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You have a very powerful computer. Do you need to upgrade ?

Honestly unless you want to stay on the bleeding edge, the best upgrade would be installing the max memory for your motherboard (probably 12gb or so?) and getting an SSD (intel or something using an Indilinx chpiset).

Your machine isn't anywhere close to being pushed to it's limits by modern games yet.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into possibly getting an SSD, or I might just save my money for now.

It's time for my biannual system upgrade.

This time though, the 'upgrade' consisted of selling the original C2D/8800GTS system off and buying all new parts.
Though I kept the Vista Home Premium license for the machine I'm building as a Christmas gift for my niece.

The parts:

Case: Cooler Master Storm Scout.
'fierce exterior design inspired by military weapons' marketing BS aside, it's roomy, easy to work with, surprisingly quiet, and doesn't look like some 13 year old gamer's neon tubing drenched wet dream.

Power Supply: Seasonic M12II 500 Bronze 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V 2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply.
Why pay more for a Seasonic made Corsair (or worse, more for a CWT made Corsair) PSU when I can just buy a Seasonic with modular cables for $89?

Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive.
I selected this one because at the time it was on sale for $64.99 shipped.

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard.
Lots of features and affordable, what's not to love?
I learned the hard way to RTFM after my first power on failed to boot because I assumed that the memory socket bank order was left to right, the way it's been on almost every other dual channel board I've worked on.
It wasn't and I had the RAM installed in the wrong sockets.

CPU: Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor.
I don't plan on overclocking, so I decided to get the i7 instead of the i5.

RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600.
This is actually some of the least expensive RAM in its class.

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100283-2L Radeon HD 5770 1GB video card.
Looks like a decent midrange card that isn't a power hog.

Toss in a cheap VIA chipset 1394a PCI card and a LG DVD burner and it all came to $951.13 shipped to my door.

The OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit that I pre-ordered back in June for $49.99.

The configuration looks decent and good for whatever you want to do probably.

I'm running on an i7-860 with 8GB of DDR3 ram and a NVidia GTS 240. Gaming performance is pretty good, but I want to be able to crank the graphics more in newer games and to have better anti-aliasing support. I'm considering either the Radeon HD5870 or the GTX 285. I'm leaning towards the Radeon right now, because it seems you get more bang for your buck with them, but I hear they also have shit support for Linux, and I might want to try dual booting with Linux in the future. Are EVGA and XFX generally considered good manufacturers?

Yes, they are good manufacturers, but if the battle is between the 5870 or the 285, go with the 5870. Seriously. It slaps the 285 around badly. However, if you game at 1920x1200 or lower, save yourself the extra $100 and get the 5850 instead; you really don't need all that extra horsepower.

Edited for clarity.

I'm actually gaming at a mere 1680x1050 right now on a 22" monitor, but I might want to upgrade to a bigger monitor in the near future, so I think I'll go with the 5870 to be safe. Will my current Antec TP3 550 be sufficient to power this card? Or should I upgrade to better name PSU just to be on the safe side? The suggested PSU output for the 5870 is apparently 500W, but I've heard some negative things about Antec, so I'm a tad weary.

Like I said, unless you're going to pony up for a 30-inch (2560x1600), you can easily run any modern game at full settings (yes, even Crysis) easily with "just" a 5850, so I would save the money. Your PSU should be fine; Antecs not named Earthwatts have gotten a reputation for dying early, but their power output should be as rated.

starslayer wrote:Like I said, unless you're going to pony up for a 30-inch (2560x1600), you can easily run any modern game at full settings (yes, even Crysis) easily with "just" a 5850, so I would save the money. Your PSU should be fine; Antecs not named Earthwatts have gotten a reputation for dying early, but their power output should be as rated.

Or put another way:

Antec OEM: Seasonic=good stuff.
Antec OEM: other than Seasonic=notso hotso.

Though I did have good luck back in the day with HEC OEM Antec PSU's during the P2/3 era.
I have no idea about HEC's quality/reliability today, though.

My suggestion is just pony up the money for a Seasonic made supply, whether it be a Corsair or a Seasonic branded unit.
The Seasonic 500w PSU I listed earlier has no problem powering my system, and aside from the 5770 video card, it's a power hog.

