New PC time

[FAST6191]

Edit: This is what I went with in the end:

Asus P5N32-E SLi nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard:@£152.74
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=MB-209-AS
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail @£205.61
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=CP-128-IN
Gainward BLISS GeForce 7900 GS SILENT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail x2@£340.72
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=GX-041-GW
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) @£199.74
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=MY-124-CS
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM @£66.96
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=HD-078-SE
Sony AW-G170AB2 18x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer - (Black) OEM x2@£39.92
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=CD-054-SO
Akasa Ultra Quiet 650W Power+ iQ Active PFC ATX2.01 PSU - Black Nickel 1 @£93.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=CA-023-AK
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming case 1 @£70.49
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....rodid=CA-065-AN
Sub Total : £995.90
Shipping (next day): £12.95
Vat : £176.55
Total : £1,185.40

Quick story:
My laptop has served me well over the last few years but it is showing its age and is desperately prone to overheating (the heat removal was never good and doubles as the best dust magnet I have ever seen). To finish things it seems to have developed a shorting problem and a ribbon fatigued meaning I have to jump two pins on the motherboard to even power it.

Despite finding a way to have the 6 million dollar man theme tune played over a guitar solo whilst effecting repairs I do not hold out much hope of my laptop lasting much longer: new PC time it is.
I was somewhat out of the loop (about 8 months or so) regarding the latest and greatest devices so I have spent many hours reading charts, opinions and reviews with the intention choosing devices for a shortlist of things I think would be good. This being said I can read all the numbers I like but the human experience element is as important as ever (for example my old vaio was a very nice spec machine but the official drivers (which I was pretty much locked into) were updated maybe twice since launch and that was in the first year) so I thought I would run the list by the fine people here for some opinions.

Preface:
My computer is used for video encoding as well as video watching (lately I have been doing x264 encodes and using high quality deinterlacing as other intensive filters so performance is an issue), office junk and playing games (I tend to keep myself several months behind the times as optimised drivers and patches for games mean I can get a far nicer experience (in terms of gameplay and bank manager relations) than 0-day gamers and those with bleeding edge hardware do, this philosophy should serve me well right now with all the Vista lemmings and directx10 business appearing (for which I am confident nothing that will sway me will appear for in the next year) meaning directx9 stuff has dropped in price).
Overclocking is something I am fairly familiar with and plan on doing it to a limited extent this build so I would appreciate any response from overclockers, this being said I am not so much interested in using lower grade cards made of “failed” high quality components and unlocking them and instead I am going for a pure clockspeed and timings approach to it this time.
I am UK based so somewhere that ships here would be nice although I could get some stuff shipped from the US (specifically Washington area) if it comes to it.
If you would like to suggest another component I can afford to raise the price 20-30% although if you feel you can make a case for a more expensive component please do so. I would like to get this over and done with as quick as so for the most part I can not afford to wait for “price cuts” several months down the line (not to mention if I tried that I would never have build a machine in the first place).
I do not mind buying leads and this topics mere existence should mean I do not mind setting up stuff, bundled software is of no interest to me either.

That over it is on to the list (which is not looking that special right now but I would like to be corrected on any design theory issues now), I have included price in the title and a short description of the theory I followed choosing it. Prices listed include VAT and are generally links are from/to dabs as this is a fact finding mission right now with shopping around coming later.

Case (under £100):
While I would like to do another in desk build that is not an option now. I do not care for LEDs and appearance from the factory but I need to hold the motherboard and two drives and sort out sufficient cooling. I can sort this one out myself (I may even have an old one kicking around) but any great deals would be appreciated.

Motherboard (£150 although I can appreciate the need for a bit higher):
ATX form factor aside motherboards are naturally cpu / graphics card dependent. Nothing onboard is really wanted here (save perhaps a wired network connection and I am willing to up the price if sound is onboard). Several USB ports (5 would be a minimum) are required although I am willing to suffer an expansion card for it. PCIe graphics are the choice here and SLI/crossfire is out of my price range (actually it could be in but in a contest between 1 decent card versus 2 bad ones 1 decent card can win). Something by asustek or gigabyte seem to be the order of the day

