Fancy Major Upgrade

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
3,467
Location
London, UK
Warning: Fairly Long Post, please bear with me!

Right, at the moment I don't really have any major issues with my PC (apart from the odd BSOD now and again) but because I am planning on upgrading my monitor I feel I might need to up its performance a fair bit, to allow for the same graphics settings in games but with a much higher resolution.

My Current specs are:

Athlon San Diego 3700+ @ 3.05GHz ~ 2.85Ghz (depending on my PC's mood :p) @ ~ 1.7v
1GB Corsair TCCD Memory (2x 512) @ DDR550~DDR520 @ 2.5-4-3-6-1T @ 1.7v (TCCD doesn't really do anything with more voltage)
DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR Mainboard
Unmodded nVentiv Mach II Cooling
Dual XFX 6800 Ultra graphics cards @ SLi
Creative SB Audigy 2 Soundcard

4x 36GB Western Digital Raptors @ RAID0 ( :cool: )
1x 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax10 SATA Drive

Tagan 480W PSU (quite a few months old now, was one of the first PSU's out which had 2 PCI-E power connectors, not modular)

Coolermaster ATC-110 Case
Dell 2005FPW 20" TFT


Now here's the thing:
  • I want to stay AMD64 really, moving on to Dual Core
  • I think 2GB of ram should be in order as opposed to just the 1GB, but am I right in thinking that having more ram reduces my ability to run at tight timings?
  • Tempted to buy an X1900 card
  • Getting fed up of having such a monstrously tall base unit on my desk because of the Mach II bolted underneath my PC Case, so I think I want to step back and go over to water cooling (quieter too!), with hope to still run things at a reasonably high overclock
  • I want to upgrade the monitor to a 2405FPW
  • Want to replace my 5 HDDs for 2 150GB Raptors in RAID 0, and another 2 500GB HDDs for storage
  • Would like a good quality modular PSU, powerful enough to cope with everything without any problems, want the modular function so I can keep the inside tidy (I have a windowed side panel)
  • Do not mind investing in power-hungry, active-cooling-required RAM if it means performance is good
  • Do not mind keeping my current motherboard for the time being
  • Definitely want to keep my ATC-110, i loves it :D
  • Not really bothered about getting a new sound card, the Audigy 2 seems to do the job just fine
So the specs I've drafted so far are:

Dual Core AMD64 [not sure which to get, FX60 is a no-no]
X1900 Gfx Card (with possible addition of another in future?)
2GB Ram [again not sure what to get]
Complete Watercooling solution [not sure what to get] also including cooling for the chipset, RAM, Gfx card(s)

High Power Modular PSU [no idea which is the best nowadays]
DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR Mainboard (unchanged)

Creative SB Audigy 2 Soundcard (unchanged)
2x 150GB Raptors @ RAID 0
2x 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache HDDs [not sure which to get]

Coolermaster ATC-110 Case (unchanged)
Dell 2405FPW 24" TFT



So if you guys could be so kind, any advice/comments/recommendations on the proposed spec above would be brilliant :)

Obviously I'll be selling off the old bits before buying the new, so in the near future watch out in the MM ;)
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2005
Posts
4,297
Heofz said:
Now here's the thing:
  • I want to stay AMD64 really, moving on to Dual Core
  • I think 2GB of ram should be in order as opposed to just the 1GB, but am I right in thinking that having more ram reduces my ability to run at tight timings?
  • Tempted to buy an X1900 card
  • Getting fed up of having such a monstrously tall base unit on my desk because of the Mach II bolted underneath my PC Case, so I think I want to step back and go over to water cooling (quieter too!), with hope to still run things at a reasonably high overclock
  • I want to upgrade the monitor to a 2405FPW
  • Want to replace my 5 HDDs for 2 150GB Raptors in RAID 0, and another 2 500GB HDDs for storage
  • Would like a good quality modular PSU, powerful enough to cope with everything without any problems, want the modular function so I can keep the inside tidy (I have a windowed side panel)
  • Do not mind investing in power-hungry, active-cooling-required RAM if it means performance is good
  • Do not mind keeping my current motherboard for the time being
  • Definitely want to keep my ATC-110, i loves it :D
  • Not really bothered about getting a new sound card, the Audigy 2 seems to do the job just fine
So the specs I've drafted so far are:

Dual Core AMD64 [not sure which to get, FX60 is a no-no]
X1900 Gfx Card (with possible addition of another in future?)
Complete Watercooling solution [again not sure what to get] also including cooling for the chipset, RAM, Gfx card(s)

High Power Modular PSU [no idea which is the best nowadays]
DFI LanParty nF4 SLI-DR Mainboard (unchanged)

Creative SB Audigy 2 Soundcard (unchanged)
2x 150GB Raptors @ RAID 0
2x 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache HDDs [not sure which to get]

Coolermaster ATC-110 Case (unchanged)
Dell 2405FPW 24" TFT



So if you guys could be so kind, any advice/comments/recommendations on the proposed spec above would be brilliant :)

Obviously I'll be selling off the old bits before buying the new, so in the near future watch out in the MM ;)

CPU should be X2 4400+ or 4800+ (extra L2 cache) if running at stock or only mild overclocking. If want to overclock to the max then probably the Opteron UP 170, 175 or 180.

HIS ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB or your preferred brand. These are definitely the best value in the topend.

Dont watercool ,so cant offer advice there.

The Enermax Liberty 500W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU or the 620W if you want the extra power & can afford the extra cash.

As for the 2x 500GB SATA-II HDDs, my preferred option would be the ...
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 500GB ST3500641AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-049-SE)
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
3,467
Location
London, UK
Eliminos said:
Probably Mushkin Redline. OCZ EB used to be but I've seen sets that won't even do 270MHz.
so whats the actual deal on these redlines? considering I'll probably be watercooling the memory modules, and there seems to be no real limit on the volts my mobo can push through them, what kind of speeds/timings would we usually be looking at? :)
 
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