Critique my new box...

[Dr.Khron]

Goal: powerful PC for 50% gaming, 50% Doom9 stuff (MEGui, x264, NDAAC, LAME, DVD editing/burning)

This is a tough balance, becuase a 100% gaming rig usually means more OC and less stabilty, where as 100% media encoding requires higher stability and lower temperatures.
For stability purposes, I don't plan on OCing this PC.

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775
Scythe SCKC-1000 100mm Sleeve "KAMA CROSS" 3Heat Pipes CPU Cooler

MOBO:
ASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI

RAM:
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM

Video Card:
ASUS GeForce 8800GTX 768MB 384-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16

Sound Card:
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series

Case:
LIAN LI PC-60APLUSII Silver Aluminum ATX Mid Tower

Power Supply:
Thermaltake W0131RU ATX12V / EPS12V 850W Power Supply -

RAID Card:
LSI LOGIC SAS MegaRAID 8308ELP

System Drive:
Fujitsu 36.7GB 15,000 RPM Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)

RAID 5 Array:
3x Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s


Newegg Subtotal: $2,876.87

A few of the parts can be had somewhat cheaper elsewhere, but at this point I'm thinking of just buying it all from Newegg.

Well, what do you think?

[Inventive Software]

You're paying a hefty premium for SCSI. Are you sure you want to go down that route? Having a WD Raptor drive would probably yield similar performance...

EDIT: And I envy you on having THAT much money to blow on a new computer. :p

[Dr.Khron]

Well, two things about the cost:

First, I havn't built a new PC in nearly FIVE YEARS.

Second, last week I was finally able to get a really good price for some thinly-traded stock I was sitting on, so I sold it. So I'm flush with cash at the moment.

Yes, I know that the storage system is expensive, but the big expense is the RAID controller card... I'm paying a premium for true hardware RAID 5, not the single SAS drive.... I could easily replace that with a much bigger SATA for the same price, but since that card can easily mix and match SAS and SATA I figured "what the heck".

Besides, who needs more then 37 GB for system disk anyway? If I used a big SATA drive, most of it would sit empty.

[Inventive Software]

True. I guess if you can flaunt it.... :p

If you can stretch it, I'd get the Enermax 1000W. 850W will just about cover your setup I think, but I don't know what sort of wattage space you'd have left with the add-in boards and any USB devices you may wish to connect.

[Dr.Khron]

Now, now, I'm not trying to flaunt anything. I'm just looking for some useful feedback, like your comment about the PSU wattage.

Crap, I was worried about that.
I figured that 850 would be enough juice, but when you've got a ton of hard drives, its better safe then sorry. That, and the PSU I picked out is such a great deal on Newegg right now...

I'll check again, but I don't think that Newegg had a 1000W PSU with modular cabling. I'm super anal about cabling, so I've been dying for a modular PSU for a while now.

[foxyshadis]

One CPU and one GPU isn't going to strain an 850, unless it's an Itanium. If you doubled the number of HDs and went dual-socket or SLI, then you might need to start counting your watts.

Q6600: 90W max
8800GTX: 140-160W max
SATA drives: 8W max
SCSI drive: 15-30W max
680i: 40W max? more if you overclock it to death though.

Everything else is negligible. Add everything up and you won't come anywhere close to 850.

Thermaltake makes good PSUs (as does Enermax) that will hold their rating, so no sense buying too high, since a higher-rated PSU will be less efficient at the same wattage than a lower-rated one. (If the higher one has a better overall efficiency, though...)

[Inventive Software]

Before I closed my FF window, I was gonna say I wasn't sure on how much all the key components drew, and foxy beat me to it, cause them Enermax PSU's are quite expensive! 1000W one on newegg was $300 IIRC.

[Adub]

Yeah, but you really get what you pay for. Another alternative are the PC Power and Cooling PSU's.

[check]

Why do you want 4gb of memory? Apart from the fact you need a 64bit OS to take advantage of it, I know of almost no programs that will use more than 2gb usefully anyway.
Also, do you really need a sound card? :P
Finally, as a personal preference I would suggest a Thermalright Ultra120 instead of the scythe cooler.

[Guest]

Why only a dual core. Aren't quads available?

Critique my new box OK. The nooks and crannies of your new box are infested with the fleas of a thousand camels. Is that good enough? :)

[Dr.Khron]

Neuron-
No, no, no, you must be thinking of my WIFE'S box. :0

As for the CPU, I'm pretty sure that the Q6600 is a quad core... if this was a pure gaming machine, I'd have gone with the 2-core Extreme Edition, but I know that Doom9 stuff tends to like quad cores.


