PC Build Spec

[dtmpower]

Here is my current list of parts I am about to order, but before I do , can anyone advise either way any improvements ? Thanks

Antec SLK1650B Mini Tower Black - 350 Watt PSU (PSU redundant but need case to match my other pc) 45
Asus P5WD2-E Premium 147
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) 70
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 800MHz 76
LG GSA-H10ABAL 16xDVDRW/RAM Internal Black 27
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler 23
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 160GB 43
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK PSU 580W 65
Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GT "Golden Sample" 187
TOTAL £684

[road2ruin]

I would always recommend two hard disks. No idea what you are going to do with the machine but I personally preffer to have the operating system on one smaller disk and prog files on another. Given that hard disks are so cheap at the mo I would def go for that.

[dtmpower]

I have plenty of hard drives spare.. its the gaming performance for gtl / rFactor I need

[UncleDave]

Thought I recognised that post
More RAM!! [And an uprated case for added happiness if you ask me ]

A quick Off Topic if you don't mind..
This idea of seperate Windows hard drive, and programs on another. Is this for easy recovery of the OS when things go wrong? If so would it not mean the registry gets wiped out meaning all your installed progs on drive 2 get a bit messed up?

Sorry I really should start another thread..

Dave.

[annodomini2]

If its for gaming I'd get the WD Raptor X 150GB 10,000rpm SATA2 drive.

Ok its £120 more than the one you've got, but you will see the performance difference as the Hardrive is the slowest component of a PC, when running normally.

[dtmpower]

UncleDave said:

Thought I recognised that post
More RAM!! [And an uprated case for added happiness if you ask me ]

A quick Off Topic if you don't mind..
This idea of seperate Windows hard drive, and programs on another. Is this for easy recovery of the OS when things go wrong? If so would it not mean the registry gets wiped out meaning all your installed progs on drive 2 get a bit messed up?

Sorry I really should start another thread..

Dave.

Antec SLK1650B Mini Tower Black - 350 Watt PSU 45
Asus P5WD2-E Premium 147
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) 70
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz 153
LG GSA-H10ABAL 16xDVDRW/RAM Internal Black - OEM 107210 27
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler 23
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache 116
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W 65
Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GT "Golden Sample" 187
TOTAL 834

How is that now ! - Anyone know of graphics card, is this one overkill for what I need ? £834 is already more than I intended to spend.....

UncleDave - the case is pretty plain, but well built, not keen on flashing lights etc , what case woudl you suggest , dont want alloy really also as gets scratched up and greasy marks and looks poo after 10 mins sat on my bedroom floor.

Another thing , did people notice my cpu choice, the overclockable one mentioned on here :

www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/

But to get it to work you need the mobo I have selected or a equally priced Gigabyte one... is ther another combo of mobo/cpu for £220 or less that would be better suited to my machine....



p.s. never have bothered with the whole 2 disks thing , ok if you have images for OS and backup of your data... otherwise for the amount of times I have had to reinstall , its not worth the grief for one home machine...

Edited by dtmpower on Wednesday 23 August 13:45

[UncleDave]

Eek, yep that raises the price a bit.. but when you think about it, spending extra for high quality parts and high end Graphics will keep it a lot more future-proof

Case: I have no idea! It would just be my one personal addition other than the RAM.
I can't comment on the 10,000RPM drive but I wish I had one , not sure how it'd perform compared to a 7,200RPMer.

Definately a stable system for running GTL

Dave.

[road2ruin]

UncleDave said:

Thought I recognised that post
More RAM!! [And an uprated case for added happiness if you ask me ]

A quick Off Topic if you don't mind..
This idea of seperate Windows hard drive, and programs on another. Is this for easy recovery of the OS when things go wrong? If so would it not mean the registry gets wiped out meaning all your installed progs on drive 2 get a bit messed up?

Sorry I really should start another thread..

Dave.

Hi Dave,
You are quite correct the registry may be wiped and make all the other progs useless too. However the main reasons are it boots up quicker, less chance of losing O/s if virus infection from something downloaded and can ghost to that drive as a backup of O/s if thats your way.

Pete

[UncleDave]

Thanks, Pete.. Always thought of giving another HDD a go.. now this one is filling up I think it's time I got my wallet out.

[neil_cardiff]

The CPU and Mobo choice is a cracker - as I mentioned on the thread over in the games forum (oi, stop cross posting ; ) I'm typing this on them, and i'm seeing 3.1Ghz.

You can get to 3.6Ghz on air cooling, but it doesn't stay all that stable, wheras 3.1Ghz is rock solid.

