Building a new rig

[iNterpoL]

I'm building a new rig, and the case is the only thing that I'm kinda worried about. Cooling wise.

Link: Ultra Black Aluminus ATX Mid-tower

It has 2 120mm fan ports, and I'm concerned it won't be adequate cooling for the rig I'm building.

Any thoughts? The reason I'm going for this case is because it's a builder's dream. Look at it.. it's absolutely gorgeous lol. All the cables go behind the mobo tray, harddrive cables behind the hard drive trays, it's amazing.

But yeah, the cooling concerns me, with only 2 120mm fans.

Here's my rig.

Link: XFX nForce 680i, C2Q q6600, 2048mb RAM lol It's a package deal xD

Link: EVGA GeForce 8800 GT Superclocked 512mb GDDR3 Two of these. SLI'd.

Link: 600 Watt SLi-ready power supply

Link: Seagate Barracuda 400gb

I know I'm kinda random asking about this.. but I've been a member for like.. 5 years.. I've just not been around much I drop by for anti-malware packages as they're updated. lol

Hey, Tarun.. remember me? lol

***Edit. Oh yea, one key thing I forgot to add.. lol Link: CPU HEAT SINK Lol I'm so bad. xD How can you judge cooling if I link you to an OEM proc to begin with xD;;

[puntoMX]

Hi,

So you are going to build your complete gaming system. I see you did a bit of your homework already and that makes it easier for me too help you.

The case isn’t bad, not for that price at last, but there are better ones. 60 USD can’t be beaten that fast so I would go for it, you can always trash it later if you decide to get your self a more expensive housing. Tiger direct threw in a lot of sales blady-bla talk and 80% you can find on any case on the market, so nothing special here. Ultra did a redesign of an older, about 6 years, case form Chieftec; They replaced the 8cm fans holes with 12cm fan holes, gave it a blow hole more at the windows side and the tube going to the CPU area. Other then that, cable management and the lightweight could give an extra value. In short: go for it.

Now, let’s redo the setup you are thinking about:

Do not get that bundle; they will stuff you with a motherboard most people don’t even want any more. It has the 680i chipset that has been replaced by the 780i. People don’t want the 680i any more because it doesn’t run with the new quad cored CPUs with 45nm processed cores. Resellers have a hard time to sell the 680i boards now and thus they make bundles to stuff it to people that think it’s easy to buy it like that, and with that they aim at the less computer knowledged people sadly enough. Lot of negative thinking, but it’s the truth. Problem is that you need to wait a few weeks to get a 780i board.

So, what would be a good system, here we go:

1. 780i motherboard from ASUS or EVGA would be best, they will be around 180-220USD so be prepared to pay a bit more. Just make sure that it has NO cooling fans on it, those are only noisy and not needed when heat pipes are used.

2. CPU you picked, the Q6600, is the best choice for its money, however, you could see if Intel releases there new Wolfdale cored (45nm) CPUs about the same time as the 780i. That would give you the latest parts.

3. The VGA card is also “best pick” as this moment; nothing can beat its price performance ratio so we keep that in .

4. Seagate hard drive, good, silent, reliable and comes with 5 year factory warranty (yes factory, no way an online store gives you more then 3 months ). Nothing bad to say about it, but you could take a look at the 7200.11 series as they perform a bit better then the older 7200.10 line.

5. The PSU (Power)… I think you picked the crappiest peace you could get your hand on. Forget about it! No way will it power your system with a good stable voltage. Get yourself a Corsair HX series for example, if that is too expensive, and don’t get picky on the PSU, then go with Thermaltake, Antec or Coolermaster.

6. The CPU cooler, can’t say much about that as it’s a bit personal; most people go for looks. I like my Thermaltake coolers but 60USD is a bit pricy for a cooler like that and there could be found better coolers for less money. I would check out the CPU cooler section at http://www.frostytech.com for a few hours .

7 RAM; any thing will do well; even the lowest priced RAM will work just fine. Adata, or Vdata, is one o my favorite brands. The Value line series of 800MHz can be bumped to 1GHz or even higher with good timings (5-5-5-15 / 2.0volt) on a good motherboard.

Well, I would wait a month to build your new system and see if the 780i is out from ASUS. If you have more questions now, or by then, I would be glad to answer them…

[Eldmannen]

Nice rig there.

Good choice to go with the quad-core, since that particular model is not much more expensive than dual-core.

I would buy an additional 2 gigabyte RAM, so you have 4 gigabyte. Not because I would need it, but because RAM prices are so d*** cheap anyways.