Check-
Don't need 4, its just that its been so long since I bought RAM that the prices seem really cheap. Besides, I'm gonna have to install Vista sooner or later, and I've heard that it really likes 4 GB.

As for sound card, my buddy mentioned the same thing...
But I dunno, I've had bad experiences with on-board sound. Plus, I use my Sennhiesers most of the time when I game, and have always loved the SoundBlaster LiveDrive set up, with its amplified headphone jack and integration.
But I have considered leaving the sound card out.

Thanks again for the input, guys.

[burfadel]

Ensure you get a q0 version of the q6600, its much newer and more stable. It also costs the same! (or $5 more but worth it). The old version is b3. The new verson runs cooler as well (so I've heard)

[burfadel]

Quite honestly, the 680 chipset is a bit old, the p35 chipset from Intel is better for this combination :) Nvidia are bringing out the Nforce 7 range sometime soon, which should make up the difference!

[check]

regarding the sound card.. they are easy enough to install later. I'd buy the box without, and if you find kittens dying with onboard, just buy it later.

[Dr.Khron]

burfadel-

Agreed, and agreed.

The guys on HardForums reminded me of the stepping issue, which means that I won't be buying that part from Newegg.

As for the mobo, someone made a convincining argument that since I don't plan on going SLI, I have no real need for the 680 chipset... so P35 it is.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Kittens dying indeed!! :P Onboard is really terrible - no way around it. It's especially apparent if you have good cans and good ears. A great option is to get an Asus Xonar D2, which aside from being dead sexy is a very well endowed sound card with the excellent C-Media 8788 (I think) chipset, and some very nice Burr Brown 24 bit, 192 KHz DACs. It's a great source for headphones, though external amplification is always preferred :)

The g0 C2Q stepping makes little to no difference - but if you can get it guaranteed somewhere else, why not. Get yourself a nice 3rd party cooler for it if you plan on overclocking.

850W is MORE than enough. Insanely more than enough actually. I'm sure that system would be stable on something like a Corsair HX520. Still, having lots of power is always nice.

P35 for sure, and I love your 15k SAS drive and hardware RAID5 card. That's doing it up right proper. Get 4 gigs. It's stupid cheap, and why not? We will all be running 64 bit sooner or later.

What about the monitor? Stepping up to a quality 24" LCD makes ALL the difference in the world!

Sounds like a killer-diller box :)

~MiSfit

[Shakey_Jake33]

You could compromise on the sound card, and go for the cheaper X-Fi XtremeMusic or XtremeGamer instead (basically the same card, the former is coaxial, the latter is optical), they're so cheap nowerdays and real good cards.

If you're more of an audiophile, then take Blue-MiSfit's advice!

[kikatu]

Does a cooling solution for the HDDs sounds unnecessary?

P.S. depending on the indoor temperatures.

[foxyshadis]

I'd probably still be happy with onboard if the left channel hadn't gone out, thanks to a yanked cable. As it is, the only reason I wouldn't go back is that I've gotten used to teleconferencing via what's left of the onboard while using the external for music. I don't like headphones otherwise. (Though I know externals aren't as much better than onboard as pci cards are.)

That's why I don't recommend people buy a nice card unless you feel something lacking. Of course, if it isn't worth it you can always take it back or sell it later.

On the other hand, you can never have enough screen real estate. 30" with two flanking 27"? Where do I sign? :p

[Adub]

Hell yeah!!!
But that costs around 3k right there.

[Dr.Khron]

It's especially apparent if you have good cans and good ears

Sadly, I have both....
Just the other day, I was listening to the heavy metal channel on my buddies XM stereo ("liquid metal"?). Since I've heard people rave about the sound quality of satellite radio, I was SHOCKED that the digital artifacts were so obvious to me.

However, I've decided to try out the onboard sound and see if I can live with it. Why? Because once I install Vista, the card is damn near useless. Check out this article about the impending demise of Creative Labs:

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3114

though external amplification is always preferred

No doubt, thats one of the reasons I like the SB Live Drives: they contain a good quality headphone amp. Its not up to snuff with the external, audiophile-quality ones you can buy, but it does the Sennhiesers justice.


What about the monitor?

