3200 DDR ram whichever you go for
Please correct me if im wrong but this stuff seems good
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=300699&cks=PRL

And if you want to go cheapo
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=118498&cks=PRL

po0k

Nevermind DDR2. If you're getting an AMD system, you're going to be using DDR for at least another year.
Apparently DDR3 and/or XDR are on the cards as AMD's next memory standards, because DDR2 sucks.

sionnach

SyxPak wrote:

DDR2 sucks.

this is true

BloodBath

Don't ram is alright but look for the Mushkin 1gb kit on www.shop4memory.co.uk. It's got timings of 2-2-2-3 and is only 179e with free delivery. Best value for money high end ram i've seen anywhere.


BloodBath

funny

I already have 1gb of corsair xms 2-2-2-5 so that'll be what I was gonna use in it to start off. I just thought that if the mobo could support better ram I wanted to leave the door open for a ram type upgrade.

A case with a LAN port???

sorry I meant to say motherboard there Does that dfi board have a 10/1000 though? I want to try and protect whatever it is thats giving me great pings Think it might be the quality ethernet thingy I have atm.

Another question is PC4000 ram just a better form of ddr than PC3200 or is it ddr2?

On a sort of unrelated matter; is the A64 4000+ much better than the 3800+? seems like the only difference to me is it has 1mb cache as opposed to 512k. And for thats more than 100 more iirc.

BloodBath

It has two 100/1000 ports.

You don't need pc4000 ram. Pc4000 runs at 500mhz. Pc3200 runs at 400mhz. In your case you have really low timing pc3200. Most pc4000 will have much higher timers than that. If you were to overclock you would easily get that pc3200 closer to 500mhz with lower timings.

If I were you i'd get a 3500 and overclock. The others are a bit too pricey for my liking and a 3500 should go to at least 3800 speeds on air, with a decent cpu cooler i'd say 4000 speeds if the chip is any good.


BloodBath

julius

As BloodBath has said, get a lower speed AMD64 CPU and overclock it.

I have a 3000+ Winchester which Im running at 2250MHz.
Wont try any faster until I get a proper HSF, but Ive read on online review sites of testers getting 2400MHz using stock cooling!
Thats the equiv. of a 3800+!!!!!

You should get a 3500+ up to the speed of a 3800+ with little trouble.

slade_x

julius wrote:

As BloodBath has said, get a lower speed AMD64 CPU and overclock it.

I have a 3000+ Winchester which Im running at 2250MHz.
Wont try any faster until I get a proper HSF, but Ive read on online review sites of testers getting 2400MHz using stock cooling!
Thats the equiv. of a 3800+!!!!!

You should get a 3500+ up to the speed of a 3800+ with little trouble.

you could go higher than that with a 3500+

my 3200+ winchester goes to about 2550mhz without any trouble

if i overvolt the core by much i get it to 2720mhz stable

funny

thanks for the advice. I don't think i'll go for the 4000+ now tbh. I'm not at all happy with the price compared to the 3800+ which is also 2.4ghz, I can pretty comfortably afford the 3800 though so I'll get that and overclock it. Just received and xp-120 today in the post so thats what'll i'll be using on it. Think it shoud run pretty nicely when its overclocked.

That just leaves the case that I'm undecided on. Anyone recomend one thats not oo big but still big enough to fit an xp-120 in it? (just saw it today and its friggin huge )

BloodBath

Did you check to see if your mobo is compatable with the xp-120? A lot of them aren't.


BloodBath

Dman_15

do not get any of the maxtor diamondmax 10 series drives if you are getting the dfi board. I did and am regretting it now. Completly incompatible

julius

BloodBath wrote:

Did you check to see if your mobo is compatable with the xp-120? A lot of them aren't.


BloodBath

How is it possible to check???

I was going to get a xp-90 with 92mm fan....but if I knew beforehand that an xp-120 would fit then that would be my first choice.

Edit:
Did a little search:
http://www.thermalright.com/a_page/main_support_faq_motherboard_xp120_k8.htm

Just looked through Compatibility issues and this heatsink must be huge....covering RAM/PCI slots!!!
Monster of a heatsink!!!!

More info:
ThermalRight XP-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-017-TR)
Thermalright accomplishes the impossible, while leading the way in innovative and spectacular design and performance. As the XP-120 is Goliath in size, it properly utilizes a 120mm fan to cool not just your CPU, but also your motherboards MosFET's and Chipsets under its enormous wingspan, whilst noise levels are kept to a minimum due to the use of 120mm fan. Constructed with lightweight aluminum fins, the XP-120 weighs just under 400 grams. By using aluminum fins, the XP-120 did not just merely reduce HSF body weight, but they also take full advantage of the higher specific thermal capacity of aluminum as the XP-120's weapon against the thermal dissipating energy produced from modern and future performance CPUs. Heatpipe construction was also redesigned to eliminate any gravity effect and to unleash the capability of the XP-120's performance to operate at 100% in any direction you mount it.

