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Half Life 2 is just around the corner and my current hardware is 3 years old ... too old to enjoy that awesome game with all the eyeandy, heck, I haven't even played a newer shooter for over a year due to my hardware limitations.
My current rig is a 1400 Thunderbird (watercooled), 768MB ram, Geforce 3 Ti200 with 1st gen. 15K SCSI Cheetah bootdrive and 120GB IDE storagedrive.
About time to build a complete new box that'll last for the next 2-3 years, don't ya think?

So here are the parts that I'm currently looking at, the target is to build a beefy system for gaming that is rather quiet aircooled. Items in () are optional:

- AMD Athlon64 3000+ 939 Socket [150e]
- nforce4 939 socket SLI mobo [200e?]
- Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu [40e]
- 2x512mb Crucial Ballistix memory [240e]
- Nvidia 6800GT PCI-e with Arctic Cooling NV Silencer Revision 5 [400e]
- Silverstone SST-TJ06 case [150e]
- Silverstone SST-ST46F 460Watt ATX 4xSATA [90e]

(- WD740GD, 74GB 10K SATA [160e] )
(- 3ware Escalade 8506-4LP SATA RAID-5 card [305e] )
(- 4 x Samsung SpinPoint P80 160GB SATA [340e] )
(- Audigy2 ZS [60e] )
(- Plextor PlexWriter PX-716SA [130e] )
(- misc: Logitech MX510 or Razer Diamondback 1600 and gamerswear.com Stainless Mousepad [80e] )
(- Windows XP Pro [120e] )

Total cost would be ~ 1300e when I reuse some older stuff (2500e when I get all I wish for).

OK, lets see why I picked those items:
- The new Athlon64 3000+ 939 socket has a great o/c potential at a low price (Anand managed to squeeze 45% o/c out of one without great effort)
- nforce4 SLI .... buy one powerful videocard today and add a second in a year or two when they're cheaper to get 60%-100% increase at highres eyecandy settings. I like that idea. (Anand managed to run some benchmarks on a the very first working sample of the K8N Neo4 Platinum/SLI)
- The Zalman cooler is a lownoise cooling solution for even the most powerful of todays AMD CPUs
- There're many options for memory and I settled for this one since I need some with good o/c potential
- The 6800GT is no cheap solution but it is meant to last at least 2 years. Going with a SLI mobo will allow me to add a second card later should the need arise in a year or two down the road. The Arctic Cooling NV Silencer Revision 5 is a quiet solution for highend videocards and the nice feature compared to passive Zalman is that they exhaust the hot air out of the case (besides yer would still need the additional fan for 6800GT cards on the Zalman) ... and you wouldn't be able to to use 2 cards with the Zalman solution plus it would heat up the case.
- That Silverstone case is interesting since it picks up on the new BTX formfactor and uses it for todays ATX mobos. It has a plexi windtunnel with 2x120mm lownoise fans for the CPU/memory only and another quiet 80mm intake for the rest of the case, exhaust for this via your PSU. It is an affordable lownoise case which keeps CPU temps low with its cooling seperation from the case. (Anand also reviewed it a short while ago)
- That Silverstone PSU is the perfect match for my needs. It has a quiet 120mm fan in the bottom which helps to create an airflow for the HDDs sitting under it in the SST-TJ06 case and it features 4x SATA connectors for the optional RAID-5 array.

