Anybody give a crap about the new computer I am building

[Kobeck]

This is a little more cutting edge than the last box I built in 2002. I have never actually put a heat sink onto a CPU nor have I actually installed a "live" CPU, only done a few tests on non functional motherboards. The box I "built" in 2002 I cheesed out and paid for a preinstalled and checked MB/CPU/RAM combo.



I will give some of the major parts and if anyone is interested in how it goes I will update.


AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.6GHz Socket AM2 - dual core and a few notches above the bang for buck 4600+. I usually go bang for buck but I splurged on a few items. I am currently planning on using the AMD heatsink and fan that comes with the 5200+ CPU. Went with this one mainly for the 1MB L2 cache as opposed to the 512kb L2 cache on the 4600+

GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 Motherboard - I have been extremly pleased with my current Gigabyte motherboard and wanted too stick with what I know. I chose this MB because it has intergrated NVIDIA GeForce 6100 video. If it works as well as a stand alone 6100 it should do everyting I need a video card too do and I "save" at least $100 probably $125. Other main feature I choose this board for is the SATA RAID 5. There were more capable boards for just a few more dollars, but I know Gigabyte works.

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - this Ram set should provide enough RAM that whatever the Integrated 6100 draws will not be a big performance hit - at least that is my theory.

(4) Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives - I will not be installing a traditional C drive on this PC, instead I am planning a "Terabyte" SATA RAID 5, that is striping and parity. With this setup I expect an actual 750GB bootable Raid. My initial plan is 150GB C drive for a legit copy of XP home. 300GB D and 300GB E drives. No specific purpose for the D and E drives other than to not clutter up the system drive with games and stuff. This is one of the items I splurged on. Bang for buck was the 160GB drives.

LG 18X DVD±R Super-Multi 12X DVD Burner Black IDE GSA-H42N-BK - Its a "SUPER Multi 12X" thats gotta be good. This will be my main drive, at least that is the plan.

SAMSUNG 18X DVD±R 12X DVD Burner Black EIDE/ATAPI SH-S182D - my new home theatre equiptment is Samsung and if I ever break down and get a DVD recorder for the home theatre it will probably be Samsung, thus I am hoping for guranteed compatability here.

Antec Sonata II case - comes with a 450w "smart" power supply. Not sure how smart a power supply needs to be though. Supposed to be quiet, guess I will see soon.

Antec Tri Cool case fans. These fans have three speeds and are supposed to be quiet. The plan is to have the front 120mm pushing the air into the case thru the filter. This compliments the factory installed rear 120mm Antec TriCool fan. The 92mm fan goes on the back of some sort of air channel in the case. This is supposed to cool the CPU by pumping fresh air directly ontop of it thru the wierd plastic duct. the 80mm fan I bought was stupid cause it is used to cool an installed video card, oh well I guess I can set it on low.

Couple of extra SATA Cables because the motherboard only packs 2 of them. Probably an OOPs item as my buddy says the drives should come with SATA cables, but I ordered OEM drives not retail so I shall see.


I expect this to really scream while I use my Bluelight Dialup Internet connection - lol Actually I am building this because my older box is constantly being used and my laptop is not really game friendly, although it is useful for the IFL.

[SteveBsFan]

What are you planning on doing with the computer? I love the idea of getting a nice RAID setup, I plan on doing that myself with the next box I build, but I don't like the idea of the onboard video unless you don't plan on gaming very often. I think the 6100 series is pretty outdated if i'm correct, which is why it can built onto the board.

Also, you may want to consider a core2duo. Many of the chips can easily be overclocked with the right MB and memory to blow away any current AMD right now, and they're right around the same price range as the chip you're getting.

[Kobeck]

Will be a general use PC. Definatly overkill. I am NOT into state of the art first person shooters and such. A game I bought reguires pixel shader 2 and my old box only has AGPx4 so upgrading is dubious. Could go PCI route, but that would just hog the BUS so I am using this to justify a new box. Hey its been 4 years and the old one is still doing fine.

6100 has pixel shader 3, which is what I am after. If it is the same as a normal 6100 it will be good to go with me. About the only gaming I do is CivIV and that is working fine on my old box running an AGP MX2 200 - lol. OK fine is a stretch, but it is running CivIV. I just never get too use the old box any more. And yes the 6100 is somewhat dated - a 6100 card is what $40, but if I was to buy a card I would probably get a 7600 so that is why I say it will probably "save" me $100-125.

Gigabyte MBs have some built in overclocking, but I am not too interested in this as I want the heat too stay down, and by keeping the heat down keeping the noise down.

Also the crap will be arriving thursday so it is too late for second thoughts - lol

[Warhammer]

From what I understand, if you build a box now, might as well go 3GB on the memory to make full use of Vista.

[Suicane]

I've got 2 terabytes worth of HD space and I installed my own video card. Good day.

[Kobeck]

LOL - thanks for the vote of confidence Suicane - ops:

Anyhow got the piano black box up and running, now I am in the middle of updating all the software using dialup - gosh what fun.

the Raid 5 is better than I would have thought. I hope I never have to test the Raid 5 restore abilities though. Loads XP in under 30 seconds depending on how fast I type my password.

All the special features on the case turned out to be a bit of a pain as there were many wires that had to be positioned just so inside the box to stay out of the way of the fans and stuff. But in the end all the effort was worth it as I now have a box that should not need updating, possibly a video card but the intergrated 6100 seems fine for now, for years.

[Kobeck]

Raid 5 crashed a month or so ago. Would NOT rebiuld itself. I even had MY computer guy look at it before I reformatted the HDs. Uuuugh. Rebuilt Raid 1 array instead of Raid 5. Dependability was what I thought I was getting with Raid 5 - Oh well speed it is!


FWIW Elicense reassigned a license for all 5 titles I have that use it. Only out of business for 6 hours between sending the help ticket the Elicense and being notified that licenses were reset. They all reloaded fine.

[Suicane]

Ya know what I love? How little old ladies think i'm a genuis cause i know what a browser is. Then i looks at the word raid and you might as well be speaking swahili to me.