Monitors

[Menlaan]

What size and make of monitor do you use? Are you satisfied with it?

I'm contemplating a new monitor and am thinking about the Dell 20.1-inch widescreen. It seems to have all the features one would want, but I'm wondering if I should go ahead and purchase a larger one. The video card I'm thinking of getting (Radeon X1900 XT 512MB) is more than capable of handling a larger monitor.

Thoughts please.

Menlaan

[Lyion]

Dell 2405. It kicks major ass. I run it at 1920x1200.

If you have a dedicated office/gaming center, you also might want to consider an HDTV, which can also be used to game. A good 37" or 42"1080p Westinghouse is better than just a monitor.

[Menlaan]

Cool. Thanks for the info, Lyion.

What do you think of this setup?

Case: 101428 - NO PS - Thermaltake Swing VB6000BWS ATX M - $76.00
Power Supply: 100339 - PS 620W - Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT ATX 2 $169.57
Case Fan: 130016 - 80mm - Thermaltake A1357 80mm SMART Case $15.89
Motherboard: 110707 - Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI Audio/G $199.89
Processor: 120241 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual-Core 1MB Per $460.00
Thermal Grease: 800018 - Shin-Etsu G675 Thermal Grease (Cools CPU $14.99
Heat Sink Fan: 800083 - None
Memory: 140226 - DDR (400) 3200 - 2 GB (2 pcs 1GB) OCZ Dual Platinum $190.62
2nd Memory: None
Hard Drive: 150351 - SATA - Western Digital 150 GB 16 MB Cache $283.76
2nd Hard Drive: 150360 - IDE - Western Digital WD3200JB
320GB/8MB-$110.99
RAID Setup: None
RAID Controller: None
CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW: 160227 - DVD±RW - NEC ND-3550A 16X Dual Layer DVD± $49.89
CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160860 - Combo - Lite-On SOHC-5236K 52x32x52x16 DV $41.00
CD-RW Software: 210613 - Ahead Nero 6.6 Suite DVD+-RW Software $15.99
DVD-ROM Software: 210600 - nVidia DVD Decoder 1.00.58 (OEM) $15.97
Floppy Drive: 170108 - Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1 USB Card Reader/Sma $46.75
More Storage: None
Sound Card: 180425 - Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 24-Bit $113.62
Modem: None
Network Card: 280105 - 3Com 3C905CX-TX-M NIC 10/100 $39.00
Wireless Network Card: 280780 - D-Link DWL-G132 AirPlus Xtreme G
High-Spe $66.00
Add-On Card: None
Case Function Add-On: None
Round Cables: 270152 - Round Cables Kit 2-24" IDE 1-18" FDD 1-18 $23.95
Additional Software: 210149 - Microsoft Office 2003 Professional- CD-L $339.00
Antivirus: 310512 - Norton Antivirus 2006 (OEM) $31.25 Warranty: 800245 - Standard Tech Support, 2 Year $79.00
Video Card: 190551 - ATI (Connect3D) Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDD $476.69
Operating System: 210111 - Microsoft Windows XP Professional $165.72

[Gidan]

Thats a nice setup, wish I had that kind of cash to put into a system.

[Lyion]

I'm an NVIDIA fan, but thats a damn nice system.

[Harrison]

If you're going to spend that much, you might as well set up a SATA raid0.

[Gidan]

Nah 150G raptor and a 320G storage drive is more then enough. Probably get better performance from the 150 raptor then from a raid 0 of lessor drives.

[Menlaan]

Thanks for the advice. The setup was recommended from here: http://www.silkyvenom.com/?page=articles&articleid=31

but it's always worth a second opinion. I'd rather wait to upgrade, but my current computer can't run anything because I've been out of the gaming loop for too long (I haven't played a MMOG for about 3 years). Now that I'm about to graduate, I'm ready to get back in the swing of things

Menlaan

[Naethyn]

Back in october I built myself a new computer. After lots of research I found the N2750w 27" widescreen by ViewSonic. It has changed the way anything looks. Games look awsome, movies look awsome and most importantly it adds so much more real estate to my Visual Studio for progamming in vb.net

Anyways here is a link to viewsonics page about the monitor, it runs about 750.00 which is ultra cheap for a 1000:1 ratio at 27" widescreen.

http://www.viewsonic.com/support/tvente ... /index.htm

Oh, and no dead pixels =p

[mofish]

Nah 150G raptor and a 320G storage drive is more then enough. Probably get better performance from the 150 raptor then from a raid 0 of lessor drives.

