Building a new high-end computer.

I apologize for the somewhat rambling nature of this post. tl;dr. ;_;

My trusty old Athlon XP system is getting a bit long in the tooth, both in terms of performance and in terms of becoming...well, not trusty. It's stable enough, but connecting USB stuff should NOT randomly cause reboots. The processor runs too hot even with a big Zalman heatsink, and the system also makes my room really hot, even with the NeoHE installed.

I considered buying a Falcon Northwest Mach V or a VoodooPC, but they're so expensive for the kind of hardware that they include, and I've heard too many Alienware horror stories to buy anything from them. Plus, I have some nice parts that I can reuse, so I'm leaning heavily towards building the system myself.

First off, I think that these three components are quite good enough to reuse in any new system.

Case: Antec P180, with stock Tricool fans. I really can't see this thing being a problem or bottleneck. ^^
Power Supply: Antec NeoHE 430. This is a new revision model, so it'll work with ASUS boards just fine. Since I'm planning on stuffing this system with high-end parts, I'm a bit concerned about using a "mere" 430 watt PSU, but then, I think that an Antec should be up to the task.
DVD drive: It's a BenQ DVD burner, can't remember the model number. It supports dual-layer and is amazingly quiet, so I don't think it needs to be replaced. Maybe when Blu-Ray's affordable...

Everything else in the system will be brand-new. I don't really have a definite budget...

Processor:I'm torn between these three chips right now...
AMD Athlon 64x2 4200+
AMD Athlon 64x2 4400+
Intel Pentium D 940

The 4400+ is over $100 more expensive than the 4200+, which seems like an unreasonably large price jump, but I noticed that the 4200+ is based off of the Machester core, while the 4400+ is based off of the Toledo core. Are there any real differences between the two chips to merit the big price difference?

The Pentium D is a bit of a long shot, since the old ones were hot and slow, but I don't know if the new Presler core makes any difference in how fast and power-hungry the chip is.

Motherboard: This is the part that I'm having the hardest time making up my mind about. I know that the current VIA chipsets are supposed to be unimpressive in all ways, and I know that I want PCI-Express, but I'm unsure of how the nForce 4, Radeon Express, and ULi chipsets compare to each other.

Hard Drives: Swapping and loading both drive me nuts, so I want to go for a 10,000 RPM drive, at least for programs and Windows. I'm waffling betwen two drive configurations.

Expensive: Western Digital Raptor X 150GB 3.5" Serial ATA 150 Hard Drive

Excitingly Expensive: Hitachi Ultrastar 10K300 147GB 3.5" SCSI Ultra320 68-pin Hard Drive, plus a SCSI controller.

The latter option is appealing, since SCSI drives are apparently built to higher reliability standards than desktop ones and are designed to run 24/7 (which this system will probably be doing), but I've never worked with SCSI before, and I don't know a thing about controller cards. The Raptor seems like it would be a lot simpler to work with, and that window is kind of cool even if it's lost on a windowless case, but I remember a lot of people complaining about the things breaking a couple of years ago, which makes me a bit skittish about buying one.

Oh, and I'll probably buy a regular drive to store music and other stuff that doesn't demand fast drive performance. I'm leaning towards a basic 250GB Samsung, since they seem to be the quietest (a bit pointless when there's a Raptor installed alongside it, I know), coolest, and most reliable drives, and speed's not necessary for what it'll be doing.

Video Card: Well, that depends on whether I buy an SLI board, a Crossfire one, or a board with no multi-card support, doesn't it? ^^

This ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X1900 card looks nice, though, with all of the video input options that it offers. However, I can't find many benchmarks of the plain X1900 chipset, and I'm unclear on if it supports Crossfire or not. And of course, if I wind up buying an nForce 4 motherboard, I'll probably also buy an nVidia video card (or cards) to go with it.

Memory: I pretty much have my heart set on installing 4GB of memory in the system, so the biggest decision is what kind of memory to buy. I'll probably go for memory that supports 500MHz operation, so I can wind its speed up along with that of the processor. Newegg sells OCZ, Mushkin, and G.Skill memory, which all seem to support different timings; how important is latency, and will RAM from any of those three manufacturers work fine for a long time to come?

Cooling Hardware: Besides the three 120mm fans that are in my case right now, I'll probably buy this heatsink for the processor, one of these for my video card. Zalman stuff seems to have an excellent reputation, so I can't see any problems with these choices. Right? ^^;

Sound: The basic X-Fi XtremeMusic seems to offer both excellent gaming performance and good sound quality, and the higher-end models don't seem to add much besides tinsel and $$$. Unless someone has a good case for buying the Fatal1ty :aargh:, Elite Pro (can't find a smiley to mock the name with), or one of the Envy24 cards, I'll just stick with that.

I have a very nice pair of AKG K501 headphones for, but I wouldn't mind getting a basic surround speaker system. I'm not looking for anything great, since even top-of-the-line computer speakers won't sound like much compared to the headphones, but something in the $100 price range would be a nice addition to my system.

Input devices: Absolutely no clue, besides that I kinda want a wireless mouse, and that I really don't want to keep using my crufty old Dell keyboard. Don't want to get those icky Dell cooties on my new system! o_o

Monitor: I'm not quite sure what to go for, but this Samsung has a good response time, high resolution, and DVI input.

