My wiring Job w/ Antec P180

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:58 am

Install took about 4.5 hours from an Antec Sonata to this thing. Sheesh---wasn't easy but well worth it. I have since removed the drive trays from the center HDD rack to allow better airflow.

The wiring job was going great up until I added my SATA drives. Then the "wheels came off" so to speak and now it just turned into a mediocre wiring job.

Here are my specs:

Asus P5WD2 Premium
Pentium 4 840 3.2 Extreme Edition
2GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 PC5400
BFG 7800GTX OC
2 x Plextor PX-716a DVD Burner
1 x 300GB Maxtor DM10 16MB cache SATA
1 x 300GB Seagate
2 x Hitachi 400GB
SB X-Fi XtremeMusic
Onboard 10/100/1000 NIC

Enjoy--

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ozdoc · Post by **ozdoc** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 6:30 am

Wow, an impressive amount of grunt in that system.
1.4 Terrabytes of storage

(Got to ask... what do you store??)

What are your temps like in the P180? We don't get to see Extreme Edition rigs that often around here. What CPU cooler is that? ?XP90 Cu
What PSU are you using?
And what we all want to know..... How's it sound? (the PC, not SP X-Fi

)
The wiring looks good.

dedogs · Post by **dedogs** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:51 pm

yes some system u got there!

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 3:55 pm

ozdoc wrote:Wow, an impressive amount of grunt in that system.
1.4 Terrabytes of storage (Got to ask... what do you store??)

I take a lot of home movies of my kids as they grow up and I just don't move them to DVD quick enough.

ozdoc wrote:What are your temps like in the P180? We don't get to see Extreme Edition rigs that often around here. What CPU cooler is that? ?XP90 Cu

Ambient Temp = 73F

Motherboard Temp = 31c
CPU Temp = 33c
Videocard Temp = 42c

Yes, that is thermalright XP90c with a high flow Panaflo 92mm fan.

ozdoc wrote:What PSU are you using?

PC Power & Cooling Turbo 510 Deluxe Express

ozdoc wrote:And what we all want to know..... How's it sound? (the PC, not SP X-Fi )The wiring looks good

Well, I am still toying with the fan speeds as of yet. It's a bit more noisy that I would like but bearable.

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:44 pm

dedogs wrote:yes some system u got there!

Thanks for the compliments. This is supposed to be my "Dream Machine" and hopefully I can keep the dream alive for a while.

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 3:37 am

Woah, someone has a lot of money to spend on a PC...!
Looks like you went out and bought the best of the best, money not being an issue.
I have one recomendation though (not SPCR related really).
Looks like you have dual dvdrws.
I noticed you have them on the same IDE cable.
If you are doing dual burning it shouldn't be an issue but...
If you are planning on doing on-the-fly work (drive -> drive) you have a bottle neck.
Should have bought the SATA versions.
Cleaner cables and better bandwidth.
Other than that, WOW!
As far as sound goes...
Good luck with the GFX card.
Look around the forums.
A Zalman might help.
I think it should be enough cooling for your card (I'm guessing).
It works great on mine.
Awesome cable management though.
This case has proven to be the case that seperates the men from the boys when it comes to cable management.
YOU ARE NOW A MAN!

I take it an XP120 wouldn't fit in your rig?
If it does, I'd get that cooler.

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 6:03 am

toNka wrote:Woah, someone has a lot of money to spend on a PC...!
Looks like you went out and bought the best of the best, money not being an issue.
I have one recomendation though (not SPCR related really).
Looks like you have dual dvdrws.
I noticed you have them on the same IDE cable.
If you are doing dual burning it shouldn't be an issue but...
If you are planning on doing on-the-fly work (drive -> drive) you have a bottle neck.
Should have bought the SATA versions.
Cleaner cables and better bandwidth.
Other than that, WOW!
As far as sound goes...
Good luck with the GFX card.
Look around the forums.
A Zalman might help.
I think it should be enough cooling for your card (I'm guessing).
It works great on mine.
Awesome cable management though.
This case has proven to be the case that seperates the men from the boys when it comes to cable management.
YOU ARE NOW A MAN!
I take it an XP120 wouldn't fit in your rig?
If it does, I'd get that cooler.