Sticking with my baby: 21" Trinitron CRT. It does insanely high resolutions at high refresh rates, and it has sharp, beautiful colors... I've never seen an LCD/Plasma/DLP that looks anywheres near as good as my glass tube.
I plan on using for at least another 2 years.


Does a cooling solution for the HDDs sounds unnecessary?


A valid point. The case I picked out has an ventilated aluminum drive cage that sits a half-inch away from a 120 MM intake fan. Drive cooling was a major factor in case selection.

[Soulhunter]

Id go with...

- Some 120mm Noctua fans [they are soooooooo silent]
- A P35 based board [Gigabyte DS4... Super stable/configurable afaik]
- A Core 2 Duo E6750 [Faster and atm even cheaper than the E6600 afaik]
- Some SATAII Seagate HDDs [I have 8 Barracudas, 24/7 in use... None failed so far]


Bye

[Blue_MiSfit]

@Dr.Khron -

I know what you mean about loving the CRTs. I had until very recently a lovely 21" G500 Trinitron. I finally decided I wanted a big widescreen monitor, and got a BenQ 24".

I have to say, before getting this LCD I was very biased towards CRTs, but my opinion has changed somewhat. I plugged in the old CRT awhile back and was pretty amazed how fuzzy it looked by comparison. of course, mine is a 1999 vintage, and really needs to be adjusted.

I still miss having resolution and refresh rate flexibility - a lot sometimes, especially with newer games where even an 8800gts doesn't have enough grunt to run at 1920x1200.

I get irritated by these downsides, but ultimately concluded that I prefer the LCD - in my situation. If I was a pure gamer, there would be no options, unless I had a LOT of money for a mean video card setup.

Wide LCDs are sweet for productivity. Love it.

~MiSfit

[Adub]

@Soulhunter,
Why would he downgrade his CPU? He is getting a Q6600, not a E6600.
Twice the amount of processors in one chip. aka. It's a quad.

Oh, and I second the Seagate Barracuda's. I have 2 in a Raid0, hasn't failed yet. Plus I ordered another 500 gb one for a linux setup in my box. Great harddrives, plus they come with 16mb caches now.

[Soulhunter]

@Soulhunter,
Why would he downgrade his CPU? He is getting a Q6600, not a E6600...
Oh, seems I misread Q for E... ^^;

Still, its good to mention how cheap E6750's are atm! =]


Thx n' Bye

[specise_8472]

Neuron-
No, no, no, you must be thinking of my WIFE'S box. :0

As for the CPU, I'm pretty sure that the Q6600 is a quad core... if this was a pure gaming machine, I'd have gone with the 2-core Extreme Edition, but I know that Doom9 stuff tends to like quad cores.


Check-
Don't need 4, its just that its been so long since I bought RAM that the prices seem really cheap. Besides, I'm gonna have to install Vista sooner or later, and I've heard that it really likes 4 GB.

As for sound card, my buddy mentioned the same thing...
But I dunno, I've had bad experiences with on-board sound. Plus, I use my Sennhiesers most of the time when I game, and have always loved the SoundBlaster LiveDrive set up, with its amplified headphone jack and integration.
But I have considered leaving the sound card out.

Thanks again for the input, guys.

Vista has the same problems with 4gig as XP. I am running a similar setup to your new dream machine.
But I have the Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6 (10 SATA ports). Quad core 2.4 processor. 4 x 1gig PC2 @ 800speed. I also am running 6 x SATA HDD and 2 x DVD burners. Plus SLI'ed 256meg Nvidia Quadro cards. (I do a lot of 3D modeling)
All this is running on an 850 watt modular Thermaltake with absolutly no problems with power shortages. I wanted the new 1200 watter but it is not available here yet.

So the power should not be an issue.

[Dr.Khron]

Vista has the same problems with 4gig as XP.

Huh? This is totally counter to my knowledge of the memory usage of both operating systems. Please explain.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Well, Vista and XP 32 bit won't be able to use all 4 gigs. It's about 3.2 in most cases.

If you switch to 64 bit (and I recommend Vista 64 bit over XP), you can access all this memory without issue. Do keep in mind the other implications of running a 64 bit OS, like drivers etc.

~MiSfit

[Adub]

Good point. If you really want to run 4 gigs of ram, and a microsoft OS, then you will be severely limited to only 64 bit OSes. Mainly, XP 64bit and Vista 64bit. However, as a precaution, I recommend you look up all of you proposed hardware's drivers and see if they are 64bit compatible.

