New A64 System

raczyk · Post by **raczyk** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:00 pm

Been a long time reader, and about to built by first quiet rig.
Here is the parts list:

CPU AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz Socket 939
RAM Corsair 1024MB PC-3200 C2 - TWINX1024-3200C2
MB Asus A8N-SLI Premium
Case ANTEC SLK3700BQE (have it)
DVD Drive NEC ND3520 DVD Writer 4x Dual Layer (have it)

CPU Heatsink xp-120
Fan Controller Fanmate 2
Connector 3 Pin Y Molex Adapter
*Fan Mounts SilenX Fan Mounts 4-pack
Case Fans 2 x Nexus 120 mm fan
Thermal Compound Arctic Silver 5 3.5g

In the future I will upgrade the Processor and add more RAM to the sytem. I will not be using SLI, just getting the Asus for the chipset heatpipe. Will have three 120mm fans in the system. With regards to future memory upgrades, do I have to purchase the same type of RAM i.e. timings, manugacture and size? Another thing is I will most likely overclock the system a bit in the future, will that RAM be okay for that task? Any suggestion for a Hard drive?Any other suggestions?

Cheers!

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:22 pm

Looks like a good build. As far as hard drives go, I would get a Seagate. Anywhere from 160-250 GB would be good depending on your storage needs and old drives you may have. Samsung drives may be quieter, but they're also more expensive. It depends on your tolerance for noise/cost.

Also did you forget to include the GPU? That sometimes makes alot of heat/noise too

. For the RAM, I believe the slots are paired, that's why you buy paired RAM. If you buy individual sticks you have to make sure they're the same, but two different pairs of DDR SDRAM should work fine together. As far as overclocking your RAM, you might want to dig around on anandtech.com. They do testing on overclocking RAM.

Personally, I would go with Papst fans. They're usually harder to find, but if you're going to use a fanmate to slow them down, they're just as quiet as Nexus fans to my ears and move more air, which might be necessary if you will be overclocking.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 8:38 pm

i agree with the papst.

the nexus fans at low voltage often dont start, I have read at least. papst always starts at 5volts and pushes decent air at that level.

One could mix fans though. Papst in my mind is meant for more important parts of the computer, such as gpu and cpu. intake and exhaust would be fine with a nexus 120 id imagine.

raczyk · Post by **raczyk** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:01 am

Also did you forget to include the GPU?

For now I will be using a passive PCI slot video card.
Any idea if the Maxtor HD's are good. They have a 16MB cache.

One could mix fans though.

Yeap, thats exactly my plan, 120mm nexus fans for intake and exhaust (controlled though one Fanmate 2). And a 120mm Antec fan for the CPU, controlled my QnQ and Q-fan2 (if that is possible).

dhutch · Post by **dhutch** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:03 pm

In a simular vain, im planning this:

Case. . Q-Tec EL-Micro Case With 300W Power Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £25.73
Mobo. . Gigabyte K8NMF-9 K8-939 nForce4 fsb1600Mhz uATX . . . . . . .. . .. . £50.51
. . or . Foxconn NF48MA-KS uATX S939 nForce, SATA. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . 52.06*
CPU. . AMD Athlon 64 3000 32/64Bit S939 Venice 90nm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £82.60
RAM. . 1Gb (2x512Mb) Corsair, DDR400/PC3200,CL2.5, . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . £65.33
HDD. . Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache . . . . . .. . . . . £58.46
G Card. . .256Mb Gigabyte PCI-E GV RX80256D-X800 DDRIII Silent Heatpipe . £124.83
Cpu cooler Akasa AK-859 Paxpower Pure Copper Heat Sink Fan. . . . . . . . . .. . £21.02
. . . . NEC ND-3540A 16x DVD±RW DualLayer DVD-Writer, OEM .. . . . .. . . . . . £28.96
. . . . 1.44Mb Sony Silver Floppy Disk Drive OEM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . £4.34
. . . . 45cm Akasa SATAII Blue HDD Cable, w/R.angle connector. . . . . . . . .. . £2.69
. . . . 60cm Akasa Round IDE Cable ATA-133 Certified. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £2.93
. . . . 45cm Akasa Round Floppy Drive Cable . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . £1.63

Daniel

stromgald · Post by **stromgald** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:52 pm

I wouldn't recommend Maxtor HDDs. They aren't quiet, and from what I've seen Western Digital and Seagate drives are more reilable. The 16MB cache might give you a slight boost in performance, but I don't think its noticable. If you want performance, Western Digital Raptors are the best, but are extremely noisy. I use Seagates mostly because of their quietness, longer warranty, and fairly good prices. If you want a silent computer, you'll have to go for suspended Samsung drives. But it doesnt seem like you're going that route since you're overclocking with air cooling.

BTW, you might want to think about investing in a good graphics card. I'm not sure why you want to overclock, but if its for games, a PCI graphics card won't do . . . unless you meant PCIe. Gigabyte passively cooled 6600GTs are nice and can be used with SLI in the future.

Dhutch: I haven't had any experience with that case, but since its small you'll have to really watch out for heat. I haven't worked with that CPU cooler either. I would suggest getting a Zalman 7000AlCu instead. Also, watch out for the PSU, 300W isnt much to be running an X800 graphics card on.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 9:23 pm

I also like the Western Digital drives, especially with this mounting system:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=10450

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 2:54 am

The 200 gb Spinpoint SATA2 has a swell mix of silence and performance,and I don't see much price gap-though other brands do seem to have more special sales or rebates. This shopping list does not seem to sacrafice performance/silence to price very much. So if I was getting picky about which RAM and going ASUS over Abit,I'd go with a Samsung SATA 2

You don't mention PSU. How much PSU fans help the case fans is something to consider

Dirty-Harry · Post by **Dirty-Harry** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:24 am

stromgald wrote:I wouldn't recommend Maxtor HDDs. They aren't quiet, and from what I've seen Western Digital and Seagate drives are more reilable.

From my personal experience I would have to say the EXACT opposite is true. I had several WD hard drives, one was to noisy (whining BAD) the other just died on me. I had two Seagates go bad in three months. The Seagates are very quiet though, except when they're dead they are extremely quiet.

I can not hear my Matxor SATA 250GB hard drive. I put my ear next to it and I can't hear it. My noisiest component is my Zalman CNPS7000B-ALCU.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 3:40 pm

Dirty-Harry wrote:From my personal experience I would have to say the EXACT opposite is true. I had several WD hard drives, one was to noisy (whining BAD) the other just died on me.

Were the WD drives made in 2005 with the new Fluid Dynamic Bearings? Things change, and consumers need to adapt, and stop viewing the world through a rear view mirror.

dhutch · Post by **dhutch** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 12:03 pm

Yeah, i've heard the maxtors are quite good now.

I have a 120gb DM+9, and its lot quieter then the whiny old 60gb DM+ D740X in this pc, and i guess it would be fine (the DM+9).
Although i'd still prefer the quietest, wouldnt we all!

Daniel

Dirty-Harry · Post by **Dirty-Harry** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:11 am

m0002a wrote:
Dirty-Harry wrote:From my personal experience I would have to say the EXACT opposite is true. I had several WD hard drives, one was to noisy (whining BAD) the other just died on me.
Were the WD drives made in 2005 with the new Fluid Dynamic Bearings? Things change, and consumers need to adapt, and stop viewing the world through a rear view mirror.

No, the WD drives were not made in 2005. This WAS / IS NOT my opinion it was a personal experience. People do use Hard Drives that are older then one year.

I don't know what the heck you're say with this statement: stop viewing the world through a rear view mirror