I have the Asus A8N32-sli delux (lucky me), My cpu is water cooled so I do use the clip on fan. Its not as noisy as a cpu fan but the pitch is high and kind of annoying, also with my fsb at 220 the "system" temp is about 50C so I woudn't say it's that effective, I have never had an air cpu cooler on this mobo so it hard to say that this is really the case or not. I have ended up plugging back in the case fans to help out also.
I've decided to buy a single silenX fan to mount on my window...it's 17dba and I'll have it low speed, blowing directly across the mobo, should work fine. Edit: Oh ya...is the +512kb of L2 cache per core worth spending money on instead of a 4200+ (use a 4400+)
I'm also considering a DFI board for the Ocing features, but I'm worried about the active chipset cooling...how loud is it?
2x 7800Gt's ?!?! for the amount of use you intend surely this is bad economy, theres little advantage of two 7800's over one for the cost anyway. other than the pimp factor also save a bomb on the dual 16x pci-e MoBo by getting a single 16x, thats a lot of money for the relatively little performance gain and you say you wont be gaming much....its INSANITY lol
Hey Shpoon,i'm also planing a pc from a long time,and i've been waiting the whole lot of time for something next-gen to come out so i dont have to upgrade too soon.The reason i'm waiting so long for this pc is that i live in Bulgaria and here it is really hard to find exactly what you want,so the last 3 months i've been sending mails to UK distributors and talking with the Bulgarian suppliers (which dont have what i'm aiming for).I hope i'll solve this out soon. I'll throw you a list about my config (about 2000$ (with hdd,monitors and such roughtly) and compare with yours.You can make a shuttle as good as desktop pc but i'm not moving so i'll build desktop. CPU: X2 4400+ (the reason for 4400+ ,not 3800 or 42 is that it has 1mb of L2 cache per core,double than 4200 which is a decent leap in performance) Mobo: Asus A8N-32 SLI Delux (if you plan sli setup thats the mobo you're looking for,although a bit pricey dual 16x lines will affect the performance) Memory: CORSAIR XMS DDR433 or OCZ Gold GX DDR500 2x1GB both (OCZ is the ram i'm aiming for as its 85$ cheaper than Corsair but with CAS of 3 instead 2 which makes switching from Game to desktop and such a bit slowly but still a great buy.Have in mind that Corsair is reccomended to go with A8N32 but aside from the CAS no reason to put your money on the flashy lights than a stable OC'ed OCZ) PSU: OCZ Powerstream 600W LE (Adjustable power rails,730peak - end of discussion ) Video: eVGA 256-P2-N563-AX 7900GT OC (No point going for SLI atm as this card does everything at 1600x1200 maximum detail and decent AA with no need of second.For now its better to stay in the dark with this one than spending a whole lot for second when next year there will be cards to outperform quad sli.If you're so hard for second you can always buy one later ,when prices drop. Chassis: Gigabyte Aurora 3D Black (Bit-tech has made a great review of this case,go take a look,its big,beautiful and stylish. Cooling: GIGABYTE GH-WIU01 mixed with other parts (You can take this package,take what you need (res,pump) and sell the rest(there are lot of people here which want to get a piece from that).Its not all great but you can make it worth it with other wc parts.I'd take the reservoir-pump,liquid and put decent ZALMAN ZM-WB3 GOLD(cpu) and maybe ZALMAN ZM-GWB2 on the 7900.But thats just me and i'm quite a noob when it comes to watercooling setups.You sure can find better cpu cooling but Zalman is a nice decent part.Forgot to mention the PrimoFlex 1/2",3/8" tubing. Monitor: SAMSUNG 214T-Black 21.3" 8ms - one of the best 21" out there Mouse:Razer Copperhead Tempest Blue 2000 DPI Keyboard:Microsoft S51-00001 2-Tone Black-Gray Wireless Hard Drive: Hitachi 7k500 500GB 16mb (Storage) and a HITACHI Ultrastar 15K147 36GB 15,000 rpm 16mb (for Windows) CD-RW/DVD RWioneer Black 16X DVD+R dual layer (or PLEXTOR Slot Load 16X DVD±R DVD if you have more cash) Sound Card:X-Fi Xtrememusic Other: 2 bay slot lcd (20x4 LCD Aluminium Bay mount and 20x4 LCD Character Display (blue/white),Mitron 5,25 fan controller black if it still exists,Logisys Digital Fan Controller - 3.5" Black over hardcano 13 and lots of blue/white plexi to make a window and maybe a shiny UV floor (you'll need a UV,Blue neon to light it up)Easy mods,nothing unique but v.v.v.v.v. tight looking and stylish. edit:You can replace A8N32 with the upcoming M2N32-SLI Deluxe and wait for the new ddr2 OCZ (i suppose it's not a long time from 4GB either) I am only listing the parts you're looking to buy
