My New Media PC

[Baez]

Well it's time to start planning this baby. I'm building a media PC to hook up to my 46" LG HDTV. I'm planning on building it in the beginning of May. Here's what I've come up with so far:

CPU: NCIX.com - Intel Xeon E3110 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail

Motherboard: NCIX.com - Intel BOXDX38BT Bonetrail ATX LGA775 X38 DDR3 2PCI-E16 PCI-E1 2PCI Sound GBLAN 1394A

RAM: 2 x NCIX.com - OCZ Platinum OCZ3P13332GK 2GB DDR3 2X1GB DDR3-1333 CL 7-7-7-20 Dual Channel

GPU: NCIX.com - BFG GeForce 8800GTS 650MHZ 512MB 1.94GHZ DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out Retail

HDD: NCIX.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750GB SATA2 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ 3.5IN

DVD: NCIX.com - ASUS BLU-RAY Reader BD-ROM 5X DVD+-RW 12X6X12 DL 4X Internal SATA Black Retail

PSU: NCIX.com - Corsair TX750W 750W ATX 12V 60A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan

TV Card: NCIX.com - Diamond TV Wonder 650 Theater PCI-E TV Tuner Card ATSC NTSC HDTV

Case: Still undecided

HSF: Already have a brand new Zalman Fatal1ty lying here.

My Total: $1,370.22 - $100 in rebates = $1,270.22

Plus the cost of a case. Sorry I would post the price I get for each item but it's against NCIX's agreement

Anyway let me know what you guys think! This is going to be mostly for gaming on the big screen, recording TV and watching movies in HD.

If you have any other suggestions either post a link from NCIX or just suggest the part and I'll look into it. As I've said before I'm a Premier Partner with them and get everything you see for quite a bit cheaper.

The TV Tuner Card I asked about in the multimedia section but still haven't got a response. I want to know which is the best one of all. You can read my post there if you want.

 

[ricanflow]

Video, cpu, and psu are all overkill. You can just drop in e2180, a 500watt psu, and an 8500gt and itll do the same job and youll have extra $$$ for other things.

I wouldint pay that much for a mobo either, unless i was doing some heavy ocing, which isnt necessary for a media pc anyways.

And ddr3? wow man youre pretty much throwing money away lol.

 

[NightSurge]

If he's going for a good gaming experience, I think the 8800GTS is a good choice. I would switch to a Q6600 cpu and keep the Corsair 750TX. It has all the power you should need if you ever want to upgrade your graphics/cpu/optical drives, etc.

All that combined would be overkill for just a media PC, but with combined gaming on that as well, and I'm assuming it would be at 1920x1080 resolution on a 1080p television, you would want the better graphics card. DDR2 is plenty though.. and if you just want a single graphics card, the Gigabyte DS3L is a great board for all you'd need and is very cheap.

 

[ricanflow]

Ah, didnt catch that. I though it was gonna be just a media pc. For gaming, thats more than enough. Stick with ddr2 as well, no reason to get dr3 as of now.

 

[darksideleader]

ill take the the asus maxiumus over the bone trail.

 

[Baez]

Well I am going to OC this as much as I can. I don't know if I'll ever have a computer that I won't OC again. The reason I went with the bonetrail over the maximus is that from what I've read around everywhere is that the bonetrail is much more stable. Even though this is a media PC I have a lot of friends over all the time so we will be doing some heavy gaming now and then.

I know there is no reason to get DDR3 now but later that's all that will be around. I plan on upgrading the RAM and CPU later on. I sell PC's as a job so I'll just put these ones in a used PC build after. Sorry should have explained that before.

Also the CPU was what I wasn't totally sure about. I was debating on Quad-Core between the Q6600 or the X3320. What do you guys think? The Xeon is a 45nm chip and I figured I could get a better OC in terms of temps with it.

 

[TheOtis]

Well, just a heads up. DDR3-1333 is going to perform around the same as low latency DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066. But, if you want to overclock, you can probably push those to 1600mhz or so. In that case, it's going to be sick.

You could pick up a Gigabyte board that supports DDR2/DDR3 and get some DDR2 now. That way when DDR3 becomes "teh" standard, you'll be good to go. And when "teh" speeds in DDR3 that are worth getting come down in price, you can get some.

I can't say I know a ton about the neewer server procs from Intel. But for a home media PC, the cooler the better. Although, the G0 Q6600's are very capable overclockers and they run decently cool. But on the other hand, the reliablity of a server proc is great.

 

[Baez]

Yeah there aren't too many reviews on the new LGA775 Xeon processors out right now. But from what I've heard they run rediculously cool.

 

[veg1992]

Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Duo E8400 Xeon Counterpart, the E3110 | circuitREMIX

it got 4.3ghz on 1.443 (safe Voltage for Air Cooling)

 

[TheOtis]

I'm totally picking one of those up now.

EDIT: Take that back, not a quad.