[CookieFactory]

I'm about to graduate college and I've decided I need a new computer. Usage will be a little bit of everything, with no special emphasis on gaming (of which I do fairly little at the moment, but this could change). That being said, here's my current build:

Processor
Conroe Extreme Edition (XE)


Motherboard
ASUS P5WD2-E Premium ATX Intel Motherboard


Memory
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit System Memory


Case
Antec Performance I P180B Black Computer Case


Power Supply
SeaSonic S12-430 430W Power Supply


Cooling
Scythe SCNJ-1000 "Ninja" Heatsink
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound


Hard drives

OS: Western Digital Raptor 150GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
DATA: Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive


Video Card
Waiting for DirectX 10...Suggestions welcome.

CD/DVD Drive
BenQ 16X DVD+R DVD Burner


Monitor
Looking for a LCD HDCP-supported monitor...

Keyboard
Microsoft Natural 4000 Black Wired Keyboard


Mouse
Logitech G5 Laser

Edit: Updated

I would like to be able to run Windows Vista (whenever it comes out) and it's massively bloated features without any problems.

I have no "brand loyalties" so anything is up for change. One invariant however is I would like to run Windows as my main (but not necessarily exclusive) OS.

One question mark I have at this point is if my cooling will be adequate. I would prefer not to go the water-cooling route. Any opinions?

 

[imported_Echo_]

good to see you gettin your setup even though there's still some time before conroe, but im sure there will be price drops and new stuff in that time so basically anything reccomend will be out of date besides psu, heatsink, optical, harddrive.

id recommend beefing up the psu. i like ocz 520 watt. i havent read up on psu lately so i dunno.

a good forum for this is www.ocforums.com

good luck on the new system

 

[dwin902]

If you're waiting for DX10 it's going to be a LOOOONG time before you'll be able to purchase products that implement that spec. Vista and DX10 aren't shipping until at least January 2007 and I don't expect you'll see DX10 parts before then. Yes, I know that R600 and G80 are in development, but ATI and nV don't have anything to gain by releasing them before software that actually takes advantage of their capabilities is available.

My advice? Buy a DX9 card now (X1900 or 7900). To date, no company has shown off any DX10 software and you won't see any until DX10 penetrates the market at least a little, which won't happen until at least this time next year. All those fancy Crysis demos (Crysis being the only title announced to support DX10) are DX9 and Crysis itself is a DX9 game; all DX10 will bring to Crysis is a few extra fancy effects which may or may not be all that impressive.

Oh, and that power supply is a little weak on the 12V rails. I recommend this one instead: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103931. It should give you room to go SLi if you want to at some future time.

Finally, go with the Logitech mouse over the Razer (assuming you're right-handed). The sculpted grip is VERY comfortable.

 

[TheGhostBelow]

I believe that conroe will only be supporting ddr2 memory so you might want to look into that.

 

[JazzJackRabbit]

Uhmmm.... conroe is not yet available and won't be for another two months. Expect 3 months before you can realistically get your hands on one. Then why create a topic asking for an advice to buy a non-existant piece of hardware?

 

[dwin902]

Perhaps he's planning to wait until then?

Note, however, that aside from 64-bit and VT support and a minor speed bump, Conroe isn't much different from Yonah (which current Core processors are based on). Unless you really need those features, buying a Core Duo now certainly isn't a bad decision.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

If you're a first-time builder, beware the P180, it can be a real pain in the butt to build in, though it does give very good results, it just takes time to do everything right. Lian-Li cases are better built, but not quite as well-thought-out as the Antec P180 and P150.

I'm and AMD guy, so I won't touch that issue. The Ninja and Seasonic are both awesome products, as is the Benq drive, I have the lightscribe model, and I love it!

 

[meat01]

430 watts should be more than enough power even for all of the devices you have. Your cooling should be fine as long as you are not going to go overboard on overclocking. If you need extra cooling, just get a few panaflo fans.

 

[tilt]

If you're waiting for the Dx10 you may as well wait for the Intel conroe. I recently read an article where one scored a 15 second super pi 1m on air. It blew my mind. They're due out next month.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ad.php?t=98919

Fastest commercial, and economically feasible CPU to date!

 

[lan]

That's a pretty powerful computer for a little bit of everything. Is this even necessary?

