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Thread ID: 81825	2007-08-08 09:14:00	Motherboard Advice Wanted, which one?	Murray P (44)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
578227	2007-08-08 09:14:00	Hi folks, it's time to spend some dosh and because I'm a bit rusty on the finer details, I want you to help me spend it. First of all, here's the scope: I'm replacing a PC, the whole deal. I'm an AMD fanboy, well oldish geezer actually, so there's no need to espouse the merits of this or that brand of chip. Uh uh, I said N O discussion. Yeah right! Main use is for business, the usual suspects, but including opening tons of 6M+ images at once and then making them bigger by editing in Photo Shop (when I do this, I can have several hundred images thumb-nailed in Irfanview with perhaps 20 to 30 open in PS). Of course, I may want to stretch the legs of this system with an occasional graphics intensive game. Being primarily a business machine, I'll also have a robust backup system. As part of the robustness I require, I will raid a couple of discs and probably throw more in later, on top of having external SATA. I have no need for WiFi at this particular point in time, if I need it later I'll chuck a card in or access point/router (so it must have sufficient expansion slots). What I do want is lots of USB (I have 4 external at the mo and it ain't enough) and a FireWire port or two. I've pretty much decided on nVidia graphics because its easier to set up driver wise on Linux. Budget is around the 3k mark, perhaps 3.5k including a 22 " LCD (It'll a CRT hooked in too for the detailed graphics/colour reproduction) OS (XP + Linux) and some software. I like cool and quite. I won't be overclocking. Right, so I also happen to be an Asus fanboy and this is where my quandary begins and probably ends. I've been looking at the Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe and it's variations up to the M2N32-WS Pro, all AM2, NVidia 590 SLI chipsets, et al. With variations on the expansion slots, I'd probably be pretty happy with any of them, but this box is not going to have SLI cards. So is my thinking right that the main difference between the previous boards and the M2N32 SLI Deluxe with the nVidia 570 chipset, is that it does not do 2x graphics cards in SLI at 16x, rather it does one at 16x and one at 8x? Which wouldn't bother me at all. Are there any other brands motherboards out there that are reliable and have a good to excellent feature set. Be specific as to models, if you can please. I've probably over-researched the Asus boards and got to the point where I can't decide and, underdone the other brands. What about graphics cards? I like the look of the Asus 8800GTS 640MB, EVGA, XFX and Leadtek are getting a bit pricey for my liking with no perceived advantages that I would bother with, correct? What other good cards are out there. Yep, I'm going to stuff plenty of goodish quality ram in there. Some help on brands would be nice, though I don't think too much has changed, i.e. Kingston Hyperex, G-Skill, Geil, Corsair. Anything to watch out for? I'm looking at Silverstone cases paired with a Silverstone modular PSU, or perhaps an Enermax modular. I also quite like the look of the Coolermaster cases. Good build quality, roomy and quite is a prerequisite for case and PSU. Any recommendations on QUITE CPU, graphics cooling and case fans or passive cooling will be appreciated also. (I'll be popping over to Quite PC Review, but I'm rusty on this aspect too). Hopefully the length of this request will have weeded out the dullards, yeah I waffle way too much, so thanks very much to those who have stuck with it and hopefully I haven't forgotten anything that requires a question from you and, F'ed if I'm going to proof read this beast, so please excuse any typos and grammatical errors. Oh! Almost forgot, what's the sweet spot in 20-22" LCD monitors, quality to price wise, is Samsung still it? TIA	Murray P (44)
578228	2007-08-08 09:25:00	Oh yeah, any of you techies want to put together some kit along with a price, I'll give it my full attention. Just the box or the whole lot, in which case I may have to be a bit more specific with regards peripherals (keyboard, mice, etc), colour preferences and general look (I prefer the plainer, industrial black, white and chrome look, not the Thermaltake, Alienware, bling approach). Yeah, I might have to duplicate the previous post in Metla's "Lets build a PC" fred, but I'm not sure I want Pete, et al, slamming me for not getting an Intel chip ;)	Murray P (44)
