Ok, I decided to change my computer a couple of months right now. But as Intel is doing some strange stuffs with the prices, this took a little longer than exepected. Some friends asked me what I bought, so I decided to write this post.
My new box description:
- CPU: Intel Q6600 Quad Core at 2.4Ghz (G0 => it’s running at 1.6Ghz on idle)
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (Intel P35 Express)
- A massive big CPU cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
- Case: Cooler Master Centurion 534
- Hard-drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA – 320 Go 7200 RPM 16 Mo SATA II
- 2Go of generic DDR2-SDRAM DDR800 PC6400
- Power Supply: Seasonic S12II-430
- A passive Radeon HD2600
- A nice (and big) Samsung Syncmaster 223BW
- A Asus DVD player: DRW-1814BLT
Here a little photo:
So let’s take a look closer.. I bought the Q6600 because it has a good price right now.
For the motherboard I wanted to buy a serious brand (I had some bad issues with ASRock ..). And Asus build some good ones, but doesn’t have a PS2 keyboard plug. I choose the Gigabytes because the bridge cooler is on the right, so I can use a big fan in the case back (no cpu-fan) without the bridge fan issue.
For the harddrive, I already have this type of Seagate on another box (in ATA, not SATA), and it’s damn cool ! Low noise and great performances .. a substain 58Mo/sec (a little bit more than my previous LVDS-SCSI config at 10 000 rpm !)
The perfect box should have two 120mn fans. So this CoolMaster is fine.
I only use the front fan right now, but this may change in future. The case is quite big (too much for my needs), easy to mount, and serious quality. The hard-drive combo stuff, isn’t really easy to use but it does it’s job.
For the power-supply, after reading a lot of website, I bought the Seasonic. This stuff cost a little money, but it’s a really silent one, and seems to be robust.
As I bought a silent power supply, I needed a silent cpu cooler two. Everybody knows that default Intel fan are awfully noisy, so I decided to test this Freezer. And that was a good choice. On idle, the fan runs at 450 rpm, (hey that’s low!!) and CPU is at 31°. At full load, the fan runs at 1000 rpm (still really low!!) and the CPU is at 46°. My initial plan was to remove the fan on the cooler and to place a big 120 mn on the case back, but haven’t done this yet.
For the video card, I was looking for something with good bench on Linux, so ATI was a good challenger (beside it only works with the latest ATI binary shit). And finding a passive HD2600 is a bit hard.
For the DVD, I didn’t have any ideas. Most DVD players I used are noisy, have unstable speed. My previous Samsung was a real bullshit. I went to me local computer store, and bought the cheaper they have on stock. And this is a really good surprise. This DVD burner is really cool. So, if someone ask, give it a try :)
So, as you can imagine, this little stuff is quite silent and powerfull :)
I will upload some pictures soon …
Update: I took some photos
Enjoy cores
So, I’ve also been thinking about replacing my 3 year old desktop and I priced out your configuration in the US and it looks to be within my budget. Can you let me know (directly or via your blog) what OS (if Linux, what flavor) you installed and issues you may have encountered? Also, I’m quite interested to know how the quad core performs. Up to now, I’ve always built AMD based machines (better price/performance), but I think Intel has surpassed AMD at this point. Thanks and I look forward to hearing more about your new machine. Oh, BTW, pictures would be awesome too.
I run Ubuntu 7.04 (now 7.10), and Windows XP SP2
I run into issue with the ethernet, the audio, and the ATI of course (for linux) but this will be a future post.
The quad core perform quite well.. it’s really a speedy box. It run WoW at max quality (1680×1050) for 50FPS.. and this is really pretty. On the linux side, using 4 core is great, but now the OS need to be tweaked in that way. I can’t compare with AMD cause the only one I get in hand right now is a AMD64 (single core) so ..
As said, I will post a more detailled info on the motherboard as soon as possible, and pictures should be on the road too. Wait 2/3 days => use the RSS feed :)
Bye bye
Hello Jkx. Hâte de voir tes photos. Un disque SATA sous nunux est énuméré comme un IDE, (hda par ex) ou SCSI ou c’est une autre désignation ?
@bientôt
your cpu heatsink is on backwards..
To Dav, I know that in fact.
The supply fan pull the air out of the box.. and the cpu fan push air from the back hole to CPU. It’s work fine like this and avoid to heard the air flow.
The CPU is really fresh anyway, the main issue for that config, is the GPU which is a little hot.
Hi,
You have engineered an interesting combo. Actually, I was also thinking of using a quad core Intel Q6600. I am using Debian, so I hope it works as well as Ubuntu (unless they have made distribution specific changes to the kernel?). You mentioned the kernel needed some tweaking. Where are you thinking of? Do you use a precompiled kernel? (Sometimes I see people refer to the AMD64 kernel for Intel quad cores?!?)
I will stay tuned for more experience notes from your hand.
Thanks.
To Jove: The generic Kernel works fine on this mobo. In fact, the latest Ubuntu Kernel 2.6.22 fixes the sound issues. There is still a bug with Windows which disable the nic, but this can be fixed on the windows side ..
A lot of people talks about AMD64 kernel on the Q6600, because they want to use it in 64bits mode.. so they need to use a 64bits distro. And the only one on the debian world is AMD64 one. So they install the AMD64 distro version on the Q6600, but this way the kernel handle the 64bits, and the userland stuff too. That’s it. In fact the AMD64 distro has a wrong name, it should be i386-64 .. Check the debian page for more explains..
Another tips, I bought the V1 of this mobo, but take care that the V2 is a bit different..
I’m looking to build a similar system myself, based on Ubuntu 7.10.
I wasn’t sure about getting an ATI card though due to previously reported compatibility issues with Compiz etc.
How much did this setup cost you?
TIA
The video card works the binary ATI driver, and seems to work with Compiz ..
It cost me 1100Euros, thanks to dollar about 6 months ago now.
Bye
Ah, by the way, thanks for sharing the very useful info about your new machine :-)
P
I have build a similar system recently.
Used nVidia (more Linux friendly AFAIK) ASUS EN8600GTS with passive cooling.
Thermaltake TR2-500 PSU.
MB MSI P6N SLI Platinum.
The only thing left is a silent CPU cooler, a box one is really the "silence bootleneck".
Hi
Thanks for sharing your experiences
I want to buy new system that its CPU is q6600. of course my purpose for buying this system is low price :) Are there many differences between this model with new model from Intel company ?
in addition to, usage of this system is as desktop with some virtulization for running 2 or 3 OS simultaneous (Xen technology)
Thanks for any guide or suggestion :)
You shouldn’t get air from the back it will be hotter because of the psu
Air should come from the front and/or sides and out the back and/or top