As for the hard disk, I would probably go with a 500 gigabyte one, instead of a 400 gigabyte, since its often only slightly more expensive. Note that the disk you choose only had 8 megabyte cache, I would choose one with 16.

Hmm, when looking at the site, it seems their choice is limited, and maybe the 400 gigabyte was the best to go with for you.

As for the case, it reminds me of the Chieftec chassis. It's a good price.

As for the PSU, I would pick another. Ultra X-Finity I havent heard about before, so it might be some crap. Don't let the wattage fool you, some manufacturers market their PSU by peak wattage instead of continuous wattage. A power supply can have high wattage but crap energy efficient, stability, etc. The site conveniently commits relevant data such as PFC information, energy efficiency, etc. I am surprised that Ultra seem to offer "limited lifetime warranty", since even good power supplies often have a MTBF of 100,000 hours.

It has 2x 80mm fans, instead of a large 120 mm which would push more airflow and produce less noise.

Don't trust on-site reviews by customers, they're usually clueless noobs, who give 5 star ratings to anything with shiny LED's or silly names like "Extreme Power", "Ultra Performance", "Super Silent", "Pro Gamer Extreme Ultra Plus Super Special Edition", Turbo, etc.

The stock cooling is probably enough. But you could always later change the heatsink on the CPU to huge metal chunk of aluminum with copper plating and fluid-bearing fans.

The case come with no included fans. You can purchase 2x 120mm fans if you feel the need todo so. I recommend fluid-bearing fans since they're more reliable and silent. Papst is a good brand of fans. If you're a ricer you might want to go with a LED-equipped junk fan, it will look crap but will surely impress noobs.

[iNterpoL]

Thanks for the insight, both of you.

Yeah I'm kinda on a budget, and I didn't realize the importance of a good PSU.

As well, the 120mm fans I didn't have much of a selection.. Tiger Direct doesn't believe in 120mm or something. It was either a flashy ultraviolet waste of money, or the two I chose (No lights, no crap, just airflow.) I didn't link them, I figured fans are pretty standard.

But yeah I do have 4gb, I took another 2 sticks of the RAM listed with the Proc/mobo combo...for consistency.

And I didn't realize the 680i wasn't a good choice. Last time I built a rig the nForce3 was hot s*** lol. So I'm kinda behind.

As well, for CPU cooling.. I was looking for an OEM proc.. so I could get a more powerful heatsink.. without wasting money on the stock one.(I'm an OC'er) And I've read reports of people Overclocking their Q6600 from the stock 2.4 up over 3.2ghz.. so I wanted to get adequate heat management for that.

As for waiting for newer hardware to be released.. I really don't have the money to drop ridiculous amounts of cash on new stuff. lol I took what I could find that was best performance, for best price.

If I'm to not get that proc/mobo package.. I honestly think I'll stay away from Intel all together. I usually trust AMD over Intel anyways, but at the price I didn't think it could be beat. Getting it all in one place.

I'll be going with the AMD Athlon X2 6200+ proc with probably the MSI Socket AM2 board. As, Asus and eVGA don't have any Socket AM2 boards on Tigerdirect.ca.

*Edit* If I give an updated rig.. would you mind helping me continue to weed out the bad choices? I understand you all have probably got better things to do with your time, but I don't plan on upgrading my rig for another 2 years or so. So I wanna make sure I make the right choices.

[iNterpoL]

Updated Rig:

Link: MSI K9N SLI Platinum NVIDIA Socket AM2

Link: Fans (2 lol) (I chose these fans because they have much better Airflow than the others listed, and being the cheapest.. I figured why not?)

Link: OCZ 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (I understand OCZ is higher end RAM, but 4GB for 130 bucks?)

Link: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2ghz

As for the PSU.

What sort of wattage should I be looking at?

I'm leaning towards Link: OCZ / GameXStream / 700-Watt

or

Link: CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 650-Watt Power Supply - SLI

What do you think? I'd like to go for the cheaper one, but if it won't be adequate.. I don't wanna risk it to save 10 bucks.

I decided to go with Link: Hard Drive

It's got the 16mb Cache. Another 40 bucks but meh lol.

[puntoMX]

Strange update, what is going on there?

Listen, you asked for a dreamer SLI system and now you are on a budget?