- 120mm Recommended fan for maximum cooling capability such as Vantec, Akasa or YS-Tech from ourselves.
- Multiple heatpipes for well spread heat around aluminum fins
- Soldered fins to copper base (nickel plated) to make effective contact
- Light weight and easy installation
- Compatibility across multiple platforms (socket 478/754/939/940)

funny

"caps mechanically obstruct pipe slightly, cap tilting necessary"

What does this mean? whats a cap?

DirtyHarry

you just might need to "bend" mosfets / capacitors (caps) or the like around your cpu bracket (they are the round fellows around your cpu bracket), I got delivery today of my DFI nForce4 Ultra board so i checked out the thermalright site and according to them "First PCI-e slot blocked by Heatpiples".

On my present board (chaintech nForce4 ultra) i had to bend my caps to hook in one of the clips, its just a bit nerve wrecking when u do it but they are big caps that are well solid on the boards. The XP120 is the way to go! XP90 is for pussies!!

jozi

I've got the dfi board with a xp90, the fan wont spin unless the cpu is under load and hit 35C.
All i ever read was that the xp120 cools a few degrees cooler than the xp90, passive cooling of cpu possible?

jozi

astrofool

I have the diamondmax 10's working happily in a DFI board now. It takes either the latest bios using the 4.81 nvraid bios (available on DFI's site). Or a firmware update from maxtor to improve compatability.

130MB/s from the hard disks is v. nice

Dman_15

astrofool: Which DFI board do you have?

I have the SLI-DR and the nvidia raid drivers you mention. The only way around it is flashing the drives according to the dfi forums. And you cant flash them from the board that they dont work on in the first place

julius

jozi wrote:

I've got the dfi board with a xp90, the fan wont spin unless the cpu is under load and hit 35C.
All i ever read was that the xp120 cools a few degrees cooler than the xp90, passive cooling of cpu possible?

jozi

Damn!!

What is your idle temp then????
Which CPU and is it overclocked ??

My stock HSF is constantly spinning(turned off smart control) to keep it at 35c.
I'll go for the safer option now(xp-90) as I have no intention of breaking a capacitor connection for the sake of a couple of degrees.

jozi

I'm waiting on a psu replacement so with the case open i get between 31 & 41 (mbm reading) normally i run the cpu fan of a fan controler but to lazzy to build this psu into the case with everything connected.
dfi nf4 ultra d mobo and 3200 winnie

EDIT: checked fan, it is spinning now but doenst untill a few mins after boot

astrofool

I brought mine in to work, and flashed them from a Via board.

Dman_15

I returned mine to komplett but theyre just going to ship them straight back and say theres nothing wrong with them. Was flashing them easy?

astrofool

if u can find a compatable board, it is, although the program seems to be doing nothing for a long long time, it eventually works, so give it 10-20 mins of inactivity once run.

Where did you get the updated firmware btw? and what version?

funny

After a bit of consideration I've decided I don't need a board with sli on it as I can't see myself going down the route of 2 gfx cards. So I reckon that will save a few bucks. Can anyone recomend me a good board then that doesn't have sli on it? It has to be compatible with an xp-120 heatsink. I have a look at some but I find it hard to see the difference between a lot of them and could with some advice.

Another question: any one know where I can buy oem procesors? Doesn't seem to be many but it a good way to save some money as I won't need the crappy heatsink and fan that they normally come with.

thanks.

DirtyHarry

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=250903

Theres a perfect board which can easily take a XP120 as iv put one on it before!

All the details are there on the page, google for reviews if you like. The perfect board.

Cheers

BloodBath

Jes do tray versions of a64's afaik.


BloodBath

funny

those fking krauts don't have any 3800+s at all atm :mad:

Neither does aria.co.uk actually. Is this chip going out of fashoin/soon to be replaced by something else?

Dman_15

astrofool wrote:

if u can find a compatable board, it is, although the program seems to be doing nothing for a long long time, it eventually works, so give it 10-20 mins of inactivity once run.

Where did you get the updated firmware btw? and what version?

Got the firmwar directly from a guy in maxtor after an hour on the phone,

The file names are banc1by0 and banc2by0

timeout496

funny wrote:

After a bit of consideration I've decided I don't need a board with sli on it as I can't see myself going down the route of 2 gfx cards. So I reckon that will save a few bucks.
thanks.

what are you planning to do with your gfx card in the future when you upgrade? sell it, throw it in the bin? if you use an sli motherboard you can sustain it's life. i'm designing my own box atm and i'm planning on going for the cm stacker with the msi mobo http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=638.

I won't have all the money for another few months so nothing is final yet, but i'm definitely going to leave myself room to use sli in the future. the budget's about €2000 - 19" flat panel inclusive.