Help speccing out new desktop system

[Canelek]

Hi there,

I recently bought a ASUS G1 Notebook, and it is fucking great, but I feel it is time to get a new desktop for gaming, music recording and home theater (both streaming to plasma TV in living room as well as watching locally, when too lazy to leave room.) It will also be used to VPN into work, although I may slap SQL Server 2005 SP2 on it in case I don't get enough of that kind of shit 40-60 hours/week at work. Either way, I am not concerned about business or enterprise apps at this point....just loud noises, pretty pictures and sexy perf metrics.

SINCE I have recently downed 1800 in a laptop and another 1800 on the Les Paul I have wanted for years, I want to keep this venture as pocketbook-painless as possible. Since my career had steered away from keeping abreast of newer hardware in recent years, I am well behind on what is cost effective. This is going to be a ground-up venture, so any help is appreciated.

I have no budget at this point, as this just popped up as a fun idea. Guessing I want to keep this under 2K....well under if possible...yes, I realize my first 2 items total over 1K. Maybe ignore monitor price in other considerations...

I am pretty sure on a couple things so far, but they are not set in stone:

Monitor: $669
ViewSonic 28" LCD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824116084

Video card: ~$380
nVidia 8800GTX

For the rest, I have been reading reviews, so basically chasing my tail.

A couple notes about what I envision:

Case - Cool-Clean-Quiet. LEDs are neat, but they have to have an easy disable option as to not light up my bedroom when I am trying to sleep.
Power Supply - Adequate for future upgrades and QUIET.
Memory - 2-4GB of well-made sticks with adequate heat diffusion.
CPU - Intel Core2Duo - No idea on speed.
TV Tuner
Sound - Solid card that has decent home studio capabilities when paired with decent recording software.
Speakers - I have a guy @ Logitech, so may be able to beta test if available, but opinions welcome.
Motherboard - SLI (I like to have the option, even though I am going single GPU at first), cool, OC options, SATA3, wireless, etc....always been a fan of ASUS
HDD: Was thinking of going 1+0 at first, but really don't need that level. 2X 7200PRM SATA will do--not sure on mfgr these days.

Other:

Supplementary cooling considerations, fan speed control, temp readings, noise level.... custom fan configurations, clean wiring, etc...

---

Thanks much!

[Canelek]

I think this is becoming clearer the more I research--just so many products and user reviews are not exactly reliable on some of these sites!

I do still like that monitor and GPU though!

[miir]

Other than trying to convince you to go ATI and get a Crossfire motherboard, the only advice that I will offer is that if you get an Asus mobo, do not get OCZ memory.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

For budget recording soundcards there's really only one place to go: M-Audio. I'd recommend the Delta 44 if you don't need digital i/o or the Audiophile 192 if you do. Both retail at around $200, but you should be able to find decent deals on them online - and if you buy at a music store you can probably get a decent offer on a package that includes some software. I'd say get the pci cards unless you absolutely need portability, there will be latency issues (and a hell of a lot of troubleshooting to follow) if you go USB. The Firewire 410 or the Firewire Solo might be decent for you though.

[Ashur]

I could tell you're a DBA if I didn't already know by your geeky mentioning of "SP2" for SQL server

[Canelek]

At least I didn't put Build 9.0.3159.

[Canelek]

A buddy of mine in LA gave me a E-MU 0404 sound processor....not sure if it is good, as I have not tried in my old system yet. Missing the digital cables though--will need to see what is what before buying cables...

[Vaemas]

For what it's worth, this is what I built last week:

VGA EVGA 768-P2-N885-AR 8800ULTRA R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$679.99)
PSU SILVERSTONE|DA650 650W RT - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$154.99)
CASE SILVERSTONE|TJ09-BW BK RT - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$289.99)
MB EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 N680i SLI R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$219.99)
CPU INTEL|C2D E6600 2.4G 775 4M R - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$222.90)
MEM 1Gx2|MUSHKIN DII800 996523 R - Retail (Qty=2, Price=$289.98)
HD 320G|ST 7K 16M SATA2 ST3320620NS - OEM (Qty=2, Price=$189.98)
DVD_BURN ASUS|DRW-1814BLT BLK RT - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$33.99)
CPU COOLER ZALMAN|9700 LED RTL - Retail (Qty=1, Price=$57.99)

I cannot adequately describe how much I this case. Clean front with no plugins. The top has a hinged panel (really well done) that lifts up and stays put. The drive bay is extremely well vented (and has room for an additional 120mm fan) and is segmented such that any heat generated from the mobo/vid card is not going to bleed over. There is a huge amount of room in the case and it is extremely easy to work with. There's an intake for the case behind the drives in front of the motherboard. Two additional fan slots on the top of the case if you feel the need. The rear fan moves a lot of air.

Setup was a breeze, have it overclocked at 3.15GHz and the ram set at it's native speed. Only potential hiccup is I have mine set up with a raid and I had to slipstream the drivers into my windows XP disc before I set everything up. nLite makes that easy though. One other thing to note if you go with these drives is that they are 3.0Gbps capable, but the OEMs have a jumper on the back that needs to be removed to facilitate that.

Oh...and the Zalman 9700 keeps this sucker cool...but it's massive and fucking sharp as hell. Only cut myself once though. Win!

[Kluden]

Before purchasing any power supply, I would highly suggest checking for a review of the model at http://www.jonnyguru.com.

With that said, I bought the corsair 620hw. Its dead quiet.

