1st Abit system Please review specs

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chaat
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:18 am
Location: St Cloud, Minnesota

1st Abit system Please review specs

Post by chaat » Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:34 am

Please take a few minutes and look at the specifications for my new system. I am somewhat new to having custom systems built for me. I'm ordering from Monarch. I'm attempting to build a quiet system as I'm a programmer and sit next to it all day. I should also mention that I don't do any gaming. Hence I'm not planning to use multiple video cards. I do however have many tasks running at the same time which hopefully will utilize the dual core processor. I do not plan on doing any overclocking at this point in time. However, I may want to experiment with it in the future.

I want to make sure that there are not any conflicts between the components that I have chosen. I'm somewhat concerned about the passive cooling on the Abit AN8 Ultra, as I've selected an Antec P180 case. Monarch has indicated that the mother board will be inverted in this case. The research that I've done by scanning user forums seems to indicate that the P180 does NOT mount the motherboards inverted. So I'm wondering if I need additional cooling on the NB (?).

thanks for your feedback.

Chuck H.


[html]Code Name Qty Price/Ea Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80311 Monarch Furia Custom Desktop (PCI-E) 1 $59.00 $59.00
Case: 100998 - No PS - Antec Performance One P180 ATX Mi $129.00 $129.00
Power Supply: 100143 - PS 485W - Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX $85.00 $85.00
Case Fan: 100887 - 120mm - Antec 120mm SmartCool Case Fan $18.00 $18.00
Motherboard: 110261 - Abit AN8 Ultra nF4 Audio/GB-LAN/USB/I $127.00 $127.00
Processor: 120364 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core 512K P $340.00 $340.00
Thermal Grease: 800018 - Shin-Etsu G675 Thermal Grease (Coo $14.00 $14.00
Heat Sink Fan: 130099 - Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu Silent CPU Co $46.00 $46.00
Memory: 140736 - DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB DDR (2 pcs 512) OCZ $159.00 $159.00
2nd Memory: None
Hard Drive: 150352 - SATAII - Western Digital Caviar SE 160 $87.00 $87.00
2nd Hard Drive: 150352 - SATAII - Western Digital Caviar SE $87.00 $87.00
RAID Setup: 80012 - RAID 1 (One) $10.00 $10.00
RAID Controller: None
CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW: 160014 - DVD±RW - Lite-On SOHW-1693S $48.00 $48.00
CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160014 - DVD±RW - Lite-On SOHW-1693S 16x8x16x $48.00 $48.00
CD-RW Software: 210613 - Ahead Nero 6.3 Suite DVD+-RW Softw $6.99 $6.99
DVD-ROM Software: 210600 - nVidia nVDVD 2.0 (OEM) $9.00 $9.00
Floppy Drive: 170101 - Mitsumi 1.44 MB 3.5" Floppy Drive $15.25 $15.25
More Storage: None
Sound Card: None
Video Card: 190533 - ATI (Connect3D) Radeon X800 GTO 256MB $185.00 $185.00
Modem: None
Network Card: None
Wireless Network Card: None
Add-On Card: None
Case Function Add-On: None
Round Cables: None
Operating System: 800008 - None - No Software Support /6 Mo
Additional Software: None
Antivirus: None
Warranty: 800007 - 1 Year - Parts & Labor - No Software Sup $19.99 $19.99
Hot Rush: None - Standard Order ( ships within 10-15 busine
Half Life 2 Promotion: 27F854 - FREE Half Life 2 Full Versi
Molex Connector: None
Video Capture: None
TV Tuner: None
Lance Armstrong: 270447 - Lance Armstrong LIVE STRONG wrist
Free Giveaway: 270251 - Patriot Pen Blue and Grey - Free!
FREE Patriot SD USB Flash Kit: 14A502 - 128 MB Patriot SD

Sales Tax: $0.00
Shipping: $0.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: $1,493.23 [/html] :idea:

chaat
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:18 am
Location: St Cloud, Minnesota

Post by chaat » Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:49 pm

bump...

any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I am planning on placing my order on 10/10 in the evening.

thanks

slashdotcomma
Posts: 67
Joined: Thu Nov 13, 2003 6:07 pm
Location: Indiana/Michigan

Post by slashdotcomma » Sun Oct 09, 2005 9:20 pm

80311 Monarch Furia Custom Desktop (PCI-E) 1 $59.00 $59.00
Case: 100998 - No PS - Antec Performance One P180 ATX Mi $129.00 $129.00
Good case
Power Supply: 100143 - PS 485W - Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX $85.00 $85.00
relatively good power supply
Case Fan: 100887 - 120mm - Antec 120mm SmartCool Case Fan $18.00 $18.00
:shock: deselect this option and install your own nexus later (it's not hard)
Motherboard: 110261 - Abit AN8 Ultra nF4 Audio/GB-LAN/USB/I $127.00 $127.00
Processor: 120364 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual-Core 512K P $340.00 $340.00
Thermal Grease: 800018 - Shin-Etsu G675 Thermal Grease (Coo $14.00 $14.00

