New pc for chrismass, need help

heatsink i chose was this: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=35-128-003&DEPA=1

but for some reason instead of being 2 dirrefent links heatsink and for the video card it got joined :-( , can i still get that heatsink i mentioned? or should get the one you mentioned? and pleare recheck the ram, because i decided to get a cheaper one to cut the price down a bit

 

The RAM is ok. The HSF you listed, well it performs well but its very loud, the hotter the CPU gets. I'd go for the one I first mentioned, the SLK948U HSF with a Panaflo fan; Or if you can't find it elsewhere I'd say get this thing:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=35-103-144&depa=0

They are widely available and perform just as good. I'd recommend you get a faster 80mm fan than the one it comes with.

 

Dell are always very *modest* with their PSU ratings - their 250W PSUs are gonna be a damn sight better than any 250W one you'll buy in any shop. I don't know how it'll compare to decent brand PSUs - possibly 350-400W?

Dell used to put a lot of non-standard stuff in their PCs, but I think the modern Dimensions just use standard size ATX PSUs. You may want to get out your ruler first just to make sure though.

 

Worst comes to worst you can make your case compliant - I've replaced a non-compliant Dell PSU before, all it took was a few new holes in the case. If the connectors are non standard you're in for a lot of fun though.

AGP and PCI-E on one mobo is a possibility, there's a chinese mobo designer who managed it (can't remember the name right now), but the AGP performance was pretty poor. Aside from that, PCI-E mobos don't have AGP.

As Madhatter says, the graphics card fan is unnecessary, especially given the number of fans they bundle into cases these days. Be aware when you put all this together that more fans does not necessarily mean better computer - there's a temptation to go overboard and have fans everywhere. You'll end up with a very noisy PC, which personally pisses me off no end, although I'm aware that some don't mind it as much as I do. Plug most of them in and check the temperatures, then if the noise bothers you disconnect them one by one, while monitoring ambient/load temperatures. Prime 95 is your friend ;-)

Also, given that you're going to be having so many hard drives in that PC, you will want to check that the PSU is actually capable of punting out enough. The 9800 Pro and AMD64 will soak up a fair bit of juice. Monitor the voltage lines, especially the 5V line - if the 5v line goes below 4.8 you run the risk of instability.

einbebop: Madhatter's right again, 500W won't "charge" your system in any negative way at all. It will simply provide everything your system requests. If anything near 250W (bear in mind the efficiency percentage your PSU) is required right now, you'll get problems.

 

Just to put in a little critical note - I'm running my system (A7V333 mobo with 1800XP, 512mb PC2700, GF4MX, 2 HD's, DVD + burner, Audigy LS) on a 4-year-old cheap-ass 250W PSU and I've never had any problems with it :smt033

 

One more note on hard disks - AFAIK apart from raptors and scsi, samsung are the only guys who give you a 3yr warranty on hard disks. Which considering i've had 2 hard disks out of 4 (on 2 different computers) die on me in the last year or so, I'd say is pretty important.

 

I think the raptor offers a 5 year warranty though? ;-) Can't remmeber as it's been 10 months since i had some but they're built to last and pretty fast :smt1069

 

I agree with Steadster. If the warranty is that long, then thats a good sign.

Since you do plan on getting lots of HDDs for your PC. First of all, the maximum amount you'll be able to put in is 6 HDDs because your mobo has the primary IDE (thats 2 HDDs there) then 4 SATA ports (1 HDD per port). However, looking at your case and the HDD cage, you'll only be able to securely put in 5 HDDs and HDDs nowadays do heat up, especially the fast one and they dissipitate that heat on the sides, not the bottom. So the HDD cage setup there is good. The current fans are prolly 30CFM fans at best and, well, they'll do alright but their LEDs will start to crap out in about 4 months. Of course you can always buy fans in the future, powerful and quieter ones too. However, once you do get extra HDDs, get a new powersupply because the current one will probably become unstable since you'll be sucking out more power from it, but for now, your choices are A-OK.

 

I know about a year or so ago there was a lot of moaning and disillusion in the industry and stuff when most the HDD manufacturers cut their warranties down to 1 year - but if you look at them now Maxtor, Western Digital and Samsung are all offering 3 year warranties on all their products (and 5 years on the WD Raptors). It's only Seagate who continue to be complete asses.

Couldn't find any information about what Hitachi and Fujitsu offer...

 

In terms of built in sound, nForce mobos do it well. Sounds much better than most stand alone sound cards. And they're cheap, excellent mobos to boot. I think they're up to nForce 3, but those are bit expensive atm.

 

The nForce 2 mobo is what had the best onboard audio because of the Soundstorm. However the nForce3 doesn't have the soundstorm so you're stuck having to use a PCI card sound card (Live or Audigy) to have hardware based sound.

 

Oh. I just found something out. Einbebop. If you plan on upgrading that PSU, well you might be out of luck. Thing is, Dell changes a few of the voltage lines on the ATX power cord. Basically what would be, according to ATX standards and specification, a 3volt line, Dell might have changed it to where its a 5 volt line. Again they might do this to limit upgradability and you might just fry your mobo.

 

I run a 125W PSU on one comp. 500W = simply higher electric bills

 

Not really. If you are using 100watts of a 125watt PSU, getting a 500watt PSU wont affect the amount of power you'll be using because you'll still be using the same amount of power from before. You just get more headroom when you add more devices.

 

The power ratings on PSUs are just the maximum approximate power they can take. Actual power consumption can vary greatly depending on what you're doing at the time.

And the power ratings are rarely accurate - with a good power supply you can usually feel safe that what it says it can take it really can take - or it could possibly take even a bit higher than rated - but with cheapo PSUs God only knows when it'll blow. I've heard of some that die up to 200W lower than what they're rated at.

So be careful - there's much more to a PSU than the manufacturers' proposed power rating. Look for well-known brands and what industry standards they comply to (FCC, CE, TÃœV, etc. - the more the merrier!).