What do people think of this system?

Wiredchild

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Firstly, i promise this will be my last post on this, i've started a million threads asking question after question about this but i think i've finally come to a conclusion.

The system isn't going to be used for gaming, just media use, so i'm simply intending to use the on-board graphics. I chose a Samsung Spinpoint hard drive as they're supposed to be very quiet, which is also something i'm going for. I'm just a little concerned about the CPU and RAM, i'm not very good with these componants and don't really know what i'm going for so i'd appreciate some comments about my choices (i'm also a little concerned that neither appear on Abit's tested CPU's and RAM for this board).

Anyway, here's what i think i'm going to go for:

Motherboard: Abit AN-M2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.20GHz
RAM: GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz DDR2
HDD: Samsung SpinPoint P SP1654N 160GB ATA-133 8MB
Case: Lian-Li PC-V300

I'm buying from overclockers.co.uk by the way, if anyone had any alterations it would be good if they stocked them there.

So, what do people think?
 
cpu is good. you could probably get away with a lesser one though. ram is fine as well GeIL is a good brand 1gb will be fine for a media pc. overall its a good pc.
 
Thanks again for the reply.

I was considering a 3800+ but due to the price difference (£7) it seemed stupid not to go for a 4200+. As i say however, i'm not good at choosing RAM and CPUs and tend to just guess it. What do you mean Rudster816 when you say I 'could probably get away with a lesser one', technically i mean? Surely it's best just to get as high as you can afford?

Also, do you think it matters that neither the RAM nor the CPU are on Abit's tested hardware for this board?

Also, Biostar produce basically the same board spec for spec and i've got no idea to go for Biostar or Abit, any comments on that?
 
i have a biostar and was dissapointed and i know abit is good. what i meant was you wouldnt notice a difference in performance if you had a lower end cpu but for only 7 pounds more than a 3800+ it wouldnt be worth the lower price.
 
Ok, so that's the motherboard and CPU definately sorted, we can be sure they're compatible, right?

It's just the RAM i'm very unsure about as i don't understand what dual channel is (though i know how to set it up) and latency means nothing to me.

Based on the fact that there's basically no price difference, which of the following would people go for:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-057-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-065-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-011-OK&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813

On the HDD front, is this Samsung SpinPoint P SP1654N (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-030-SA) good to go for? I'm happy with 160GB as i have an external drive i use, but it's quietness i'm going for and apparently these drives are quieter than the average, is this correct?
 
Yeah the build looks good . If its only for media 1GB should be fine . You could also get away with using a lower cpu maybe a 3800 or a 3600 seeing as it wont need too much power .
Also i have a samsung spinpoint in my dell and it isn't very quite . In fact it makes more noise than both my Seagate barracuda's in my desktop do
 
I thought 1GB would do it, though bear in mind that the onboard GPU steals i (i think) 256mb for it's own use. Anyway, there'll be a couple of spare slots if needs be. Which RAM out of the three on my previous post is the right one to go for do you think? There's something like £5 between them :s

On the site i'm buying from (overclockers.co.uk) they don't seem to have a 3600+ (are they still made?), but i think if i stick with a 4200+ it means i can always add more RAM and a graphics card if i want to (which i don't think i will but it's nice to have the option).

I'm not likely to have any compatibility problems am i? Based on the fact that the Abit tested hardware doesn't include any of that RAM or that CPU.

Hard drives are impossible to choose, i swear they all claim to be the quietest and looking at hardware tests they all come out claiming different drives are quieter than others. Seagate and Samsung are generally rated well in the noise department though, does anyone have any definate opinion on this? Cheers for the advice on that muz.
 
Well because its only a budget machine the geil value ram would be fine http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-065-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813 latency's don't really matter for this kind of usage
Also i cant see any problems with the ram but like you said you could add another gb or ram at a later date . As for the onboard you may be able to set how much memory it takes out of the ram in the bios , if so you may wanna set it lower , maybe 128mb
I doubt you will have problems but you can never be 100% sure that ram will be compatible with motherboards but most of the time i have never had problems regarding ram compatibility
As for the hard drives , yeah they all claim to be quietest , out of all the drives i have used though heres how i would rate them in terms of noise
Seagate
Western digital
Maxtor
samsung
Fujitsu
, Although the samsung are noisy they do perform very well but if its quiet you want get a Seagate or a western digital
 
Mmm, that's why i considered the OC value RAM (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-011-OK&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813). It's sourced from Elixir which is supposed to be really compatible? I swear i have nightmares about compatibility. The CPU should be ok for compatibility though shouldn't it?

Mmm, i've only ever used Western Digital and they are quiet but my last one's motor burnt out just under 6 months general use which i wasn't at all impressed with. Just suprised you rate Samsung so low Muz, most seem to claim them to be the quietest because of their special quiet casing (they call it something elaborate) and their "Fluid Dynamic Bearings for low noise". However, if you're sure i'll probably opt for Seagate.
 
Mmm, that's why i considered the OC value RAM (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-011-OK&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=813). It's sourced from Elixir which is supposed to be really compatible? I swear i have nightmares about compatibility. The CPU should be ok for compatibility though shouldn't it?

Mmm, i've only ever used Western Digital and they are quiet but my last one's motor burnt out just under 6 months general use which i wasn't at all impressed with. Just suprised you rate Samsung so low Muz, most seem to claim them to be the quietest because of their special quiet casing (they call it something elaborate) and their "Fluid Dynamic Bearings for low noise". However, if you're sure i'll probably opt for Seagate and report back on how i get on.

Well the oc value ram would also be ok . I generaly steer away from computer store branded ram unless its for a budget system but i suppose if its elixer it should be fine
As for compatibility you have nothing to worry about , i was just say ing there is always a posibility of compatability issues but i have added ram to quite a few systems and never had problems so i cant foresee any obvious problems . Also the CPU is fine for compatibility. Usualy you end up wqith compatability issues when you use a cheap brand motherboard but the big brands like asus,abit,evga,gigabyte,msi and loads more usualy dont have any compatability issues cos the companies spend more testing them with different ram

About the hard drives , my Samsung is about 18 months old so i dunno if they have changed the design any since i got mine but i would say get a seagate baracuda 7200.10 like this one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-099-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=59 as they use perpendicular recording which offers better performance
 
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