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TX-EcoDragon
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« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2007, 09:36:43 pm » |
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I posted this over on the HISTORIA forums, and thought I'd duplicate it here as it lists the reasoning behind my purchase choices listed previously:"Well, I spent the last three months reading the top forums I know of and watching every topic related to each of these components, and in the case department I went with the hands on approach since I'm apparently more finicky than most people on the forums. I'll list what I bought, and then why. CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600 (frys.com) Motherboard: Abit AB9 QuadGT (was also looking at Intel 975XBX2, and Asus P5B Deluxe in that order) (newegg) Memory: 2GB Ballistix Tracer DDR2 -1000 (NewEgg.com) Hard Drives: 320 gig Barracuda 7200.10 (newegg) Sound Card: X-Fi Platinum (Amazon.com) Power Supply: PC P&C Silencer 750 (frozencpu.com) Case: Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01 (CompUSA) CPU cooling: TuniqTower 120 (svc.com) Video Card: eVGA 8800GTS 640meg (newegg) My total cost came to right around 1700.00 after rebates, tax and shipping, the only things I didn't buy to complete the machine are the two DVD drives. I was at first looking at the eVGA 680i as it seemed the clear choice before I dug into the issue further. After having done that though I realized that it would be worth it to me only if I went SLI, which I concluded wasn't a wise financial choice for me as I wasn't going to buy two vid card right away if I did it at all, and that the main advantage comes at resolutions higher than the 1600x1200 I run, and that by the time I was ready to buy a second video card a newer single card solution would be higher performance anyway. With SLI ruled out the choices became 965/975 as they have somewhat better overclock potential and performance, and a little better stability and maturity as well.I wanted something that will give good Quadcore support, good overclocking performance (not simply high FSB which some boards get by very lax system latencies), have all the features I need for my main machine like firewire, stability, cool temps (and as such not too much noise from cooling), lots of USB 2.0 ports, and be solid and stable with respect to voltages and OCing. I soon learned that the top overclockers in the 965 chipset series where earning this title by lax system latencies and that their performance wasn't as good as boards at lower FSBs and tighter latencies. The main advantages of the 975 (intel975XBX2 or ASUS P5WDH) are a mature BIOS, good voltage regulation and stability, manual strap control, native IDE support so no need for the annoying JMicron controller, and that clock for the clock the 975 chipset performance was better than the 965 chipsets (with one exception), particularly in graphics applications and games, but that the max clocks were lower on the 975s, so if you only wanted an OC no greater than 430ish FSB the 975 was best, but for FSBs over 460mhz the 965 was better. I settled on the P5B Deluxe before learning that it was one of those that ran lax latencies to get it's great clocks, it also had the usual host of little issues, I moved on thinking I'd just get the Intel975XBX2 which was a re-release of Intel's top 975 board that included QuadCore support, and better performance in general. Then came the board I wished there was. . .almost. . . The Abit AB9 QuadGT. It is a P965 that had the tighter system and memory sub timings, good voltage regulation, manual strap control to reward those with premium hardware (like the 975XBX2), and overall the best performance yet. It still clocks over 500 FSB but can do it on the 1066 strap if your memory is up to it, so there isn't a big hit to your performance moving above 400 FSB like other 965 boards (that's why to get better performance than 400 FSB most people have to go to 460+ FSB!!), and it had all the features I wanted. . .only trouble was that the BIOS had some issues with RAID and IDE drives due to the JMicron controller and the board was clearly released too soon. The overall quality of the board, it's features, and performance places it above all other 965 boards in my appraisal and the performance and stability advantage that the 975s have in the 400-430 FSB range this board has as well, but takes it all the way to over 520 FSB like a 965 chipset. The BIOS has many OC oriented features, including 6 different profiles that you can save and load at boot, so I can select whatever global BIOS settings I want with a single selection, it's got a CMOS clear on the back of the IO panel so no need to go after the jumper, digital PWMs that are supposed to be the bees knees, one of the "best software based OC utilities" in the uGuru software. . . etc. So I waited and watched for the next beta BIOS, it came, and solved those troubles, so I went for it. I'm not sure I'd recomend it to somebody that didn't want to read how to best set it up or who is afraid of BIOS flashes though, as it's still pretty new. Most of the 965 boards went through this with the JMicron controller, they are just older and more mature at this point. It's also probably that the next board releases from the other big names will follow suit and release boards with similar controls and OC oriented BIOS, since "enthusiasts" are on to the tricks that were being used for the major OCs, and are ebaying their older 965s and going with the 975XBX2 or the QuadGT. How much difference this performance boost is worth is up to you. . . if you don't OC, don't even bother thinking about any of this, just get a stable board and BIOS with the