Yep. My RAID 0 has offered minimal to no real world performance gain as far as I can tell. If I did it over Id buy a smaller raptor for OS/games, and a huge slower drive for storage.

[Naethyn]

Cool. Thanks for the info, Lyion.

What do you think of this setup?

Case: 101428 - NO PS - Thermaltake Swing VB6000BWS ATX M - $76.00
Power Supply: 100339 - PS 620W - Enermax Liberty ELT620AWT ATX 2 $169.57
Case Fan: 130016 - 80mm - Thermaltake A1357 80mm SMART Case $15.89
Motherboard: 110707 - Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI Audio/G $199.89
Processor: 120241 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ Dual-Core 1MB Per $460.00
Thermal Grease: 800018 - Shin-Etsu G675 Thermal Grease (Cools CPU $14.99
Heat Sink Fan: 800083 - None
Memory: 140226 - DDR (400) 3200 - 2 GB (2 pcs 1GB) OCZ Dual Platinum $190.62
2nd Memory: None
Hard Drive: 150351 - SATA - Western Digital 150 GB 16 MB Cache $283.76
2nd Hard Drive: 150360 - IDE - Western Digital WD3200JB
320GB/8MB-$110.99
RAID Setup: None
RAID Controller: None
CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW: 160227 - DVD±RW - NEC ND-3550A 16X Dual Layer DVD± $49.89
CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160860 - Combo - Lite-On SOHC-5236K 52x32x52x16 DV $41.00
CD-RW Software: 210613 - Ahead Nero 6.6 Suite DVD+-RW Software $15.99
DVD-ROM Software: 210600 - nVidia DVD Decoder 1.00.58 (OEM) $15.97
Floppy Drive: 170108 - Mitsumi Floppy 7-in-1 USB Card Reader/Sma $46.75
More Storage: None
Sound Card: 180425 - Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 24-Bit $113.62
Modem: None
Network Card: 280105 - 3Com 3C905CX-TX-M NIC 10/100 $39.00
Wireless Network Card: 280780 - D-Link DWL-G132 AirPlus Xtreme G
High-Spe $66.00
Add-On Card: None
Case Function Add-On: None
Round Cables: 270152 - Round Cables Kit 2-24" IDE 1-18" FDD 1-18 $23.95
Additional Software: 210149 - Microsoft Office 2003 Professional- CD-L $339.00
Antivirus: 310512 - Norton Antivirus 2006 (OEM) $31.25 Warranty: 800245 - Standard Tech Support, 2 Year $79.00
Video Card: 190551 - ATI (Connect3D) Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDD $476.69
Operating System: 210111 - Microsoft Windows XP Professional $165.72

I bought the a8n-sli deluxe mobo. The speed and features are great, but the design makes it unusable. Some genius put the north bridge in between the two sli slots. I am running two 6800 ultras and the fan on the north bridge kicked within the first month. Asus would not refund my money and told me to purchase the A8N-SLI premium. Which has heat pipes going from the north bridge to the rear of the case. I was able to return my deluxe to my local vendor and get the premium that has worked fine for about 6 months now.

Oh, and on hard drives. Currently im using two 10k rpm 74gb western digital raptor drives in raid 0. If you want ultra fast read write speeds go for that.

And another thing about the a8n mobos. you better buy a floppy drive because you CAN NOT get any hard drive to work unless your on the latest bios version available on the asus website. You also need the latest raid drivers for the NVIDIA raid. Which is a pain in the ass also. Basically you must extract the chipset drivers to a folder and pull out the raid drivesr and copy them to a floppy and press F6 when windows installer first start ups. And even if your not using raid you must install raid drivers when installing windows or it will simply not work.

Lastly, I dont see a fan on your list. the stock fan that ships with amd processors will not work well enough. the north bridge just gets to hot. Buy a zalman cooler or something near that quality.

[Menlaan]

Great advice. Keep it coming!

Menlaan

[mofish]

Go with a DFI Lanparty motherboard. The Ultra-D if you arent going SLi. It might be a bit more, but Ive built several systems with that motherboard in the past year. Its good, good stuff.

[Tikker]

why the hell do you have an ethernet card, and a wireless G card?

[Gidan]

Actually the better question is why do you have an ethernet card at all. That MB has dual onboard gig network adapters.

[Menlaan]

I didn't realize the MB came with onboard network access, and I thought it would be useful to have a wireless adapter as well for the times that my cable modem is down (which seems to happen ever few months).