Okay, if you asked me, I would do the next: Go to Newegg and check out this stuff:

Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail - 88

A-DATA Value Series 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory - Retail (you need 2 or 4 of them) - each 19

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - 100

COOLER MASTER RR-CCH-LB12-GP 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail - 43

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - 120

XFX PVT88GYDD4 GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB XXX 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail - 350

LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner with LightScribe - OEM - 36

CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX ATX12V V2.2 450W Power Supply 90 - 264 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail

ARCTIC COOLING Arctic Fan 12 (AF12) 120mm Case Fan - Retail, 2 of them, each 10

And your Ultra case...

There, a good system that can be tweaked to the max without spending ALL your money on it . This system can be made under 1000USD + tax and shipping. The CPU will go over 3GHz, the RAM over 1GHz and the VGA card can be tweaked about 20% more. Forget about SLI or Crossfire please.

By the way, the newest hardware doesn’t cost more, ONLY if you want the highest model…

[Monkey Proof]

There, a good system that can be tweaked to the max without spending ALL your money on it . This system can be made under 1000USD + tax and shipping. The CPU will go over 3GHz, the RAM over 1GHz and the VGA card can be tweaked about 20% more. Forget about SLI or Crossfire please.

Holycow! that has me all excited to build a desktop.

[Eldmannen]

As for the Hitatchi disk, they bought the IBM hdd division, which had then 75GXP series with crashed alot.

You probably have nothing to worry about. But personally, I would pick Samsung or Seagate, because once bitten, twice shy.

About OCZ, normally I am hesitant to OCZ because they often don't make their own stuff, but buy products from other companies, slap their OCZ stickers on them, some glowing LED, packages it with a name like "GameXStream" to make gamers horny and sell them for 3x the price.

But the OCZ GameXStream 700-Watt PSU is actually a very good one. I saw a big test of power supplies, and the OCZ was the best or among the best.

Personally, I would probably look for something cheaper. But the OCZ GameXStream 700 is definitely a great piece of equipment.

I don't know about the CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 650-Watt but he Cooler Master M700 is a great one.

PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, Cooltek often have good PSU too. Q-Tec have junk.

Ya, 4gb for $128.99 sounds nice to me.

You're right to avoid those gamer-marketed fans with transparent plastic, silly LED lights, and UV and s***, and going for a real fan instead.

The ThermalTake may be a good one, but its a ball-bearing one, I would look for a fluid-bearing one.

[iNterpoL]

That's all fine and dandy, but I'm Canadian eh? Newegg.ca doesn't exist and last I checked Newegg.com only ships within the US. Which is the reason I go to Tigerdirect.ca in the first place.

I didn't ask for a "dreamer" system. I asked if my case would provide adequate cooling. And I don't even know if that was answered.. you just said that it wasn't the best case.. but it's good for the price. :S nothing about cooling.

I'm not going ridiculously budget, but I'm not getting the best of the best. I was trying to build something in the range of 1600-1800

Strange update, what is going on there? :S

The update was basically.. I switched mobos, procs, RAM, hard drive and PSU. The rest remained the same.

I didn't feel the need to list everything again.

Or was that just sarcasm because you have something against AMD procs or something? I can't tell, it's all text to me.

Just forget it. Sorry to waste your time.

**Edit** Since Eldmannen so eloquently posted at the exact same time as me.. only slightly sooner.. I'm all mixed up now! This post = directed at puntoMX, and the post below = Eldmannen. lol

[iNterpoL]

Yeah, I was looking for a fluid bearing fan, but I couldn't find any 120mm ones on Tigerdirect.ca.

And since that's pretty much my only option in Canada.. lol I figured my hands are tied.

*Edit*

Yeah, you guys have gotta understand too, that being in Canada.. many of these US sites don't ship here. And the ones that do, I'm sure charge a ridiculous amount of shipping for going across the border.

I wanted to build the whole rig in one shopping cart, because base shipping costs for like one item per shipment.. out-weigh the combined shipping costs of one shopping cart. And like I said.. 1800 is my limit.. I can't waste 400 of that on f***in shipping lol.

[Tarun]

I thought that NewEgg was delivering to Canada too. Tried a quick Google search and found that back in 2005 they had discussed it. Here's the linl

[puntoMX]

Hold on, I don’t have any thing against AMD, but when you want to OC then its Intel for now.

If newegg isn’t an option, then take a look at these 2:

http://www.ncix.com

http://www.directcanada.com

Tigerdirect is selling outdated stuff, can’t help it.

The Ultra case has good cooling if you use those 2 120mm fans in them.

Do you really like to go with SLI? What screen are you running any way now or in the next 2 years?