Optional parts:
I could reuse my old HDDs and CD burner for now and keep my old Audigy card ... but if money allows I would opt for the additional parts
- The WD740GD is the fastest desktop HDD on the market and would make an ideal boot/OS/apps/games drive, definetly beating my old 1st gen. 15K Cheetah SCSI. The good thing is that they still come with a Molex power connector.
- I had some HDDs die on me before, so I would prefer to use a RAID-5 array now that I'm building a complete new system from scratch so I wouldn't lose any data should one drive die in the array. I could go with software RAID since I know a hexeditor hack to enable it in Win2k/XP Professional but I also plan to dualboot with Linux. So I would need a hardware card and the 3ware got the best Linux driver support. It isn't easy to find comparison reviews of 4-channel SATA RAID cards but I found a couple and 3ware seems to be the best solution. The LSI Logic MegaRAID SATA 150-4 might be an option but it is very hard to find in online shops and only cost 40e less than the 3ware plus its Linux support isn't as good as 3ware.
- The drives in the storage RAID array don't have to be the fastest and the 160GB Samsung drives are currently at the sweet GB/cent spot plus they're running quiet and cool, definetly a plus when you plan to have a total of 5 HDDs in your case. Ahhhhh, ~ 480GB of storage, plenty for the next couple years. And being on a hardware controller I am able to extend the arrays capacity later by exchanging the 160GB drives with bigger ones.
The Samsung SATA HDDs have only a SATA powerconnector, so I need a PSU with 4xSATA (reason for picking the Silverstone PSU listed above)
- The Audigy2 ZS is really only optional since my old first gen. Audigy would still do fine ... well, it is only 60e, small change compared to the rest of the system, so I dunno yet.
- I really want to replace my old 24x CD burner with a DVD burner and the Plextor 716 as SATA (should be out soon) would be ideal since Plextor offers some advantages with its Plextools.
- Both mice would make a good replacement for my MS IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 and I really need a new mousepad. I'm waiting to read a few more reviews about the new Razor mouse.
- WinXP ... I think it is finally time to say good bye to my trusty Win2k and use XP on all the new hardware.

There are a couple problems with this setup:
- nforce4 SLI boards are not yet available, they're expected around december (hopefully)
- 6800GT PCI-e cards are not available yet, I guess they'll be out around the same time the SLI boards surface (homefully)
- SLI drivers still need some polishing but that's no real problem since I won't add a second card anytime soon
- money .... but I guess it's time to get some money out of my savings

I would've loved to build another watercooled setup but that would definetly make it a hell lot more expensive than it already is. So I had to settle for a lownoise aircooled solution and I think the parts are an almost perfect match for my needs.
I'm still open for any suggestions since it's still 4-6 weeks in the future before I start building my next PC.

I don't see any shortcomings in your choices

looks like a nice setup. I cant wait to see now pcie actually helps once it matures a little.

Greg

The only parts that I'm planning to replace is cpu, mobo and ram as I believe I'll be OK otherwise (new videocard arriving today hopefully). I'm assuming my 300W power supply will still be OK?





What to do with the old "stuff" however? The last time, I just put my older stuff into yet another case BUT I honestly don't even have a good reason to boot that up anymore so it just sits there taking up space. I've thought about giving it to my PC-less brother in law BUT I know that that'd mean lots of free tech support (my time) as he's never owned or touched a PC so NO, not a good idea.

Wow! Doc not staying with SCSI?

Actually, when I built my new (old by everyone else's standards), I almost decided to go with new SATA drives, but I can't find myself spending good money on the latest and greatest. I had and old 17 gig SCSI boot drive running ultra 160 that I decided to use after buying it really cheap, including the Tekram interface card. I then bought on sale 2 120 gig IDE Seagate drives on sale (~$49 each) for storage.

Sounds like your going to have a kick-ass system there Doc.

Wow! Doc not staying with SCSI?

Yeah, what's up with that Doc?
You're scarying me with that notion.

Doc, you must post pics of that when it's all set up.

whooaaa :chug

Regarding the missing SCSI http://storagereview.com/articles/20040 ... GD_sp.html

Overall, for non-server use, Western Digital's Raptor WD740GD is the fastest single hard disk one can buy regardless of spindle speed, interface, or price. The fact that it is so quiet, runs much cooler, and remains significantly less expensive than its SCSI counterparts is simply icing on the cake. Make no mistake about it- the Raptor WD740GD is the drive for power users, period.