I wouldn't say stay away from OCZ memory, I have always used them, had a problem once, and it was resolved within a week. Their customer support really is top notch, and in country, so no really bad accents and no text books to read the answers from. Just a dude at a desk that knows memory and hardware.

I'm running a core 2 system on an Intel D975XBX2KR mobo...with 4 x 1gb sticks of OCZ plat revision 2 DDR2-800...no problems. The board even overclocks unlike old intel stuff. Although I wouldn't suggest buying it since it will most likely not be supporting intel's move to 45nm processor fabricating.

The only thing, which I think has pretty much been overcome, was that a lot of ram was very particular to the chipset of the motherboards...that was end of last year, early this year, so I imagine sufficient amounts of bios updates have made a lot of motherboards much more memory friendly, so I really wouldn't worry anymore.

lastly, wait another month for the new quad core Q6600's to come out with the G0 stepping, and build from there. The G0 stepping is the current core 2 stepping that lowers the voltage requirements of the cpu, etc, making it cooler and more OC'able...if you're into that.

[miir]

I wouldn't say stay away from OCZ memory, I have always used them, had a problem once, and it was resolved within a week. Their customer support really is top notch, and in country, so no really bad accents and no text books to read the answers from. Just a dude at a desk that knows memory and hardware.

I've built many systems (that did not use Asus motherboards) with OCZ RAM and had no problems whatsoever. I love their products and I love their support.
On 4 systems I have built with Asus motherboards, I have encountered compatibility issues on 3 of them.

if you get an Asus mobo, do not get OCZ memory

If you live 15 minutes from the store where you purchase your computer hardware, feel free to take your chances with an Asus motherboard and OCZ RAM. It's won't be a colossal waste of time or a big deal to exchange it for RAM that has no issues (like Mushkin, Kingston, or even cheapo Patriot)... but if you're buying your shit online and your OCZ RAM doesn't work in your Asus motherboard, it's a real fucking pain in the ass to wait a week for your RMA replacement only to find out that it doesn't work either... then having to send it back to the place you bought it to exchange it for RAM that is 100% compatible.


If you don't believe me, you can check the Asus website and the OCZ forums. The issues with OCZ RAM and Asus motherboards well documented.

[miir]

wait another month for the new quad core Q6600's to come out with the G0 stepping, and build from there. The G0 stepping is the current core 2 stepping that lowers the voltage requirements of the cpu, etc, making it cooler and more OC'able...if you're into that.

LOL, so you've bought into the quad core marketing propaganda?
Diminishing returns and the inability of any OS that isn't linux/unix based to effectively utilize a quad core processor means you'll be throwing your cash away on what amounts to a very small performance gain.

[Canelek]

Thanks for all the info! Not too worried about where cou core-frenzy is going, but I am happy with my Core2Duo in my ASUS G1 laptop--I will most likely go that direction for desktop, at least for CPU.

[cadalano]

Two cores isnt very many cores at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kluden]

I run a dual core now, was just suggesting, with the price scheme for the quad core, never hurts to have it when more things start taking advantage of it. Supreme Commander will utilize every core available...so its already started. I don't know if its hype or not, but programs are starting to utilize multicore processors. May take a few years to perfect though...I just see that at $266 beans, that's not much money for a processor...especially if you do a lot of encoding and/or rendering. There are clear advantages to more cores then.

Not sure how I missed the "asus mobo and ocz" part...my apologies.

Just something to think about on the quad vs. two part...how long will you make use of it? The other half of this is if you do get a newer motherboard with the 1333 FSB, then you could get one of the faster and cheaper 2coreduo's. The prices on the 1066FSB core 2's don't seem to be coming down, but the new ones are already lower, and faster...so that's a thought too.

[miir]

Just something to think about on the quad vs. two part...how long will you make use of it? The other half of this is if you do get a newer motherboard with the 1333 FSB, then you could get one of the faster and cheaper 2coreduo's. The prices on the 1066FSB core 2's don't seem to be coming down, but the new ones are already lower, and faster...so that's a thought too.

Point taken.

[Canelek]

I do understand the point regarding 4 cores as well, but unless I delay my purchase for a few months, I really can't justify the extra cost of the cpu. I absolutely hate buying 'the latest and greatest' for desktops for obvious reasons. Hell, I can't believe I am going to dish out 400+ for a non-top-tier video card (even though the 8800GTS is still a kickass card).

Thanks again everyone for input--always get valuable info here.

[Canelek]

I have been too busy at work of late, but hopefully will have time next week to finish up research. Looks like Quadcores have dropped in price?

Think I have decided on 8800GTX as well, since it is not all that much more than the GTS. Will SLI it when the price drops again.

[Sumdaor]

If you haven't ordered yet, you can get a Q6600 for under 300 bucks. Is it worth the extra money or not, is something you could do some research on and check out. But it is in the same price range as most of the Core 2 duo's. Just something to think about.

[Ransure]

My laptop is core2duo and its absolutely horrible at multitasking... the core2's have no idea how to allocate resources... I dont have vista installed... but I cant imagine its any better.

[Winnow]

My laptop is core2duo and its absolutely horrible at multitasking... the core2's have no idea how to allocate resources... I dont have vista installed... but I cant imagine its any better.

Got some other sources besides yourself for that? I haven't noticed any multitasking issues with the core2 duo or the amd X2 before that.

[Canelek]

I have a C2D in my ASUS G1 laptop and have no issues nor have I heard any until now! RMA that thing Rans!

[Aslanna]

I've never heard about multitasking issues with the Core 2 Duos either.

[miir]

Even when doing CPU intensive processes like encoding a DVD, I have had no issues whatsoever with multitasking.