I wonder how much Conroe Extreme Edition will be. Not very cost effective buying the highest end CPU. The cooler should be fine. Conroes use less power than the AMD dual cores. The PSU is fine. I use the 350W version and it works fine for my dual core opteron system. The heatsink is fine.

Are the current 74GB Raptors based off the 150GB model? I would just get the faster Raptor myself.

As for video card, I would just get the cheapest non gaming card now if you didn't want to game in the near future or something like $250-300ish lowest top end cards if you wanted to game.

I would imagine in Vista you could turn off some of those bloated features. There will probably be optimization guides after it's out.

Since this is a new architecture, it's unknow the support on non Windows OSes. You must research yoru hardware's compatibility.

 

[mateo05]

A couple of notes-

I second the www.ocforums.com link. My 1000+ posts there will attest to my time lost

, but it's a great place.

Whatever you do, don't go for the XE crap. Buy in the middle of the range and do a moderate OC. The Asus is a solid board, you could easily hit XE speeds on the Scythe (I assume that's the huge heatpipe tower) and spend a lot less.

The PSU is good, you could go Fortron too (just as good if not better) at maybe a lower price, not sure on the pricing as I haven't kept track of stuff lately since I've been into the laptop game.

For the HDDs, check out www.storagereview.com.
Best. HDD Benchmarks. Evar.
You might want to go with just one 500 GB and partition it up instead, some almost match the older 74 GB Raptor. The new 150 GB is a different story, so you might want to go with just that for starters, as both an OS/program and storage drive too.

Video...don't wait. Pick up an older 7800/X1800 series for a little less than the top right now and enjoy it.

RAM...Corsair is good, there are other brands worth exploring. These change almost by the month it seems, so check that out on the forums.

Burner...I've also heard good things about the NEC 3550A, but I have nothing against your current choice.

Case...I'm a Lian-Li fanboy. They're pretty much awesome (I've had both a PC-60 and PC-6070). Antec is good stuff too, I don't know the P180 that well but their budget SLK3000 is also pretty much awesome (done 2-3 system builds in that one as well).


Overall, very solid beginning build. I'm kind of an Intel fanboy (Xeon FTW!

, I'm living two years in the past, but in any case Conroe/Merom rock), so it warms my heart that not everyone is rabidly AMD- yes, they're good, but the rabid fanbois are a tad annoying. So yeah. Sweet system. Enjoy it.

 

[CookieFactory]

Obviously this is a planned build considering Vista, DX10, and Conroe aren't available yet. I don't graduate until middle of June anyway, and am immediately leaving the country for a three week vacation. This is really a computer built to run Vista.

The top-end Conroe will likely be $1000, or in worst cases $1500. The former is doable, but if it turns out to be the latter, I will switch to a lower-end processor.

As for the 150GB Raptor, yes that is an (better) option. However it is one that carries a fairly significant price increase so we shall see

As for being more powerful than is needed for "general use," it probably is. However 1) I must run a lot of software IDEs and some of them can get quite a bit more resource intensive than the programs most people use on day-to-day basis.

 

[JahJahBinks]

I bought the P180 case when I built my first computer, it wasn't that bad, you just need to be patient to get everything right. I later installed water cooling to my system, it was fun!

 

[CookieFactory]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mateo05 Overall, very solid beginning build. I'm kind of an Intel fanboy (Xeon FTW! , I'm living two years in the past, but in any case Conroe/Merom rock), so it warms my heart that not everyone is rabidly AMD- yes, they're good, but the rabid fanbois are a tad annoying. So yeah. Sweet system. Enjoy it.

lol if you think that is living in the past, you would probably cry if you knew how old my current computer is

 

[mateo05]

I still deal with a P3 600E at my mom's, so I get you...its more just a minor shock recognizing that the "era" in which I hit my stride OCing is now the past...

Even if a top-end Conroe is doable, don't do it. Go in the middle to lower-middle (depending on how these things OC), and overclock it. You'd be wasting so much of your planned rig if you don't OC, and really, going to the current top-of-the-line speeds is no trick at all.

As for the Raptor, it all depends on your storage needs. If you don't need a huge amount of space, I'd say go for it. If you do, go for a 500 GB drive. In either case, I'd say go for just one drive, unless you want to RAID for reliability's sake. As I said before, 500 GB 7.2k rpm performance roughly = 74 GB Raptor performance, so the original two-drive plan is kind of overkill.