[eric343]

I'm upgrading in anticipation of Half-Life 2

That and I've got $1500 burning a hole in my pocket. (I wrote this 50 page security report, see...)

Things I'd like to do:
* Quietness. Really important!
* 64-bit AMD. I don't necessarily *need* the 64-bit part, but the number is higher so it MUST be better! (and it's the wave of the future, you know...)
* High end video. If I gotta water-cool it to keep it quiet (see #1), I'll do it.
* A new chassis. I don't care about case windows and all that -- I want something that's a joy to work with.

Ideas?

 

[GokieKS]

You say you're upgrading, so I assume that means you have some current components that you will continue using. Which ones? In other words, what will the $1500 have to cover?

And do you have a deadline on how soon you need to buy it? Since you're looking at an A64 setup, it might be worth it to wait for the nVidia nForce4- (especially SLI versions) or ATI Radeon Xpress-based motherboards to be released. From early previews, both seems to represent the best choices in A64 chipsets.

~KS

 

[eric343]

Basically, I'm looking to upgrade the processor/RAM/motherboard/video/chassis. It would also be nice to get some ultra-quiet hard drives... of course, replacing my current 440gb+ of storage might go over budget.

 

[Entropism]

Wait on the hard drives. Seagate will be releasing the SATAII drives soon, and in a few months, you'll be able to get 300gig ones at staples for $75 or so. I just got 2 200 gig PATA seagates for $50 each.

As for video cards, do you want the highest of the high end? You might be best off going with the 6800GT, which is ALMOST top of the line. I'd suggest upgrading your monitor. Dell has the 2001FP on sale (20" LCD, 16ms) for $600 new.

As for cases... I really like my coolermaster wavemaster case. But that's one of the more personal decisions you can make.

 

[GokieKS]

I'd suggest wait for the nForce 4 SLI motherboards (which allows for the use of two nVidia videocards to be used in conjunction to improve performance) and getting a PCI-Express 6800GT now, and another one sometime down the road (or even right away if you want to spend the money). Choice of memory depends on how hard you push your computer - if you're not doing any overclocking, then I'd say go with Crucial's Ballistix PC3200. If you are overclocking, OCZ and Corsair's high-end are all great choices.

For cases, I'm a big CoolerMaster fan as well - if you do decide the route of watercooling with an external kit, the ATC-220B is an excellent choice. I still think it's the best looking case I've ever seen, and it can be found quite cheaply nowadays (<$150, compared to the $250 or more it used to cost), and is available with blue or green acrylic. If you want a large case with plenty of room that you can use to put an internal watercooling setup in, I'd have to recommend the SilverStone SST-TJ03 Nimiz, available in both silver and black. It's a very pricey case, but SilverStones, like CoolerMasters, are exceptionally well made (SilverStone is actually made up of ex-employees of CoolerMaster's case division), and I think they're worth the cost.

For complete silence though, you can't beat the Zalman TNN-500A. But I don't think you'd want to blow more than half of your budget on just the case, and while it's quiet, cooling performance is merely acceptable. You certainly won't want to run any of the latest videocards in there with only the included heatpipe cooling.

~KS

 

[Kikkoman]

I agree with the posters who say to wait for SLI to come out (which should be real soon for nvidia and via), but if you absolutly must buy now then heres what I'd recommend.

Case: Coolermaster Praetorian. Well built and sexy to the max. $100 (newegg is out of stock now though)
Link: Here

Motherboard: MSI K8T NEO2-FIR: $120
Link: Here

CPU Heatsink: Termaltake XP-120. This thing is massive, but I absolutly love mine: $65.00
Link: Here

CPU Fan: Panaflo 120mm: $10.00 (I forget where I bought mine, but I'll look if you're interested)

80mm Case Fans: The fans that come with the Coolermaster case are noisy so replace them with 4 quiet fans. I use PC Power and Cooling Silencer fans, but there are other options.: $45

Fan Speed Controlers: 4 Zalman Fanmate-2s. Even when using quiet fans they still make noticeable noise. Use one of these cheap solutions for each fan to run them around 75% and they're silent.: $15
Link: Here

GPU: This is budget limited. Both ATI and nVIDIA will make you happy no matter what the fanboys at video card boards tell you. I say go for the nvidia 6800 Ultra if you can afford it and find it instock somewhere.

GPU HSF: Arctic Cooling Silencer. Since you want silence you MUST buy one of these. They make models for all the top line nvidia and ati cards so once you decide what card you want you can get hte corresponding cooling unit. - $25
Link: Here

CPU: AMD 64 3800, 4000,or FX-55. Again these are budget limited like the GPU. If you can afford it by all means go for the top of the mountain and get the FX-55. The FX-53 is the same chip as the 4000 so leave it out of the list of purchases unless you find one somewhere cheaper then the 4000. All of these chips are socket 939 so they support AMD's cool and quiet which lowers the cpu voltage and multipler along with the cpu fan speed depending on load and temperature.

Memory: Low latency PC3200, or mid latency PC3500. This depends on if you want to overclock or not. If you're not going to bother go with low latency (2-2-2-5) pc3200, but if you are go with pc3500 because it will give you more room to move up with.

Edit: Added some links.