Hard drive (£100):
The hard drive is one of the slowest components and frequently a bottleneck for things I care about. Things seem to be moving fast in HDD world (more so than usual) and as they are easy to upgrade this can be a stopgap measure, I do not want to be fiddling RAM drives either.
This being said I am in somewhat of a dilemma here over medium storage-medium performance or lower storage-high performance. While I work with video any massive space requirements are taken care of by external drives. I have not had the best of luck with HP drives and it will probably take a bit of convincing to change my mind with regard to their usage.
7200 RPM is probably the choice RPM here as the 10k (or greater) ones seem to be fairly overpriced for the benefits they confer me and lower is not enough. Some form of SATA interface will probably be chosen (1.5GB/s seems to be good enough) and I have not decided whether RAID along with some other drives will be in use yet.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB S300 £65: http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...960493,40970000

RAM (preferably £200).
“Bring me 2 gigs of your finest RAM” would be what I would say if I were a medieval king. I have seen many a build experience issues due to poor ram choice and it is a chokepoint for video stuff I work with. I may consider 1 gig of RAM if you can show me some exceptionally high performance stuff, overclocking comes with the CPU and like to keep timings tight so please bear than in mind. Anything other than DDR2 need not apply and naturally I will try and match it with my mboard.

Corsair Memory TWIN2X2048-6400C4 2x1GB 240-Pin DIMM XMS2-6400 CL4 £200
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...9063,4294959239

Crucial have a bunch of stuff at varying price points which may also be on the cards.

CPU (£300):
Multicore I something that intrigues me from a pure performance standpoint and a lot of apps I like support multithreading in one form or another while 64bit is all but useless (I plan on using a 32 bit OS for day to day stuff anyhow), SSE3 support is a must and I would like a decent amount of L2 cache (2 megs or more) seen as it is multicore. Naturally I plan on overclocking it.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 Socket 775 2.67GHz £340 (I will probably aim for approx. 3GHz after overclocking) I do hear though that graphics may be a pain if I use this CPU.
AMD seem to be struggling against this but AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ at £200 is pretty attractive.

Graphics (£200-£300 although I would prefer closer to £200):
Dual monitor support is a must and 512Megs of on-card memory seems to be a good starting point and I plan on overclocking the card as well.
With regard to games AMD-ATI or NVIDIA based cards seem to still be the best choice for games performance (if someone could offer up a decent card for CAD that would be great although usually they are well out of my price point). I will say I do not care for multimedia “enhancements” and physics stuff (they are never used really and even if I manage the 900 odd voodoo incantations required only really important for on the fly encoding or deinterlacing or 2 games I will probably never play).
I also do not have any real desire to run games with 4xAA, “realistic shadows” and HDR lighting at a stupidly high resolution like I see in performance charts and tend to favour lower resolutions with no fancy shadowing and such. PCIe cards are once again the choice of the day and HDCP is nothing I care about. I would also like some widescreen LCD monitor suggestions if you have them.
Something by sapphire seems like a good starting point if only because of dual output
http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/products/pr...ew.php?gpid=161
XFX GeForce 8800GTS (£285)
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...14&v=2#infoarea

Sound(£50):
If not onboard I will need a sound card, sound input is not of great concern although I would ideally like 5.1 output support (7.1 is nice but pretty pointless for me), SPDIF is probably not going to be used so do not bend over backwards for it.

Cooling(£ not especially fussed as long as it does the task, try and keep it under £100 or £150 liquid cooling):
I have some ideas on cooling and some people with laser prototyping and powder metallurgy facilities that owe me a favour so some nice custom cooling is what I will end up with. It will however take a while to generate all the time/materials needed for that project so something I can get off the shelf is needed for now (I can use it afterwards so I would appreciate no stop-gap measures here). Liquid cooling is not a problem for me to set up and maintain and I do not mind paying a bit more for quieter operation.

Power supply (£80):
Along with bad RAM I have equally seen otherwise good builds messed up (sometimes permanently) by poor PSU choice. The components I choose are probably considered performance components and seen as overclocking is also on the cars I will probably require some decent power. 550-600W would be the baseline although I will do some more maths when things become final.

OS (£free):
32Bit windows XP is what I choose although I may find myself with a 64bit Linux OS one day. I have plenty of tools and info on optimising XP but more tools/info is appreciated especially regarding overclocking based stuff.

