What I think is a good pc.

Ok the first time I did this I timed out wile posting so I will make this short. I am constently building up my pc and my friends pcs. I put all of it together and will post picks later. Some of my specs:
Q8300 stock
4Gb RAM
9800 GTX+
5HDD totaling 1.7Tb
antec 900 case

The rest of my specs are on my profile. I would like to be part of the SBCC. Thanks.

Nice machine you've built there, welcome to the club.
You'll get the icon when the admin sees your post, might be a few days depending how busy he is.

Thanks Calum. I hope to upgrade my video soon but I will Wait until the 260 and 280 go down in price and i will eather sli the 260s o get a 280 and buy a second one later. I will be getting some fans that work with my fan controller soon (the stock 900 ones wont work with it and I want to be able to increase the fan speed only when I need it). And when Tiger direct has them in stock my replacement drive will be sent, but that may be a month or two. When do you think they will have win7 up for os selection. Hope it's not all of the way on Oct. 22 when it is released. I preordered 3 copies.

How about a GTX275 instead of a 260 or 280?
Don't know about over there, but here the 275 is hardly more than a 260 and the performance is close to a 280.
I highly recommend Scythe Slipstream fans (you might have some in mind already) - I have the 1200rpm versions and they're very quiet, the 1600 or 1900rpm versions push a lot more air but are noisier, probably better for you if you're using a fan controller.  The stock 900 fans are pretty bad IMHO.
Don't know about Windows 7 myself, someone else may do.

I'll take a closer look at the 275 so thanks for the suggestion. You are the one heading up the folding@home thing on this sight right? I will be setting that up tonight or tomorrow.

I'll take a closer look at the 275 so thanks for the suggestion.

You're more than welcome.

You are the one heading up the folding@home thing on this sight right?

Actually, technically it's the site administrator heading the team, as he created it and it's his site etc.  I just contribute to the team as much as possible.  I'm quite passionate about it because I think it's a great cause, hence the signature etc.

If you need any help getting it going or have any questions, feel free to ask in our folding@home board.  Hope to see you on the team soon!

Nice computer! Thats a lot of hard drives!

Ya. It is a lot of hard drives. It started with a 100 and two 300 gig hard drives and i just added two 500s not that long ago. I'm running win 7 RC on the 100 for now but when it comes out I will put it on one of the 300s and make the 100 an external. I hope to find an external case that has both esata and usb so i can use it in any situation. My motherboard only has 6 sata ports so when I get my sata disk drive they will all be full and the south bridge will burn my skin off if I touch it. If I touch it now I can only hold my finger on it for a second or to depending on how idle they are. I have a good third party cooler on my CPU so I have bean looking into possibly water cooling my south bridge and video card. But I think I will wait to water cool my next upgrade witch will be a nice I7 system, but that is a LOOOOONG way off.

Maybe look into some aftermarket chipset coolers?  They're generally not too expensive, it's just a matter of whether they will fit.
I bought some not long ago for a project, now I just have them lying around.
Avoid the Zalman chipset coolers, they're impossible to install.

I will look into a third party cooler for my south bridge but I am limited because my video card covers much of the heat sink so I will have to get a shallow one. any suggestions? but it is a quarter till 5 in the morning for me so i am going to bed. night.

If you already have a cooler on the southbridge, a replacement of the same size is unlikely to do much.
My suggestion is to either mount a fan on the heatsink, or to get a cooler such as the Thermalright HR-05 SLI, which is offset (if you look at some pictures you'll see what I mean) to avoid conflicting with video cards etc.

[Moderator]

Enclosure

Bought 2 of these recently...rugged and functional...

I'm looking for something a little lower priced. I think this one might be good. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=993572&sku=V13-2204 I'm attaching picks of my  CPU, north, and south bridge heat sink. the picks are to big so I have to do multiple posts.

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My north bridge.

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And south bridge.

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That Vantec should be fine for the northbridge, but I can't tell if it will fit on the southbridge under the graphics card.  You'll have a better idea of whether or not it will fit.
Only trouble with that type of cooler is that the fans are often quite loud and high-pitched - as they're small, they have to spin fast to cool effectively.

