The year's half over...

[Cantousent]

Okay, homies! (I'm trying to establish street cred by talking the talk)

 

It's nearing the end of the year and you know what that means! Time to consider the next rig. My wife will get this behemouth and you guys can help guide me on my path of righteousness. A righteously kick ass computer!

 

So, I'm going to get started with the basics: Motherboard, CPU, and video card.

 

Let's start with video. First of all, I bought the 7900 before the 7950s hit the market and I haven't been unhappy. Frankly, video hasn't been a problem for me since I had to tweak everything when I first built the system. One thing that does bother me, however, is the noise. It's crazy loud, so I was thinking of getting a water cooled video card.

 

BFG Tech BFGR88640GTSOCWCE GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC Water Cooled Edition HDCP Video Card - Retail

 

It's a bit pricy, but it's also quiet and should run a little cooler. I'm not dead set on it and, as always, my goal is to stay under 2k if possible.

 

As far as processors go, I'm at a bit of a loss. I've currently got an AMD 64 dual core 4400. However, I know that Intel had the best latest showing. On the other hand, I know that Intel's advantage was somewhat less running a 64 bit operating system. So, what's the deal, braniacs?

 

In terms of motherboards, I've always had good luck with Asus, so I'll probably stick with them unless there's something I should know.

 

I don't even want to worry about power supplies, case, or anything else until I figure out what I'm going to do with the video, motherboard, and CPU.

[Bokishi]

Whats your budget?

 

Watercooling can get a bit pricey, and if your gonna WC the videocards, then might as well WC the processor too!

 

Motherboard: If you are going to go SLI then totally get the nForce 680i. If you are planning to stay single card, then go with the Intel Bad Axe 2, for its guaranteed stability

 

Video: 8800GTS 320 you might have a bit of trouble with, its 320mb framebuffer causes some problem you can read about here. I'd bump up the video card to the 640mb edition.

 

CPU: Core 2 Duo all the way! Not even the high end one either, you can overclock an e6600 to beyond x6800 speeds. If you wait about a month longer you can snag a Q6600 quad core for a low price. Simply put, Intel has the performance crown right now and AMD is playing catch up

[Sand]

I am getting an e6600 with a motherboard with Nvidia 680i northbridge. By September I should have enough money saved up to get two 8600GTS to go into SLI mode.

[taks]

BFG Tech BFGR88640GTSOCWCE GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC Water Cooled Edition HDCP Video Card - Retail

i've got the 320 MB eVga 8800GTS "superclocked" and it's sweet.

 

As far as processors go, I'm at a bit of a loss. I've currently got an AMD 64 dual core 4400. However, I know that Intel had the best latest showing. On the other hand, I know that Intel's advantage was somewhat less running a 64 bit operating system. So, what's the deal, braniacs?

i think intel's disadvantage with 64-bit may be due to poor support for 64-bit and not any inherent degradation over AMD. and E6600 smokes and is rather overclockable. plus, it is MUCH cooler running than any of AMD's chips. that may change with AMD's forthcoming update.

 

In terms of motherboards, I've always had good luck with Asus, so I'll probably stick with them unless there's something I should know.

the P5B Deluxe. i have a P5B-E and i cannot recommend it. too many issues and/or strange things with it. in particular, these idiots put the ONLY IDE connection on the other side of the monster video card, below the 6 SATA connectors. what were they thinking? SATA cables can route anywhere with ease, IDE cables are typically associated with CD/DVD drives, which means the top of the freaking case you dumb****ed *******&^, just out of reach of any standard IDE cable. sheesh.

 

I don't even want to worry about power supplies, case, or anything else until I figure out what I'm going to do with the video, motherboard, and CPU.

i've got one of those modular cable supplies and i must say, it is nice. however, i'd have preferred it if they also gave you some 1-1 or 1-2 cables since i have several one of a kind or two of a kind supply needs. as a result, i still have a mess of cables unconnected in my main chassis area. i could cut 'em all off, however.

 

oh, and if you haven't heard, mammaries don't make much of a difference anymore as long as you don't go way low end or otherwise ham-string your bus (like using dual-channel mammaries in single-channel mode).

 

taks

[Enoch]

BFG Tech BFGR88640GTSOCWCE GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 OC Water Cooled Edition HDCP Video Card - Retail

i've got the 320 MB eVga 8800GTS "superclocked" and it's sweet.

I have the very same card, and I quite like it as well. However, Cant is probably going to want to shell out for the version with more memory, if he plans on gaming with the ultra-high resolutions he can get with his new monitor.

Edited June 21, 2007 by Enoch

[mkreku]

Just a head's up: AMD are releasing their next CPU design (Barcelona) late this summer. Personally, I'd wait for them to release that before deciding on a new rig right now. Who knows, it might give Core 2 Duo (Conroe) a run for its money.

