finally, time to do some fine-tuning.

Cooler Master Praetorian (for style and looks, plus airflow)
Fortron Source 400W PSU "FSP400-60PNU-R1" or antec true430 (depends on what you guys say)
Asus p4p800-e deluxe
2.8E prescott (decided prescott)
HIS 9800pro w/ VGA Silencer mod
Geil Ultra Series Value dual channel 512mb ram
Samsung 160gb sata "SP1614C"
Lite-on 52x32x52x16 combodrive (it's loud, but only when I use it)

Zalman AlCu HSF (lightweight for LAN mobility)
Vantec vibration dampening kit (2 80mm silcone gaskets, 8 silcon washers)
->enough for the two front fans (noisiest being open grill in front, and washers for HD and combodrive.


-Later, I'm plannign to replace all the fans with panaflos. maybe even a ducting mod from the blowhole to the zalman hsf. Then, foam/damppen the case.
-Adding a superdrive, tv-in, and maybe a hardcano/cooldrive 6. w/e is cheaper when the 6 comes out. Multiple 160/200gb HDs within 4 years time

PLEASE RESPOND/COMMENT/CRITQUE

It's still not too late to change your mind. And you should.




I'd nix the Geil and go with the "value lines" of Corsair, Mushkin or Kingston, or go with good 'ol Crucial.

I'm not as familiar with the Fortron, but I know that there are better choices than that Antec PSU.

I agree with Ralf about the Prescott CPUs.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I realize that your Samsung will probably cause the aluminum case to resonate unless you take measures to prevent that.

Prescott vs. Northwood. I guess I could pay the extra $16 for the Northwood, but is it all that? I hear the heat difference but that's about it. It's like comparing 9800pros. minimal differences, depends on tastes right?





Will the silcone washers help that at all? Or should I invest in a professional dampening holder?



[/quote]

prescotts make baby jesus cry

and grommets help a bit with hard drives, if you poke around in the faqs and stuff the different approaches are all roughly ranked. best and easiest ways are to just sit them on the bottom of the case on sorbothane (or foam rubber or whatever, might need to use more though) or suspend them, completely stops vibrations and costs a couple bucks. resonance depends on all sorts of voodoo, will probably be worse in an aluminum case but can happen in any. i have a nice fat Antec 1030b (~30lb empty) with two different model/brand HDs in it and depending on things like which fans i had in which places and exactly which bays i had the drives in, it would resonate like an unbalanced washing machine.
had to bump the case, open the side panel a tiny bit etc etc to adjust the vibration until i finally got around to just hanging the drives.

edit: washers are kinda iffy, i don't see them helping in most cases (no pun intended) since the screw will still normally be just as tight against the metal as before, where it goes through the hole. if anything, try grommets that completely surround the hole on both sides + the middle... but if you do that you'll probably need to drill out the holes a bit, and the drive might still not fit, most cages are pretty tight.

Actually, wrong. Prescotts are 15~20% hotter than Northwoods at the same clock speed. That's NOT a trifling difference, it can mean the difference between the CPU fan running at, say, 1200 vs 1600rpm. And the wattage difference is (at max, in theory) 79W vs 100W. The kicker to this is that with the lower speed CPUs (the 2.8 being the lowest Prescott AFAIK), the Northwood actually edges it for performance!

As for pricing, I have not seen NW being more $ than Prescotts, it's new to me -- that's a pretty strong sign that people should grab NW while they still can! (If they're wanting to P4s...)

Cooler Master Praetorian
Fortron Source 400W PSU "FSP400-60PNU-R1"
Asus p4p800-e deluxe
2.8E NorthWood
HIS 9800pro w/ VGA Silencer mod
Kingston Value dual channel 512mb ram ($10 cheaper, kewl)
Samsung 160gb sata "SP1614C"
Lite-on 52x32x52x16 combodrive
Zalman AlCu HSF
Vantec vibration dampening kit

OK, now, asumming I'm going to get some thin silicone pads to mount alongside the HD and combodrive where it touches the cage, and use the washers on the other side where the screw head would touch the cage; then replace the 80mm fans with panaflos and give each silicon gaskets; dampen/sound deaden the interior case with quality foam and anti-vibration material.......

does this look good?

