Configuring new build with Rebuilder/CCE focus

i'd recently bought a couple of WD5000AAKB's to replace the (you guessed it...WD drives, 250G) in my USB2.0 enclosures

..one of the 250GB's is now earning it's keep an my main xbox, the other WD 250GB will probably end up in the other xbox, or i may just reuse an older machine as a file server with the USB2.0 enclosures attached (ie as opposed to hosting them all in the new Antec case), don't want this new monster PC on all the time, i'd rather leave a sub-200W machine on for file-serving than a 580W one!, though saying that, as i'll only have the various machines on when i'm at home (which isn't very often) i suppose i could justify leaving the Antec running when i'm at home... decisions, decisions

..think i'm going to plump for the WD5000AAKS's after all.. another cup of tea then some price tweaking i think, i'd like to get this stuff ordered, but suppose i'd better do some work too

 

good point, i hadn't considered that the total load wouldn't necessarily be the full 580W; it's too early

just costing any extra optical drives to add to this build then it's all spec'd out, can see i have 1 IDE controller to play with on the MSI board, might put a Benq DW1650 on there and keep any DVD ripping duties confined to one or more IDE DVD-Rom's (that already live in USB2.0 enclosures). Maybe i should be done with it buy 2 SATA burners to fill up the other 2 optical bays while i'm at it... just going to check if the PSU can cope, think it can

 

Right, finally made my mind up on the bits i want (apart from the Hiper PSU, the black ones are like gold dust, yet the blue ones are common as muck; don't like the bright blue meshed cables much though so picked a different PSU)..

1 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping L2 8MB Cache OEM CPU
£153.99 inc VAT and FREE Delivery

1 Zalman CNPS 9700 LED Socket 754, 940, 775, 939 & AM2 CPU Cooler
£34.36 inc VAT and FREE Delivery

1 Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - no PSU
£69.99 inc VAT and FREE Delivery

1 Corsair HX Series 620W Modular PSU
£88.93 inc VAT and FREE Delivery

1 MSI P35 Platinum Socket 775 FSB1333 onboard 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
£97.99 inc VAT and FREE Delivery

2 Crucial 2GB Kit (2x1GB) Ballistix Memory DDR2 PC2-8500 5-5-5-15 Unbuffered NON-ECC DDR2-1066MHz 2.2V 128Meg x 64
£135.11 inc VAT and small Delivery charge

4 Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM
£62.29 inc VAT and FREE Delivery, for each drive

Grand total = £829.52 inc VAT and Delivery, a great bargain methinks

 

Ebuyer for all except the memory, which was from Micro Direct as per your link (outstanding deal on the memory btw hence why i went for 4GB, much cheaper than anywhere else, even cheaper than Crucial themselves!); i wanted to order from just 1 place as delivery is always a problem for me as always on the move, but as it's just the RAM from the one place and it's small enough to post (well i hope it is) i shouldn't have any hassle with missed deliveries; kept adding more hard drives so had to force myself to stop at 4 as that's all i need for now, and have so far been unimpressed with reviews of any SATA optical drives, seems the only ones i could find are all noisy drives; don't mind things making some noise but there's no excuse in this day and age for noisy optical drives, reminds me of way back when 40x and 52x cd-rom drives came out and the cheapy ones always made far too much noise. Will just stick with all my various USB2.0 enclosures for dvd-rom and burners for now as i'm real happy with all of those (until such time that i can get decent quiet drives, am after a dvd-rom and 2 burners). I could've bought a PCI IDE controller card and thus re-used 3 existing optical drives internally but think an IDE controller will be overkill being as this motherboard has virtually everything catered for already)

 

cheers Sam; looking forward to starting building this monster on Monday; have nothing but praise for Ebuyer over the years; have no fear re Micro Direct or a.n.other supplier, it was worth the risk for the huge cost saving, though i take no prisoners when it comes to buying/deliveries & potential problems
At worst i now have a SatNav so no supplier can escape a personal visit from me, sellers beware. In the immortal words of Mel Gibson "They can take our payment but they can never take our customer satisfaction"

 

cheers, though i've got more than enough optical drives to use in the meantime, at £20 each for those drives i nearly just bought some on impulse but managed to restrain myself in the end; but all info is welcome as i know bugger all about SATA optical stuff. Doesn't seem like much choice in SATA opticals but i'll probably take your word for it and order a couple Pioneers then; just got to find a black IDE dvd-rom drive and i'm sorted (still using my old Beige LG dvd-rom, it's about 4years old and has ripped many, many 1000s of DVD's over it's life, still no sign of giving up the ghost yet), i'll use that for now via USB2.0. Am very fond of this LG drive, it's outlasted anything else, especially surprising since it's had such a hard life

haven't used them (was troublefree for me) in quite some years, and stopped due to their steep prices (and their prices are still not very competitive to this day), but back then there weren't a fraction as many rival companies to get good stuff from; but yeah, each to their own

yeah, the website is very specific about the G0 stepping; also i was pleased to find an OEM one as was buying a better cooler and the original cooler would've just sat in a draw forever with 6000 other old PC bits; the PSU does seem a good one, did quite a but of reading up on it last night; it pained me to spend so much on a PSU but as long as it lasts i'm happy enough, plus it's supposed to have a 5year warranty (good job as i keep PC's as long as i keep cars, ie way past their expected lifespan)

Shouldn't really have bought a new case as have had a monster Supermicro case (£186 new back in the day!) sitting empty for a few years - http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/supermicro_sc750a/02.jpg
but it's still seeing some use as a table for a few bits of kit