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I'm thinking of building a system in the next week or so since my current one is dying. Comments?

AMD Opteron 165 (2x1.8GHz/1MB cores) or Athlon X2 3800 (2x2.0GHz/512K) CPU
2GB RAM (probably Mushkin Green Label)
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
NV GF 6600GT
40GB Raptor 10K SATA HD (boot, will cannibalize current 250GB 7.2K PATA drive for data)
Pioneer or NEC DVD+/-RW
Chaintech AV-710 sound card
Scythe Ninja CPU heatsink
Zalman VF700AlCu GPU heatsink/fan
Antec P180 case
Seasonic S12-380W PSU

I'll probably try and overclock the machine to 2.4GHz or so.

You planning on adding a fan to that heatsink?

from the manufacturer's specs:
"This product is not recommended to use with a high CPU frequency under the fanless mode. If you plan to use this item under fanless mode, your CPU load should be limited to low-middle loading. For high-end usage, we recommend to use an optional 120mm fan. Please use this product at your own risk."

What's the intended role of this machine? Light, heavy gaming? Any multimedia editing? Sending folksy emails to gramma?

Looks like you're going whole-hog on the CPU (an Opteron? I see there's more cache there but is that really going to make a big difference?) and skimping a little on the GPU... which seems a little odd if you're purchasing a third-party heatsink/fan for it.

For only ~$50 more you could double the capacity of that Raptor - you'd get more gigabytes for your buck.

Yes, but in the P180 case there are two fans very close to where the Ninja would be. I'll be experimenting - might put a Nexus 120mm on it if neccessary for the overclock.

Bigger GPU needed.

phongn wrote:I'm thinking of building a system in the next week or so since my current one is dying. Comments?

AMD Opteron 165 (2x1.8GHz/1MB cores) or Athlon X2 3800 (2x2.0GHz/512K) CPU
2GB RAM (probably Mushkin Green Label)
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
NV GF 6600GT
40GB Raptor 10K SATA HD (boot, will cannibalize current 250GB 7.2K PATA drive for data)
Pioneer or NEC DVD+/-RW
Chaintech AV-710 sound card
Scythe Ninja CPU heatsink
Zalman VF700AlCu GPU heatsink/fan
Antec P180 case
Seasonic S12-380W PSU

I'll probably try and overclock the machine to 2.4GHz or so.

Anandtech's recent OC of the x2 3800 showed us some useful things. For instance, 2 gigs of ram really is still overkill, as is fancy non-generic ram, at least for the price.

The x2 3800+ is a great OC'er too, though I also hear great stuff about the opertons. Note that the x2 3800+'s stock HSF allows of PLENTY of overclocking, unsure about the opertons. As an aside, according to anandtech, the 2.4ghz appears to be the 3800+'s sweet spot, and seems easy to reach w/ the stock HSF.

It's double the money, but I think a 7800 gt would really be a worthwhile upgrade. I know I would much perfer 1 gig of value ram and a 7800 gt to a 6600 gt and 2 gigs of non-value ram (or even 2 gigs of value-ram for that matter...). This is assuming, of course, you haven't found any fancy deals (I saw 2 gigs of corsair (1x1024) for like 100 bucks on slickdeals the other day...)

Ace Pace will be around in a couple of minutes to whore the DFI motherboards since you said the magic word "Overclock".

Oh and you might want to consider something like the Antec smart power PSUs, very quiet, my 450watt is great, and they're not terribly expensive. (no idea how the seasonic's are, but I'm sure they're just fine too).

2 gigs is certainly not overkill for Battlefield 2, nor will it be overkill forever.

It's always nice to have ample headroom.

Not really enough amperage on the 5V & 12V line on that power supply. Ideally you should be looking at +26amp on the 12V line.

From the reviews on that powersupply, I've found it only supplies 20A on the 12V line, which isnt nearly enough headroom if you are going to overclock and add more harddrives later.

Overclocking will add to it, to be sure, and headroom is good, but I'm stumped as to how you came up with 26 amps. The 3800 X2 has a draw of 5.5 amps, and the video card is going to be less than 2.

General comments:

As a note, my budget is in the $1300-1400 range including S&H. I am also seeking to build a relatively quiet machine (hence the P180 - not a cheap case, and the cooling choices). I do some gaming, surfing the web, development and a few other things.

Mushkin Green Label is their value line. Yes, I want 2GB of RAM for future growth and the occasional large Photoshop document (and Civ4).

An Opteron 165 and an Athlon X2 3800 are roughly comparable; but I do some occasional media work that would benefit from large caches.

DFI motherboards do not have passive cooling and they are a bit of a price premium - then I'd have to shove a Zalman heatsink on it (more $$)

The S12-380 puts out 10A on the +12V and 21A on the +5V. I expect this to be sufficient for my needs.

The 74GB Raptor is under consideration.