Northwood: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 161&depa=1

Prescott: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 170&depa=1

northwood is $7 more...not 12, but 7.
-I guess i kinda deiced before on prescott because heat versus price. but you guys swayed me -

Personally i think you might as well splash out on a dvdrw - not much price difference and you KNOW you'l want one eventually

Secondly, I'd downgrade that psu to a 350 or a 300, cos 400 isnt needed even when clocking tbh.

griff

like you said with the psu, but relating it to the psu, I'm thinking ahead. new vidcards, new HDs and hardware. Might as well get it while I can.

Just so you know, I am getting a superdrive soon. Just running out of case since I'm buying this system whole

what i think is even funnier than 3-3.4ghz Northwoods outperforming Prescotts is that Prescotts use even more power than P4 EEs and A64 FX53s. WTF is up with that? are P4 EEs based on the Northwood or Xeon or what?

and spending money is fun, but make sure you're actually getting something out of it - kits are relatively expensive, so is most sound absorber/barrier material aimed at consumers, ditto for fan, HD and PSU mounts. Remember for $20 you can get enough stuff from McMaster to completely decouple 5 fans, suspend all the drives you'll ever own and cover the entire inside of at least one case with sound absorber. Add $6 for a little block of Sorbothane and a bit more for sound barrier/dampener and that's as good as you can possibly get without buying new components or building ducts and that sort of thing. Not trying to sound patronizing, only saying this because you can spend way less on stuff that will at *minimum* work just as well, still looks great, and still doesn't involve power tools or voiding warranties.




depends entirely on what it's being used for... dvd+-r isn't really an appropriate floppy replacement (like regular cd-rs are), and the quality of almost all current media makes it completely worthless for archival purposes. It gets even more complicated when you consider that for some reason, quality of the burned dvd depends on the combination of drive and media, not just the media. For example, TY DVD+Rs (at like US$2-3 apiece in bulk?) are about as good as it gets; however, they produce mediocre results in my LG burner. Ritek G04 media (normally "just ok") works exceptionally well in mine, but at the same time there have been a few bad batches of that, and some burners just don't like discs with inkjet printable tops. then there are also rebranding problems (and simply not knowing the media ID until you've paid for and opened the spindle) far worse than anything with CDs, it just goes on and on...
gets a bit hard to make a ton of drives quiet, but if you pick them up during a sale or with rebates or whatever, raid5 doesn't cost much more long-term than using DVDs. funny considering performance, ease of use and reliability are so much better, only downside is noise.
/me puts on asbestos suit

even after saying that, though, i'd still get one if i were you, halfway decent ones are only like $70 now.

P4 EEs are Northwoods with an extra large cache.

McMaster...can I get a link if there is one?

I totally agree with what you're syaing about buying the parts i need not from a kit. But I don't know if there's anything like what I demand where I live (hillbilly town, just add cement buildings). Think I can get silicon washers and maybe even plastic screws at a hardware store? will doubling up silicone washers on a fan mount (2 instead of one per hole) do about the same as a gasket?

Here. "One stop shopping" for the DIYer.

OK, CASE CHANGE!!!!

I checked around and the kingwin KT-424-S is basically the same as the praetorian but $20 cheaper. it even comes with HDD gromets. I don't know how the tooless cage is going to be with vibrations, so input is needed!

Also dropped the lite-on due to reviews on loudness for a sony of equal features (no nero or powerdvd cds tho, errrr).

question: will the zalman AlCu fit the p4p800-e Deluxe?

It will clear the motherboard bracket and components (capacitors, RAM, etc), you just have to make sure that it clears the power supply in your case, because the socket is pretty close to the top of the MB.

It is not on the list of mobos that don't fit.

I'm sure the kingston case won't interfere.....i hope

here's hoping

Oh boy, here it comes: last minute changes.... ugh

Ok, so I saw a couple benchmarks and reviews that say the A64-bit 3000+ will easily destroy a P42.8 in gaming (which is what my system will be for...that and college work).

1) So I'm wondering if I should switch mobo and PCU now ???