[Spider]

My friend who recently built his own system (I asked a lot of questions on these forums to help him) did a lot of research on motherboards and ended up with Gigabyte P35-DS4. As future proof as you're going to get since the circuits are new. Not that much more expensive than the generation before it either, so it seems like a good deal to me. I'll be getting one of those myself soon. There are similar Asus cards if you prefer, but my friend found out that they were a bit trickier during instal in regards to memory. Not exactly sure what it was, but it involved a lot of rebooting. Once they're up and running they should be more or less equals though.

 

In regards to graphics, I'd go with the 320mb version, but I have less money and a smaller monitor, so I'm sure your choice is good. Have you considered going all the way and shell out for a GTX? That should be doable without skimping on anything else and still land under $2000, provided you already have the monitor. On a performance/price basis it's probably not worth it, but could still be interesting.

 

When it comes to processors, with your budget the e6600 is clearly the way to go. Best bang for the buck by miles. The cheapskate option is to get either a e4320 or e6320 and clock the hell out of them. But I'd go with the e6600 (and clock the hell out of that).

 

I'd also recomend the Noctua NH-U12F 120mm for CPU cooling. Efficient and quiet. I'll be getting one of those myself soon. It's bloody huge though, so if you consider it, make sure it fits on the motherboard and in the case. (it does fit on the board I mentioned)

[Cantousent]

Just a head's up: AMD are releasing their next CPU design (Barcelona) late this summer. Personally, I'd wait for them to release that before deciding on a new rig right now. Who knows, it might give Core 2 Duo (Conroe) a run for its money.

 

Yeah. I don't tend to do computer builds before year's end, so I don't have any problems being patient until the end of summer.

[metadigital]

It's only June.

 

Water-cooled cards are false economy. (They don't cool the Video RAM, for a start.) If you want to get a water cooled PC, get one ... either yourself or a custom build will ensure that all the performance bits get cooled, either by air or water (e.g. spot fans and Corsair's heat-spreader technology for their RAM).

 

Specifics: the DirectX10 performance seems to be dependent on the hardware architecture of the cards, so (surprise!) nVidia and ATi have different results for their cards again. ATi is not good with Need for Speed, for example.

 

Motherboards: you can either opt for a good, fast relatively cheap motherboard, or one that is more expensive and doesn't have any performance benefit EXCEPT that it implements technology that hasn't been adopted yet (but will be in the next few months). In other words, depending on the upgrade strategy, you either buy a cheap mobo and CPU, or an expensive mobo and CPU that you can upgrade later (without upgrading the mobo).

 

The next round of CPU technology isn't due for a couple of months, and the latest Core 2 Duo is dirt cheap and easy to overclock A LOT.

 

specifics shortly

[Cantousent]

I knew you guys would pull through for me. You know how I like to take my time on this stuff, so waiting a few months won't bother me.

[Joseph Bulock]

It is also rumored that the Intel quad cores are getting a massive price cut on July 22nd. I'm personally waiting for that to build my new rig.

[Gfted1]

Ive got a stupid question regarding quad cores. How do they work? Meaning, currently there are hardly any application that will take advantage of a dual core much less a quad core so whats the benefit of a quad? Is it really like paired dual cores so it seems to software to be dual core, just much faster?

[metadigital]

Software needs to be written with multicore optimisation in mind ... and more of that is being written all the time.

[Wistrik]

I'm probably going to wait until year end to build a new machine. I have ideas of what I'm going to get, but I'll wait until I'm ready to start shopping before I check Anandtech and other sites (I like to get more than one opinion) to see what's best and which pieces of hardware work best together. I'm planning on a multicore CPU (probably quad) because in addition to gaming I also tend to run several applications at a time, especially when I'm coding software. The only media work I do is playing DVDs. I'm also waiting to see how Intel's Penryn and AMD's Phenom/Barcelona work out.

 

Chances are I'll be going with nVidia for graphics, and probably SLI. I'm tired of running with one or more options disabled on certain games (well, NWN2 is the only one at the moment) in order to have playable performance. My goal is to play HL2:EP2 and DA with all options maximized and lots of FPS to spare. And at a resolution of 1920x1200. I can currently play a lot of games at that resolution, though not older games that don't support it, or sluggish games like the one previously mentioned.

 

Oh, and I'm going to stick with air cooling. I'm not that much of an enthusiast to play with water cooling, or more esoteric options. There are some very nice air cooling options at the moment (ThermalRight, etc.) and I'm not interested in extreme overclocking.

