My new system build: What do you think?

[Konovalov]

Finally after much procrastination I have taken the decision to build my own system from scratch. I thought what better way to spend my spare time over Christmas and New Years than to build my own rig. So here follows the specifications which I have ordered and that should be delivered over the next couple of days:

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Socket 775 2.4GHz (£199.74)
MOTHERBOARD - Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP (£124.94)
CPU HSF - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro HSF (£12.68)
MEMORY - Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400 (TWIN2X2048-6400C4D) DOMINATOR (£195.77)
CASE - Antec P180B Super Midi Tower - Black (£93.44)
POWER SUPPLY - Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 PSU (£113.22)
HARD DRIVE - Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB SATAII 7200rpm 16MB OEM (£51.54)
GRAPHICS CARD - XFX 7900GS 450M core 256MB Dual DVI TVO PCI-E (£104.98)
DVD BURNER - Samsung DVD+-R/RW/RAM 18x IDE Retail Black (£24.48)
OPERATING SYSTEM - Windows XP Home SP2 with Vista upgrade voucher (£55.17)

All up it comes to under GBP £1000.00. My plans are to overclock the E6600 from it's stock 2.4ghz up to around 2.9 or 3ghz mark which should be fairly easy to attain. I cannot believe the great value of the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600. This thing is on par at stock speeds with the AMD FX-62 in many tests. In the UK the FX-62 retails for around £450 quid which is well over twice the price of what I payed for the E6600.

I opted for the Nvidia 7900GS graphics card as the best bang for buck card at present. I would rather hold off on the Dx10 cards for a year and a half before then making the move up. I expect my system to be fast yet pretty quiet also. Hopefully I will be able to post some pics of my build and benchies once up and running some time after the new year.

I think I will be in for a shock once my rig is built. My current system is an old AMD Athlon XP1900+ with 1024mb SDRAM memory and a Nvidia GeForce 4 4400 128mb card. It is noisy, slow, and getting towards 5 years old now.

The new rig should run SHIII, SHIV, Lomac series, Il2 Forgotten Battles series, RTW and MTWII in all their glory. Wish me luck.

[joea]

Wow just wow!! Good for you mate.

[Iceman]

Question....I always wondered why people over clock they're systems....Isn't it taking an uneccessary risk with your money you've spent.I bought a new system and it has the built in ablilty to do this as well but I am leary to make it run hot like that.....I mean if your already driving a kick ass car why take a chance on blowing the engine?

[AVGWarhawk]

YAWN............

Just kidding. Looks great! I heard about the Vista vouchers they are offering. Good thinkg for MS! I would hate to buy a new CPU with XP and two days later Vista is out.

[geetrue]

That sounds like a fun way to spend the end of the year getting ready for next year and Vista with DX 10 right around the corner.

Just one suggestion (probably too late, uh?) I would put two seagate med size GB 10k sata HDD's in a zero array (in place of the 72k HDD's) and use a big external sata or usb 2.0 or firewire for files like movies, photo's etc.

Yes, you have good taste ... Let us know how the duo-core works out ... Have my eye on that one too ... Don't hesitate to use water cooling if you over clock and take a look at the new ATI video card with plasma cooling built in.

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by joea

Wow just wow!! Good for you mate.

Thanks. Hopefully it won't be too much of a hair pulling experience.

Originally Posted by Iceman

Question....I always wondered why people over clock they're systems....Isn't it taking an uneccessary risk with your money you've spent.I bought a new system and it has the built in ablilty to do this as well but I am leary to make it run hot like that.....I mean if your already driving a kick ass car why take a chance on blowing the engine?

Because if you know what you are doing then you can attain improved performance without risk and importantly it comes for free. I paid just under £200 for my Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor which has a clock speed of 2.4Ghz. Now I could overclock this CPU to 2.67Ghz blindfolded and with zero risk which would effectively turn my E6600 into a Core 2 Duo E6700 2.67Ghz processor which retails for £330. Even better I could overclock the CPU to near 3ghz with ease or even further for performance akin to the top of the line Core 2 Extreme X6800 which retails for £600 here in the UK. So as you can see there are significant performance/cost saving benefits here.

From this AnandTech Article: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...px?i=2795&p=18

Enthusuasts have not seen overclocking like this since Socket 478 days, and in fact Core 2 may be even better. The 2.4GHz E6600, which outperformed the FX-62 in most benchmarks at stock speed costs $316, and overclocked to 4Ghz with excellent air cooling. With that kind of performance, value, and overclocking the E6600 will likely become the preferred chip for serious overclockers - particularly those that are looking for champagne performance on a smaller budget.

It is important, however, not to sell the advantages of the X6800 short. AnandTech never recommends the fastest chip you can buy as a good value choice, but X6800 does bring some advantages to the table. It is the only Conroe that is completely unlocked. This allows settings like 266(stock FSB)x15 for 4.0GHz, settings that keep other components in the system at stock speed. This can only be achieved with the X6800 - other Core 2 Duo chips are hard-locked - and for some that feature will justify buying an X6800 at $999. For the rest of us overclockers E6600 is shaping up to be the chip to buy for overclocking.

