New Build Help

[Mike Silver]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower
Computer Case
- Thermaltake W0116RU ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply
- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
- SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP
Video Card
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual
Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Hard Drive X2 in a Raid1 setup
- Windows XP Professional SP2

I looking for reliability above all. I don't do a lot of gaming, thats why
the video card is not more. I use the PC for work and
use many JAVA GUI apps and have many spreadsheets, remote logons, multiple
apps running, etc.

Anyone see any possible problems/conflicts with this setup? I need
something reliable and something I can upgrade in the future.
Possible videocard upgrade when Direct-X 10 cards come down in price and
maybe a CPU upgrade later down the road.

Also, really interested in any comments on a RAID1 setup with this hardware.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

 

[JAD]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
- Thermaltake W0116RU ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply
- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
- SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
Desktop Memory
- Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
X2 in a Raid1 setup
- Windows XP Professional SP2

I looking for reliability above all. I don't do a lot of gaming, thats why the video
card is not more. I use the PC for work and
use many JAVA GUI apps and have many spreadsheets, remote logons, multiple apps running,
etc.

Anyone see any possible problems/conflicts with this setup? I need something reliable
and something I can upgrade in the future.
Possible videocard upgrade when Direct-X 10 cards come down in price and maybe a CPU
upgrade later down the road.

Also, really interested in any comments on a RAID1 setup with this hardware.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

You won't be able to see anything.. ;^)

 

[ToolPackinMama]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard

Why did you choose that mobo? It doesn't have onboard vid.

 

[Paul]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower
Computer Case
- Thermaltake W0116RU ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply
- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor
- SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP
Video Card
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual
Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Hard Drive X2 in a Raid1 setup
- Windows XP Professional SP2

I looking for reliability above all. I don't do a lot of gaming, thats why
the video card is not more. I use the PC for work and
use many JAVA GUI apps and have many spreadsheets, remote logons, multiple
apps running, etc.

Anyone see any possible problems/conflicts with this setup? I need
something reliable and something I can upgrade in the future.
Possible videocard upgrade when Direct-X 10 cards come down in price and
maybe a CPU upgrade later down the road.

Also, really interested in any comments on a RAID1 setup with this hardware.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Since you are buying a 975 chipset, you could look for some ECC RAM if you
want reliability from the memory subsystem. ECC provides SECDED (single error
correction, double error detection) at least. It doesn't appear that the
965 chipset has ECC for memory, as otherwise I'd have suggested looking at
a 965 based motherboard, to save a bit there. So the 975 is good if you
want ECC.

And for performance estimates, this multithreaded benchmark will give you
an estimate on Integer performance. To convert to single-threaded results,
divide the E6400 result by 2.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=433&model2=453&chart=158

Regarding the RAID1 setup, buy a third disk for data backups. If the power supply
happened to burn both drives at the same time, you have no redundancy. A hard
drive in a USB enclosure, gives you a detachable backup for your data.

Paul

 

[Mike T.]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower
Computer Case
- Thermaltake W0116RU ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply
- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775
Processor
- SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP
Video Card
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA
3.0Gb/s Hard Drive X2 in a Raid1 setup
- Windows XP Professional SP2

I looking for reliability above all.

(snip)

In that case, you are spending way too much for an inferior quality power
supply that is likely to fail on you. Generally, spending more on a power
supply is a good thing. But in this case, you don't need 750W, which is
much of the extra cost of the power supply. And you've chosen thermaltake,
which is hit and miss. That's a lot of money to spend for an iffy power
supply. You'd be better off spending LESS money on a better brand. Check
out the following for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151027

It's a better brand than thermaltake, but note that the specs are similar to
the 750W model you chose, and this one is advertised at 550W! That is
exactly why you don't choose a power supply by maximum watt rating. For
less money, you would be getting a MUCH better power supply. And it will be
more than powerful enough to run your system, including future
pgrades. -Dave

 

[FKS]

Ok guys, here is what I'm looking to do:

- Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum / Steel ATX Full Tower
Computer Case
- Thermaltake W0116RU ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 750W Power Supply
- Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz 2M shared L2 Cache LGA 775
Processor
- SAPPHIRE 100199L Radeon X1950GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP
Video Card
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
- Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA
3.0Gb/s Hard Drive X2 in a Raid1 setup
- Windows XP Professional SP2

My C2D system has the same MoBo, CPU & graphic card running on XP Pro SP2. I
used an Antec case, Corsair ram, Seagate HDDs & a Zalman PSU. My system is
ultra stable.