Any component suggestions would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

if you're a big overclocker, the difference between the manchester and toledo cores might be more evident. toledo probably overclocks better, and it is newer. if you're not really big into overclocking, i'd get the 4200... unless the extra 2x512kb cache is a big thing for you.

this article has benchmarks run with the x1900 all-in-wonder that you wanted.

ram from those manufacturers should be fine, though i'm not too familiar with g-skill memory. timings matter, but not a ton: the 500mhz speed over the 400mhz speed of the default ram would negate anything timings would change (except maybe small chunks of data being rapidly transferred, but you wouldn't see much difference except in simluated benchmarks). however, if you can get ram that supports lower timings (especially CAS latencies being below 3), then go for it. every little bit helps, right?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hard Drives: Get Neither. 10,000RPM is a waste. Get a Seagate or Maxtor with NCQ and 16MB cache and it'll meet if not beat the Raptor's performance for a lot less money.

How ya doing, buddy?

Wouldn't a Seagate/Maxtor only be able to compete with a Raptor X if there were a couple of them in a striped RAID array? Surely you're not saying on a drive-to-drive comparison that a Seagate would beat the Raptor X?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

First off, is there any reason for the Raptor X to exist when the plain windowless version is $70 cheaper and has a much longer MTBF rating? MTBF is a bit of a meaningless rating, I know, but I don't see any reason to buy a more expensive and possibly less reliable drive.

Originally Posted by Arainach

Hard Drives: Get Neither. 10,000RPM is a waste. Get a Seagate or Maxtor with NCQ and 16MB cache and it'll meet if not beat the Raptor's performance for a lot less money.

I understand that the new Raptor is horribly expensive per-gigabyte and doesn't make much difference in game performance, but I'm quite willing to pay the 3-4x price difference between the 150GB Raptor and a regular 160GB drive if it reduces loading and seek times by a third or more. Most reviews seem to indicate that the Raptor is at least 25-30% faster than the fastest 7200 RPM drives, like the 400GB Caviar RE2s and Deskstars.

That leads to another question, though. Would a RAID 1 of two fast 7200RPM drives (the 320GB Caviar RE doesn't look bad) be quicker than one 150GB Raptor for general use? Two of those drives are still cheaper and bigger than one Raptor, and RAID 1 gives some extra data security.

Another question. Does this particular PC4000 memory kit look good to you guys? If my mind's working at all, mushkin's a pretty good brand, and it's only about $50 more than the cheapest, scrungiest generic PC3200 memory that newegg sells.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Your write performance wouldn't be any better in a RAID 1 but the read performance would obviously be enhanced.

I think the current sweet-spot for drives is still at the 250GB mark, although here in the UK I did see Seagate 300GB models going for just a penny more per gigabyte. However, Seagates have really lost my faith in them over the years, mostly because they are so noisy, and run hotter than they did a few years ago. Samsungs seem great but they don't have the most capacious models in a SATA interface V_V.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Does anyone have experience with the ASUS A8R32-MVP yet? I kind of want a Crossfire motherboard, since the X1900 All-in-Wonder and X1900XT seem to offer insane performance at...uh, not completely unreasonable prices.

I know that some ATI motherboards (the DFI RDX200 in particular) have pretty horrible reputations, but this board seems pretty good. Everyone but Tom's Hardware seems to like it and the revised chipset, and I think that we all know better than to trust the Pabster too much. ^^

Oh, and are there any wireless laser mice that aren't huge hunks of plastic like the Logitechs?

FELIPE NO

I've found Logitech's MX900 (the MX700 is the same design, it just uses RF instead of Bluetooth) to be a great mouse. I personally don't like the design of the MX1000 though, even though it uses a red laser instead of an optical laser for more precision.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Might I suggest the Logitech G7 Gaming Mouse? I love the on-the-fly sensitivity buttons, along with the battery swap feature. It just works great all around.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm a bit skittish about buying a Logitech mouse. I have pretty small hands, and all of the higher-end Logitech mice seem to be from the Xbox school of controller design. My old Microsoft Optical Wheel Mouse (not going for an original name, were they?) is awfully big for my hand, and it looks a lot smaller than any of the Logitech ones. Maybe one of the lower, longer Razer mice would be more to my taste?

Oh, and here's the rest of the stuff that I plan on buying right now. If anyone HATES these parts, rush in and save me from RMA Hell plz. ^^

Motherboard: ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe - $194.99

DVD Burner: BenQ 16X DVD Burner DQ60 - already have one <3

Cooling Devices: ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED - $63.99

Hard Drives: Western Digital Raptor 150GB SATA Hard Drive - $280.00

Western Digital Caviar RE2 400GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive - $182.00

Memory: Two packs of mushkin eXtreme Performance 2x1GB DDR 500 (PC 4000) memory - $419.00

Monitor: SAMSUNG 204B-Black Black 20.1" 5ms LCD - $495.99

Power Supply: Antec NeoHE 430 ATX12V 430W Power Supply Already have this, too.

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic - $116.99

Speakers: Klipsch PROMEDIA ULTRA 5.1 system - $299.99

Processor: AMD Athlon 64x2 4200+, Socket 939 Manchester core. $355.00

Video Card: ATI 100-714800 Radeon X1900 All-in-Wonder 256MB, with PCI-Express interface - $439.00

Case: Antec P180 - Have it, and it's nice, too. ^^

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Why ATI instead of GeForce? Doesn't the latter out-perform almost all of the time?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Recently ATI took the performance crown with the X1900 series, though they didn't eclipse nVidia by much (neither really trumps the other). Since this is a high end machine, I's recommend the X1900 series or GTX cards, but if you want to save some money and get damn good performance, get a 7900GT. It's got GTX performance on a smaller, cooler and cheaper card.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?