[petros]

New core 2 processor now available, blows the old pentium 4s away.

[neil_cardiff]

neil_cardiff said:

The CPU and Mobo choice is a cracker - as I mentioned on the thread over in the games forum (oi, stop cross posting ; ) I'm typing this on them, and i'm seeing 3.1Ghz.

You can get to 3.6Ghz on air cooling, but it doesn't stay all that stable, wheras 3.1Ghz is rock solid.

P.s. my home pc is a 2.4Ghz (admittedly OC'd to 2.8Ghz) P4 with 2Gb of standard DDR memory and boggo standardo hard drives linked to a 6600GT.

It runs everything.

So that should give you an idea of what CAN run GTL/GTR/ etc

[Podie]

Looks pretty good generally, but I'd avoid Maxtor HDD's like the plague - never seem so many failures from one brand of disk...

Edited by Podie on Wednesday 23 August 15:38

[annodomini2]

dtmpower said:

UncleDave said:

Thought I recognised that post
More RAM!! [And an uprated case for added happiness if you ask me ]

A quick Off Topic if you don't mind..
This idea of seperate Windows hard drive, and programs on another. Is this for easy recovery of the OS when things go wrong? If so would it not mean the registry gets wiped out meaning all your installed progs on drive 2 get a bit messed up?

Sorry I really should start another thread..

Dave.

Antec SLK1650B Mini Tower Black - 350 Watt PSU 45
Asus P5WD2-E Premium 147
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) 70
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz 153
LG GSA-H10ABAL 16xDVDRW/RAM Internal Black - OEM 107210 27
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler 23
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache 116
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W 65
Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GT "Golden Sample" 187
TOTAL 834

How is that now ! - Anyone know of graphics card, is this one overkill for what I need ? £834 is already more than I intended to spend.....

UncleDave - the case is pretty plain, but well built, not keen on flashing lights etc , what case woudl you suggest , dont want alloy really also as gets scratched up and greasy marks and looks poo after 10 mins sat on my bedroom floor.

Another thing , did people notice my cpu choice, the overclockable one mentioned on here :

www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/

But to get it to work you need the mobo I have selected or a equally priced Gigabyte one... is ther another combo of mobo/cpu for £220 or less that would be better suited to my machine....



p.s. never have bothered with the whole 2 disks thing , ok if you have images for OS and backup of your data... otherwise for the amount of times I have had to reinstall , its not worth the grief for one home machine...

Edited by dtmpower on Wednesday 23 August 13:45

With the case, if you're on ebuyer, get the SLK3000, its cheaper (no PSU) and also a good case, but it does have an annoying front door (I ripped mine off! ).

[big_treacle]

dtmpower said:

Anyone know of graphics card, is this one overkill for what I need ? £834 is already more than I intended to spend.....

i used to have a gainward golden sample card. it was very good. the 'golden samples' are pre-tested and come with a guaranteed safe overclocking level. so it comes with overclocking software with a preset 'you can wind it up to here & we guarantee it'll be fine'. Or at least thats what it meant about 2 years ago.

[dtmpower]

I will be ordering the parts as listed above today... bit of a delay but I should be rfactor and GTL ready at the weekend.

[mr_yogi]

If it's not too late, are you still getting the Pentium 4? Because the Core 2 Duo's are out now and much faster (even the entry level ones).

[dtmpower]

mr_yogi said:

If it's not too late, are you still getting the Pentium 4? Because the Core 2 Duo's are out now and much faster (even the entry level ones).

No , it't not too late... I had decided to get the 805d chip as it was cheaper and overclockable.... can you suggest a cpu and mobo to replace my choice above for the same £

[mr_yogi]

Not sure about the costs of what you have listed but...

ASUS P5B can be had for about £95.
And a Core 2 Duo E6300 can be had for under £120 or the E6400 can be had for about £160.

BTW are you sure a 350W PSU is enough? It's probably fine with the Core 2 but if you are going to overclock the Pentium D then you may need more power.

Have a look at this tool and see what it says:

www.extreme.outervision.com/

[dtmpower]

mr_yogi said:

Not sure about the costs of what you have listed but...

ASUS P5B can be had for about £95.
And a Core 2 Duo E6300 can be had for under £120 or the E6400 can be had for about £160.

BTW are you sure a 350W PSU is enough? It's probably fine with the Core 2 but if you are going to overclock the Pentium D then you may need more power.

Have a look at this tool and see what it says:

www.extreme.outervision.com/

I listed a 500+ w psu also in the spec, see above, basically i want to know to get the 805 or a new core duo - which would be better end of ?