Thread: Proposed System
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Old October 9th 03, 11:14 AM
J.Clarke
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On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 00:58:09 GMT
(Thunder9) wrote:

The following is my first home built system (proposed):

Goals: Home theater, versatility, fast, quiet. Budget: $2000


Other than home theater what do you plan to be doing with it?

If you're looking for quiet, do you know about
http://www.silentpcreview.com?

$80 Full Tower Case
http://www.directron.com/ma01bd.html
Black is awesome. Full tower allows me to put this on the floor next
to my digital piano (Clavinova CVP 109) and have easy access to
optical media at the top of the box. Also, full tower makes air flow
easier to manage for better cooling = quieter.


If you want quiet optimize for quiet and then put it on a stand to get
the height. The MA01BD is probably not the best starting point for a
quiet machine. If you want a reasonably quiet case out of the box then
go with an Antec Sonata, which you can further silence with suitable
mods. An SLK-3700 or an Evercase 4252 would be a good starting point if
you're planning on modding though. The Sonata, SLK, and Evercase all
have provision for rubber-mounting the drives--the Antecs come with the
pieces, I'm not clear on whether the Evercase does--it's cut to fit the
E.A.R. drive mounts available from McMaster though.

$20 Wheel set to go with above.

$70 Super Tornado 300. Silent power supply.


Depends on your current draw--if in normal operation you're going to be
above 150 watts draw then the Super Silencer 400 might be a better bet.
If you mod it with a Panaflo fan it might end up as quiet as the 300 at
low power as well.

?? Video Board. Probably an ATI AIW.


The AIW may be problematical--they work fine, but your choices are a
low-end board with poor gaming performance, a high end with excellent
gaming performance but also high power draw and a need for heavy
cooling, or a midrange that hasn't shipped yet with no DVI output.

If you are planning on using the machine to view off-the-air HDTV (if
you haven't _seen_ HDTV then see it--it's worthwhile) then a Sapphire
9600 Ultimate with a Dvico FusionHDTV II board might be a good bet. The
9600 isn't as fast as the 9800s but it's still no slouch, and consumes
less power and generates less heat--the "ultimate" version is
passive-cooled.

If you decide to go with an All-In-Wonder your choice is pretty much the
9800 Pro AIW--if you want quiet replace the stock cooler with a Zalman
ZM-80C-HP (note the "C"--some of the earlier Zalman ZM-80 models won't
fit the AIW because they aren't cut to clear the tuner). If you go with
the 9800 though the 300 watt power supply is very likely to prove
inadequate.

$170 CPU. P4 2.4 Ghz 800 Mhz FSB. The lowest speed CPU that has 800
MHz FSB will be the lowest heat producing CPU in that class.
Undervolt this baby for even less heat.


Good bet--probably not necessary to undervolt or underclock though. Put
an SLK-900 on it with a 92mm fan and either a fan speed controller or a
power reducer it and it should be fine.

$200 Motherboard. Gigabyte GA-8KNXP. 800 MHz front side bus.
Integrated audio. BIOS can undervolt (this isn't confirmed yet) the
CPU which will allow me to possible shave off a few degrees
(cooler=quieter). Underclocking may be required, and is supported.
Heat sensors and intelligent fan control. A separate bus for onboard
SATA means fast access to hard drive for data/media that won't be
interrupted by PCI info (Operating system drives, optical media, etc.)
Onboard sound, firewire and USB.


If the separate bus is important to you (in the real world it isn't
going to make much difference unless you're doing something _really_
heavy duty) then consider an Opteron machine.

For most folks onboard sound with a good board is adequate these
days--given that you mention a piano it's possible that your standards
are higher than "most people's" and you may need to consider an
audiophile board. Can't really advise there.

$200 Kingston 512MB 400MHz DDR X 2.


Personally I'd go with Crucial.

$300 Three Seagate 120GB SATA Serial ATA Barracuda 7200.7 drives.
Very quiet drives.


Check the numbers--I don't recall whether the 7200.7s are currently the
quietest Seagates or not. In any case, do be aware that the
single-platter Barracudas are quieter than the multiple-platter. On a
case with shock-mounts for the drives this won't make a lot of
difference, on a case with rigid mounts it might.

$80 CDRW. Plextor PX-W4824TA 48X24X48. This optical drive is CD+G
compatible (I want to do some Karaoke).

$500 17" LCD. Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT Flat Panel. 20 ms pixel
response insures fast media and game playing action. Wall mountable
option will allow me to mod a set up to place this on my digital piano
where my music stand is! If it weren't for the 20ms systems, I would
most certainly be going for an EIZO L565.

Total Cost: $1700. Still need to decide on: Video board. DVD ROM.


If you can afford it the LG-GSA-4040B might be a good bet--it's the only
one on the market that handles _all_ current DVD formats--DVD+/-R/RW
_and_ DVD-RAM.

Good heat sinks. Good fans.


In addition to the fans, consider a fan controller if you're going for
quiet.

Grand Total Cost: Right about$2000

Regards,
Thunder9



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