Ordering new computer ~2 weeks!

[Mehen]

By then I'll have a) my first paycheck, b) my GIC will be available*, c) waited long enough!
*GIC becomes available May 5th

Anyways, here's how its looking so far. I don't think it'll change much, but I/we have 2 weeks of input:
(priced from NCIX.com in Canadian Dollars, prices are with mail-in rebates)

ASUS Rampage Formula X48 $313.66
Core 2 Quad Q9450 $394.99
G. Skill 2x2GB DDR2-1000 5-5-5-12 $104.99
Corsair HX520 $89.98
Galaxy 9800GTX $289.99

Thermalright HR-03 GT $54.99 (vid)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme $64.98 (cpu)
Noctua 120mm 1200rpm $18.99 (cpu)
Noctua 92mm 1300-1600rpm $18.99 (vid)

$1351.56 + shipping & 5% GST ~1500 total.

I'll be keeping my Antec P182, 250GB + 500GB WD SATA drives, 2xLG burners (one CD, one DL-DVD), and 3.5" floppy

PS: I know I could save a lot by going with 8800GT/Q6600/X38, but I really want this machine to last as long as possible.

Everyone seems to say that the Noctua fans are really good - but they are almost double the price of some other brands - are they really worth it?

[UtwigMU]

Get the new raptor for boot come June. Work out your MS licensing/activation arround that event. It's not such a PITA, I once cloned PATA HDD fom AMD with XP Home to Intel box with SATA and it activated fine.

And if burners are not SATA yet, consider newish boards with Intel chipset have only 1 native PATA port.

Great choice on Corsair/Seasonic PSU.

Though personally for that kind of money I'd get Thinkpad X61s (probably my next rig, possibly X61 Tablet or old pimped out X31). My desktop is still NF7S, XP 2500+@2.2, 2GB, Parhelia, 3 HDDs.

[Mehen]

Yeah that velociraptor looks pretty sweet. Checking on some more benchmarks right now. I could always get another 500gb (which are dirt cheap) and get some sort of RAID config goin - would save a lot of $ that way.

1 PATA = 2 devices though right?
X48 Rampage Formula

Southbridge
6 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports
Intel Matrix Storage Technology Support RAID 0,1,5,10
JMicron® JMB368 PATA controller
1 xUltraDMA 133/100/66/33 for up to 2 PATA devices

edit: looked at some benchmarks, looks like the VelociRaptor is quite a bit quicker (~35%) booting up windows than some of 7200rpm drives. Haven't found many other load time benchmarks. There are tons of read/write/access time benchmarks out there, but its hard to say how noticable the differences would be in the real world.

edit2: link to the asus board, price and specs, http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=ASUS - damn that thing comes with a lot of stuff!

[ZokesPro]

It's about freakin' time!

[Dr Mordrid]

edit2: link to the asus board, price and specs, http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=ASUS - damn that thing comes with a lot of stuff!

Jezzzz...it's the Supercarrier of mainboards

[Mehen]

It looks pretty, thats why im gettin it

Kinda wish it had wireless, no biggy though.

[Mehen]

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/25/graphzilla-prepping-early-g200

Well it looks like NV might be pushing up the launch date of their next big GPU (the G200... hrmmm, I think someone else made a G200...), if so I'll wait a little longer to splurge. Might just get a 9600GT or 8800GT to tide me over instead of the 9800GTX. Hopfully we'll get some more confirmation on this next week.

[Mehen]

Here's a thought - why not just keep the original card in the computer? It is 2x 16xPCIE afterall... Maybe I'll get a good tv-out type card. It'll allow me to have 3-4 monitors total. Or just have my tv + 2 monitors, which would be nice, rather than having to disable one monitor when I want to use TV-OUT.
Gotta find something decently powerful, but lower power and heat...
And I'd probably go with the HX620 PSU instead of the 520.
Hrmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Mehen]

Here's a likely candidate, it'll tide me over gaming-wise for a few months, and then it'll make a great secondary card: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=ASUS
ASUS 9600GT - w/ HDMI! $163

I'll have to check on this:

Note: To enable HDMI audio out function, a motherboard with internal S/PDIF header and the correct connection of S/PDIF cable with graphics card and motherboard are needed.

[Mehen]

Well, here it is, and gonna upgrade the video card, probably with a 9900GTX when it comes out:

ASUS Rampage Formula X48 DDR2 2x PCI-E 16x $313
Core 2 Quad 9450 2.66 1333fsb 12mb $395
G.Skill PC2-8000 (DDR2-1000) 5-5-5-15 2x2GB $115

Palit 9600GT w/ HDMI $130 after MIR!! - and it gave free shipping on the entire order!! Probably saved me another $50!

Corsair 620HX PSU $115 after MIR

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme $65
Noctua 120mm 1200rpm fan $19

Ordered and paid for. Might have to wait awhile for everything to come in.

[Mehen]

The CPU is out of stock, with an ETA of May 12th! Probably be 2 weeks before I get it all together, it'll be worth the wait though. Wonder how close I can get to the top MURC 3Dmark scores with a $130 video card...

edit: 5/6 - everything but the CPU was shipped today, hopfully here by the end of the week. I'll post some pics of the fancy mobo and the video card when they get here.

[Mehen]

CPU shipped today, probably won't be here till Tuesday though (Monday is a Holiday)

[Evildead666]

Dang, almost exact config I have just built, nearer to my bro's tho...he also got the Rampage Formula with his 9450, but stopped at 3.2GHz like me...(he does have 8Gb of RAM tho...).

As for boot disks, i have used Raptors in my last 3 but one machines.
Yes, they are fast, no they are not that noticeably fast.
They also don't like overclocked boards too much, considering I have had three raptors, 36,72 and 150Gb, and have had problems with all 3 on overclocked platforms.
A standard 7.2K drove will be fine, go Raid for speed. (if you still have the bloody floppy drive to install Windows on it...)

btw, I had to update the BIOS before I could install windows without crashing, cos the Mobo didn't fully recognise it.
Lucky as balls that the ASUS EZ-flash accepts USB Sticks as a storage platform, since it couldn't see the PATA CDrom drive...
Once flashed from BIOS 0807 to 1201 (or so) it works fine...so it was shipped with a pretty old BIOS.
Be warned


Also, don't forget that this is a crossfire platform, and going ATi-AMD might be a good choice for the next gen...i'm looking very hard at the new X2 cards, since they will finally be sharing the GPU memory, No longer 2x512Mb, but a real unified memory arch for the GPU's, should be really really good.
Just have to wait for the numbers...

[Mehen]

Well the 4xxx series should be out in a month or two, so that might be an option.

The 9600GT is definitely just something to tide me over for a months months, not a long-term card.