[Dr.Khron]

Well, Vista and XP 32 bit won't be able to use all 4 gigs. It's about 3.2 in most cases.

Right, but thats the virtual addresing issue which is very different from the memory issues that XP has. I was confuesed by his assertion that it was "the same problem".

[specise_8472]

Right, but thats the virtual addresing issue which is very different from the memory issues that XP has. I was confuesed by his assertion that it was "the same problem".


To me it is the same problem! Any M$ 32bit XP or 32bit Vista OS has major issues concerning memory up to 4gig. Do a serach on M$ Knowledge Base and they explain why. I myself have 4 gig installed in my main PC and can only "see" 2.7 gig of it. But I am dragging the chain on 64bit as the drivers I require are not available yet - ever?

[shadowhaze]

First, congrats on the new rig. - I'm trying to save for a new one as well. FWIW - here's my thoughts.

CPU: The comments about the new stepping are correct, but in reality meaningless if you're not going to overclock ("OC").

DDR2: Again, good ram for OC, but you can find much cheaper and just as good alternatives. Also, you might be better off getting 4x1GB instead of 4x2GB since due to the latter's lower latency. Here's a couple of OCZ low latency (cas 3) 2x1GB for about the same price as the 5 cas 4x2GB Corsair http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010170147+1052416064+1052507867+4017+1259916323&name=2.1V. Your board should have 4 DDR 2 slots. While you do give up the ability to go to 8MB later, by the time M$ gets everything fixed with Vista service pack 17, you'll be able to buy low latency 4x2 DDR2 at a reasonable price. Really, 4GB should be fine even with Vista bloatware.

GPU: Right now the 8800GTX is the best one out there. May want to look at XFX, BFG, etc. in addition to Asus. Right now, you can get an MSI w/ a slight factory OC for $460 after $40 rebate at NewEgg.

Board: P35 chipset is fine. I've read that the 680 NForce chipset is not that great and runs a little hot. From what I can tell, they're about even. If you’re not going to go SLI, why get an SLI board? As long as you get a fairly high end (i.e. a lot of bios options) board it should be fine.

Sound card: I have the Creative X-FI Xtreme gamer because it's the same chip as the Xtreme music, but lack some software & maybe an input or two. Since I've got a Presonus Firebox and Cubase recording software - I don't care. I DO think it's worth getting a card over the MB audio. Since you've got extra cash (or use the savings on the DDR swap to OCZ), do a search on sound cards. I can't remember the name of the company, but Creative license the X-FI hardware to some high end audio card company. Their card is about the same price as the Fatality, but I seem to recall it being better than Creative's stuff.

Case: LOL - hey that's my case, but I've got it black since I read that the silver shows finger prints like crazy. BEFORE YOU BUY make sure that the case is big enough for the card. I thought it would be fine, but there's just enough room for the side fan and my card. I also ended up w/ a micro ATX board and it's not like I've got a ton of extra room. With all those HDD's, a full ATX board and big graphics card, it will be a tight squeeze. Don't get me wrong - it's a great case, but it's not as big as you think once you get everything put inside. I'm starting to wonder if I'll need to replace it on the next upgrade.

HDD/Raid: No comment on the raid set up, but I do highly recommend the new Seagate 7200.11 Barracuda 500GB hard drive. I just installed one and it's awesome - quiet and FAST. Unfortunately, it's a little hard to find and you will pay $50 or more over the 7200.10 version, but I think it's worth it as they've made improvements over the first gen perpendicular recording & it's got 32MB of cache. WD's fine - not quite as fast as the new Seagate’s, but very quiet. I just built an e-sata external HDD w/ a WD Cavalier SE 16 320GB drive.

PSU: If you've got the cash, definitely need to look at PC Power & Cooling PSU's. They were recently bought out by OCZ so check the OCZ website. A 500w PC Power & Cooling PSU is equal to many "700w" PSUs. Check out the site and you'll see what I mean. FWIW, I bought an OCZ GameXStream 700w PSU and it's been great. Cables are a little long though (see prev. comment about case & space).

I hope this helps and good luck on the build.

[shadowhaze]

This is "part 2" as I couldn't fit it in the first post.

OS: The ONLY reason to get Vista right now is for Direct X 10 & gaming. I've never read a good article about Vista. Otherwise, stick w/ XP. Can't comment on the 4GB DDR problems cited above though...