As you can see from that Anadntech article. To purchase the E6600 CPU and not overclock it would be crazy and a wasted opportunity.

Originally Posted by geetrue

Just one suggestion (probably too late, uh?) I would put two seagate med size GB 10k sata HDD's in a zero array (in place of the 72k HDD's) and use a big external sata or usb 2.0 or firewire for files like movies, photo's etc.

Yes, you have good taste ... Let us know how the duo-core works out ... Have my eye on that one too ... Don't hesitate to use water cooling if you over clock and take a look at the new ATI video card with plasma cooling built in.

I'll consider that hard drive option. I have never utilised raid before but I do plan on doing so by buying another identical hard drive further down the track. I don't know if I am that hardcore to have a go with watercooling. I guess it is that fear of water and electricals.

[geetrue]

Konovalov said:

We have the Ashes, we have the World Cup trophy, we have the I.C.C. Champions trophy, and lastly we are ranked number one in the world in both Test and One Day cricket. Quite simply we are the best and have been for a decade.

Yes, but you lack one thing ... "The Holy Grail" Perhaps one of your ancestor's misplaced it ...

[nightdagger]

Nice build

@ geetrue: The only company that makes hard drives over 7200RPM that he can use is WD with the 10k Raptors. All other ones are SCSI. That would eat up a PCI slot.

[U-533]

I have no idea what your on to but I hope it is what yoou need. I am not computer savey nor do I spell correct.

[peterloo]

Good system config ... Good luck and sink more ships in next patrol, Captain

However, if I were you, I would get 7900GT or even 8800(later) cause they are much better than 7900GS

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by peterloo

Good system config ... Good luck and sink more ships in next patrol, Captain

However, if I were you, I would get 7900GT or even 8800(later) cause they are much better than 7900GS

Thanks.

Unfortunately my budget wouldn't allow such a move to the 7900GT. I payed £100 for the 7900GS. The 7900GT is at least another £35 to £40 minimum and I doubt that the performance increase is of the scale of 30 to 40% as the price increase is. I guess I wanted a mid rage card for as cheap as possible to last me 1.5 years by which time I hope a new generation of DX10 cards will be out. These should improve greatly on the 8800GTX for no way near the premium that they currently are. I simply cannot justify the price of a 8800GTS (£320) or a 8800GTX (near £400) and somehow I don't think that my wife would be sold on the idea no matter how hard I tried. Ad don't forget that the 7900GS also has a good reputation for overcocking so I hope to squeeze a little bit more bang for buck out of it.

Speak of the devil. Look what Santa has just delivered early for me this Christmas. Let the work begin.

[GT182]

Konovalov, don't you need a Raid Controller Card to be able to use Raid setup with 2 identical HDDs?

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by GT182

Konovalov, don't you need a Raid Controller Card to be able to use Raid setup with 2 identical HDDs?

Firstly I have never used or had experience with RAID before. However I am aware that my motherboard, the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP, is equiped for RAID with the Intel ICH8R Southbridge RAID controller. This supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5.So I assume that this makes a RAID contrller card redundant. Am I correct here?

In any case I have no intend initially to set up RAID but perhaps in a few months I will seriously consider it.

[nightdagger]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

Firstly I have never used or had experience with RAID before. However I am aware that my motherboard, the Asus P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP, is equiped for RAID with the Intel ICH8R Southbridge RAID controller. This supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and RAID 5.So I assume that this makes a RAID contrller card redundant. Am I correct here?

In any case I have no intend initially to set up RAID but perhaps in a few months I will seriously consider it.

You are correct. Raid will be annoying to set up in a few months in the most common config (RAID 0) because you'd have to wipe the old drive and completely reinstall everything.

[Konovalov]

Pictures of my completed build up now. It has been running almost flawlessly for a month now. Here they are:

Front with case door open.


Case front.


Case side full internal.


Case internal (upper chamber).


Case internal (lower chamber).


Sceenshot of vital statistics (ignore CPU temp shown in hexagon as gross'ly innacurate).


The cables need a major tidy up but I just haven't been bothered to get around to that yet. It's on the things to do list. I'm seriously thinking of doing some Dremel work inside the case to achieve a really tidy cable clutter free case.

The case itself certainly muffles and reduces noise. If it were not for the video card fan then the system would be almost silent as the CPU HSF runs at a low 1000rpm and the 3 x 120mm case fans are on the lowest speed setting which is inaudible. The Seasonic M12 PSU is also silent.

All in all I am very happy with my first system build and I stuck to my budget of £1000. I had very few problems at all during the build. It really isn't that hard to build your own computer from scratch and to your exact specifications. I can't wait to do another one in the future.