Zxian

ripken - update your sig! What are you going to do with the old system by the way? I should get my hands on BF2142... I just need a decent video card to go with my new setup.

If you've been a big fan of Maxtor, you've been VERY lucky with their hard drives, or you've got rid of them before they died. Maxtor drives are generally the bottom of the barrel, although they might have improved now that they're owned by Seagate. My personal preference goes with Western Digital. The WD5000AAKS drives are very quiet, draw less power than "the rest", and have a reputation behind them to boot (ok people - forget about the JB series drives - they sucked).

Excellent - you won't be disappointed. I've got the HX620 in my file server, and I just picked up an HX520 for my new workstation (which I'll be building tonight). I tested both of them at SPCR, and they were FAR better than anything else we had there. Even Mike Chin was thoroughly impressed.

Like punto said - a bit overkill in some respects, but a nice system overall.

If you're talking about "GENERAL" things then "GENERALLY" speaking, overclocking that CPU to 3GHz is not safe!!! How can you go telling someone new that they can go from 1.8GHz to 3GHz without any problems?!?! From what we all can gather in this thread (if you had bothered to read it) is that the OP has little to no experience with overclocking. Then there's the question of wether or not his CPU can actually hit 3.33GHz. As we all know with overclocking, YMMV.

Just another useful note - what Chozo4 posted can also be used to prevent hotlinking of files. Checking wether or not a session variable has been set (you set it from the main page) within that download.php file (or whatever you call it) will prevent hotlinking.

For all the programs you listed - the E2160 will be fine at stock speeds. Maya is more graphics dependent though, so make sure you have a decent graphics card.

Yup - you want the paste as thin as possible. The thinner the better. If you remove your CPU and you've got a noticable thickness on the IHS, then you've got too much paste.

@iceangel89 - You say "how good is the performance"... compared to what? Compared to the P4-530 you've got, the performance is much better, but compared to any other C2D chips, the E2160 isn't much to write home about at stock speeds. It's fast enough for plenty of things, but it's no match for an E6400 or anything of the sort. Like ripken said - you can't really beat the price though. I can get one here for about $100 CAD, and for a basic system, that's pretty freakin wicked.

If the 8C difference is there regardless of load, then I'd be more willing to place the difference as an offset than an actual temperature difference. Try running varying numbers of CPUburn, and set the affinity of each burning process to a single core. See if you can find any anomalies with the different combinations.

Right, you're running Vista... from what I understand, TAT is an XP-only program. With the heatsink - it's pretty hard to mount the stock heatsink incorrectly. You installed it by pressing the diagonal pins first, right? 1 3 4 2 In that order... if you get what I mean. If you went around in a circle, then you did it wrong.

The endless problem with computers... there's always something better on the horizon...

I think you missed my point... In practice, yes, you can usually go beyond the stock limits of your system without running too much risk. However, you're still running a risk. Even if you raise that clock speed from 2.4GHz (for you and I with the Q6600) to 2.5GHz, you could break your CPU, regardless of temps or voltages. It's like day trading on the stock market - you can gain really big, but you have to be prepared to lose everything.

@ripken - I decided to go with a quad core, because I got a nice little bonus from work yesterday, and NCIX has them on sale... $289 CAD. Can't really complain. I never said the quad-cores were bad - just the hype about the "better overclocking" from the G0 isn't as much as people said it would be. Sure you sqeeze out a few more Mhz. What does that get you? Some bragging rights, but not much else. The "feature" you're talking about has been with every post-P4 Intel consumer-line CPU (i.e. not-Xeons). It's called SpeedStep. I disable that on my desktops, since I'm usually running R@H anyways, and the system never gets a chance to slow down. On my laptop though - boy does it ever work. At minimum speed (800MHz), the CPU runs at 0.7V, and has a temperature of 26C. Question about your temps - are you using SpeedFan, or TAT to measure those? TAT takes the internal temperature diode on each of the cores, instead of an external temperature reading (inside the CPU vs on the CPU).

