Hi, am now about to order a new system to update my current PC. As I'm far from the most technically minded I thought I would seek some comments / thoughts from those of you that are. My PC is primarily used as a work system, though since the discovery of fd-isr I have been able to use it for leisure time also by having a "non work" snapshot and thus I want to have sufficiant power/capabilities to do a little gaming and some photo editing, hence it would be considerably more featured/powerful than a normal work only machine. I would be interested in all/any comments or thoughts, I have touched on this before in another thread on memory but would like to attract all thoughts on general system. The baseline specs I have in mind are as follows. CS_FAN: Default Case Fan POWERSUPPLY: 630 Watts Power Supplies (Hiper 630W Type-M SLI/CrossFire Ready Power Supply (85% Efficiency)) MOTHERBOARD: (Quad-Core Supports) Asus P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2 Mainboard (an area I am particularly lost with) Mobo specs Possible alternate mobo CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6850 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (OCZ Nvidia SLI Ready Edition w/ Heat spreader HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD HDD2: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 18X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer FAN: INTEL LGA775 CERTIFIED CPU FAN & HEATSINK IEEE_CARD: NONE KEYBOARD: Logitech PS/2 Keyboard (Black) MOUSE: Logitech Optical PS2 Mouse (Black) MODEM: PCI 56K V.92 FAX MODEM W/VOICE SPEAKERPHONE NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional w/ Service Pack 2 PPU: NONE SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO USB: Add External USB 2.0 Hub (4x USB 2.0 Ports)
Hi Lucas thanx for the reply, with regard to SLI, from a work perspective no, I simply need a computer that can handle multiple monitors which means running either a quad card or a pair of dual head cards, I figured if I was going to run two graphics cards I mght as well get a setup that was capable of running in SLI. My interest in that was maybe to dabble a bit in the odd game such as Crysis, which I think it would help (although I'm still reading up on what the whole SLI thing really means. As for the PSU, will look at that although I possibly should say I will likely buy from here which limits my choice of components.
A pair of dual head cards is cheaper (Matrox VGAs are expensive). Just get a high-end VGA (for the gaming duty) and a low-end one (for the added outputs) Well, SLI is only useful when you have really high resolutions (>1920x1080) and a high level of filtering enabled. A simple 8800 GT will run most current games fine at 1920x1080 with filtering. Crysis is too much for the current graphic cards (even SLI) Also, SLI has a big drawback: it narrows your choices on motherboards. Why not a quad-core?
Yes, I priced Matrox a few years ago for my current system, and went with a pair of cards instead. Will a pair of cards in SLI not improve graphics performance over a single card? Does it not double the memory in use? (I have little or no idea btw, am just about to read up on this instead of assuming Ahh yes am still considering whether that is necessary, would be a £400 upside in price as my work software will not utilse the multi-core yet so I want 3.0GHz What would be your reasoning for suggesting it?
Yes, it will improve performance over a single card. But a single 8800 GT/GTS 512 provides enough performance for a smooth gameplay in all but the most extreme resolutions. Doubling the VRAM doesn't do any good, since each card only access its own VRAM and 512 MB is enough for the games of today. Having high amounts of VRAM might even hurt It really depends on the applications you're running. 600 Mhz more for the single-threaded applications or two extra cores. Scientific apps, video encoding/trascoding, VMs and some rendering benefit greatly with more cores. A £400 upside in price? Are you sure? Another suggestion: I've had good experiences with the Samsung SH-S203B DVD burner.