Any other thoughts on proper cooling?

Menlaan

[Gidan]

If I were building this system, these are the changes I would make

Drop the NIC, the 2 you have on board are far better anyway.

Swap out your ram and grab TWINX2048-3200C2PRO, roughly the same price, better performance.

liquid cooling. Your case isn't huge, the X2 puts out a decent amount of heat, the northbridge on your MB also runs a bit warm.

Swap the x1900 for a 7900GT. The 7900GT is as good as it gets right now and is just about the same in price of athe x1900. This will also leave SLI as a possible future upgrade.


In all, it looks like a good group of hardware.

[mofish]

Definitely dont need liquid cooling for anything other than an extreme overclock. Its expensive, unecessary if not ocing and not easy to deal with, especially for a novice builder.

Just make sure that case has nice airflow. Not sure about Thermaltake's stuff one way or the other. Highly recommend Cooler Master cases. Have built and know other people that have used their cases, top notch construction (youll be cursing yourself the first time you cut your finger on a razor sharp inside edge in a cheaply made case), good airflow.

This Cooler Master is a good case, have used it several times, a bit pricier than the case you were checking out. Same case comes in natural aluminum also.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119035

Would highly recommend going with the DFI Lanparty Ultra-D or SLi Expert. Gidan has a point about the 7900GT. But if you dont plan on doing the SLi thing, the 1900xt is a sweet-ass card.

The memory you picked out is good, nice and fast. But you can get the same performance out of the memory linked below plus save $60 or so after a mail-in rebate. Have used this brand in two or three systems now and not a single problem. Good stuff and cheap. Pretty sure its the same exact memory modules underneath the heat spreader as the OCZ:

G.SKILL Value Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231032


All of these suggestions subject to change if you want to attempt an overclock. If so Ill recommend some other stuff. Mainly different memory, and a better heatsink/fan for the CPU.

Just fyi Im running an air-cooled 4400+ on a DFI SLi-DR mobo. CPU running at 2565 MHz. As opposed to the 2200 MHz stock. That is faster than a stock 4800+

Memory running at 285 MHz (DDR 570).

[Gidan]

liquid cooling is fun though . As mofish said, liquid cooling isn't needed, its just fun and really not as expensive as most people think. The case he linked also is better colling wise. DFI vs Asus is like comparing Mercedes and BMW. Both great products, each have their strengths. I prefer the Asus myself, I like have a solid heatsync on my northbridge rather then small 25cent fan. DFI though does have really useful power and reset buttons on the board itself (atleast I find them useful).

Really, any of the stuff being mentioned here would make a kick ass box. Most of it is personal preferences and you will probably see a wide range of different opinions.

[Menlaan]

Thanks all. All of thing things I listed above are available through Monarch computers where they will assemble for an extra $75 fee. I'll probably go that route as I'm not yet comfortable that I could put together and service my own computer (but I'm still thinking about it though).

What's a good brand for liquid cooling?

I really appreciate everyone's help!
Menlaan

[10sun]

There is a huge difference between just a regular Raptor and running raptors in RAID0 in my personal experience. I load 2-3 faster than my friends who run a 7200 rpms or 10k rpm drives without raid0.

Not to mention my laptop using friends who I simply blow away.

As far as SLI suggestions go, Crossfire is another viable option in the future for him and it doesn't have the same restrictions on having identical cards or any of that shit either. Just need a mobo that supports it and one crossfire card.

[Gidan]

I am partial to ZALMAN RESERATOR 1 but this is also a personal preference thing. Their are many different systems out there. Some use a 5 1/4" bay to store the liquid, others use external tanks. Best bet is to look around and read some revies, decide what would best fit you. Make sure if you look into something external that you see exactly hgow large it is. Some of them are very large.

[Gidan]

When I first saw crossfire, it really seemed interesting, though like the original SLI, its buggy. The actual crossfire card is also more expensive and you have to actually find one which can be a pain, the 2nd card is easy. The other major downfall is the choice of motherboards. Their just isn't a great selection of motherboards that support it. I do think tha the next generation of crossfile cards and motherboards will really give nvidia and SLI a tough fight.

[Tikker]

I didn't realize the MB came with onboard network access, and I thought it would be useful to have a wireless adapter as well for the times that my cable modem is down (which seems to happen ever few months).


Menlaan

That doesn't make any sense either

If your cable is down, what are you connecting to wirelessly?

[Martrae]

Look into the MSI mobos. They make a really great board.