'nuff said there
I also think that going with the SATA RAID-5 array is a reasonable compensation for losing SCSI in my next system.

The main usage for PCI-e in the near future will remain with videocards. The only other currently available PCI-e cards are gigabit NICs and most new mobos have them builtin. There are new SATA RAID controllers for PCI-e just around the corner but not many dektop users will be able to take advantage of that since new mobos come with builtin RAID-0, RAID-1 and even RAID-0+1 and few will use RAID-5 ... and those homeusers might as well use windoze software RAID (a quick hexeditor driverhack enables it for 2k/XP Pro versions).
I can't think of any other peripheral to take any advantage of the faster speeds of 1x PCI-e.

And what to do with my current PC after it is replaced with a new one? I have no idea ... might use it as my new Linux/*BSD playsystem, adding additional parts from my current Linux testbox. I found out that I'll have the money to build it with everything I want (incl. the RAID-5 array)

Yeah, I think I'll post a pic or two once it's finished though it looks like it'll take a while since I have to wait for nforce4 SLI mobos and the fitting 6800GT PCI-e cards to hit the market. Dang it, I REALLY want to build this baby now ...

Originally posted by EvilHorace
I'm assuming my 300W power supply will still be OK?

I wouldn't count on it. For starters, you will need to make sure you have the 12v connector for the motherboard (which your PS may). But 300W is pretty skimpy with today's hardware. My experience anyways...

I am still doing research on the parts, so the above listed parts aren't final yet ... still undecided on the next mouse but I found two other parts to change.

- RAM > OCZ PC3200 EL Platinum Rev.2 (increases the total another 50e)
- PSU > Antec True 550 (increases the total another 30e)

Reasons:
- The OCZ has an even greater o/c potential than the Crucial Ballistix on AMD64, an important factor since I want to o/c the 3000+ to its max and via FSB is the way to do it.
- A recent highend memory shootout on AMD64 platforms mentioned that extreme memory overclocking works better with a PSU that has more reserves ... and the 460W I listed above might be closer to its limit once I add a second 6800GT. I'm still doing some research on 500W+ PSU but the Antec seems to be a good choice (the Antec TrueControl 550 might be an interesting alternative).

It is hard to figure out how much total power your parts will require in the end. You can find a (somewhat limited) java-script here > http://www.rise-comp.de/informationen.shtml . It is a german page but the lil script at the bottom of the page shouldn't require much explanation. It's not perfect since you can't adjust all settings but it'll give you a rough idea.
That script shows around ~370W for my setup with a 30W videocard ... the 6800GT has a max of around 70W ... times two is 140W total ... adding the 110W difference to the 370W gives a total of 480W
Well, it ain't perfect since it's only estimated powerconsumption of parts (IDE HDDs don't use 30W while running, only during spinup, maybe half of that while randomly seeking) but helps to give you a rough idea.

That should also help EvilHorace to answer his question regarding a 300W for his next setup.

My current 300W PS is still doing fine even after adding my new Radeon 9800 GT Pro 256 mb that even requires more voltage from the PS (yet another plug for those who might not know).

My PSs also powering 2 SCSI HDDs with several fans, some that I manually turn on when gaming. I also have a cd-rom burner and another DVD drive.
It's never crashed or acted unusual due to lack of PS power BUT I will upgrade the PS anyway when I next replace my current mobo, cpu as that's when it'll be easiest to do so.

I also have my doubts 300w will be enough. For the most part it may be, but when fully stresed you may get problems

Here's another power supply converter:
http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/

http://www.adecy.com/psu/

blade

Very nice, especially the first one.
It calculates ~ 420W with one 6800GT for my setup .... a second one would add another 105W according to their estimate but I think that's a tad bit too high since I've seen more accurate numbers at x-bit labs showing 65W under load when o/c'ed > http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... wer_3.html (6800 Ultra is above 70W under load even at default).