most people would surgest one high end video card in a either intel P35 or X38 motherboard. far more stable than a nvidia chipset board but has crossfire instead of SLI. i will always go for one high end card. i have this motherboard works great and isnt to costly eiether. i highly reccomend the corsair power supplys. but i also reccomend OCZ power supplys. i have one 8800gt nvidia card and it plays crysis fine with most settings set to high on vista home premium 32bit. i highly reccomend the quad core intel Q6600 will be better for furture proofing. are you buying from a supplier or building yourself? i notice one of your links is from cyberpower system uk shop. i brought my pc from cyberpower system uk and im very happy with it. if your buying from cyberpower system definatly post your spec in the cyberpower system. forums where mike the forum admin will help advise you. lodore
.....Tradetime You obviously have put a lot of thought into the new build-a few thoughts; Case-Would suggest an Antec 182-very quite and cool running. CPU-E6850 excellent choice for the price and power .You should be able to safely overclock up to about 3.6mhz or more,using a Thermalright UltraExtreme cooler with fan. Quad core are only useful if they can be utilised and at the moment most software cant. However some tasks like graphics can be performed faster,but a fast duo core will perform most work as fast or even faster than a quad-at present. For ordinary Office style work-duo core are sufficient. Would suggest something like the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P motherboard,with just one video card.Definitely use a board with an Intel P35 or X38 chip-its the standard. The 8800GT card is a great choice. The CPU fan is OK unless you are going to overclock,then use the Thermalright I mentioned earlier. The Logitech mouse/keyboard combo is excellent- have it also. I would get a separate soundcard such as a cheaper Creative model,as I have found onboard sound very tinny. Regarding the hard disks,in addition consider purchasing an external drive for ultimate security.The case and drive should be eSATA capable. The other items are OK,plenty of memory-dont know much about your PSU,but Corsair is generally a safe choice.The power sounds right. Sounds like a great system,very fast,but are you forced to use a 56k modem with such an advanced rig? ...................................................................................................................................................................................................
Thanx for the info Lucas, makes for interesting reading. VM's I may dabble with at some point in the future, but currently I use nothing that would benefit greatly from the extra cores, though this of course does not take into account future activities. Yes that is fair comment I was comparing a E6850 to a Q9650 for that pricing comment Thanx good to have user experiences.
Thanx for your thoughts Hairy Coo, those tend to be my thoughts on the processor, though I do understand the view of those that suggest quad core, and I do like to hear their all thoughts and reasoning in case it is something I have not thought of. For example it is interesting that every one is opposed to the idea of SLI, which does now give me pause for thought. I need 2 x graphics cards as I run a 3-4 monitor setup, but so far the consensus seems that SLI is not the way to go, and since I have no good resoning for going that way I may well reconsider. Currently I have an external usb drive, but agree the ability to run external eSata may be wise, which was what my alternate mobo selection brought over the original. The 56k modem thing is just a backup for adsl failure, I have dialup with an alternate ISP in case my adsl isp were to go down (not that that happens often, touch wood) Glad you mentioned the sound card, as someone else mentioned that on another thread but I forgot to ask why it would be any better than something like an onboard 7.1, but tinny sound is a damn good reason to go with a seperate card.
Thanx for the input Lodore, and yes that seems to be the way the views are going, and since I have no good reasoning for going SLI it seems that may need rethinking on my part. Good to hear, have read quite a few reviews on this card and it seems like a good value performer. Yes it looks most likely that I will give them a try, my spec is based on the choice of components they have to offer on their custom build section. Nice one, I hadn't even noticed they had a forum
@tradetime Here is a schedule for the new 45nm Intel Processors coming out. You have the new Quads & Dual Cores. Some of the Quads are out already but the Wolfdale chips are due out Jan 28. For some reason the new QX9650 isn't in this. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=160108 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115034 Parts of the UK have the Wolfdale already. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=173292&highlight=E8500 Lucas is right when he said You may want to take a look at these new vid cards coming at the end of the month from ATI. They have dual GPU's on one card. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=170385 If you are a person that doesn't upgrade often then I would go with a Quad, you won't regret it. Crysis is a perfect example of the first game being optimized for a Quad so don't leave yourself out Yes, the P35 & X38 are good boards. We have X48 mobo's coming soon too. Good luck with what ever you choose.