2) If I do switch, what is the best mobo for the 3000+ ????

yeah, but not for that reason alone... right now, there's literally no reason to get a P4 over A64. Socket 754 A64s just dropped in price a couple days ago, they were cheaper than equiv P4s to begin with (when equivs even exist), they use less power even without CnQ, and yeah, they sorta beat the crap out of P4s in everything but dvd ripping and other silliness.
there is no "best" mobo, and it depends if you want a socket 754 or 939 mb. just google athlon 64 motherboard review or roundup, tons of reviews on hardware sites in the last couple months. will take a while to inform yourself if you haven't been keeping up (i haven't either, also about to get a new cpu/mb).
the long and short of it is the nForce3 250Gb chipset outperforms whatever the current VIA one is by a big margin in some benchmarks (impressive considering chipset usually makes next to no diff) and loses in none. if you wanna overclock, look for a mb with a PCI/AGP lock.
aside from that, just look for one with what you need on it... otherwise you can spend up to $400 for a PCIe s939 mb with dual gigabit ethernet, like 6 SATA connectors, 4 IDE channels and cables and breakout panels for everything included in the box.

I guess the asus k8v deluxe is the best mobo for the 754 cpu. However, newegg doesn't seem to sell this exact mobo, instead is sells a k8v se deluxe version (without wireless card ). Think the se would be affect anything?

ah, pci express. I'll be looking forward to that in a couple years, but not now. Not enough cards and hardware ready for pci-e. In fact, i probally won't even switch until 2010. While the rest of the upgrading crowd will be selling thier "old" pci and agp cards on ebay, i'll be picking up x800s for pennies.

Are you still planning on getting the Lite-on drive? They make quality burns, but are quite loud from what I hear.

Plextor or samsung drivers might be a better idea (and samsungs probably don't cost too much more either).

It's between sony (CRX320E ) or samsung (SM-352NRNS ) right now. Both are the same price. I'm still debating because i heard the samsing burns slower than other 52x32x52x16 drives. I dunno tho, you tell me

I just compared the K8V and the K8V SE deluxes at Asus' page, can't see any differences at all, only thing that's different besides the name of the mb is that the regular K8V Deluxe says "scalable HyperTransport" and the SE says 800MHz. I have no idea whether the SE is supposed to be a scaled-down version or if it's a newer revision of the same thing or what; if the SE is "supposed" to be "worse" my guess would be that the "scalable" HT in the regular K8V Deluxe may be able to go up to 1000MHz. Even if it can, that shouldn't make any difference, since supposedly there will never be a s754 A64 that uses 1000MHz HT. Looks like wireless support is the same between the two too.
The s939 motherboards were the ones I was looking at first so I still don't know that much about the s754 ones, but I'd still consider the nForce3 250 over the VIA K8T800... presumably the differences between them are about the same regardless of socket. Not much price difference between the K8N-E (nForce) and K8V (VIA) either.

see http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2069
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2004

there was also a review of two Asus s939 mbs that showed even bigger differences between the VIA and nForce3 250 chipsets, but can't find it again, Opera's history sucks.

BUT:
http://www.ocworkbase.com/reviews/13_userreview_trans_am/
and http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1356285
sorry if that was what you actually based it on in the first place, but yeah, the k8n-e's not looking so hot for overclocking either, looks like a new bios should eventually fix it though. i'm just going to wait a week or two and see if things clear up, this sux, i usually prefer asus.

In all the benchmarks I saw on google searches, the nVidia core doesn't perform all that well. Like you said, hopefully a BIOS update will fix that. I usually don't od too much OCing but I plan to try to get the 3000+ to around 2.1- 2.15GHz.

If I can find the K8V Deluxe on newegg before I buy, I'll definately get that instead of the se version. I always prefer the origional over some "new improved feature.....that reduced performance" . Otherwise, my search continues.

Dos_Junkie,

I wouldn't be too concerned with speed. many people here (myself included) burn CDs at less than the max speed of the drive to reduce noise (plus better ensure quality).

I haven't used the sony drives much myself, so I can't really comment on their noise. But I don't think that they are used by many here (implying that they are not very quiet).

After looking over some specs and reviews, you were right. I switched to the samsung only about 10 minutes after your first post. thnx

Ok, I think I have my system finalized. A big thanks to all who helped (donuts for all).

I was thinking about adding a pack of pax mate and enlarging the back 8cm fan to 9.2cm since I have about $55 i saved from my origional idea (improved performance at a lesser cost....who knew?). Maybe some fan vibration isolators from silicon acoustics if the fans bother me too much (or replace the fans, but that's another day)

paxmate -- forget about it. waste of time. too thin too light. That's a case of beer!

what do you suggest for someone on a budget? I prefer not to get that acoustipack (dear god, $60, no thanks).