(pricey upgrade don't know if it's really worth it, a tube of as5 is 1/2 this cost)
Heat Sink Fan: 130099 - Zalman CNPS7000B-AlCu Silent CPU Co $46.00 $46.00
(not bad, but the ninja or the xp-120 is better (xp-120 roughly the same price too) unfortunately they don't have either of the two as an option :(
Memory: 140736 - DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB DDR (2 pcs 512) OCZ $159.00 $159.00
(if you're not gaming, more ram would be better than fast ram, so the cheapest 2x1gb sticks will work)
2nd Memory: None
Hard Drive: 150352 - SATAII - Western Digital Caviar SE 160 $87.00 $87.00
(not bad, but they do have the option for samsungs or seagates, but choice is yours, price pretty good too)
2nd Hard Drive: 150352 - SATAII - Western Digital Caviar SE $87.00 $87.00
RAID Setup: 80012 - RAID 1 (One) $10.00 $10.00
RAID Controller: None
CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW: 160014 - DVD±RW - Lite-On SOHW-1693S $48.00 $48.00
CD-RW/DVD-RW: 160014 - DVD±RW - Lite-On SOHW-1693S 16x8x16x $48.00 $48.00
CD-RW Software: 210613 - Ahead Nero 6.3 Suite DVD+-RW Softw $6.99 $6.99
DVD-ROM Software: 210600 - nVidia nVDVD 2.0 (OEM) $9.00 $9.00
Floppy Drive: 170101 - Mitsumi 1.44 MB 3.5" Floppy Drive $15.25 $15.25
More Storage: None
Sound Card: None
Video Card: 190533 - ATI (Connect3D) Radeon X800 GTO 256MB $185.00 $185.00
Modem: None
Network Card: None
Wireless Network Card: None
Add-On Card: None
Case Function Add-On: None
Round Cables: None
Operating System: 800008 - None - No Software Support /6 Mo
Additional Software: None
Antivirus: None
Warranty: 800007 - 1 Year - Parts & Labor - No Software Sup $19.99 $19.99
Hot Rush: None - Standard Order ( ships within 10-15 busine
Half Life 2 Promotion: 27F854 - FREE Half Life 2 Full Versi
Molex Connector: None
Video Capture: None
TV Tuner: None
Lance Armstrong: 270447 - Lance Armstrong LIVE STRONG wrist
Free Giveaway: 270251 - Patriot Pen Blue and Grey - Free!
FREE Patriot SD USB Flash Kit: 14A502 - 128 MB Patriot SD



well, overall it's pretty good, however if you're willing to do a little work(especially the fan), you can save a lot of money and get bettter performance (and even quieter too)

EDIT: hope I'm doing this right, so here it goes!

Welcome to SPCR!!

~El~Jefe~
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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:42 pm

hm. needs a later dealign with fans and such, fan controls too.

psu is a good psu. just not silent. not loud though, decent.

the zalman isnt silent but it sure is quieter than many other options. the xp120 or the ninja might be in order at a later date.
i personaly recommend keeping things as is, changing adding front fans and using controllers for a while.

then. when you desire more silence, you go get a Zalman reserator1 plus. pricey, yes, but, might be a worthwhile investment for a performance system.

kinda solves much with a single purchase. or you could go a few nexus 120 fans and xp120, probably a lot cheaper and easier to install.

computer wise, its a great system.

OH forgot to add!!!!!!!!!!!
Get 2 gigs of ram, a common brand, quality type that could be purchased again when you make it 4 gigs. in a year youll need 4.

right now, you need 2 gigs. 1 gig is icky. i have slower ram now but i have 2 gigs vs 1 and ALL my programs and games run faster. so..... it's the way to go. and, youre spending so much, might as well bump it up right?

afrost
Posts: 141
Joined: Thu May 01, 2003 9:42 am

Post by afrost » Mon Oct 10, 2005 9:01 pm

i disagree that you will need 4 gigs in a year.

unless you are using it as a workstation for engineering etc. games are the only thing that push a system like this.

it is pointless to get four gigs of RAM unless you have one serious video card. vid cards and games aren't going to change THAT much in the next year.

if you are doing finite element analysis or 3d rendering then get four gigs.....otherwise 2 gigs should future proof you for two years minimum. In two years if you just bump up your vid card this computer should still fly at standard monitor resolutions.

sthayashi
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Posts: 3214
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2003 10:06 am
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Post by sthayashi » Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:09 pm

I wasn't going to comment on this since this was a fairly lengthy list that was pasted without too much thought. I also thought that someone else would point this out:

It seems obvious to me that the loud part of this system is going to be the Lance Armstrong LIVE STRONG wristband. Though the Blue/Gray Patriot Pen may be a close second.

The No Support and Lack of Antivirus will be the next loudest parts after the things mentioned in the previous paragraph. Followed by the Round Cables and Wireless Network Card.

Finally, your last noise points will be the Lite-On DVD-drive, which though famous for their quality are also infamous for their noise around here (i.e. I've only heard complaints here, no praising). The Video card isn't known for being quiet, so that will be another noise point after the DVD drive(s).

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