I didn't check your specs properly, specifically your motherboard.  Nvidia chipsets do run very hot, an Nvidia board was the reason I bought a load of chipset coolers (later sold the board because I didn't like the layout, and the chipset still ran very hot).  You'll need to check compatibility before buying, from some images I've seen you may have some space restrictions around the chipset so you'll need to check whatever cooler you pick will fit properly.
It's difficult to tell, but do the coolers on the board connect with heatpipes?  It looks like the southbridge, northbridge and VRM coolers are all connected, but I can't quite tell.  If they are, it might be difficult to remove the heatsinks, so you'll need to check up on that before you buy anything.

Ya they are connected. I'm fairly shour that it would fit under my card but I have been trying to find out if it will work with the southbridge and when I turn off my pc I will take a few measurements of my southbridge.

The main thing to check is the distance between the mounting holes.

Looks good. I've got your icon added to your profile.

I got the symbol. YA! I did messure the mounting holes and am shour that it will fit.

Calum, you suggested the gtx275 and it looks good but it is about $40 more than the gtx260 core 216 that I am looking at and only $20 less then the gtx280. I here a lot of good things about the core 216 so I might go far that.

Do you have any idea what hapend to the gtx270 and 290?

I'm attaching a pick of my main 3 hard drives. You can also see the optical drive with the IDE cable (I no longer use this drive... I currently have no drive). Because I can only attache a file that is 700Kb I had to cut the resolution in half. But what is interesting is that by only cutting the vertical and horizontal resolution in half it made the 3.35Mb file into a 651Kb file. And it still looks good.

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But what is interesting is that by only cutting the vertical and horizontal resolution in half it made the 3.35Mb file into a 651Kb file. And it still looks good.

Not to go off topic, but that reduces the number of pixels by 3/4ths, which is about equal to the reduction in size. (the rest can be accounted for via the jpg compression)

Calum, you suggested the gtx275 and it looks good but it is about $40 more than the gtx260 core 216 that I am looking at and only $20 less then the gtx280. I here a lot of good things about the core 216 so I might go far that.

The GTX275 is almost equal to the 280, but for those prices you're best getting the 260, I agree.

Do you have any idea what hapend to the gtx270 and 290?

Just Nvidia's wacky naming ... the 295 is two chips on one card, the chips are themselves in between the 260 and 280.  That chip was later released as the 275, because it's closer to the 280 than 260 in specifications.  The gap is still quite small though, so there was no real need for a product between the 260 and 275, or 280 and 295.

I have my optical disk drive installed and it is sweet. Actually it was a replacement for a drive that I thought did not work. Well it worked but the lightscribe did not work. so when this one did not work eather I new it could not be the drive. What are the chances? So I reinstalled win7 on one of my extra hdds and it worked. I will have to use the second OS just to use lightscribe until I reinstall the RC or when win7 comes out. The sad thing is that the first drive that I returned still had the Crysis game disc in it. I freaked and called the company and they said they would try to return it but nothing happend so I have downloaded the ISO off of bittorrent so I will burn that to a disk and all will be good. Oh ya I mentioned that the drive was sweet. I meant that not only about the lightscribe but also about the speed. With my old drive it took 35+ min. to install but withthis drive it took less then 20 min. that is pretty damb sweet. I also add it to my specs.

I freaked and called the company and they said they would try to return it but nothing happend so I have downloaded the ISO off of bittorrent so I will burn that to a disk and all will be good.

LA LA LA LA LA Can't hear you LA LA LA LA LA

LA LA LA LA LA Can't hear you LA LA LA LA LA

If you are saying that because you think I a doing something illegal, you don't have to weary because in the US we are legally aloud to have a backup of any and all software that we have purchased. And as long as I only use the copy for my own personal use I will be fine.

If you are saying that because you think I a doing something illegal, you don't have to weary because in the US we are legally aloud to have a backup of any and all software that we have purchased. And as long as I only use the copy for my own personal use I will be fine.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

One thing I don't think makes sense, is that under the DCMA, program vendors don't even need to protect their programs with secure keys and stuff. If they package it in a zip file, and you extract that zipfile you just circumvented their protections.

Well thanks for that but the article you linked stayted several times that it is up to the owner of the copy right wether or not to prosue the copy right. So unless they are so bored that they have to come after me, someone that has legally perchased the game with a legal key, I think I will be OK. Even if it is illegal there are other people that are selling copies and I think they will be going after them long before me.

