Speccing a new PC
Discussion
It is time again to upgrade, games run too slow video and graphics apps take forever...... I can spend about £1000, I don't need a monitor, keybooard etc.... This is what I am thinking of getting:
AMD 64 4000+
ASUS deluxe SLI nforce4 mobo
Geforce 7800 GT (256MB) x1 (for the moment)
2 GB PC3200 DDR 400 RAM
2x250 GB SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drives in RAID 0 config
This works out to just under £1000 and includes case, DVD ROM, Floppy etc....
My question is, would I be better off going for an AMD dual core (not FX), the machine would be used for all sorts but I do want a fast games machine and a machine that will cope with graphics and video well.
Your thoughts?
AMD 64 4000+
ASUS deluxe SLI nforce4 mobo
Geforce 7800 GT (256MB) x1 (for the moment)
2 GB PC3200 DDR 400 RAM
2x250 GB SATA 7200 RPM Hard Drives in RAID 0 config
This works out to just under £1000 and includes case, DVD ROM, Floppy etc....
My question is, would I be better off going for an AMD dual core (not FX), the machine would be used for all sorts but I do want a fast games machine and a machine that will cope with graphics and video well.
Your thoughts?
from Scan's techie bit about dual/single core
"Where's the benefit?
Time for the big question. In a face-off between dual- and single-core processors, which is better? Right now, in terms of clock speed, single-core processors have the edge. But if you've got two cores at your disposal, won't that claw back a performance lead? It depends on what you're doing.
Right now, it's hard to find an application that will use two cores simultaneously. There are some out there, but the majority of programs will tie themselves down to a single processor. This includes games. So, in terms of gaming performance, you'll only get the use of one core. However, let us not forget that we're left with a second core doing nothing. So, if you've always fancied encoding your DVD collection to hard disk, you can do it while you're playing a game and in theory not notice a performance drop. You could also argue that the benefit of dual cores means that anything running in the background while you're playing a game (virus scanner, firewall, other utilities...) won't have as big an impact on game performance.
Change the angle from gaming to multitasking. If you have various applications crunching away throughout the day, you'll find they're more responsive with dual-core compared to single-core. Similarly, the multimedia maniac is likely to benefit from dual-core more than the gamer.
In a year or so, when more programmers and subsequently more applications embrace parallelism, we'll see single applications benefiting from dual-core processors. Until then, gamers should probably stick to a speedy single-core chip."
"Where's the benefit?
Time for the big question. In a face-off between dual- and single-core processors, which is better? Right now, in terms of clock speed, single-core processors have the edge. But if you've got two cores at your disposal, won't that claw back a performance lead? It depends on what you're doing.
Right now, it's hard to find an application that will use two cores simultaneously. There are some out there, but the majority of programs will tie themselves down to a single processor. This includes games. So, in terms of gaming performance, you'll only get the use of one core. However, let us not forget that we're left with a second core doing nothing. So, if you've always fancied encoding your DVD collection to hard disk, you can do it while you're playing a game and in theory not notice a performance drop. You could also argue that the benefit of dual cores means that anything running in the background while you're playing a game (virus scanner, firewall, other utilities...) won't have as big an impact on game performance.
Change the angle from gaming to multitasking. If you have various applications crunching away throughout the day, you'll find they're more responsive with dual-core compared to single-core. Similarly, the multimedia maniac is likely to benefit from dual-core more than the gamer.
In a year or so, when more programmers and subsequently more applications embrace parallelism, we'll see single applications benefiting from dual-core processors. Until then, gamers should probably stick to a speedy single-core chip."
if you want an opinion this would work pretty well:
All prices from scan include vat so its a little over budget...@ around £1120
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ S939 512K (2.2) 1@ £216.42
Asus A8N-SLi Premium NF4 S939 DDR400 PCI-E SATA Raid Gbit Lan 8Ch Audio 1@ £113.90
2Gb (2x1GB)Corsair, DDR400, non-ECC, 2x184 TWINX 1 @ £170.26
250GB SATA300 Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C (7200rpm, 8MB) - NCQ 2@68.87
256MB XFX PCI-E *Extreme* GF7800GT *450 Core 1.05Ghz Mem* (256bit) ViVo 2xDVI 1 @ 244.39
600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready Silent PSU 2xPCI-E 4xSATA 120mm Fan ATX1.3/2.01 1 @ 96.29
Coolermaster Praetorian 732 Black full aluminium, easy install (No PSU) 1@102.21
Asus DRW-1608P Black 16x16 DVD±RW 8x8 Dual Layer DVD Writer *oem 1@29.06
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM 1@4.69
Here is why I specced this.
Asus- well know and good quality brand of boards and it includes all the cables you need
AMD dont sell 4000mhz dual core chips so that means its old stock, so go up to 4200.
Memory - Its important you get a matched pair or memory on a dual core chip.
Hard disks - speaking from personal experience these actually do what it says on the tin
XFX - this graphics card is apparently the dogs gonads
Power Supply. People are seriously underspeccing power supplies on dual core and 7800 sli cards and its a headache. This brand does what it says on the tin and was voted best power supply
Case. This is a really good quality case that actually is just as important as the rest of the machine
Run out to whsmiths and buy custompc magazine its all about overclocking the amd range! I work closely with Intel and AMD and what is being said by scan is not really true, if you can afford a faster chip then do it, and dual cores (particularly AMD) are worth buying especially in the desktop and server space.
its arguable whether you should run raid O or do raid 0 +1
Hope that helps. Email me if you want more info.
cheers
Simon
PS can you all tell I am on holiday!
