Recommendations for AMD system needed

catachresis · Dec 29, 2003

Think carefully about getting a good-quality power supply: 400-450 watt.

Also, consider carefully which air-cooled heatsink you buy. The Thermalright slk800 and 900 series heatsinks are reasonably priced, take larger (quieter) fans, and allow for moderate overclocking.

Buy the system today, but plan to make retain its value and performance over the next twelve months.

FortiTude · Dec 29, 2003

catachresis said:
Think carefully about getting a good-quality power supply: 400-450 watt.
Also, consider carefully which air-cooled heatsink you buy.

good point ...
power supply already ordered

enermax eg465
the whisperrock IV achieved 59 degrees die temp at only 41 dBA (according to tomshardware) (on a 3200+)
forti

Duracell · Dec 30, 2003

my current plan is:

Chieftec Dragon DA-01BD (CS-901) black
TSP 450 P5 Ultra Silent - 450 Watt - Triple Fan
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce2 Ultra400) Dual Channel DDR400 Support
AMD Athlon XP 2600+, 1916MHz, 166MHz FSB, 512kB Cache (to run as "3133+" at FSB200)
TwinMOS TwiSTER DIMM Dual Pack 1024MB PC3200 CL2 (PC400)
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 XT Ultimate Edition, 128MB DDR, DVI, TV-out, AGP (passive Heatpipe cooler)
2 x Western Digital Caviar WD1600JD S-ATA 160GB Special Edition (to run as RAID0)
Innovatek XX-Flow water cooling system / Eheim 1046 pump;

RAM, VGA, HDDs are currently sold out; now i will wait (approximately 2 weeks) for CPU and board too to get a better price;

roadworker · Dec 30, 2003

My dear battery man,
I just finshed installing my mobo,so i give you some numbers:

Tested on WinXp SP1,running an Athlon xp2400 ,a GF4 TI4200 and 512 DDR PC2100.

PCMark 2004:
ECS K7S5A installed = 2877 PCMarks
Abit NF7-S installed = 3114 PCMarks = approx.9% gained

3DMark 2001 SE:
ECS K7S5A installed = 9887 3DMarks
Abit NF7-S installed = 11022 3DMarks = approx. 11% gained

Note:
I got this improvement WITHOUT overclocking the Abit or installing the latest NForce drivers....standard settings were used to complete the test....

malcontent · Dec 30, 2003

WD is now my only option;

Agreed, I bought a WD drive to replace my old Maxtor drive, never had any problems with the Maxtor, it was just too darn small but WD are definately supposed to be good drives (may get a SATA one when my bank manager starts talking to me again

)

Duracell · Dec 31, 2003

Roady and malcontent

thanks for your feedback;

ordered the PSU, fans and water cooling today, but RAM, VGA, HDDs are currently sold out;

now i will wait (approximately 2 weeks) for CPU and board too to get a better price;

malcontent · Dec 31, 2003

Water cooling? My policy on that is "Water + Computer Guts = No No!"

There is nothing worse than finding that your nice new computer doesn't work and there is a puddle around it

Duracell · Dec 31, 2003

malcontent said:
Water cooling? My policy on that is "Water + Computer Guts = No No!"

no worries about, these are well compiled PC cooling systems: http://www.oc-card.de/pd-471398375.htm?categoryId=151
my PC stands in my living room, and i want to have that thing silent and not again such a screaming hair dryer like my current one;

malcontent · Dec 31, 2003

Noisiest thing about my system has to be the PSU, decided to buy a Super flower 520W PSU, only thing is that it has FOUR fans screaming away, still, at least it has speed settings

scarecrow · Dec 31, 2003

You can get either fanless PSU's or with one fan which begins operating when the PSU temp reaches 50 Celsius. Their con is the price, of course- beginning at 200 euros and going up...

bionic · Dec 31, 2003

I have one of thermaltakes silent pure power(480w), must say im quite content

http://www.thermaltake.com/purepower/W001011.htm

Duracell · Feb 4, 2004

got the last missed pice today: http://www.oc-card.de/pd-1055222577.htm?categoryId=152

when i find some time this week/weekend i will set up the hardware and migrate my OS; will keep you informed; and provide some pics when it's finished;

bionic · Feb 4, 2004

Oh man! that looks sweet!!

(and silent)
Just got my blackice 2 extreme and retubed with 1\2" fittings and tubes, also out of the blue i got the 333fsb thing fixed

For later reference could you(please

) post the migration process too, if your planning a migration and not a new install. Im sure im not the only one that would find it inlightning.

Duracell · Feb 4, 2004

bionic said:
could you(please) post the migration process too, if your planning a migration and not a new install. Im sure im not the only one that would find it inlightning.

i plan a fresh install XP for games (because 1 gig RAM is too much for W98SE) and migrating my W2k SP4 music/office/net system;

in theory:

- first i want to dl and store the drivers for the new system at my old HDD;
- now i like to install the RAID driver wich is needed at my new PC;
- then i create an answer file "sysprep.inf" by using M$' "setupmgr.exe";
- next step is creating a folder "Sysprep" at the root of the systemdrive;
- now copy "sysprep.exe", "Setupcl.exe" and the created "sysprep.inf" into this folder;
- push Start > Run > %systemdrive%\Sysprep.exe -nosidgen -pnp > say bye bye to the old system and hit OK;
- then i place my old HDD into the new PC and ghost the whole content to the new RAID system by using Ghost 8.0 Corp. @ Bart's PE;
- i put the old HDD back because my old gem is already (virtually) sold;
- then i like to start the new machine and hope the setup and hardware detection starts there;
- last step is uninstalling unused devices at device manager's non-PNP section;

all needed files are included in Windows' "deploy.cab"; XP's CD version is still valid, for W2k you have to download v1.1;

bionic · Feb 5, 2004

Thank you

never gotten this migrating thing down, with this how2 i now feel confident

But no need for gdisk \mbr after ghosting to the new hdd? (seem to recall this being mentioned in connection with migrating)

Btw barts PE builder 3028 is out

Duracell · Feb 5, 2004

bionic said:
But no need for gdisk \mbr after ghosting to the new hdd?

i'm not sure, but i think Ghost rebuilds the MBR automatically, if you ghost and restore the whole disk and not only separate partitions;
however if it's needed thanks for the tip;

when time is right for migration i will report; today i fixated the radiator and fited in CPU, CPU-Cooler and RAM sticks;

Duracell · Feb 8, 2004

hardware is set up; game OS is installed and i played some RCTW chapters already;

want to migrate W2k in the evening;

Duracell · Feb 10, 2004

Migration done successfully!

"gdisk \mbr" wasn't needed;
only had to reconfigure my RAS connections, because they lost the bindings to the virtual COM ports;
some pics will follow at the weekend; i don't own/need a digi cam;

Greetings from
Duracell

bionic · Feb 10, 2004

Cool, nice going

Looking foreward to the pics

slippery · Feb 10, 2004

Unless you've already bought the A7N8X Deluxe, I'd think about another mobo - I had it (rev 2.0 at that) and boot up times went to hell to say the least. I am a die hard ASUS fan, but this wasnt one of their better boards. As a last resort, I purchased a MSI K7N2 Delta mobo, and have been pleasantly surprised by it - it also has the nforce2 chipset, but no sata, which I think is over rated. I am running a XP 3000 barton core cpu with a gig of matched dual channel pc3200. My suggestion is to read some of the feed back from amdmb.com - just go to the appropriate area to see what others have said about their problems. Like I said, this is just a suggestion.........