Edited June 21, 2007 by Wistrik

[Cantousent]

Yeah, I've thought about water cooling the last couple of years, but I've always decided against it in the end. For one thing, I buy great hardware, but I never overclock anyhow.

[metadigital]

Overclocking is becoming very easy and even expected now: the Core2Duo has about 50% headroom.

[Bokishi]

Its true, if you don't OC your C2D then you're a chump.

[metadigital]

Even with nothing but a stock cooler, it still overclocks a lot.

[metadigital]

Motherboards: LGA775 Core2.

• expensive futerproof (i.e. uses technology not implemented by the daughterboards yet): Asus P5K Deluxe Wi\Fi-AP
  This P35 chipset has for support 1333MHz FSB
  but only supports DDR2 ... the DDR3 support is in a board suffixed with PK3
  
• Abit FP-IN9 SLI
  nForce 650i SLI chipset
  is a great overclocker, too
  

If you are considering a PC for tv reception and HD viewing, etc, you might still look at an AMD ... their CPUs start at

[Cantousent]

I really don't understand overclocking. I mean, I've been reading about it for years, but it just doesn't make sense. The gist of overclocking seems to be pushing the hardware beyond its designed specs. You could take something that was designed to run at a certain speed and "overclock" it to run faster, but at the cost of quicker degradation of the hardware. However, if things nowadays have tons of overclocking available, does that mean that they're designed to run faster but the manufacturer is setting the speed slower? Can someone give me the gist of all this?

[metadigital]

CPUs (and other components) are "clocked", or rated for a particular cycle speed and voltage.

 

A new batch of CPUs is baked. A sample of them are tested to see what performance they have. Some headroom is left for safety. The Core2Duo line is remarkable for its HUGE headroom ... lots of room for overclock due to a very conservative clockspeed set by Intel.

 

Also, if a batch of high-end CPUs, say the Core2Duo Extreme Edition E6700, fails to be reliable at a given speed, they are branded at a lower speed, say the E6320.

 

Overclocking, via the BIOS on the motherboard and all handled in software these days, allows the direct control of the voltage across the component (CPU in this case), as well as the multiplier and base frequency configurations ... all of which combine to give the final speed of the CPU.

 

Case in point: the E6320 has two cores, both of which are clocked at 1.86GHz. In their test published in the current issue, Custom PC overvolted the CPU to 1.525V to raise the clock speed to 2.8GHz. This is faster than the stock speed of the fastest Core2Duo on the market, the E6700, which runs at 2.66GHz.

 

Pumping more power through a CPU may cause it to lose some longevity (what do you do with your ten-year-old CPUs?), but the main side-effect is a higher power bill and more waste heat, hence the need for good cooling to overclock further. (Some people like to indulge in extreme overclocking, using liquid nitrogen and attempting to see how fast they can clock the CPU for one safe boot of Windows at a time, for example: speeds of 10GHz have been achieved.)

[Wistrik]

A person can overclock and use third-party cooling solutions to run a chip much cooler than they could with a stock fan, thus potentially increasing a chip's longevity. Heat is the primary enemy of electronic devices (causes electron migration, pathway breakdown, etc.) so if you can control that, you'll have a stable unit (assuming it's built solidly to begin with).

 

You don't need to be as savvy about overclocking as various online reviewers can be. For example you could simply OC your CPU and leave it at that. Games like NWN2 are more reliant on a fast video card, so for them it can be helpful to OC the GPU. Memory overclocking (System and GPU) isn't something for the average user to worry about because you stand to gain maybe 2% or 3% performance. It's better to buy plenty of fast memory to begin with. If you know how to OC your memory, great. Otherwise it's no big loss.

Edited June 22, 2007 by Wistrik

[Cantousent]

Well, I think there's really not much to do now but wait for July and check out the Intel prices. I'm certainly not going to buy anything until November at the earliest. On the other hand, I don't like to dither, so I'll have it settled and probably shipped before January.

 

Overclocking is apparently the way of the future. Since I already use third party solutions to keep my computers running cool, I'm an excellent candidate for overclocking anyhow.

 

I'll look into the fan and whatnot, but I'm still going to stay focused on the Motherboard, CPU, and video card. Those always seem like the core elements to me. That doesn't mean I'll skimp on the rest, of course. I want to get the best system within the budget I've set for myself. Still, as important as the PSU is, it doesn't require the same amount of soul-searching before purchase.

[metadigital]

Infiniti have just released a 650W PSU for

[Cantousent]

I might actually get one of those quad cores in July if the prices are right. I tend to like to wait until at least Mid-October before I begin builds, but I can always make an exception this year. Probably not, but you never know. Anyhow, I have to go to Frye's (or however it's spelled) sometime before the end of this month anyhow. I'll take a look at stuff then.