Am I Tempted, Not Half!

tom_nieto · 31 May 2006 at 11:27

CP-141-AM AMD Opteron UP 144 San Diego 1.8GHz 1MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-141-AM)
£104.95 £104.95
MB-014-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£74.95 £74.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£48.95 £48.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£144.95 £144.95
CA-028-AN Antec TruePower 2.0 550W PSU (CA-028-AN)
£49.95 £49.95
Subtotal £423.75
VAT £74.16
Total £497.91

I have 512Mb (2x256) of PC3200 memory, a HDD, a CD drive and all the rest. I reckon I could get some nice overclocks going with this machine once the memory is upgraded. I could look at second hand memory too. I've not got paid for my project work yet, but mr credit card could help me out a bit

A new CPU cooler could be in order. I think I might have to wait a little bit though... argh!

If any of the nice hardware people could give me any tips or compatability advice, especially for getting this sucker to 2.8Ghz+ I'd be grateful. I appreciate that my cooling might have to be improved from retail first though.

Noni · 31 May 2006 at 11:48

This is just personal but I dont feel antec have been the same lately. I would swap the PSU for a FSP BLUESTORM 500W.

Or even a - Enermax Noisetaker 485W.

Both the same price. Wattage does not mean jack.

tom_nieto · 31 May 2006 at 11:51

This is exactly the sort of thing I need to know. I thought Antec were regarded as ok, and a 550W on offer couldn't be bad, or so I thought. I am after some heavy overclocks, so more watts are good on that front, but it's the stability of the rails that matters a lot too.

fenderbass86 · 31 May 2006 at 11:57

Does anyone know when the Tagan Easycon 580/530W are coming back in stock, I want one in time for Conroe.

Noni · 31 May 2006 at 12:44

tom_nieto said:
This is exactly the sort of thing I need to know. I thought Antec were regarded as ok, and a 550W on offer couldn't be bad, or so I thought. I am after some heavy overclocks, so more watts are good on that front, but it's the stability of the rails that matters a lot too.

Yep, if your after heavy overclocks then it mostly depends on the rails.

I woul go for the Seasonic S12 500W, as that is very silent and very powerful. But you do pay a price.

The FSP Bluestorm is a great PSU, and even comes with sleeved wires. But The noisetaker IMO is more stable.

Something more in the middle is the- Enermax Noisetaker 535W EG565AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU (CA-023-EN) .

It all basically comes down to how much you want to spend.

tom_nieto · 31 May 2006 at 12:48

less is more if you know what I mean, but I know all too well what happens when an underpowered PSU goes pop. Took out my damned server mobo, as well as causing loads of crashes. I'd be looking at around the £50-60 mark with second hand purchases a definite possibility.

EDIT: have seen a Hiper 580W modular PSU for £55 second hand.

Trifid · 31 May 2006 at 12:50

Can you squeeze more ram into the budget? As 512 is going to limit the detail you can put games on.

Good luck with the overclock, hopefully you will get a good stepping on the 144.

Joe42 · 31 May 2006 at 12:53

I don't think Antec are bad at all. Their psu's are some of the best around and their tech support is said to be very good indeed. Avoid the Hiper psus, they frequently blow up and take systems out with them.

If you need cheap good psu's, fsp seem to have some of the cheapest reliable psu's around.

As mentioned you really need more ram. If you want to play games such as bf2 on full settings, you have to have 2gb, and for everything else 1gb at minimum.

tom_nieto · 31 May 2006 at 13:00

I'd be using my current RAM at the moment as a stop gap until more funds are available. Second hand RAM is pretty easy to find too, so I'd look into that. I'm well aware that 512Mb isn't really enough, but I don't have much choice unless I'm going to skimp on the case, which I'm not prepared to do as I'd be keeping it for a while. Another consideration is my PATA HDD. It's not a bad model, but I'd be on the lookout for a more modern SATA design.

I think it would be wise for me to look around for some second hand gear first of all, as saving a few quid here and there will help me on such a limited budget, saving for more RAM and suchlike. I can also sell my old gear, but i'm not sure how much I'd get for it, and if it would just be worth keeping it as a second system.

Any info on the 144 steppings at OcUK at the moment would be an added bonus if anyone stops by this thread. What am I looking out for?

tom_nieto · 1 Jun 2006 at 09:38

Ended up with some second hand items:

Opteron 146 (2.8Ghz @ 1.376v)
Asus A8N32-SLi
7900GTX
Hiper 580W modular PSU

All I need now is a case and some nice new memory! I'm well chuffed.

bbreezeuk · 1 Jun 2006 at 10:07

tom_nieto said:
Ended up with some second hand items:

Opteron 146 (2.8Ghz @ 1.376v)
Asus A8N32-SLi
7900GTX
Hiper 580W modular PSU

All I need now is a case and some nice new memory! I'm well chuffed.

very nice spec m8, as for memory my system runs very well on corsair value select but i dont OC the mem so i dont know if it does or not

tom_nieto · 1 Jun 2006 at 20:43

I'm just hoping it'll all work properly together. I'll be on the lookout for some second hand memory soon enough, I think to get the most out of the system I'll need to OC the memory too.