New Rig

[Rosbjerg]

Man, I hate how far behind I've fallen in my know-how of the Tech market. I have no idea what all the series numberes etc mean. So I turn to you, my fellow Obsidz to lend me a hand.

 

Today I have a 4COREDUAL-VSTA motherboard. The problem with this thing is that it's only PCI-E x4 and my Geforce 7600 GT is x16 (I believe). So I'm not using it to full potential.

 

The CPU is a Pentium 4 650 3,4 Ghz. And I have 1 GB of Kingston DDR2 Ram (I believe it's 5300).

 

The problem is that I can't run some of the newer games on a sufficient setting and if I crank them above 1024x760 on more than medium they start to lag.

 

 

I'm looking to buy a new CPU, a dual core and a new motherboard which will can utilize my card properly and more RAM (maybe better?). Also I'm gonna buy a better graphic card next year, so the Mobo needs to be able to handle that as well.

 

I prefer Intel, since they have proved more stable for my needs than AMD did.

 

The rig will be used mainly for gaming, it needs to be able to play modern games.

 

I have about 600$ / 400 Euro / 3000 kr.

[mkreku]

Since you're a Dane, this will be easy:

 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400: 1325:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=344772

RAM: Corsair TWIN2X 4GB 6400: 495:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=338074

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45C: 1099:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=361826

 

Total sum: 2919:-

 

The CPU is the absolute best value for money right now, no question. The RAM is a good quality brand and reasonably fast. It's also overclock friendly.

 

The motherboard might take some explaining.. My reasoning behind this choice is that it supports both DDR2 and DDR3 (not at the same time) so when/if you feel you want to upgrade in the future, you'll be able to. But you have an Nvidia GPU and this is an Intel chipset based motherboard (with two PCI-E x16 slots), which might seem a little odd. But you wrote that you're going to upgrade your GPU and when you do that, only the Intel chipsets support Crossfire. Right now ATI makes the best bang for your buck when it comes to GPU's so when you upgrade, I'd suggest you go with ATI. The problem is if you're going to wait for a year or so before upgrading the GPU, as noone knows what will happen then. Maybe Nvidia will retake the performance/buck ratio crown?

 

By the way, I would seriously recommend that you upgrade your GPU as quickly as possible. The 7600GT was pretty weak even when it was released and the ATI Radeon 4850 is an absolute steal when you look at the performance you get for your money. The best part is that you can add 50-90% more GPU power to this setup by adding a second card later. This is the reason I chose that particular motherboard.

 

Check it out: http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=365213

 

Just skip three beers and one brothel visit one week and you can afford it :D

[Magister Lajciak]

Ah, this is for a desktop. I have just bought a laptop recently, but I don't really know enough about the desktop stuff to give advice - sorry!

[Rosbjerg]

Yeah, sorry - I should have specified it clearly.

[Theseus]

Asus P5E 38X

Mobo$200

The motherboard supports your ram you already have and has 1600FSB for the newer CPU's

 

E8400 Dual Core 3.16

CPU$188

 

If your not to worried about what CPUs are compatible and are willing to go a bit cheaper you could get asus P5B that has the P965 Intel Chipset. I have the Asus commando which has the P965 Chipset and it runs all CPUs up to the 1066 FSB compatibilty. I love it so far.

Edited November 4, 2008 by Theseus

[Rosbjerg]

I was actually looking at the E8400 Dual Core 3.00 processer. Because the 3.16 is more expensive, much more than the 0.16 justifies.

 

Then I was thinking about this Mobo. The ASUS P5Q PRO. Can't seem to fid the Asus P5E 38X in a shop in my country.

 

And then Kingston HyperX 2 x 2 GB.

 

Complete price would be 440$ / 340€ / 2.555 kr.

 

Reasonable for the cash?

[Theseus]

The CPU and especially mobo choice are great. I wasn't aware that the p5Q pro would be so much cheaper since its newer but has all the same features w/ minimal updates. Pretty good. I would say its a winning combo.

 

Although your 7600GTis going to be a huge bottleneck. A 8800GT type performing card would really boost your performance. But thats more money, bah kinda makes one just want to get a xbox lol

[Magister Lajciak]

Yeah, sorry - I should have specified it clearly.

 

No problem - it becomes clear when reading the post.

[Rosbjerg]

Since you're a Dane, this will be easy:

 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400: 1325:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=344772

RAM: Corsair TWIN2X 4GB 6400: 495:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=338074

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45C: 1099:-, http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=361826

 

Total sum: 2919:-

 

The CPU is the absolute best value for money right now, no question. The RAM is a good quality brand and reasonably fast. It's also overclock friendly.

 

*snip*

 

Check it out: http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=365213

 

I can find most of those things cheaper than you listed (good for me).. Komplett has just entered the market here and hasn't figured out that we have EDBPriser here to make sure the consumer is aware of all the cheaper alternatives (bad for them).

 

But it seems to me that it would be rather foolish to buy DDR3 until the new series of motherboards come out, who can better support it, or did I miss something?

