Michael Torrie wrote:
Kimball Larsen wrote:
I spec'd out a few things on Newegg - would love any feedback anyone
can offer:
Case:
ASUS V3-M2NC61P AMD Socket AM2+ / AM2 NVIDIA MCP61P 2-Tone Barebone
CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core
Processor Model ADO5000DOBOX
Hard Drives: (2x)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard
Drive
Memory:
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual
Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5
Total Cost:
$373.96 (aka el-cheapo)
Should be fine. Has Seagate fixed their problems yet? I think you
could go for an even lower watt processor and be totally fine. My main
workstation is an AMD 4550e processor, 45 watts. It runs most of the
time at 40% CPU speed.
Specs look alright to me. I do want to point out that the motherboard
has a 10/100 nic and not a gigabit. I don't know if that is important
for you but it does seem like gigabit is becoming more common place.
Personally, I use gigabit where possible. I do like ASUS brand
motherboards cause I have had a lot of good experiences with them. Also,
good choice on not just getting the cheapest memory there is and
spec'ing some corsair.
As for the problems there have been with the seagates, I thought that
was only on the > 1tb drives. I could be wrong since I didn't look too
much in to the problem. I would suggest getting some Western Digitals
anyways. But it is mainly personal preference. (Except I would recommend
doing some research on the Seagates 7200.11 firmware problem).
Do you plan on doing any upgrades to this box later? If not, then you
should be good to go. If you are, then you might run in to troubles
about a year to 18 months with this. I'm guessing the plain AM2
processors are going to be disappearing and I don't know how much longer
AM2+ is going to be around. I wouldn't be surprised if AM3 is pushed
down the pipeline quickly. Also, you will be somewhat limited if you
want to expand the hard drive capacity later. I usually look for at
least 4 internal 3.5" hard drive bays. You can get around this by using
the 2 external 3.5" bays (after all, most people don't buy floppy drives
these day) or by even using the 5.25" bays if you aren't going to use an
optical drive. Also, adding more than two hard drives might in the
future, you might want to look into a beefier power supply but the 300W
should work fine for now.
So there are some thoughts from me about it. If you aren't going to
upgrade later, what you spec'ed would be a nice system. If you want to
upgrade, I would make a few changes. Congrats on the new machine and
have fun building it.
Mike
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