Just a personal note - I never consider overclocking safe at any time. The CPU you have is designed to run with an 800MHz FSB (actually 200MHz), and at a clock speed of 1.8GHz. Anything higher, and you're running outside the tested limits. If you're willing to overclock your components, you're willing to break them IMO. Overclocking stresses the components more than they were designed for. If they break while under normal operation, you can get a new one. If you've been overclocking, then getting a new one is harder (and you've got an ethical dilemma to face).

Holy thread resurrection Batman... @as1308 - Since you're new here, I'll give you the lowdown. We typically try not to bring back year old (or older) threads unless something really important needs to be said. If you want to state your opinion about the best AV program, you can do that in this thread.

@maf - If you're looking for just the updates, the ones listed by WUD (which correspond to those needed by a bare XP-SP2 system) as "critical updates" come out to 108MB. AutoPatcher's May Core update alone is over 300MB, and then you need the update packs as well. I understand that it has pretty much every update under the sun, but most people don't bother with the recommended updates.

Sure - lower power consumption for the same performance is always good, but the argument that it would give "substantially" better overclocking performance goes out the window. Don't get me wrong - I just ordered one of these puppies. Hopefully I'll get the G0, since I'd like to make this machine as quiet as possible. I'll probably end up under-volting the CPU anyways.

Sata cables are just much nicer to work with...

FORM FORK DORK DARK BARK PARK PART FART FAST VAST VASE BASE CASE CAST CART DART DARE CARE FARE MARE MALE TALE SALE SOLE SOLD MOLD TOLD GOLD FOLD FOLK FILK MILK MILE MALE MATE MAZE DAZE DOZE DONE NONE NOSE POSE POLE PORE MORE SORE SURE PURE PARE RARE RACE FACE FACT TACT PACT PAST FAST CAST CASE BASE VASE VISE VISA VESA VEST BEST JEST TEST TEAT MEAT NEAT SEAT SEAR FEAR NEAR DEAR BEER BEEP PEEP PEER LEER LEEK LEAK LEAP LEAN BEAN BEAD LEAD LOAD LORD CORD FORD WORD WOOD GOOD GOAD GLAD CLAD CLAP SLAP FLAP FLAT FLAX FLAY FLAB FLAK FLAW FLOW BLOW BLOT PLOT SLOT SLOP SLOB BLOB BLUB CLUB CLUE GLUE GLUG GLUM PLUM PLUG PLUS FLUS FLUX FLEX FLEE FLEE FREE FRET FRAT BRAT BRAN BRAG DRAG FRAG FRAY PRAY PREY TREY GREY GREW BREW CREW CROW BROW GROW GLOW GLOB SLOB SLAB STAB STAY STAR STAP STAG STOG STOP STEP STEW SHEW OHEW WHEW WHET WHEN THEN THAN THIN SHIN SHIP WHIP CHIP CLIP SLIP SLIM SLIT SLIK FLIK FLIP FLOP FLOG FROG FROM PROM PROD PROP PLOP FLOP GLOP GOOP GOOF GOLF WOLF ROLF ROFF RUFF RIFF Hopefully we won't be thrown into the RIFT....

At whistler/blackcomb? Nope... lots of their systems are still running 2000 actually... I've seen this when picking up my season's pass.

@Punto - not all drives are created equal. Like I said - the Sony drive in my workstation at UBC can't burn a disc reliably, while the three burners I have at home (LG, Pioneer, and Pioneer) are all flawless.

Considering that all my backups are going to my network share (I think XXCopy even detects network drives), I get the warning flag. I'll have to try the piping though...

Did you purchase XXCopy? I had it running as a schedule task to run the backups, but they never actually got to work, since I got the "this is only for testing purposes, blah blah blah".

I also try to burn the very important data to DVDs, but the problem I've got is with incremental backups. There's no point in having the same data on all your DVDs you've burned for the past 6 months. Multi-session discs are a no go as well, since the overhead is usually comparable to the amount of data I need to backup. Anyone have any solutions for this?