Thanks for the compliments, but this is not my first build. This is my 10th build of workstation for myself and this is the first case i have had that really met my requirements. (The other nine machines have either been sold or passed down to family members) It may seem like I have a lot of money but I sold my last "dream machine" to partly finance this one. I do a lot of computer jobs on the side and when I found out that Dual Core w/HT was coming out on the Intel side(yes I know about AMDs DC --but I am an Intel loyalist

) I started saving for it. I do a lot of video encoding/re-encoding/photoshop stuff as well as gaming.

The reason I have the dual DVDRWs and the IDE versions of them is the SATA versions I have read have had issues that I did not want to deal with. I normally do not do "on the fly" recordings but the ones I have done I did not suffer any bottlenecking. Plus the bandwidth increase that SATA offers doesn't benefit CD Rom drives at all as even the IDE bus doesn't get filled with the amount of information a CD Rom drive can push.
There is also only one IDE connector on my mobo that allows you to connect optical drives to it. The other IDE connectors only allow you to connect HHDs to them.

I am not sure why you are recommending a GFX cooler. My card doesn't overheat. Under load I get 57c and I cannot even hear the fan under load. I used to have an ATI Radeon X850XT PE that would get up to 90c+ which I did eventually get a Zalman VF700Cu for it. I do not want to void the warranty on this card and I do not OC anyway.

I chose the XP90c because I have already had machines that used the XP90 and the XP120 and I have found that the XP90c outperforms them both. My CPU idles at 33c and load temp gets to ~46-50c in an ambient room temp of 73F. The noise level coming from the Panaflo fan on the XP90c is 30dB which is near silent. The all copper design of the XP90c and its size makes mobo compatibility a moot point since there are no clearance issues.

All in all, I am very happy with this machine and I can only hope that it lasts me a while. (I say that only because whenever I see something new out that can benefit me I usually go for it

) My wife usually steps in and brings me back to reality.

silence · Post by **silence** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:39 pm

Congrats on your build, it is put together extremely well and looks to be a "king of the hill" as far as Intel goes. Everything in that case is definitely cream of the crop as far as hardware goes, though I would agree with a few others here and say you would be better off with a Ninja rather than the XP90. The XP90 is an excellent heatsink, don't get me wrong; but when it comes to high-power/heat systems in the P180, the Ninja rules supreme (coolest and silent, period). I look at your system and see mine a few years from now...if you check my specs you'll see that my system is the two-year-old equivalent of yours, even though it was recently completed. If you're looking to get rid of that stuff a year or two from now, please put me at the top of the list for potential buyers

Again, congrats on your dream rig.

-DG-

Mellman · Post by **Mellman** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:26 pm

lookin great burner, As always you seem to have the best latest and greatest hardware in your rig

I just finished up my dual xeon setup tonight - its great all but this stupid XFX 6600 fan! so freaking loud, need to look into my options. I'll be posting pics tonight and put on my flak vest for the pokes at my wiring.

BenW · Post by **BenW** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:15 am

ozdoc wrote:And what we all want to know..... How's it sound? (the PC, not SP X-Fi )

And how does the X-Fi sound?

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 4:31 pm

BenW wrote:
ozdoc wrote:And what we all want to know..... How's it sound? (the PC, not SP X-Fi )
And how does the X-Fi sound?

Sounds nice! YOu should hear how games sound with it!

Burner27 · Post by **Burner27** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 6:03 pm

silence wrote:Congrats on your build, it is put together extremely well and looks to be a "king of the hill" as far as Intel goes. Everything in that case is definitely cream of the crop as far as hardware goes, though I would agree with a few others here and say you would be better off with a Ninja rather than the XP90. The XP90 is an excellent heatsink, don't get me wrong; but when it comes to high-power/heat systems in the P180, the Ninja rules supreme (coolest and silent, period). -DG-

Thanks for the compliments. Although I have seen reviews on the Ninja, I do not see it vs the XP90c. I am inclined to stay with my current cooling setup.

UPDATE: Here's a review on Overclockers.com and the XP90c which I have beats the ninja too.

http://www.overclockers.com/articles373/p4sum.asp