I havn't yet used the Raptor extensively(just threw it into a friends PC) but its fucking blazing fast loading shit. usful as hell if like me you value that kind of stuff.

If you are into gaming, then you're going to be severely hamstrung by that graphics card, unless you're gonna be gaming at 800X600.

Tiger Ace wrote:I havn't yet used the Raptor extensively(just threw it into a friends PC) but its fucking blazing fast loading shit. usful as hell if like me you value that kind of stuff.

In high school our media lab computers had 10K SCSI drives in them.

If you are into gaming, then you're going to be severely hamstrung by that graphics card, unless you're gonna be gaming at 800X600.

I mostly play older and/or less intensive games - Civ4, HW2, RTW, etc. If they're good, I'll also be getting Supreme Commander and Spore. I am not really into games like BF2.

phongn wrote:

Tiger Ace wrote:I havn't yet used the Raptor extensively(just threw it into a friends PC) but its fucking blazing fast loading shit. usful as hell if like me you value that kind of stuff.

In high school our media lab computers had 10K SCSI drives in them.

If you are into gaming, then you're going to be severely hamstrung by that graphics card, unless you're gonna be gaming at 800X600.

I mostly play older and/or less intensive games - Civ4, HW2, RTW, etc. If they're good, I'll also be getting Supreme Commander and Spore. I am not really into games like BF2.

I heavily doubt that HW2(PDS), Supreme commander or Spore will not be graphics intensive, nevermind RTW which likes a fast GPU for high quality. But it will work *shrug* if you're spending that much on the CPU, you could also throw in abit stronger GPU, such as the 6800GS.

Your HS had a better budget then mine. We're happy with these P3s and barely quantifiable p4s.

Tiger Ace wrote:I heavily doubt that HW2(PDS), Supreme commander or Spore will not be graphics intensive, nevermind RTW which likes a fast GPU for high quality. But it will work *shrug* if you're spending that much on the CPU, you could also throw in abit stronger GPU, such as the 6800GS.

I currently play HW2/PDS and RTW on an R8500LE. An NV6600GT will be a huge improvement.

Your HS had a better budget then mine. We're happy with these P3s and barely quantifiable p4s.

We got a lot of grants since we kicked ass at competitions

Uraniun235 wrote:2 gigs is certainly not overkill for Battlefield 2, nor will it be overkill forever.

It's always nice to have ample headroom.

It's nice, but you can always add it in later, especially if you are on a budget now, I would definatly encourage 1gig and a 7800gt over 2gigs and a 6600 gt, if those were your options.

Note that This Review shows that the difference between generic 1 gig and "PDP" (non generic?) 2gigs in BF2 never going above 3 fps.

hrm, looks like my previous linky was bad

Back to the subject though...

If you want to cut another corner, the ABIT KN8 SLI is passively cooled and is about 50 bucks less than the Asus SLI premium. I've heard a few complaints that the layout isn't the best in the world, but, it is an alternative. Both should overclock just fine, I'd suspect.

InnocentBystander wrote:It's nice, but you can always add it in later, especially if you are on a budget now, I would definatly encourage 1gig and a 7800gt over 2gigs and a 6600 gt, if those were your options.

Even if I drop to 1GB it'll cost me ~$1500 inc. S&H, which is a bit higher than I really wanted to spend, but I'll consider it.

If you want to cut another corner, the ABIT KN8 SLI is passively cooled and is about 50 bucks less than the Asus SLI premium. I've heard a few complaints that the layout isn't the best in the world, but, it is an alternative. Both should overclock just fine, I'd suspect.

The Abit motherboard removed the legacy ports and thus is not under consideration.

Approx Prices at ZZF (free shipping)
x2 3800+ - 320
1 gig Ram - 100
Sound card - 30
DVD rw - 50
HD - 150
Mobo - 150
Case - 120
PSU - 60
7800gt - 300
Cooling - ???

Did I miss anything? That is likely a bit over 1300 with cooling (not sure on it's price tho).

Free shipping isn't happening with that case. The Ninja HS is $40 and the VF700-AlCu is $27. The Mushkin 2x1GB pack is only $150, so I'm getting that:

EDIT: Okay, I just bought the stuff from ze Newegg ...

AMD Opteron 165 CPU
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
Seasonic S12 380W PSU
eVGA NV7800GT GPU
Antec P180 case
Scythe Ninja HS
Zalman VF700-AlCu GPU HSF
Pioneer DVR-110 DVD+/-RW
WD Raptor 10K 74GB HD
Mitsumi FDD/Flash Card Reader
Arctic Silver Ceramique TIM
Arctic Silver Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier
Mushkin Green Label 2x1GB PC3200 SDRAM
Chaintech AV-710 Sound Card

Came out to $1537 inc. S&H - yeah, I exceeded my budget a bit but since this computer is to last some years, I think it's all right.