Yet another my new build

[jackt283]

Sorry guys. I know there are heaps of these around. But people here give such great advice.

 

I'm planing a new build to upgrade my current 945GNTLKR Pentium D920 Hackintosh. The 945 build has been great for the past 18months, though with today's hardware and stuff I cannot help to tempt myself with an upgrade. Plus it will be a great Tax right off.

 

The idea is to create a super fast, solid and COOL computer (as here in Melbourne summer is approaching fast) compatible with LEOPARD. I have been scouring the forums now for about two weeks and have come up with a list of parts. Please heap all the good advice you can upon them.

 

x1950XT for graphics - now this is said to be fully supported in Leopard (QE/CI/OpenGL/Dual Monitors), and a damn good card from what I have read.

 

ASUS p5k-e/WIFI AP - The MOBO. I like the fact that it's black. That it doesn't have stupid parrallel ports, and it seems to be supported (LAN/sound/sata/pata) in Leopard. Please heap advice on this one, cause it's the most important part. From what I have read it looks like a "goer". One thing I'd love to know - Is it going to support all 8 sata ports (2 esata and 6 internal) with HD's plugged in? And maybe RAID?

 

Q6600 - So cheap these days, I couldn't help it. Even if the new ones are coming out in Jan/Feb. It's like $30 more than a duo core. Though people have reported issues with After Effects.

 

2GB DDR2-800 - Add to this my existing 2GB DDR2-667, for a total of 4GB. Any problem with mixing the two speeds, as long as they are paired together?

 

2x ASUS 22" LCD - Hmm. Dual monitors has always been a sick fantasy of mine. Seeing as they are about $350 each, it may become a reality. ASUS screens are nice, and not too pricey, though the res on the 22" is only 1680x1050 (the same as an apple 20")...

 

Antec 900 - I like it because it's black and has a front grill. Oh yeah and the hard drive cages. If anyone can suggest a better case - perhaps a full tower, that has a front grill that I can attach fans too. I need AIRFLOW!!

 

 

Obviously I will also need a CPU cooler (any suggestions?) and a DVD drive (I'm thinking about getting a PATA drive with a SATA adapter so I can do the install with SATA, get PATA working then swap it over (so I have all my SATA ports for HD's). I already have around 1TB of SATA HD's I'll be porting over.

 

I'm sorry if I sounded like a wanger.

[candykane]

2GB DDR2-667 EHM think you can toss them away

[toxicdrift]

why dont u go for the all solid caps gigabyte 35 ds3r / as for cpu cooler the scythe fan with a thermalright 120extreme will keep that quad cool

& yes definately get rid of the 667 ram.. 800 is d way 2 go... 2 or 4 gigs depending upon what u want... antec 900 will be fine.. its good good coooling / 1950xt ... man u might wanna look @ the new 8800GT .. since thers already support for the 8800 gts.. i think they will crack the new gpu the g92 65nm chip soon... . runs fantastic in direct x10 .. the bang for the d buck @ the moment @ 250$ just buy ur self a cheap 7300gt till they have support u can always use it as a backup...

[jackt283]

Thanks toxic.

 

I have looked at all the gigabyte boards and originally wanted to go with a ds4.

 

THen I found myself looking at the P5k-e and thought: this is my board. For several reasons:

 

It's got Firewire, It's got External Sata connectors, Dual PCI-E, Heat pipes, it's black, oh yeah and 6 usb on the back plus no stupid old legacy ports except one ps2. Not all outstanding reasons I know.

 

The only area the gigabyte boards stand out, as far as I can tell is that they have 8x interior sata connectors (so I could have a sata DVD drive). And I think they come with a little more stuff (cables etc...).

 

I'm not set on anything though. So i will keep looking and see if I come up with anything better.

 

Thanks for the word on the 8800 gts, its definitely the way to go. 1950xt's are hard to come by, and the 8800 gts is only $50 more.

[jackt283]

Now that I have looked into it, 8800 GTS is fully supported, except you have to hotplug the second monitor (unplug it, then plug it back in when the computer is fully booted). That sucks, but I guess you cant have everything.

 

The x1950xt seems to have issues of it's own also (fan noise, no sleep...)

 

At the moment I am still leaning towards the 8800 GTS

[jackt283]

Okay here is the full setup I have decided on. Going to buy tomorrow.

 

Q6600 G0 Stepping edition with Zalman CNPS9700LED for cooling

ASUS P5K-E/WIFI AP Motherboard

4 x 1GB DDR2 800 RAM

Nvidia (probably ASUS make) 8800 GTS 320 MB

2 x ASUS VW222U 22" LCD Monitors

2 x Pioneer 112D SATA (with SATA/IDE adaptor) ~ not sure about sata/ide on this board yet

Antec Nine Hundred Case

Zalman ZM600-HP 600W Modular Power supply

Plus 1 x 200GB WD SATA, 2 x 350GB WD SATA (In RAID1), 1 x 500GB WD SATA (That I already own...)

 

It's looking like I am going to have to mod this case pretty badly in order to get the cables working properly. I'll probably get an extra fan for the side panel as well and use it to suck more air in (or out, whats better?).

 

I am certainly going all out with this build. Even still the price, comes in at about half what you would pay for a crappy mac pro.

 

Anyone know anything about Firewire 800 PCI cards and OSx86?

[toxicdrift]

if u can ditch the zalman psu .. get corsair/ ocz /pc power cooling/seasonic / havent really read ne reviews on zalman..... they might be good .. if ur not overclocking or nething...

 

about firewire.. ive never really used em... so sorry bro.. but good luck on the build none the less...