Extras- CD/DVD drives and cards:
A wired network card (if one is not on the mboard) and a wireless one would be nice (keep it 802.11g at most with support for b as I do not wish to gamble with n spec stuff right now). DVD drive wise I want 2 DVD reading drives at least and at least one that can burn and read +/- rewriteable media out of the box (firmware hacks do not inspire me with confidence), litescribe and similar technologies as well as “next-gen” (blue ray or HD) DVDs I can honestly say do not appeal but dual layer is something I am on the fence about (media seems plentiful, good and cheap but I do not know if I would really use it). Other than that there is nothing else I really need save perhaps some graphics input stuff but that is a consideration for a later date. If you have some suggestions for a good mouse and/or keyboard (preferably wired) I would like to hear those too.

Thanks in advance for reading and any suggestions given, if you would like clarification on a point or have a question about something post and I willtry my best to answer it. I will keep this updated with developments but I plan on moving fast so by Friday night I would like to have my card charged with enough stuff to build a working PC so (assuming no stock issues) I am staring at a new PC the following friday.

 

[fischju_original]

that sounds look at great high end system, what are you looking at for price range?

and may i reccomend bulding one here http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/cfgc2d.asp?v=d and see what it adds up to

 

[mcbey]

Well I tried to read it all but then my head exploded

Get a Mac Laptop. Plays media better than windows and its got WoW so what else do you need?

 

[Mchart]

Motherboard - I would suggest either a 650i or 680i depending on how much you want to spend. 650i socket-775 motherboards are a decently priced at around 150 dollars, but still perform and overclock very good. The 680i's are around 300 dollars, but essentially the major difference is primarily two x12 PCI-E slots that can run at x12 speeds in SLI mode. Where as the 650i's have 2 pci-e slots that run in x8 mode when used in SLI.

CPU - Get the E6600. It is cheaper then the E6700, but easily overclockable to E6700 speeds. There is absolutely no reason to get the E6700. Even the cheapest motherboards are capable of overclocking the small amount needed to reach 2.6Ghz. Overclocking to 3ghz is easily obtainable with stock cooling even. Overclocking conroe based systems is really more dependent on your motherboard. Because the CPU's themselves are so cool and stable to begin with.

Memory - If you overclock get ddr2 800mhz. If you don't overclock get ddr2 553mhz. DDR2 667mhz performs worse then 553mhz when you keep the FSB speed on the motherboard at the standard 266mhz. This is because conroe based systems run better with a 1:1 mem/fsb ratio.

Sound - Most onboard solutions will do just fine. I really see no reason in purchasing a seperate sound card unless you are an audiophile.

Case - Thats your choice, just make sure to get something that has lots of room, and has appropriate fan areas.

Power supply - This is the most important aspect of a computer. If you get a cheap powersupply, your going to pay. I would reccomend enermax, or PC Power & Cooling. These are by far the best manufacturers. Make sure to get at least a 600watt PSU if you are planning on SLI.

GPU - Wait on purchasing the 8800. I would suggest something cheap. I have a 7900GS overclocked to GT speeds, and it performs great in every game with 1440*900 widescreen resolution and maxed out settings. It only costs like $150, and is still great. I would wait until the newer 8x00 series GPU's come out, or until ATI's new GPU's come out. Then buy something new.

Hard Drive - Two WD Raptors in raid 0 is the only way to go.

 

[nintendofreak]

that sounds look at great high end system, what are you looking at for price range?

and may i reccomend bulding one here http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/cfgc2d.asp?v=d and see what it adds up to

Not trying to bag on Cyber power pc or anything, but just a few months ago, my friend sent a order to have a souped up computer built for him from CyberpowerPC.
The drives didnt work
Would turn off randomly
Overheating
Cables werent good (they replaced the cables but then, problems persisted)
Little support from them "Ill call you back" (never called back)

Better business Bureau :
http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business...panyID=13080817

He had enough of it, and since we live about 30 Min away from the place, he went back, and demanded his money back. Built his own computer for 100's less and same performance

FAST, you seem to know your computer stuff, IMO you should build it yourself, and save some $$

 

[fischju_original]

My pc was $100 less at cybperpower than cheapest-that-would-do-the-same components at newegg, you need to shop around

 

[nintendofreak]

My pc was $100 less at cybperpower than cheapest-that-would-do-the-same components at newegg, you need to shop around

Hows it handling BTW?