All prices from scan include vat so its a little over budget...@ around £1120
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ S939 512K (2.2) 1@ £216.42
Asus A8N-SLi Premium NF4 S939 DDR400 PCI-E SATA Raid Gbit Lan 8Ch Audio 1@ £113.90
2Gb (2x1GB)Corsair, DDR400, non-ECC, 2x184 TWINX 1 @ £170.26
250GB SATA300 Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C (7200rpm, 8MB) - NCQ 2@68.87
256MB XFX PCI-E *Extreme* GF7800GT *450 Core 1.05Ghz Mem* (256bit) ViVo 2xDVI 1 @ 244.39
600w Seasonic S12-600 SLi Ready Silent PSU 2xPCI-E 4xSATA 120mm Fan ATX1.3/2.01 1 @ 96.29
Coolermaster Praetorian 732 Black full aluminium, easy install (No PSU) 1@102.21
Asus DRW-1608P Black 16x16 DVD±RW 8x8 Dual Layer DVD Writer *oem 1@29.06
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM 1@4.69
Here is why I specced this.
Asus- well know and good quality brand of boards and it includes all the cables you need
AMD dont sell 4000mhz dual core chips so that means its old stock, so go up to 4200.
Memory - Its important you get a matched pair or memory on a dual core chip.
Hard disks - speaking from personal experience these actually do what it says on the tin
XFX - this graphics card is apparently the dogs gonads
Power Supply. People are seriously underspeccing power supplies on dual core and 7800 sli cards and its a headache. This brand does what it says on the tin and was voted best power supply
Case. This is a really good quality case that actually is just as important as the rest of the machine
Run out to whsmiths and buy custompc magazine its all about overclocking the amd range! I work closely with Intel and AMD and what is being said by scan is not really true, if you can afford a faster chip then do it, and dual cores (particularly AMD) are worth buying especially in the desktop and server space.
its arguable whether you should run raid O or do raid 0 +1
Hope that helps. Email me if you want more info.
cheers
Simon
PS can you all tell I am on holiday!
In addition to the other comments....
I went for the Abit AA8 3rd eye motherboard with DDR2 memory so its that bit quicker - this Mboard also comes with an external LCD unit that sits on the desk and monitors all the temps, freqs and power outputs in real time. It also has a handy button that you can press to overclock in realtime. Useful when processing video which I want to overclock for, but then turn down to quiet mode for surfing the web when I dont want to be annoyed by all the fans going full pelt.
Also I put in a coolermaster heatpipe cooling fan on the CPU - reduced the CPU temp from 70deg to 40deg and wasnt that expensive - about £30 if I recall correctly.
I went for the Abit AA8 3rd eye motherboard with DDR2 memory so its that bit quicker - this Mboard also comes with an external LCD unit that sits on the desk and monitors all the temps, freqs and power outputs in real time. It also has a handy button that you can press to overclock in realtime. Useful when processing video which I want to overclock for, but then turn down to quiet mode for surfing the web when I dont want to be annoyed by all the fans going full pelt.
Also I put in a coolermaster heatpipe cooling fan on the CPU - reduced the CPU temp from 70deg to 40deg and wasnt that expensive - about £30 if I recall correctly.
bigdods said:
In addition to the other comments....
I went for the Abit AA8 3rd eye motherboard with DDR2 memory so its that bit quicker - this Mboard also comes with an external LCD unit that sits on the desk and monitors all the temps, freqs and power outputs in real time. It also has a handy button that you can press to overclock in realtime. Useful when processing video which I want to overclock for, but then turn down to quiet mode for surfing the web when I dont want to be annoyed by all the fans going full pelt.
Also I put in a coolermaster heatpipe cooling fan on the CPU - reduced the CPU temp from 70deg to 40deg and wasnt that expensive - about £30 if I recall correctly.
I know this seams a good idea, but I presume you know AMD dont actually support DDR2? Putting matched ddr memory is probably just as important, and its where people normally fall down on an AMD. This old presentation shows that AMD they wont support ddr2 until 2006, which is still the plan www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/Marty_Seyer_6-10-05.pdf that I have heard.
As for a cooler you are correct, if you are overclocking it then yes the stock cooler is no good. The test winner in the Custompc March 2006 2 cooler test of them is the artic cooling freezer 64pro (Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro - S754/939/940) at scan for £17.50. But if you go this route then the case I said above is no good, as it has a processor exhaust out the side.
>> Edited by maddog-uk on Thursday 9th February 16:52
>> Edited by maddog-uk on Thursday 9th February 17:25
Buying a high end components which this is, is pretty safe even for vista. Bearing in mind you could always change the processor. The only public revision on AMDs roadmap is a reduction in the size of the die, which currently is meant to include the same 939 pin so no worries on that roadmap.
Ordered it yesterday.
AMD 64 4000
ASUS SLI Deluxe Mobo (socket 939)
2 gigs of PC3200 DDR RAM 400
256 MB Geforce 7800 GT
2x 250 Gig 7200 HDD in RAID 0
DVD Rom
DVD RW Burner
600 Watt PSU with extra cooling
Nice ventilated case
Came in at a shade over £1000.
Should be plenty powerful enough to run next generation games and new windows when it arrives. Can also upgrade processor in socket 939 if necessary.
AMD 64 4000
ASUS SLI Deluxe Mobo (socket 939)
2 gigs of PC3200 DDR RAM 400
256 MB Geforce 7800 GT
2x 250 Gig 7200 HDD in RAID 0
DVD Rom
DVD RW Burner
600 Watt PSU with extra cooling
Nice ventilated case
Came in at a shade over £1000.
Should be plenty powerful enough to run next generation games and new windows when it arrives. Can also upgrade processor in socket 939 if necessary.
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