I got my fans and my chipset cooler. In all it took me 10 hours to finish the install mostly because of the wire management overhall I did on my case. I got a mother board extender and routed that around the back and that made it a lot nicer. I just need an 8 pin extender and I can finish with all of the cable management that is possible to do without cutting holes in the case. This is the fan I got but mine is red not green. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4675263&CatId=802 As for the chipset cooler... I now know that it will for shour fit but I can't get the old one off.

what is a north or south bridge?

what is a north or south bridge?

That is kind of like "what is a CPU?" in terms of "questions you should use Google for".

 

That is kind of like "what is a CPU?" in terms of "questions you should use Google for".

 

That's to general of a term for Google.......I tried. A simple explanation would have been nice as this is "Computer Hope Forum" which supplies "Free computer help for everyone"

That's to general of a term for Google.......I tried. A simple explanation would have been nice as this is "Computer Hope Forum" which supplies "Free computer help for everyone"

on the other hand, this is the great smeezekitty.

A simple explanation would have been nice as this is "Computer Hope Forum" which supplies "Free computer help for everyone"

I'm looking forward to seeing your effort.

the North bridge goes across the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts.

SouthBridge is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts.

[Moderator]

They are used primarily to transport goods and people over bodies of water...

In the North, and South cardinal compass directions respectively.


They have also been known to collapse.

*interesting fact*

a full grown possum can cross the golden gate bridge in about an hour, a dead possum cannot.

the North bridge goes across the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts.

SouthBridge is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts.

I thought the North Bridge referred to heading North from Canada to the US from Windsor to Detroit.
That should make the South Bridge the return trip, wouldn't it?

Wow. Talk about mean. The north and south bridge are parts of the chipset that....regulate....the transfer of data betwean every part of the computer. The north bridge connects to the CPU, RAM, possibly the back panel connections (not 100% on that), and to the south bridge. The south bridge connects to the north bridge, hard drives optical drives and the like, and the PCI and PCI-E slots. I'm shour some of that is wrong but it should give you a general idea.

To the rest of you. can you say that you always knew what a N/S bridge was? Or even a CPU? If you say yes then you are lying. When you were five years old you probably could not say north, south, or bridge correctly so don't be so harsh. It is a little surprising for someone that has posted so much but he may not be posting on this part of the forums.

a full grown possum can cross the golden gate bridge in about an hour, a dead possum cannot.

What if it's still stuck to the bumper of the car that hit it?

If you say yes then you are lying.

I say "yes". I knew even before I was born. H*ll, I knew even before I was conceived!

Wow. Talk about mean. The north and south bridge are parts of the chipset that....regulate....the transfer of data betwean every part of the computer. The north bridge connects to the CPU, RAM, possibly the back panel connections (not 100% on that), and to the south bridge. The south bridge connects to the north bridge, hard drives optical drives and the like, and the PCI and PCI-E slots. I'm shour some of that is wrong but it should give you a general idea.

To the rest of you. can you say that you always knew what a N/S bridge was? Or even a CPU? If you say yes then you are lying. When you were five years old you probably could not say north, south, or bridge correctly so don't be so harsh. It is a little surprising for someone that has posted so much but he may not be posting on this part of the forums.

We have grown accustomed to some of the things that smeezekitty posts.  He has lost credibility with many users here.

Additionally in a way it's a poke-back for his recent post:

LOL
you dont know what disk space is

The south bridge controls slow stuff (almost all external to the motherboard)

the North Bridge works with RAM,AGP, and PCI-E (PCI, USB, and so forth are handled by the southbridge).

Any ways. Is there any difference betwean the Q9550 and the Q9650 other than the .17gHz and the price?

Not a bad system. I'm using an Ausus P5B SE, Intel P Q8200 Quad w/AC freeze pro 7, 4G DDR2 800mhz, Win 7 64 and xp home on a split drive, nvivia GF 8800gt clocked from 600mhz to 690mhz for now. seagate 250g (don't need more) Logitech 7.1 THX logitech XM1000 PS2, logitech key board. Great for COD WAW and COD 4!