New system tips

  • Thread starter Thread starter gpolitis
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gpolitis

Hello all,

I'm currently debating on buying a prebuilt Dell system or building my
own AMD based system. I've built my own systems before, so it's not a
big deal for me. It's just been a long time(it was an old 300A to 450
overclocked rig) and I haven't been keeping up on what the latest and
greatest components are for homebuilt systems.

I want to go with a 64 bit capable system (possibly dual-proc), have at
least 2GB of RAM and a current top of the line video card (I've been
partial to nVidia for a long time, but am willing to look to ATI).
What I'm hoping for is a list of what would be the best components for
a stable, quiet, and cool-running system (hopefully these things are
not mutually exclusive). Case, mb, ram, video card, everything.

Thanks in advance for any tips!
 
Hello all,

I'm currently debating on buying a prebuilt Dell system or building my
own AMD based system. I've built my own systems before, so it's not a
big deal for me. It's just been a long time(it was an old 300A to 450
overclocked rig) and I haven't been keeping up on what the latest and
greatest components are for homebuilt systems.

I want to go with a 64 bit capable system (possibly dual-proc), have at
least 2GB of RAM and a current top of the line video card (I've been
partial to nVidia for a long time, but am willing to look to ATI).
What I'm hoping for is a list of what would be the best components for
a stable, quiet, and cool-running system (hopefully these things are
not mutually exclusive). Case, mb, ram, video card, everything.
Click to expand...

Why 2Gb RAM, what are you gonna do with it? For heavy use, eg. latest
games, I would say 1Gb max. I've got 512Mb, and I don't think I've
ever used it up.

If you want a quiet system, it won't be cool, and it won't be fast!
There will have to be some compromises somewhere. I have a quiet
system, but it's only running on a low end graphics card, and an Athlon
XP 1700+. You're probably gonna be looking at thousands of pounds,
especially if it's multi proc. Have a look at quietpc.com if you want
it to be quiet, but trying to get fast stuff quiet is going to be a
nightmare.

However, if you are spending that much money then you could look at the
new Zalman case, which is supposed to be silent. I think it has built
in heat pipes for the CPU etc., but it costs around £800 IIRC.
 
Thanks for the quick response.

As for the 2GB of RAM, I'm going to be running VirtualPC and would like
to be able to allocate at least 1GB of RAM to the running instance of
that while still maintaining 1GB for the main system.
 
Anybody else have more tips? From what I understand I cannot have
dual-proc with any current socket 939? What is the best way to
guarantee an upgrade path to dual core?

Thanks in advance...
 
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