Time for an upgrade

[benners]

Its about time I updated my machine. Its approx 3 years old, its not really a slug but I want to play

Gigabyte SINXP1394 mobo

Intel P4 3.06ghz

1 gig Corsair XMS Platinum

20GB IBM brought out of retirement due to HD failure

120GB IBM last one of 4 bought at the same time and have clocked up approx 35000 hours run each so

not to upset the went belly up, had some hammer with Grabit and Winrar.

New spec :-

Asus PSW DH Deluxe.

Core Duo E6600.

Scythe Ninja Plus

2GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC6400 or PC8500.

MSI 7900GTO, not really a games player, maybe Tomb Raider, Bought an XBox360 for that (bit dissappointed).

36gb WD Raptor as main Windows drive.

Thecus N5200 Roustar

5 x 500GB WD5000YS RE2

Dell 3007WFP TFT.

USB floppy for odd times.

That's basically it, bit on the fence about the Dell monitor, read some reviews all saying the brightness isn't uniform across the screen, and the N5200 gets good and bad reviews dunno if it will do what I intend for it to do.

What I want is to connect my SMC Barricade to the WAN port on the N5200 for the T'Interweb, use the 4 port gigabit switch to network 3 PC's trouble is no port forwarding for RemotelyAnywhere etc on theN5200, and then be able to logon to the shared folders with all the machine concurrently with the same user name and password.

If anyone has any thoughts or better preferences I would appreciate the input, especially for the TFT and NAS devices.

Edited November 24, 2006 by benners

[Lost Soul]

sounds great benners,, when you build this let me know when its my turn to play with the pc,, btw,, im not sure about going the dell route,, if you gonna flip the tab id go with a samsung , to me when it comes to gaming the colors are more crisp as well as the darks are in great aspect..

try this its on sale

SAMSUNG 941BW Black 19

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16824001088

as for the rest it looks good to me,, man 5x500 giggers huh,, are trying to go for raid 5 ?

and also if you plan on going with vista in the near future,, you probably wanna kick your ram up to 2 gigs

[jcarle]

I would suggest a Zalman CNPS9500 as a heatsink.

[benners]

man 5x500 giggers huh,, are trying to go for raid 5 ?

and also if you plan on going with vista in the near future,, you probably wanna kick your ram up to 2 gigs

@ lost Soul

Hi Bud,

Yeah d@mn unattended disk keeps getting bigger and bigger lol and yeah Raid5 for a bit of data security. I should have put the RAM size down, will be going for 2GB but will give Vista a miss for a while, not much to make me change over, at least for now, but would prolly increase to 4GB if I get Vista and it would have to be the Ultimate edition wanna use the Media Centre. As for your turn, I will gladly step aside and let you meddle if you turn up outside my door the next time the missus is visiting her family lol.

The reason for the Dell is the size, 30" and a bit cheaper then Apples screen, just bugger all connections on the monitor which is Prolly Dells way of protecting their LCD TV market, already got a Viewsonic VP201s as my monitor but I am always taking the p*** out of my Pops for watching TV on a 21" prehistoric screen and that is really what I end up doing with my monitor.

@jcarle

Thanks for the suggestion, it was the main contender before I decided on the Ninja, along with the 110mm fan version CNPS9700-LED and the fancier CNPS9700-NT, the thing that put me off was the various reviews and forum posts saying the finish on the base was a bit lacklustre and many folks ended up lapping the base to make it smoother and found the base to be sometimes slightly uneven and not all of it making contact with the CPU.

I don't have any manufacturer allegiance or aim to make a silent PC, cant seem to sleep when the machine is switched off I've got use to the hum of the Jet 4 currently cooling this CPU, I just want the best performing cooler I can afford without having to lap it 'cos I'll prolly O\Clock the DUOand the Ninja got some good reviews from a few sites. Do you have one, and if so did you notice any problems with it?

[ripken204]

i have the scythe ninja and it is an amazing heatsink, its as queit as you want it to be and cools vry good.

[RJM]

As for the memory, the PC6400 is good enough for overclocking the CPU to 3.6 GHZ at 1 to 1

(400 MHZ FSB * 9) without overclocking the memory. I realy don't see the need for wasting the extra money on the PC8500.

[jcarle]

As for the memory, the PC6400 is good enough for overclocking the CPU to 3.6 GHZ at 1 to 1

(400 MHZ FSB * 9) without overclocking the memory. I realy don't see the need for wasting the extra money on the PC8500.

The problem with DDR2-800 (PC6400) is that it's already 1:1 with the CPU FSB without any head room. DDR2-1066 (PC8500) can be underclocked to run 1:1 at 800MHz with the CPU FSB and have a 266MHz margin for overclocking all while remaining at 1:1.

That's the same reason why some people choose to build their Core 2 Duo's using DDR2-800 when 1:1 is DDR2-533. Because they can either run it at the native speed or at 1:1 and overclock the Core 2.

[RJM]

jcarle,

If you read the P5W DH Delux specs the board only supports DDR2 533, DDR2 667 and

DDR2 800. Not DDR2 1066. With the E6600 stock running at 2.4GHZ with a multiplier of 9 you only need

DDR2 533. With DDR2 800 you have a headroom at stock clocking of 50% (800/533-1) and as I said you can over clock the E6600 to 3.6 GHZ before you even begin to overclock the memory. Also over 3.6GHZ you would definately need a good water cooling system. Even running with a 5/4 memory divider stock

would still only require DDR2 667 and with DDR2 800 you would still have a headroom of 20%

(800/667-1) at stock clocking alowing you to reach an overclock of 2.9GHZ before you start to overclock your memory. You would have to have a memory divider of 3/2 to have a stock clocked E6600 with

your FSB at 266MHZ and your memory clock at 400MHZ to have no headroom with the DDR2 800

memory. I think that you will agree that Core2 Duo's respond to overclocking better when they have

a 1/1 memory divider.

Edited November 27, 2006 by RJM

[jcarle]

@RJM: I think we both said the same thing in two different ways but of course, we both agree that a 1:1 ratio is always better when possible.