Ok, he showed up here... and decided on a new configuration... (this is the final one, it's actually been ordered.. ) oh, and he liked the 2 drive ideas so we went with 2 - 250s... Should be here by friday, when we'll get started building the system and customizing the case for optimal performance. Will throw all the pics and details in this thread. Thanks alot for all your input... made me look long and hard before making final decisions, in the end I think I put together a decent system... guess we'll soon see...

CPU: AMD Athlon - 3200+ S939 Venice
MB: DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR
RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (4 x 512MB) DDR 550 TWINX1024-4400C25
HDD: 2 Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s
Video: XFX Geforce 7800GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
PS: Ultra 600W ATX (Lifetime Warranty)
DVD-RW: LG Dual Layer 16x DVD±R/RW
Audio: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS (Retail)
Case: Aspire X-Cruise Black
Mouse: Logitech MX518
Keyboard: Logitech Multimedia Keyboard
Floppy: NEC 1.44MB Floppy
Mon: Samsung 19" CRT

Total Cost = $2371.60 USD (from newegg)


As for cooling extras... (already in the price)
For the CPU...
Thermalright XP90-C
Delta 92MM High Flow Fan

for the front and rear airflow we threw in...
2 - Panaflow 120MM High Flow Fans

 

ok.. newegg blows... they flat out refused to deal with us, when i called to confirm everything, they said.. 'we do NOT deal with canadians', cancelled the order and the account... bastards.

re-ordered everything from 3 different canadian sites, ended up costing about $100 more.. but it's on it's way.. only change was the monitor..

19" Samsung CRT

and the power supply...

600watt Ultra (lifetime warranty)

 

Jeez, that sucks! Did you try zipzoomfly?

 

no, i didnt... looked at them now, they're prices were about on par with newegg, and they carried most of what we were looking for, but not all. whole point of newegg, was a one-stop shopping sort of deal. also, when creating an account on zipzoomfly, it defaults to the united states (no drop down menu), so i'm betting they either have the same policy as newegg, or are like partsamerica.com (you have to order over the phone) which is cool.

 

Thats ashame about newegg.com. I've never had such a good online shopping experience as I have with newegg.

Keep us up to date on the build...

 

well, all the cooling stuff came in... managed to go pick it up at the local postal outlet, and the case, motherboard, vid card, etc are in... only, it's in UPS' possession, have to wait till monday to get that, and as for the monitor, cpu, memory, etc... we're still waiting on that to be shipped. Which is rather disappointing, usually, when I order from these guys my stuff is there within 2 day... will post pics once we get the case, etc.. as we mod it up.

 

umm this thread makes me feel like a blithering idiot..grreeat

 

ok, i got half the stuff here.. only things missing are...
cpu, monitor, memory, harddrive, dvd-rw, floppy, soundcard and... yea, thats it.

anyway.. currently we have modified the front of the case for the 120mm fan.. had to drill the 4 mounting holes, cut a section out for airflow, and also, cut, and bend a part of the chasis, to 'slide' (cram, push, and force) that fat 120mm fan in between the harddrive rack and the case front... case looks 'slightly' pregnant now. We tested the fan and it works fine, no rubbing. Moving onto the second hurdle. The 600watt power supply is rather long, and it interfered with the blowhole fan, by about an inch. After some thought, I suggested popping off the top and going to find a suitable replacement from a similar case, then painting and cutting it if necessary. While I was searching for a match, exactly at the same time I found one, my friend got the great idea to pop the whole top portion off, spin it 180 degrees and put it back on. Clears the power supply beautifully now. Only is renders the top 5.25" drive bay somewhat useless, unless you have a short drive. Just need to re-drill a few screw holes and screw it back on. Now, the last challenge we have is replacing the plexiglass panel, as the fan duct is in the wrong place for this board. (yes, we thought about rotating it, doesn't work, lol) So, we have the next couple days to get some plexiglass while we await the remainder of the parts.

As for pics, I took a couple, I'll upload them in a couple minutes. Note that all the 'scuffs' on the case and grills are just smudges from our grubby little hands... nothing a wipe down with windex can't fix.

 

The UV Cold Cathodes... they look very nice with this setup..


The 92MM Tornado CPU Fan... it's... LOUD... but blows.. ALOT of air.


The 120MM Panaflow (115CFM) mounted on the back.


Attempting to slip the 120MM Panaflow into the front... not gonna happen.


The new grill on the blowhole (replaced the side-door one too)


Shot of the Panaflow going in the front, you can see the part of the case we cut and bent back, to make it somewhat easier to slide in.


Picture of the side window with new grill and showing how badly placed the duct would be on this case... has to be moved.

 

ok, bit of an update... (still waiting on the window to be made, will put up pics when I get it back) been tweaking away for a while, to a big disappointment, I got a bit of a dud with the CPU , absolutely refuses to go above 2600MHz, well.. with <1.6V... I could crank that up, BUT... system longevity is somewhat desired, lol.

So.. as it sits right now...
CPU @ 2600MHz
FSB @ 260MHz
Multiplier = 10x
CPU/MEM = 1:1
CPU - V @ 1.45V (w/ 113%)
Mem - V @ 2.8V

CPU Idle @ 29C
CPU Load @ 40C (Prime95, Priority 7)

81.84 nVidia Drivers
Vid Card @ 490/1320

3DMark 01 = 27,909
3DMark 03 = 17,939
3DMark 05 = N/A (yet)
Aquamark3 = 87,352
Everest Memory Read = 7,002 MB/s

 

ok, finally got around to pictures... I think it turned out well. The dark pictures are kind of crummy, cause I can't find the option on my olympus camera to keep the shutter speed normal in low light, defaults to 'slow', and I was too lazy to go get a tripod. also, we hooked up the tornado to the cases built in fan controller, at max, its quieter then it was before, and at minimum, the cpu temps are only about 5 degrees celsius higher, then if it was just straight power and no controller. So, we run 5 degrees hotter and about 20 decibels quieter. I think thats a winning combo.

lights on...

lights off...

lights on...

lights off...

top 3/4 shot with lights off...

front, with door open...

blow hole...

 

very nice

 

Looks good, man!

 

holy bling! you should go put some of those purple lights on your 4runner.
itll make you look cool and go faster...i kid cause i love.haha

 

http://www3.uark.edu/bkst/pumpkin/

 

[H]ocp pumpkin is so damn cool.

I am making my next one out of an ammo can.

I was thinking of doing it in my flight helmet...but I only have my one and I do not want to cut her up