578229	2007-08-08 09:25:00	wow, ok, thats a lot of info. i will start off only talking about motherboards and the RAM M2N32-WS Pro or the M2N32-SLI Deluxe are probably some of the nicest motherboards around at the moment. You wont' go wrong buying either of these. I have the one model earlier of the M2N-SLI and am extremely happy with it. superb motherboard. You did well to heavily research Asus motherboards as these are very nice. What sort of CPU are you planning on getting? I do not recommend a quad-core but rather this (www.nzoczone.com)dual core 6000+ cpu. very nice. a friend of mine has it and it runs pretty hard. I would recommend that you stick with Corsair RAM. I could go on and on about it but am sure you already know the good things about it. Wouldn't recomend kingston or g-skill, have had problems with these in past. Do you know all about RAM timings latency etc? Mint system you're building thats for sure!	Bozo (8540)
578230	2007-08-08 10:14:00	Yep, I'm going for the 6000+. I've been hanging out for the AM2+ mobos but they and the Phenom processors are just too far away. BuggerIt. So, you say that the 570 chipset would be just fine, rather than paying the extra dosh for the 590s? I'm looking at 4Gig of this stuff: DDR2 RAM Memory Chip: Corsair XMS2 (TWIN2X2048-6400) Dual Channel kit 2x 1GB PC6400 DDR2 (800Mhz) Memory CL5-5-5-12 Not sure whether it's worth the extra pennys to go for the CL4 stuff? Though as its only $10- or so, I guess it's worth it. Not sure I want to pay for CL4-4-4-15?	Murray P (44)
578231	2007-08-08 10:25:00	Yes i would recommend that one . The performance difference will not be noticeable . As far as your RAM goes, i could tell you about the timings etc . but am too lazy, instead go here ( . hardwaresecrets . com/article/26" target="_blank">www . hardwaresecrets . com) for a good explanation . 4GB is a heck of a lot, i have 3GB of the latter RAM you are looking at, and rarely use above 50% . I ran a test, and opened the following apps: SQL Server, Visual Studio 2005, several large photoshop images, all office applications, and didn't use it all up, only just over half! so have fun using all 4GB!!!! :eek: What sort of hdd setup are you having? having old 7200rpm or nice 10,000rpm Raptors? you having a RAID setup? For your LCD screens, personally i would recommend Philips or Acer, as they are putting out some rather nice screens a . t . m . am currently using a 19" philips DVI 8ms 750:1 contrast, 500:1 brightness LCD and it is pretty nice, just gotta get another one soon so i can enjoy dual-screens:cool:	Bozo (8540)
578232	2007-08-08 10:50:00	4Gb ram..I guess run a few virtualized machines inside your host system and that should chew through the 4Gb um..I wish I had that instead of my 512Mb..	heni72847 (1166)
578233	2007-08-08 11:03:00	Cheers DemonHunter Ok, if I understand it correclty, the CL5- 12 is actually a little faster than the CL4- 15, though it probably won't make much difference to me . The reason for the 4Gig is that I have a lot of images open at once in different apps, plus occasionally I'm likely to be inserting them in to a document of some type while others are still open . One save and everything has the potential to grind to a halt, especially as I have the save/undo steps wound up in most apps . A couple of Raptors would be nice, but they hold F all, so will make do with a couple of mirrored 320GB 16MB cache Seagate jobbies . Will probably chuck in another latter, so I can hybrid the RAID for a bit more speed . Thanks for the heads up, I'll check out the Philips and Acer LCDs . I'm not a big fan of LCDs, but I want some real estate back and to save on power, though I'll have a CRT handy to plug in in dual mode when needed .	Murray P (44)
578234	2007-08-08 11:07:00	64 bit XP, or stick with 32? There's still not a whole heap of 64 bit apps out there, but it should utilise the memory better, although there are questions surrounding how effective windows does that even at 64 bit. No probs with Linux in that respect AFAIK.	Murray P (44)
578235	2007-08-08 11:32:00	yep, the CL5 - 12 will be faster, but if you notice a differnce . . . . wow! lol, no difference really lol Good idea for the hdds, will be pretty speedy . LCD's are nice, no doubt about it . Just look out for things like: aspect ration, brightness ration, pixel pitch, refresh rates, and MUST be dual-link DVI-I input, don't confuse this with the D-sub, or the DVI-D which is a cheap and nasty version of DVI-I, also there is single-link, don't go there, image quality very good, but may as well get the best! . If you get a nice LCD, it will perform a lot nicer than CRTs, but in the same breath, a cheap LCD is just plain nasty :waughh: Kewl, let me know if you want any more help ae!	Bozo (8540)
578236	2007-08-08 11:46:00	Hi Murray_P You are actually joking I suspect. Good post though. :-) You should really buy a MAC as it it does all things for all people. :D	Sweep (90)
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