Thanx for your reply Rilla, ok SLI is all but out of the equation now, and consensus seems to point to the Intel chipset mainboards so a little reconfig seems required. Would there be any particular reason for choosing an x38 board over a p35. To answer your question on upgrading, I tend to upgrade my system every 5 years, not being particularly tech savvy I don't bother with component upgrades, but rather upgrade the entire system. From a gaming perspective, I'm not into it big by any means but would like to dabble, I think given a graphics choice of Nvidia 8800GT, a mid-range card, the dual core is probably adequate for the amount of gaming I am likely to do, and certainly for my work perspective. Think I will leave quad core to the next upgrade in 2013.
Ok this pretty much looks like the final cut. CAS: CoolerMaster Cosmos Silent Gaming Tower Case CS_FAN: Default Case Fan POWERSUPPLY: 580 Watts Power Supplies (Hiper Type-M SLI/Crossfire Ready 580 Watt Power Supply) MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5K-E/WIFI-AP Intel P35 LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN, Internal RAID, USB2.0,IEEE1394,&7.1Audio CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6850 CPU @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache 64-bit FAN: INTEL LGA775 CERTIFIED CPU FAN & HEATSINK MEMORY: 2GB (2x1GB) PC8500 DDR2/1066Mhz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair XMS2 w/Heatspreader) CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 18X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD HDD2: 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive KEYBOARD: Logitech PS/2 Keyboard MOUSE: Logitech Optical PS2 Mouse MODEM: PCI 56K V.92 FAX MODEM W/VOICE SPEAKERPHONE NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional w/ Service Pack 2 SOUND: Creative Labs X-FI XtremeMusic 24-BIT PCI Sound Card SPEAKERS: Logitech X540 70Watts 5.1 Configuration Speaker System USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 16X PCI Express Video Card VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCI Express x16 Video Card Thanx to all for thoughts and suggestions.
Looks very good, although I prefer the Antec P182 over the CoolerMaster Cosmos Be sure that the DVI-I ports on the 7600 GS are both dual-link (the 8800 GT have dual-link DVI-I outputs) , so you can upgrade to four 30in monitors
I did actually look at the Antec cases, I think there were two that looked quite similar though one was much larger than the other the P182 and the P190. With regards to the dual link am not sure if this is what you mean. Though there is no way I'd need or want to go to 4 x 30 inch Just read up on that only one DVI with dual link on the 7600, but as said, I'm not going as far as 4 x 30 inch hehe.
That card has a DVI-I port (dual-link) a VGA port (D-Sub) and TV-Out. I'm sure that you can find a 7600 GS/GT with dual DVIs and both dual-link. This way, you get a secure upgrade path to big monitors (2500x1600) if you ever need to. More on DVI
You are wasting a lot of power if you dont overclock the E6850-even Intel expect users to do this and its not difficult or dangerous if commonsense is used. For this ,the stock Intel fan is not good enough the best is the Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120-my overclocked CPU runs less than 40c usually. You should be able to achieve around 3.8mhz with a bit of tweaking-just Google-a lot of info out there!. The power increase over stock is quite noticeable. Your memory would be able to handle it also. Basically you are wasting the memory and mobo and chip capabilities if you dont! Like buying an expensive fast sports car and never driving fast. Once again would suggest the Antec p182 case-renowned for silent running and efficient cooling and neat cabling. The P190 is the larger case-and not necessary. The Cosmos has only fair thermal performance,especially as regards the HDDs,but it certainly looks good. You especially need good cooling with two video cards,which run hot. You have reduced the memory and 2gb should be plenty-I rarely exceed 40% usage. The PSU I would think has enough power,but there seems to be quite a lot running off it,certainly wouldnt go any lower. If you do decide for Antec,check that it will fit. The mobo makes more sense.. No doubt you are aware WIFI means you can wirelessly share your internet connection-is this necessary? A good rig-will date quickly as regards the CPU and mobo,but the moment they are built, already obsolete, quite often. But still good choices. edit;If you buy Seagate disks-you can use a free version of TruImage
