New PC - - - Parts List.

[caveman16]

     Hey Guys and Ladies,     Good morning to you all.   Some of you know  I'm being helped in building a PC just for FSX and Vista.      I didn't want the  "POST"  to get too long so I thought I"d start a new one - - - - same topic but continuing on to the next step.     Any and all are more than welcome to help me  - - -  just jump right in  - -  don't be shy  ;D

     Say  Cameron,    are all the parts you listed found at newegg ?       I'm having trouble finding some of them .   I find the reviews interesting.     Are you taking into account the extra heat buildup  ?    Will the case be large enough for extra fans  ?         Will 2 GB RAM be enough  - - - say  - - - down the road  with my extra detailed scenery  ?        [I always fly  VFR ]

     I'll let these questions stand for now so  I  don"t muddy up the water.              

     Always thanking you Guys for your help,          caveman

[ctjoyce]

Yes, infact I linked to them The case I recommended has 2x 120mm fans, and 1x 92mm (Comes with one 120 and one 92, the front 120 is seperate) I can tell you for a fact that the case gets rid of heat like nobodys busness. Also if your worried about CPU heat, the Zalman CNPS series will do you perfectly.

Anyway refer to my parts, and Congo's motherboard recommendations (I think I finally understand the chip differences).

Cheers
Cameron

PS:This is the older thread. Just wanted to make sure that it dosn't sink too far down.

[congo]

These are some of my favourite mainboards. I have used only 3 of these models, the other were choices made on paper.

There are of course other boards to consider, but these are high performance, overclockable, full featured and have a good, tweakable bios.


DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D

[ctjoyce]

Out of all of those, I like the DFI and ASUS ones the best, however the Epoch ones are getting supprising reviews.

Cheers
Cameron

[caveman16]

     Many thanks to both you Guys.   I've been hours reading the reviews of a few of the motherboards and think I'll go with the favorite of congo  [ ASUS  /   N82E16813131540 ]   Your Thoughts  ?

     On one of the reviews ,  the person said this board only supports 305 MHz FSB.     I must be turned around or something but the  "specs " said the FSB as being 1000 MHz .  [ perhaps  "He " was talking about something else. ]

     After about 50 reviews - - - this sounds like quite  a board.

     Now on to the next item.    Please be patient with me- - - -I'm noted for being slow  but very sure  - - -  don't wont to get stuck in any tar pits  ;D  

    Thanks Again - - - - caveman

[congo]

The HTT is the speed at which the cpu communicates with the motherboard. While different than a traditional Front Side Bus, (FSB), a higher HTT speed will increase overall performance in much the same way as raising their FSB in the past did.

The guy meant a maximum of 305mhz. He is whining that he can't go higher! That gets factored by a bus multiplier.

Stock speed of the hypertransport bus (HTT) is 200mhz, so if a 5x HT multiplier is used, the HTT speed (FSB speed) will be 1000mhz. 200x5=1000

Say that person wanted to set a 3x HT multiplier, he would get 305mhz HTT x 3 = 915mhz HTT which is somewhat below the aim of keeping the speed at or near 1000mhz for best performance.
A 4x multiplier would put his HTT speed at 4 x 305mhz = 1220mhz, which will most likely be quite unstable.

But that is just part of the reason.

300mhz is a 50% overclock. I run mine at 266mhz. 266x4=1064mhz

Going much over 1000mhz will make the PC unstable, so why the 266mhz x 4 instead of 200mhz x 5 ?


The stock base speed of 200mhz HTT affects the
CPU and RAM as well.

The CPU is affected like this:

Say you have a CPU with a 11x speed multiplier like a 3700+......

11 x 200mhz HTT = 2200mhz stock standard cpu speed

11 x 266mhz HTT = 2926mhz highly overclocked cpu speed

...... this results in massive CPU overclock.

It also results in a RAM overclock, and this is why you see RAM above the PC3200 specification... ie PC4000 which is rated to 250mhz HTT speed.

Ram speed at stock = 200mhz which is 400mhz DDR or PC3200

Ram speed at 266mhz HTT = 533mhz DDR or PC4200


Now back to the person who wants to run at over 300mhz HTT speed.

Say they have a 3000+ CPU that has a top locked multiplier of 9x.

[Brett_Henderson]

You know what's really cooool ?

I understand all that stuff (now)        ;)

[congo]

Then my work here is done.......lol

[congo]

The HT multiplier must always be considered. If we had set a 5x HT multiplier in the above example, the HTT (FSB) speed would have arrived at 1165mhz. Now, you would probably start experiencing system crashes because the HTT final speed will usually be unstable at very much over 1000mhz. This may cause the tweaker to think it was the ram or the cpu that was causing the problem.

I'll just quote myself here as there is a relevant and important point I failed to make, and this tirade would not be complete without it.

The HTT limit of 1000mhz is not a hard and fast rule. Indeed, some motherboards include BIOS's that support overclocking options for the mainboard chipset, including overvoltage options for the nForce4 chip itself.

This is why it is important to obtain a mainboard with full, if not adventurous BIOS support of tweaking options should you consider the possibility of performance tuning these systems.

[caveman16]

     Hey congo,    Nice to be back.    Thanks for the explanation of the " fsb ".   Will keep this info for reference .That's interesting about  tweaking  the motherboard.  Really  ?    I wonder if the board  I'm considering has that feature .  I need to check it out.        Thanks again for your help.  caveman