Critique my "GT64" system plan please!

iceberqiceberq
edited August 2004 in Hardware
Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 939)
Abit AV8 or Asus A8V (help me decide!)
2x Corsair 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 (total 1GB)
Leadtek Geforce 6800 GT
2x Seagate 7200.7 120GB 8MB Cache (pulling from current computer)
Liteon LDW-411S DVD-RW (pulling from current computer)
Hercules Fortissimo 7.1 (pulling from current computer)
Zalman CNPS 7000A-Cu
Antec Sonata w/380w TruePower PSU

Any advice on which motherboard to pick and anything that looks out of place? All my computers are either silent or quiet, so I'm going to be running the CNPS 7000 at 5v, and thus also the choice of Sonata case.

I'm not going be doing any big overclocking, and probably just going to run it stock, with Cool 'n Quiet turned on.. would that make the A8V a better choice at any rate?

Comments

  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Id change the ABIT or ASUS for an MSI K8N NEO (the 939 variant).

    Better RMA support and more a stable product plus confirmed locked PCI/AGP buses and the fullest native feature set of nForce3 250GB :)

    Id suggest changing the Leadtek for a BFG. It's 20mhz faster natively out of the box with a better cooler and US based 24/7 support ;)
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited August 2004
    Actually, Shorty, I think the Leadtek's cooler is better. My Leadtek never hits more than like 60*C in 3dmark; BFG's cards hit 70*C+
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Geeky1 wrote:
    Actually, Shorty, I think the Leadtek's cooler is better. My Leadtek never hits more than like 60*C in 3dmark; BFG's cards hit 70*C+
    But as this guy isn't overclocking.... the extra 20mhz will make a difference... and that explains the temp rise ;)
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    my leadtek 6800 will be a gt soon and still benches higher than most gts ive seen. I dont see the 120 dollar difference between the reg 6800 and the Gt
  • iceberqiceberq
    edited August 2004
    Thanks for the replies guys!

    Unfortunately, BFG videocards aren't available where I live... I live in Hong Kong, and this site has a good listing of what's available over here.

    The recommendation of the MSI nForce3 motherboard is pretty interesting, I'll have to look into it.. by any chance do any of the nForce3 boards have soundstorm?

    Btw I actually used to fold for you guys, my account name was kenken1186 :thumbsup:
  • rykoryko new york
    edited August 2004
    Asus a8v, but it has to be a v2.0---don't bother with any earlier revisions. So you might have to wait a litle bit untill the v2.0 hit the stores.

    I also vote that you get some faster memory...some ddr500/550 or something. You don't need to oc the cpu, but you can crank your fsb and drop your multiplier to have awesome memory bandwidth performance.

    The a8v v2.0 is rock stable at an incredible 289fsb @ 1:1! Here's a related article on the performance of this mobo and all of the others s939 mobos mentioned in this thread. Good reading indeed....btw, the msi k8n neo hit 290fsb, but i still vote asus b/c of personal preference.

    http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2128
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    GnomeWizardd wrote:
    my leadtek 6800 will be a gt soon and still benches higher than most gts ive seen. I dont see the 120 dollar difference between the reg 6800 and the Gt
    Yes you will see a difference.

    The standard 6800 only has 12 active pipelines.

    The GT has the full 16.
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    mine WILL have 16 just slower ram but my RAM on the leadtek 6800 ocs very very well
  • EMTEMT Seattle, WA Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Welcome to the forums iceberg!! Wow, Hong Kong, that's neat.
  • JChretienJChretien Vancouver, BC, Canada
    edited August 2004
    lol i'd get a thermalright xp-120 and put the goddamn slowest 120mm fan on there i could find ;p
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited August 2004
    Glad to see you back with us, kenken....er.....iceberg! :thumbsup: How are you doing man?

    Stay around now that you've come back home with us and if you feel like it, start back folding with us. :)
  • iceberqiceberq
    edited August 2004
    Hey guys, a lil update

    I went to the computer mall after a day out biking and picked up the Sonata case, an Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer 5 for the 6800 GT, Artic Silver Ceramique, and the Zalman CNPS 7000Cu heatsink.

    I looked around nearly all of the shops, and everywhere I asked, the Leadtek 6800GT was out of stock. However, I did find a very friendly, informative shop that actually knows about the hardware they sell and managed to get them to quote me a price on the rest of the parts I wanted, with a discount. The Geforce 6800 GT they had available was a brand called Inno3D, which is just a reference board. The price is $420 USD, sure its a bit over the $399 MSRP but its a helluva lot cheaper than what I've seen people pay on hardocp.com forums lol

    I'll be going to pick up the parts tomorrow. BUT I was presented with a couple of choices for the motherboard; the Asus A8V, the Abit AV8, and the Gigabyte GA-K8NSNXP-939. (nForce 3 Ultra limited edition board)

    The prices are the Asus and Abit boards being around $125 USD with the Abit one being about $10-$20 cheaper, and $218 for the Gigabyte board.

    Now, the nice store manager let me look at the boards in person, and I found out that their stock of Asus A8Vs are all revision 1.02 only, which means a non-working PCI/AGP lock! So, I was thinking about taking the Abit board, (Gigabyte one is nice, but way too expensive) but I noticed that the 20-pin motherboard connector is to the left of the CPU, which is a really akward position.

    In my Sonata case, with my huge Zalman heatsink, do you guys think the Abit board will be ok in terms of fitting the cable?
  • rykoryko new york
    edited August 2004
    I think the abit board will work well for you...i love my abit board! Too bad about the asus...

    I don't think you will have any cabling issues with the zalman and the abit board. It's kinda wierd how the 20pin and the 4 pin connectors are near the cpu socket, but you should be able to run those along the top of the board just under the edge of your zalman w/o any problems.

    Anyway, i saw a cool thing you can do with the sonata or any other case that has similar hard drive bays turned to the side.......put your hdd's in so that the power cables and IDE or SATA cables are next to your right side panel facing inward. This way all of the cables stay behind the drive cage, and out of the way. Simple but effective. Here's an example...
  • iceberqiceberq
    edited August 2004
    Nice.. nice tip.. I decided to go with the Asus board anyways because I want my computer to be silent like my current one, instead of overclocked.. I gotta keep that in mind :) And, it has nearly double amount of supported drives :D

    Sleeved the TruePower 380w today, and swapped the molex connectors with the Vantec kit's.. it's niice! Rest is tomorrow

    update:
    Got the rest of the system's parts, I put the 6800 GT in my P4 rig to test it.. and damn its already fast!!

    http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=2957367

    I gotta try it with the new parts..
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