features you want at the best price. I don't care that I get 14 more fps in BF2 than a P5B deluxe or DS3 while at a 70mhz clock disadvantage, since those boards are getting around 140 anyway! I was worried about FSX. . .I wanted all I could get since I knew FSX would eat my machine, and any machine, for lunch if you max everything out, and I like the idea of needing to pump lower voltage through my board, memory, and CPU, and run lower clocks for the same performance. Also, my QuadGT wasn’t much more than the older 965 boards, and is cheaper than the supposed top end 965 boards like the Commando. Almost all E6600 owners were seeing 3.6 GHz on good air cooling (early cpus needed to be "good weeks" to not need high vCore or to get to even 3.4), and that's around what I wanted to reach at a minimum. E6700s and 6800s wheren't getting any higher, but the multipliers they have could offer the advantage of lower FSBs with higher multis, but with my hardware selection that wouldn't really be of interest to me anyway. After looking at the practical side of what people were actually getting, the E4300 also started looking like a great cost saving option since I could get it for 139.99 at Frys, and it would hit 3.4Gz typically, it's main drawback was that it had only 2mb of cache vs the 6600 and higher which have 4MB, but at that price it's worth a real look. I got a E6600 for 297 so I went for it, knowing that it's expected to be 218 around April 22nd. Life's too short to wait for 79 bucks. Mine is a week 36A which wasn't a good sign, but the later weeks like mine appear to OC just fine at core voltages similar to the earlier "B" steppings so I've got no complaints there. I posted another thread here talking about the difference between the 8800GTS and the GTX in FSX, which is my performance benchmark since most all else is easy triple digit fps for either card on a core 2 duo. The GTX would get me twice the AA at otherwise identical settings, and since I don't like the look of more than 2-4x in sims anyway, I decided it wasn't money I needed to spend, the only other program that might matter now is Oblivion, and I don't care one bit about it, but there was a similar experience there. . .also as is often the case, the overclocking potential of the GTS is often as high as the GTX. GTS it is for me, and my 90 day step up from eVGA should get me the option to upgrade to an 8900GTX if I happen to want to go that route. The main thing with the memory is to get the Micron D9GMH or the Micron D9GKX chips on the sticks if you are going to OC. If not, it's not much of a big deal. Some memory makers flip flop between the chips, so the great deal that is Buffalo Firestix is sometimes not as great when you find promos under the heatspreaders, though apparently the Firestix are once again D9GMH after word went out that they had D9s and some reviewers found promos. The D9GKX are the top of the top, but come at a price premium, the D9GMH can be found in some 2GB sets for under 300.00 (not that that’s cheap). Mine are D9GMH since the difference isn't much, and I didn't expect to be going to such high OCs that I'd even tax what I got. Of what you listed the Dominators have been hit and miss, and I would vote Crucial. The DDR2 800 are often the same exact sticks as the 1000, but the 1000 is still a higher bin so they are a sure thing, and carry the D9GMH chips for sure, and many people find they can run 3-3-3-9 or 3-3-3-7 timings or manage over 1100 mhz on the clocks at looser timings. Great deals can be found on the Firestix (last I saw was 169.99 for 2GB DDR2 800), and you can get 4 gigs for a little more than two gigs of crucial but there is still a chance you'll get promo chips. I got VERY close to buying a 150 gig Raptor X for 169.99 before a 12% off coupon, but taking everthing into consideration the Seagate 7200.10 drives just made better sense. You could get 640 gigs of RAID 0 for the same price as my above listed "great deal" on the 150 gig raptor. While the Raptor does offer a performance boost even over the 7200.10 in RAID 0 it's simply not enough to justify it to me, plus I'd still need to buy the 320 for some storage anyway, so it was a safe buy. All the deals that there have been on Raptors suggest that prices are falling on them, and probably will keep dropping pretty quick as the market gets used to high performance, fairly quiet, low cost, and massive drives like the 7200.10s. The Sony optical drives are always different as they are just rebrands of other names. I used the DRU820A as it's based on the BenQ 1670 which is a top rated drive for read and write quality, noise, speed, and compatibility. The DRU830A is actually more money and is a rebadged Samsung SH-S182D which is a lower end drive than the 820A, though fine for most. The funny way people are though suggests you can save money on the older model and get a better drive at the same time. The sound card was either the Bluegears B-Inspirer or the ubiquitous X-fi. I got 100.00 off the X-Fi Platinum so I went for it. There are some issues if you want digital output, but otherwise it’s been impressive to me. The Bluegears model is apparently very highly regarded amongst the audiophiles, but for a gaming machine the X-Fi is probably just fine, and will support EAX and such which most games support. The Powersupply was another big research endeavor. I didn’t wanna fork over tons of cash for what is an otherwise unglamorous part of a build, and I knew from previous dealings with PC Power and cooling that while they made great products, and were very customer satisfaction driven, they were pricey. The OCZ GameXstream 600,700, and 850 were all around for much less money, and many people use them, they appear to have pretty good efficiency, but the 600 and 