PC System Build / Quiet but Powerful

ChrisJ

My old PC needed an upgrade... I'd been gradually upgrading components but I finally decided that my motherboard/cpu were too dated (Athlon XP 2700+). As an IT professional, I know a lot about components, but I still did a lot of research to build the right system for me.

My goal was Quiet but Powerful, some compromises were made each way.

Here's my summary:

$331, CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600.
Best bang for the buck. Stock CPU cooler.

$185, Motherboard - Asus P5B Deluxe (w/o Wifi)
I don't overclock, so I chose this over the newer NVidia boards. It uses a heat pipe instead of fan for the chipset cooler. No fan = quiet.

$232, RAM - 2*1 Gig CORSAIR 240P TWIN2X2048-6400C4.
These are CAS-4 latency, some money can be saved going CAS-5.

$360, Video Card - eVGA 640MB nVidia 8800 GTS
Normal users can save some money here. I like the potential for gaming even if I can't do it much anymore. Great performance, low noise. I can't believe my video card has 640 MEG of RAM (and it cost more than CPU)!!!

$ 60, System Disk - Western Digital Caviar RE WD1600AAJS 160G
These drives are rated fast and quiet.

$130, Data Disk - Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000AAKS 500GB
These drives are rated fast and quiet.

$120, DVD - Plextor PX-755SA
Plextor has gotten a bad rap lately, but I've still been satisfied with their drives. I'll keep buying them until I get a dud. It is louder than I would like, but that's kind of the nature of things that spin discs fast.

$ 65, Case - Antec Sonata II
I love this case, I've had the original Sonata for many years. It's quiet and very easy to work with.

$120, Power Supply - Corsair CMPSU-520HX.
The Antec PS was probably sufficient. But this one is more powerful, quieter, and has modular connectors. Most people could save the money though.

$145, OS - Windows XP OEM
I won't install Vista until at least the first service pack is out. Thankfully, from NewEgg, I was able to get an upgrade coupon for Vista (not available anymore), so I have that option whenever I choose to install it.

$1748 - Grand Total (purchased from NewEgg and Amazon)

I couldn't come close to this price/performance on a pre-fab pc or mac. It's not the speediest system, but it's a giant leap from my old system. It's also quiet and has dual DVI out.

Not mentioned: I already have an external 500 Gig drive to backup my data disk. I also have dual monitors ViewSonic VP201b and VP171b. I also still have my entire old system with 600 Gig of space (and a third system which used to be my backup, which I'll probably part out). Mouse/Keyboard/Speakers, etc... also not listed.

For Photoshop purposes, I overspent greatly here on video card, power supply, and possibly RAM. You could easily shave another $300 of this cost and still have the same speed with PS.

Hope this information provides someone with a useful benchmark. Questions and comments are welcome!

David_S85

Thanks, Chris. That's a very detailed post, and should prove helpful to many.

Adding: Just re-read about the powerful video card. Geez! You're right about most users not ever needing that kind of power for photo editing. The 256MB on my vid card is overkill.

ian408

Nice work!

The heat pipe is a pretty cool way to get the heat out of a box. Just
like the old Dell laptops.

ChrisJ

David_S85 wrote:

Thanks, Chris. That's a very detailed post, and should prove helpful to many.

Adding: Just re-read about the powerful video card. Geez! You're right about most users not ever needing that kind of power for photo editing. The 256MB on my vid card is overkill.

I forgot to say that one of my criteria for a video card was that it be DirectX 10 compatible for a little bit of future proofing. Since there were only a couple of these out, my choice was somewhat limited: nVidia 8800 GTS or 8800 GTX (even more $$$). I believe nVidia just released the 8600 series which has less power, but is more reasonably priced and still supports DX10. Where art though ATI?

ChrisJ

ian408 wrote:

Nice work!

The heat pipe is a pretty cool way to get the heat out of a box. Just
like the old Dell laptops.

Ach, chipset and video card fans have been the bane of my existance for years! Okay, maybe not quite that bad.

EDIT: Oh, and I think water cooling is just totally over the top...

claudermilk

ChrisJ wrote:

I forgot to say that one of my criteria for a video card was that it be DirectX 10 compatible for a little bit of future proofing. Since there were only a couple of these out, my choice was somewhat limited: nVidia 8800 GTS or 8800 GTX (even more $$$). I believe nVidia just released the 8600 series which has less power, but is more reasonably priced and still supports DX10. Where art though ATI?

Yup, someone was asking about the 8800 card on another forum & I just looked at newegg. between eVGA and XFX there's about 8-9 choices for under $200 that gets you DirectX 10. That card you've got is WAY overkill.

ChrisJ

claudermilk wrote:

Yup, someone was asking about the 8800 card on another forum & I just looked at newegg. between eVGA and XFX there's about 8-9 choices for under $200 that gets you DirectX 10. That card you've got is WAY overkill.

Yep, I won't need to buy another one for at least 2-3 years!

I usually try to keep my video card around the $200 range. But the 8500/8600 series wasn't out yet, and I was still coming in well under my self-imposed $2000 system limit. And it rocks playing games...