 

[jtroye32]

Motherboard - I would suggest either a 650i or 680i depending on how much you want to spend. 650i socket-775 motherboards are a decently priced at around 150 dollars, but still perform and overclock very good. The 680i's are around 300 dollars, but essentially the major difference is primarily two x12 PCI-E slots that can run at x12 speeds in SLI mode. Where as the 650i's have 2 pci-e slots that run in x8 mode when used in SLI.

CPU - Get the E6600. It is cheaper then the E6700, but easily overclockable to E6700 speeds. There is absolutely no reason to get the E6700. Even the cheapest motherboards are capable of overclocking the small amount needed to reach 2.6Ghz. Overclocking to 3ghz is easily obtainable with stock cooling even. Overclocking conroe based systems is really more dependent on your motherboard. Because the CPU's themselves are so cool and stable to begin with.

Memory - If you overclock get ddr2 800mhz. If you don't overclock get ddr2 553mhz. DDR2 667mhz performs worse then 553mhz when you keep the FSB speed on the motherboard at the standard 266mhz. This is because conroe based systems run better with a 1:1 mem/fsb ratio.

Sound - Most onboard solutions will do just fine. I really see no reason in purchasing a seperate sound card unless you are an audiophile.

Case - Thats your choice, just make sure to get something that has lots of room, and has appropriate fan areas.

Power supply - This is the most important aspect of a computer. If you get a cheap powersupply, your going to pay. I would reccomend enermax, or PC Power & Cooling. These are by far the best manufacturers. Make sure to get at least a 600watt PSU if you are planning on SLI.

GPU - Wait on purchasing the 8800. I would suggest something cheap. I have a 7900GS overclocked to GT speeds, and it performs great in every game with 1440*900 widescreen resolution and maxed out settings. It only costs like $150, and is still great. I would wait until the newer 8x00 series GPU's come out, or until ATI's new GPU's come out. Then buy something new.

Hard Drive - Two WD Raptors in raid 0 is the only way to go.

pretty much what i was going to type.

 

[jtroye32]

Well I tried to read it all but then my head exploded

Get a Mac Laptop. Plays media better than windows and its got WoW so what else do you need?

no. definitely don't do that. E660 OC'd ftw.

 

[MR_COW]

Well I tried to read it all but then my head exploded

Get a Mac Laptop. Plays media better than windows and its got WoW so what else do you need?


no. definitely don't do that. E660 OC'd ftw.

Have any reasons? I don't see how macs are inferior to PC's, plus with boot camp, you can do windows.

 

[Smuff]

SOUND

I was quite happy to go with onboard sound until I spotted a good deal on an Audigy 2ZS Platinum - My brother kept on at me about how much of a difference it made and I was like "meh"......... until I plugged mine in. What a difference !!! Worth every last penny.

Got kinda tired reading your prolific first post so I'm not sure whether it's in your "required" envelope or not, but just thought I'd mention it.

Good luck with the new build - sounds like it's going to be a real beast

[EDIT] Just re-reading on of the previous posts, and I can also highly recommend the 7900GS (even though I haven't Ocd mine to GT speeds yet)

 

[fischju_original]

My pc was $100 less at cybperpower than cheapest-that-would-do-the-same components at newegg, you need to shop around


Hows it handling BTW?

perfect, and very cool (temp wise, cpu is 47C load, GPU 60C, stock cooling)
here is a pic



Did you know XP runs 60% faster than OSX on a mac?

 

[RockingDude]

To keep prices down, if it's an issue for you, you could always get an e6400 and a gigabyte 965p-ds3 mobo.

To save on graphics, unless you really want dx10, an x1950xt will do, and they go for $220 AR on newegg, dunno if you'll get near that in the UK.

Get a LianLi or ChenMing case for around or less than 100.

Try to get Micron d9 chipped ram if you can, but it isn't the biggest deal, the better your cpu (6600+) the slower your ram can be.

Right choice on the HD.

Well, trying to save you a few bucks for roughly the same performance, hope this helps.

 

[Mchart]

Well I tried to read it all but then my head exploded

Get a Mac Laptop. Plays media better than windows and its got WoW so what else do you need?


no. definitely don't do that. E660 OC'd ftw.

Have any reasons? I don't see how macs are inferior to PC's, plus with boot camp, you can do windows.

A.) More expensive. I can build a PC with the same components as a mac and it will turn out to be around 200-300 dollars cheaper. Which means I can then buy better components.

B.) Just because its a mac doesnt mean it performs better. It has the same components that a PC could. See A.

