thinking about building Pentium D 920- opinions on this list?

[Sheena Ramone]

Hello, I've built a few AMD computers and am comfortable selecting components for them, but Intel is kind of scary to me. They run too hot, they take too much power, blah, blah...but they sure do perform. I want to build this for crunching seti@home, so I don't need a fancy gaming card.

I would like to know what you think of my shopping list in terms of will these parts work together and will I be able to overclock a little on air? I already have monitor, keyboard, and will cannibalize floppy, ide hard drive, cd-rom drives and case from existing computers. I plan to use several case fans.

If you have a better idea for motherboard selection, I would be very glad to hear that, especially if you are a cruncher and are using the Presler 920.

I would like advice on power supply selection too. Can I get by with 400W? Thanks in advance to any who reply.

1 ASUS P5WD2 Premium Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 955X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $194.99

1 eVGA 128-TC-2N27-SX Geforce 6200 LE TC Supporting 512MB (On board 128MB) DDR PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
$38.00

1 SPARKLE ATX-400PN-B204 ATX 12V 2.0 400W Power Supply - OEM
Model #: ATX-400PN-B204
$43.99

1 Intel Pentium D 920 Presler 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core Processor $238.00

1 CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model $154.00

1 ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler - Retail $34.99

Subtotal: $703.97

[kram 2.0]

Presler has fixed some of the heat problems associated with the original single-core Prescott and dual-core Smithefield core processors. Keep in mind, though, that it is still based on the same Netburst+PNI architecture that Prescott was made with. While I am by no means an OC-guru, I can say that a Presler has great upside with overclocking as long as you have proper cooling. You're gonna be running tight with a Sparkle 400W PSU - not much overclocking room. Additionally, you may want to look into a non-Turbocache graphics card. It will detract from the overall RAM, causing applications (among them, SETI@Home) to run slower.

kram

[Sheena Ramone]

Originally Posted by kram 2.0 You're gonna be running tight with a Sparkle 400W PSU - not much overclocking room. Additionally, you may want to look into a non-Turbocache graphics card. It will detract from the overall RAM, causing applications (among them, SETI@Home) to run slower. kram

Thanks, thanks, those are the kinds of issues I need help with. I don't know that much about graphics cards except bigger GPU's and more memory are more expensive. I was kind of baffled by that aspect of that card.

[Cricket]

If you're only going to use this new computer to crunch data, you could get a motherboard with on-board video and not worry about which video card to get. If you get a motherboard like this then a 400 watt PSU should be fine.

And if you're getting a retail CPU you don't need a separate aftermarket heatsink/fan unit.

Cricket

[Sheena Ramone]

Originally Posted by Cricket If you're only going to use this new computer to crunch data, you could get a motherboard with on-board video and not worry about which video card to get. If you get a motherboard like this then a 400 watt PSU should be fine. And if you're getting a retail CPU you don't need a separate aftermarket heatsink/fan unit. Cricket

I like that idea, I found a 945 chipset board that the reviewer said overclocked the Pentium D 920 very well. I guess I'll wait and see how hot it runs at stock speeds before I worry about trying to overclock and then maybe getting another heatsink. I did change to a nice Enermax PSU at $76 and 460 W (33 amps on the 12 V rail, I had a motherboard once that just plain didn't work because of the power supply being too wimpy), and to 2 G ddr 667, dumped the Arctic Cooler (for now) and now the total price is down to $574.

Thanks for your guidance, Cricket and Kram.

[glc]

Look at this for an inexpensive video card that doesn't eat system ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102626

The 400 watt Sparkle will be just fine for that rig. No need to go expensive.

[Sheena Ramone]

Originally Posted by glc Look at this for an inexpensive video card that doesn't eat system ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102626 The 400 watt Sparkle will be just fine for that rig. No need to go expensive.

As a Ubuntu Linux user, I am too skeered of Radeon cards, but maybe if I end up going Windows...and putting the Sparkle back in gets me back down to $541! Thanks, glc!

[glc]

Okay, here's a Nvidia without turbocache:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814170091