700 watt units have pretty serious voltage ripple issues when at higher outputs, and I didn’t like the potential ramifications that had for sending my components to an early grave, and causing instability when overclocking, so I moved on. The 700, if powering a system that isn’t taxing it much is probably a fine choice for under 100.00, but I wouldn’t go that route if you want to push it to the higher end of it’s output range (might not be that easy really). The 850 looks good, is pretty efficient, and has lots of power, but has similar architecture to the lower watt variants and while the serious PSU testers haven’t had the ripple issue with it, I still had some doubts. The OCZ units are actually made by Fortron, and that is usually a brand thought to be synonymous high quality, but again, this particular design has the ripple issue to contend with, and they are dealing with it for their next models, but for now, I’d steer clear of these too unless they’ve ben stressed to their rated ouputs without the ripple issues popping up, though I didn’t research these directly, the 700 watt unit is apparently internally the same as the OCZ. Teh Thermaltake units have a very checkered past it seems, and aren't recomended in general, so scratch those too.The Silverstone Zeus line was highly recommended and could still be found a little cheaper than the PCP&C Silencer 750, but I found out that these units have cheap brittle connectors that are prone to failure, and in some cases have actually melted into video cards, that they produce loads of RF interference, and that in a few reviews they give off acrid odors. . .no thanks. . . for another 20 bucks I’ll just get the Silencer 750 and know it will treat me right, will give me a single rail with 60 amps on it and up to 850 watts of power, so no problems with 18A rails of multi rail PSUs failing to feed monster video cards (liketh R600 is reported to be), no need to do any load balancing like you do with multi rail PSUs, and no fear that I’ll need more power even if I go SLI with two 8900GTXs. Worth a look is the Seasonic S12 700 which while it’s listed as a 4 rail PSU with 18A per rail, it actually is a two rail with 36amps per rail, so this is probably a good middle ground, the only trouble is that these are still kinda pricey, and the highest you’ll get is 700 watts. So again it’s hard not to look at the Silencer 750. If you wanted a modular PSU Seasonic make a M12 700 that is modular, and PC Power & Cooling wont do Modular as they think the added resistance isn’t worth it, being the way that I am about efficiency, I opted out of modular as well, and in my Coolermaster Stacker cable management is cake with many places to hide loads of cables. I just noticed that you mentioned this unit in your post, so I guess you’ve already figured this out. The case was the next thing I spent the most time on. . .ironically. I wanted the perfect case, and to me, it’s the Silverstone TJ-09, or the LianLi PCV1200 or greater. I looked at the TJ-07, and the TJ-09 in person, and they are all gorgeous cases that have the look and feel of something built by true craftsman, and designed by engineers that didn’t fail their thermodynamics courses. Only trouble is the price of the 07 and 09. The 06 is interesting, but the hard drive positioning didn’t pass the thermodynamics part of the equation. The PCV1200 was very close to my next case, as were the larger PCV-2000s but the 1200 didn’t have much room inside for watercooling gear was a little loud for only two fans, and was still pricey, and didn’t offer much modding capacity if the watercooling demanded it, the larger 2000 was huge, needs cable extensions on everything, would require more fans and modding to make them fit, and even it required the power supply to stick out the back on larger PSUs or removal of the lower drive bays, and even though I really like the thermodynamic aspects of the inverted motherboard I didn’t go this route. I looked at the Thermaltake Armor (with 25cm sidefan) and it was cheap feeling and looking, had weird mounting for the USB and Firewire, less room for my planned water cooling setup, and wasn’t cheap to make up for it’s shortcomings. The most impressive cases I saw that were actually affordable were from coolermaster. Their Centurion Five actually had a fair amount of room, was well built, had good cooling, and could be found for less than 30.00 at some places after rebate. The Stacker 830 was nice, but not all that big inside, and kinda plastic feeling for it’s very high price (dude if you are at this price bracket just get the TJ-09!!), and when the watercooling time came I’d again be limited by it’s internal dimensions. When I saw the Coolermaster Stacker STC-T01 in person I was impressed. Exceptionally solid, well built, spacious, logical, flexible design that could be a great air cooling case or a great water cooling case, it didn’t look like a horny disco alien, dying dragon or plasmodial slime mold that I’d be ashamed of when adults came over. . . and I could get it for the same price as the Armor. In photos it didn’t grab me at first, but once I saw and fiddled with these cases this one stood out in it’s price range, and while it’s no TJ-09, for me it’s the next best, and even though I planned on adding a couple extra fans in the many places that I can in this case, the cooling is quite nice as is, and keeps my system cool enough that I don’t need to change a thing. Whew. . . that's like 5 pages in Word. . .I guess I must feel like if I put all this on paper the fact that I spent far too long reading about this crap is a little more worth it. . .but that’s my .02 x 100 (hey, that’ll buy a soda!)S!TX-EcoDragonBlack 1TX-Squadron XO
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