C.) Because of the crappy motherboard it is difficult to overclock.

Anyone who is a gamer should not be buying a mac. Its a rip-off. And if your overclocking, a mac is a joke.

 

[cenotaph]

You forgot something important -- the PSU. Without a PSU decent enough your new rig will suffer from stability-issues and at some point, if your PSU is underpowered, it'll die and take the rest of the components with it (trust me, this isn't pretty). Drop at least $120 on a good brand name unit (personal favorites include Corsair, Enermax, Enhance, OCZ, Seasonic and Silverstone. Stay away from Antec though) with plenty of amps available on the 12v rail(s), or at least enough amps to run your stuff plus a little headroom.

C.) Because of the crappy motherboard it is difficult to overclock.

Honestly, overclocking is overrated. The extra juice you'll get out of it as long as the cost-performance gain-ratio is in your favor won't really improve the longevity of your rig's lifespan (in terms of how long it's able to keep up with the demands presented by new games or otherwise performance-heavy applications). To me, overclocking's just something people do to increase the length of their e-penises (and my question - is it really worth it?).

 

[Psyfira]

To throw another UK-based site into the mix a mate of mine got all her parts from http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

[Edit] The name of the site's a coincidence, my suggesting it as a place to buy stuff has nothing to do with the debate about the pro/cons of overclocking in this thread. (just to clear up any confusion)

 

[Mchart]

No, sorry. Overclocking is not overated. Because of overclocking, games that would have been chugging, or even not playable because playable. It's like saying there is no good difference between 25FPS, and 30FPS. If overclocking can make or break the 30FPS mark, its definatly worth it.

Not to mention overclocking does not shorten the life of hardware. The only time overclocking can shorten the life of hardware is if you push to high of a overclock, and let it run at it.

What IS overrated are doing case mods, and adding all those dumb lights on the case, etc..

 

[Sick Wario]

You forgot something important -- the PSU. Without a PSU decent enough your new rig will suffer from stability-issues and at some point, if your PSU is underpowered, it'll die and take the rest of the components with it (trust me, this isn't pretty). Drop at least $120 on a good brand name unit (personal favorites include Corsair, Enermax, Enhance, OCZ, Seasonic and Silverstone. Stay away from Antec though) with plenty of amps available on the 12v rail(s), or at least enough amps to run your stuff plus a little headroom.

C.) Because of the crappy motherboard it is difficult to overclock.
Honestly, overclocking is overrated. The extra juice you'll get out of it as long as the cost-performance gain-ratio is in your favor won't really improve the longevity of your rig's lifespan (in terms of how long it's able to keep up with the demands presented by new games or otherwise performance-heavy applications). To me, overclocking's just something people do to increase the length of their e-penises (and my question - is it really worth it?).

try some overclocking mabye and tell us how overrated it is. i am not a pc wiz, but by lowering timings and increasing the multiplier in my motherboard, i gained 10% AT LEAST with my athlon x2
the e6600 can apparantly OC on stock fan to over 3GHz EASILY. and it's easy to do. free performance i think everyone wants that. as far as life span, i dont think many people here would be keepin a whole rig for moran that 2 years MAX anyway

yeah you want to get teh e6600 + p5b

 

[cenotaph]

try some overclocking mabye and tell us how overrated it is. i am not a pc wiz, but by lowering timings and increasing the multiplier in my motherboard, i gained 10% AT LEAST with my athlon x2
the e6600 can apparantly OC on stock fan to over 3GHz EASILY. and it's easy to do. free performance i think everyone wants that. as far as life span, i dont think many people here would be keepin a whole rig for moran that 2 years MAX anyway

yeah you want to get teh e6600 + p5b

Â

Ehm, what does timings have to do with increasing clock speeds (i.e. overclocking)? But yeah, those Core 2 Duo's overclock like crazy and temps stay down even with crap cooling (and yeah, I was generalizing a bit too much

).

QUOTEtry some overclocking mabye and tell us how overrated it is.

I still think it's overrated unless you've got a low-power CPU (read: A64's, Core-series). Suffice to say, I did it back in the day but it's not something I can be bothered with nowadays.

 

[Kyoji]

Lol, why would you overclock a Macbook anyway? If you want a gaming machine (read: 90% of the OC'd machines out there) then just buy or build a PC yourself. Apple laptops are very good, but they definetly aren't for gaming.