 

I'll take a better look at the Mobo, it seems to be similar to the one I picked, except that it supports DDR3. But the ATI Radeon 485 is a little too expensive for me atm. I'm gonna upgrade the card in january, by then I could take a look at the card. Since I would need to switch to a ATI card to take advantage of the Crossfire feature with either motherboards.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I would not get a mobo with an Intel chipset, I almost fried a P5B32N a few days ago using their built-in overcklocking system. Its rubbish compared to Nforce.

 

 

 

 

And Ive got this exact model of the nvidia GTX 260 896mb @1700dk http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=355303 and its awesome. Just as fast as an ATI 4850 but runs MUCH cooler, and thus less gives noise and draws less power. The drivers for Vista x64 are also extremely stable, which can not be said for ATi

[mkreku]

I was actually looking at the E8400 Dual Core 3.00 processer. Because the 3.16 is more expensive, much more than the 0.16 justifies.

The E8500 (@ 3.16 GHz) is the exact same chip as the E8400 (@ 3.00 GHz), only factory clocked slightly differently. One quick tweak in the BIOS of your motherboard and you'll have your E8400 at the same or faster clock than the E8500. You can even easily overlock it past the E8600 (@ 3.33 GHz), which is much more expensive. And this is on stock cooling! Although you will probably want to replace the stock cooling sooner or later anyhow since it's not exactly good (loud).

[Rosbjerg]

I was actually looking at the E8400 Dual Core 3.00 processer. Because the 3.16 is more expensive, much more than the 0.16 justifies.

The E8500 (@ 3.16 GHz) is the exact same chip as the E8400 (@ 3.00 GHz), only factory clocked slightly differently. One quick tweak in the BIOS of your motherboard and you'll have your E8400 at the same or faster clock than the E8500. You can even easily overlock it past the E8600 (@ 3.33 GHz), which is much more expensive. And this is on stock cooling! Although you will probably want to replace the stock cooling sooner or later anyhow since it's not exactly good (loud).

 

I'm pretty settled on the 3.0 then.

 

Now, I have the NorthQ 3312 Giant UFO cooler already (picture below) would this be sufficient for a dual core?

[mkreku]

I have no idea. Personally I use the Sunbeam Tuniq Tower 120. It's gigantic but is considered to be one of the best coolers available.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/d...q-tower120.html

[Bokishi]

I was actually looking at the E8400 Dual Core 3.00 processer. Because the 3.16 is more expensive, much more than the 0.16 justifies.

The E8500 (@ 3.16 GHz) is the exact same chip as the E8400 (@ 3.00 GHz), only factory clocked slightly differently. One quick tweak in the BIOS of your motherboard and you'll have your E8400 at the same or faster clock than the E8500. You can even easily overlock it past the E8600 (@ 3.33 GHz), which is much more expensive. And this is on stock cooling! Although you will probably want to replace the stock cooling sooner or later anyhow since it's not exactly good (loud).

 

Man I got mine to 3.8, I originally had it at 4.0 but that only lasted 2 weeks before it got unstable

[mkreku]

I would not get a mobo with an Intel chipset, I almost fried a P5B32N a few days ago using their built-in overcklocking system. Its rubbish compared to Nforce.

 

Nvidia has dropped the ball on their chipsets. They run hotter than Intel, they are more expensive than Intel and the 7X0 generation has not lived up to expectations at all, with most board manufacturers having massive BIOS problems. Don't believe me? Check out this review (for example, there are plenty others) and read the very first line in it:

 

"Although the past 3-4 months have seen plenty of verbal abuse thrown towards NVIDIA developed chipsets..."

 

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3450&p=1

 

Also note that the X48 chipsets (Intel) are in the lead in almost all the performance tests.. And the X58 boards are just about to be introduced.

 

And Ive got this exact model of the nvidia GTX 260 896mb @1700dk http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=355303 and its awesome. Just as fast as an ATI 4850 but runs MUCH cooler, and thus less gives noise and draws less power. The drivers for Vista x64 are also extremely stable, which can not be said for ATi

It is 70% more expensive, it's not much cooler (where did you get this from? It's ~3-5 degrees Celsius cooler!) but it's a bit faster than the 4850. But at that price, it really should be competing with the 4870.. which it can't. And you continue to harp on about ATI's drivers.. Have you actually ever owned an ATI GPU? Seriously? THERE ARE NO MORE PROBLEMS WITH ATI'S DRIVERS THAN WITH NVIDIA'S. It's a long gone myth, just like the myth that Nforce chipsets are somehow superior.

 

Feel free to prove me wrong with actual facts, not something taken from your own backside.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Fionavar

[Magister Lajciak]

ATI are supposed to be really good in the desktop space, but in the mobile space they are not so great. Their higher end cards are simply not available. It is only recently that a couple of laptops with the ATI Mobility Radeon 3850/3870 even appeared on the market, but they are only a tiny number of laptops (thus not much choice) and lag pretty far behind NVIDIA mobile cards. I guess this will eventually be rectified with the 4000 series, but for now NVIDIA leads by a huge margin in latptop/notebook graphics.

