Building a new system for business and personal use and I'm a bit stuck on the video card. I've lurked over the years and gotten a lot of good tips here.
E8400 wolfdale
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 sink
Xigmatek ACK-117751 retention bracket
Nexus 120mm fan
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
Corsair 4GB PC800
WD VelociRaptor 300GB
Hitachi E7K1000 1TB
Samsung 20X lightscribe burner
Enermax Modu82+ 425W PS
Lian Li PC-60FB (140mm front fan 120mm rear)
I'm looking at ATI cards due to lower current draw. The HIS 4670 1GB card with the Zalman passive cooler looked promising but it doesn't seem to clear the memory banks on most (or any?) P45 boards.
Any suggestions or comments on the system in general are welcome. I do a fair about of SQR database housekeeping so the storage subsystem is more important than the GPU and I don't require a high current draw CPU. The system is critical so reliability is #1 no overclocking and only occasional gaming.
oc
Need advice on video card
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
4670 is an excellent choice, but get a 512MB version since 1GB is overkill for that card. The 1GB models usually run the memory slower as well, resulting in a more expensive card that's actually slower as well.
Some 4670 cards has GDDR4 memory instead of the standard GDDR3. Those cards are slightly faster but cost a bit more.
Some 4670 cards has GDDR4 memory instead of the standard GDDR3. Those cards are slightly faster but cost a bit more.
If you are comfortable with doing a heatsink swap on your graphics card, a 4670 + an Accelero S1 could do the trick. With reasonable airflow in your case, you could probably run this cooler passively without a fan for the 4670.
If the slight bit of gaming you intend to do is remotely demanding, the alternative passive Asus version of the 3450 that I've used in my HTPC wouldn't do you much good. There are other cards with factory included passive heatsinks that might do the trick though. From memory there are a few passive Nvidia 9600GTs, and finding passive lower powered cards isn't that hard (bearing in mind they may be inadequate for any gaming ...)
Some general comments:
You might want to swap or undervolt the included Lian Li case fans. Presuming the one Nexus 120mm you've listed is for the heatsink, you should probably look at buying another one of those for the rear exhaust fan. Also, Yate Loon make a couple of versions of a 140mm fan, so buy the lower speed one of those fans, undervolt it, and put it in the front intake position.
You might also wish to consider removing the hard drive cage and suspending your hard drives instead.
Finally, as this case is aluminium, you might need to buy some acoustic damping foam for the case (eg Acoustipack) to reduce noise and vibrations.
My $0.02 anyway. Hope it helps.
If the slight bit of gaming you intend to do is remotely demanding, the alternative passive Asus version of the 3450 that I've used in my HTPC wouldn't do you much good. There are other cards with factory included passive heatsinks that might do the trick though. From memory there are a few passive Nvidia 9600GTs, and finding passive lower powered cards isn't that hard (bearing in mind they may be inadequate for any gaming ...)
Some general comments:
You might want to swap or undervolt the included Lian Li case fans. Presuming the one Nexus 120mm you've listed is for the heatsink, you should probably look at buying another one of those for the rear exhaust fan. Also, Yate Loon make a couple of versions of a 140mm fan, so buy the lower speed one of those fans, undervolt it, and put it in the front intake position.
You might also wish to consider removing the hard drive cage and suspending your hard drives instead.
Finally, as this case is aluminium, you might need to buy some acoustic damping foam for the case (eg Acoustipack) to reduce noise and vibrations.
My $0.02 anyway. Hope it helps.