Re OC'ing: Personally, I've got my CPU and GPU OC'd pretty hard (AMD Brisbane 3600 @ 2.93Ghz (1.9Ghz stock)/nVidia 7900GS @ 590Mhz/1.68Ghz (525Mhz/1.5Ghz factory OC) with no stability problems. It's passed hours of Orthos stress testing running both cores simultaneously. It does get a little hot :rolleyes: understress testing, but still easily within AMD specs.

With all the high end stuff you're buying, I can't see why you wouldn't at least do a little OC on the CPU if not the card as well. With the new stepping (g0, right?), 3+Ghz is common. You should be able to get 2.8Ghz easily without much, if any, increase in voltage or temperature. Just make sure you get a very good heat sink and use Artic Silver 5 thermal paste. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007 Over 1500 reviews with 91% 5 star rating speaks for itself.

FYI - If you're going to OC the card, I would NOT use NVDA's NTune or whatever it's called. I tried it and hated it. Get the lastest edition of RivaTuner. Same thing applies for the CPU OC, use the bios, not nVidea software.

[Dr.Khron]

DOH! You are a little late, the last of the parts came in today. But thanks for chiming in.


With all the high end stuff you're buying, I can't see why you wouldn't at least do a little OC

I'm sure I will eventually... but for right now, this computer is going to be SO much faster then my current rig that I won't need to. I'm just gonna put the stock cooler on with some Artic 5. In a few months, I'll buy a nice HSF, lap it, and then do some OC.


. Also, you might be better off getting 4x1GB instead of 4x2GB since due to the latter's lower latency.

Arrgg! You are totally correct. However, its too late to go back now.


P35 chipset is fine. I've read that the 680 NForce chipset is not that great and runs a little hot. From what I can tell, they're about even. If you’re not going to go SLI, why get an SLI board?

Good advice again, I went with an Abit IP35 Pro 775 .


Case: LOL - hey that's my case

My current case was the first version of this model (circa 2003), so I know exactly how much room it has. I really like what they did to the drive cage, the option to covert it to 3 vert/1 horizontal from 5 vert is pretty cool.

I gotta ask though, what the hell is that cover that slides over the power supply exhuast for? I'm guessing its to keep the CPU intake fan from pulling in hot exhuast air, but if that was the case, wouldn't it point upwards?!?!? The sideways thing confuses me.

[Soulhunter]

I gotta ask though, what the hell is that cover that slides over the power supply exhuast for? I'm guessing its to keep the CPU intake fan from pulling in hot exhuast air, but if that was the case, wouldn't it point upwards?!?!? The sideways thing confuses me.
I guess its to lower/redirect the noise...


Bye

[Wam7]

So... after a couple weeks with the New Box, how about a critique about what things you would change and what you like! :)

[Dr.Khron]

Well, the new box is awesome, no way around it.
Its so fast that I can run Bioshock at 1600 with everything turned up, and it plays as smooth as glass.

I havn't done a lick of tweaking, mostly becuase I havn't needed to yet. I'm running stock speeds and default settings for everything. I havn't been doing much encoding either, since I've playing a lot of games.

However, I ran some benchmarks a few days ago:
3dMark06 score: 12,047

graysky's x264 benchmark: (Average from several runs)
FPS1: 133.61 FPS
FPS2: 35.24

I think the numbers are pretty good for a stock/no-OC PC.


Issues:

-I had some heat issues with the 8800GTX video card... These suckers run HOT! The side fan on the Lian-Li case was exhuasting air, which was starving the intake on the card. With a little kludgery, I was able to reverse-mount the fan, so that it intakes fresh cold air right onto the video card. Problem solved.

Also, the giant video card clears my front HD cage by about 1/2 of an inch, I'll post a pic later.

-The hardware based RAID card is awesome, I love it. I would recomend it to anyone willing to drop $500 on a controller card. Only one issue: its BIOS routine takes FOREVER: my entire boot cycle is about 95 seconds, and about 50 seconds of that is JUST THE RAID CARD.

-The mobo does not have native support for IDE: the IDE controller is treated like an external SCSI card by the OS. This causes some boot-order wierdness, but its not a big deal since the two IDE devices I'm running are optical drives. It has made me consider replacing them with SATA drives.

-I bought a Habu gaming mouse, becuase its supposed to be shaped like the old MS IME 3.0, but its not. the shape is similiar, put the profile is lower, so that there is barely enough room for my big fat thumb next to the side buttons. Otherwise, an awesome product, also recomended.

-I am considering building a water-cooling set up for this rig, so that I can OC the shit out of it.