[samm]

In terms of volume, they are leading for laptops (if you count the cr**** Intel integrated graphics out), but they're giving way, not least because of the high faliure rate caused by low quality soldering material (?). In terms of speed, the 3850/3870 are more than just as fast as their counterparts, and 4xxx-series are coming up.

[Magister Lajciak]

In terms of volume, they are leading for laptops (if you count the cr**** Intel integrated graphics out), but they're giving way, not least because of the high faliure rate caused by low quality soldering material (?).

 

That issue was supposedly overcome already.

 

In terms of speed, the 3850/3870 are more than just as fast as their counterparts, and 4xxx-series are coming up.

 

Not really - benchmarks as well as other indicators (pixed fill rate, bandwidth, etc.) show them to be behind top-end NVIDIA mobile cards. 4xxx series might correct that, but hopefully it won't turn into vaporware. Remember that the 3850/3870 have been released many months ago, but they were basically vaporware until a couple of weeks ago - no laptops were available that had them. Even now, only very few laptops have them. Given that, who knows how long it will take for the 48xx series to actually appear in notebooks. Hopefully, it will be faster than the 38xx series.

[samm]

In terms of speed, the 3850/3870 are more than just as fast as their counterparts, and 4xxx-series are coming up.

Not really - benchmarks as well as other indicators (pixed fill rate, bandwidth, etc.) show them to be behind top-end NVIDIA mobile cards. 4xxx series might correct that, but hopefully it won't turn into vaporware. Remember that the 3850/3870 have been released many months ago, but they were basically vaporware until a couple of weeks ago - no laptops were available that had them. Even now, only very few laptops have them. Given that, who knows how long it will take for the 48xx series to actually appear in notebooks. Hopefully, it will be faster than the 38xx series.

What top-end cards? The 9800m gtx et al? Sure! 9600m GT or less? Certainly not However, all of the higher end mobile graphics cards are actually not good for the whole notebook-idea of portability etc., as they simply use so much power they can't run at full speed for very long when the notebook isn't connected to a wall socket... So yes, they aren't widely used. Edited November 9, 2008 by samm

[Magister Lajciak]

In terms of speed, the 3850/3870 are more than just as fast as their counterparts, and 4xxx-series are coming up.

Not really - benchmarks as well as other indicators (pixed fill rate, bandwidth, etc.) show them to be behind top-end NVIDIA mobile cards. 4xxx series might correct that, but hopefully it won't turn into vaporware. Remember that the 3850/3870 have been released many months ago, but they were basically vaporware until a couple of weeks ago - no laptops were available that had them. Even now, only very few laptops have them. Given that, who knows how long it will take for the 48xx series to actually appear in notebooks. Hopefully, it will be faster than the 38xx series.

 

What top-end cards? The 9800m gtx et al? Sure! 9600m GT or less? Certainly not However, all of the higher end mobile graphics cards are actually not good for the whole notebook-idea of portability etc., as they simply use so much power they can't run at full speed for very long when the notebook isn't connected to a wall socket... So yes, they aren't widely used.

 

Yes, I mean 9800M series (GS, GTS, GT, GTX). Top-end ATI compared to top end NVIDIA...

 

Battery power is not very important for all notebook users. I, for example, use a notebook as a desktop replacement, but I do need a notebook for that, since I move relatively frequently and have to fit all the possessions I move with on an airplane. Battery, however, is something I rarely need. Indeed, I just bought a notebook with 9800M GTS after having considered many other options including notebooks with the 38xx series of graphics cards. I am not anti-ATI by any means - my older machine does have an ATI card (Mobility Radeon X700), which has served me well and was glitch free, but at the moment they simply can't compete in the mobile top-end graphics market. This will probably change with the 48xx series if these cards don't take as long to appear as the 38xx.

[Rosbjerg]

So - the thing has arrived, thanks for the info guys.

 

Cookies on the house!

[mkreku]

Pictures or it didn't happen.

[Magister Lajciak]

Congratulations on the new rig!

[Rosbjerg]

Pictures, of my rig?

 

It's not that exciting really..

 

Anywho - a problem has ocurred.

 

The Mobo only has 1 IDE kabel (and connector), with 2 entries, which means that I can't have my 2 HDD and my DVD running at the same time. Now it has a bunch of SATA connectors, but alas there's no room for an adapter (It's a big CPU Fan and the RAM Mkreku suggested are also quite big).

 

So, I'll have to swap between my secondary HDD (with not so important stuff) and my DVD, whenever the need arises. The problem however is, that when both HDD are on the cable the Mobo can't find them. Could this have something to do with the Master/Slave settings?

[samm]

So, I'll have to swap between my secondary HDD (with not so important stuff) and my DVD, whenever the need arises. The problem however is, that when both HDD are on the cable the Mobo can't find them. Could this have something to do with the Master/Slave settings?

Yes it could have something to do with these settings. If the jumpers on the hdds are set, the master one has to be put at the end connector, the slave at the middle.

 

There are really, really inexpensive DVD drives with SATA-connections.