If you're in doubt about your PSU, I'd buy a Corsair HX 520.
That unit had no problems powering my overclocked C2D/8800GTS combo for over 2 years.

A few days ago, I have been hearing rhythmic screaking. Not sure how to describe the sound, but I am certain that its mechanical. I cleaned the dust out and it happened again. It stopped and appeared for a while. The day after that, the whole sound stopped and has been going on for a day no.

Now I occasionally hear what might be a normal sound from my motherboard but I'm a bit worried that my rig might fry under something. The motherboard's integrated LAN Is already not working (this happened over a year ago, I get LAN over a PCI card).

Is there a diagnostic software to test whether my mobo is working fine or not? I haven't experienced any other glitches besides this, so I am unsure but I want to kill uncertainty.

I'm leaning towards the Radeon right now, because it seems you get more bang for your buck with them, but I hear they also have shit support for Linux, and I might want to try dual booting with Linux in the future.

And how much of the video card's capacity do you want to utilise in this hypothetical Linux? Use Windows for games and Linux for whatever else. It's not a binary choice.

Is your mobo fan working?

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Is your mobo fan working?

Yes, I am sure. I see it spinning now. I do suspect it of being old though. I have an Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 with an Intel Core Duo (E4600). That fan had to be replaced once, I can't quite remember why.

I've finally decided to build an upgraded system so I can have something more powerful than my old Thinkpad T43 as my primary machine. The motif here is How little can I pay while getting as much out of this desktop as possible?

Athena Power slim case w/ 470W PSU

Athlon II X4 620 A $99 quad-core CPU which apparently compares very well to much more expensive offerings and overclocks to 3.25 GHz on the stock fan/cooler (not that I'd plan to try that with a computer case the same size as some shoeboxes . . . )

4 GB DDR3-1333 RAM

Western Digital 320 GB HD Yes, I'll be cheaping out on the HDD, but my budget is very tight and I already have a 500 GB SATA drive in an external enclosure that serves as my backup/storage drive.

JetWay JMA3-785GP MB with HDMI, integrated ATI Radeon 4200 HD graphics and 128 MB of onboard DDR3 (Sideport) memory.

Old DVD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW drive. At least I've got something I can reuse from my last desktop.

Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit OEM.

Total cost (minus the OS): ~$412.

How does this system look?

Well, since it sounds like you don't do any gaming, you should be absolutely fine with those components. I've never heard of the mobo or the case+PSU, though. Since the system will almost certainly draw fewer than 200W even under load, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I think that sound is due to overheating. I did not get it while the case was opened, but after a gaming session while the case was closed, I did.

Which means that I either need to move the tower (it's not the best case to begin with really) or I need to get a more powerful CPU fan. But I may be overreacting.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:I've finally decided to build an upgraded system so I can have something more powerful than my old Thinkpad T43 as my primary machine. The motif here is How little can I pay while getting as much out of this desktop as possible?

Athena Power slim case w/ 470W PSU

Athlon II X4 620 A $99 quad-core CPU which apparently compares very well to much more expensive offerings and overclocks to 3.25 GHz on the stock fan/cooler (not that I'd plan to try that with a computer case the same size as some shoeboxes . . . )

4 GB DDR3-1333 RAM

Western Digital 320 GB HD Yes, I'll be cheaping out on the HDD, but my budget is very tight and I already have a 500 GB SATA drive in an external enclosure that serves as my backup/storage drive.

JetWay JMA3-785GP MB with HDMI, integrated ATI Radeon 4200 HD graphics and 128 MB of onboard DDR3 (Sideport) memory.

Old DVD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW drive. At least I've got something I can reuse from my last desktop.

Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit OEM.

Total cost (minus the OS): ~$412.

How does this system look?

Unless you're getting academic pricing on the OS, Home Premium would shave some more money off of your total cost.
That said my new i7 system is a beast when it comes to multitasking and video encoding compared to my old overclocked (3.2Ghz from 2.13 stock) Core2Duo setup.

Then again with a 64 bit OS, 4x the RAM, and a newer generation quad core processor, I hope it'd have been faster.
I considered an AMD setup, but since I had a large enough budget I decided to go Intel in the end.

That said, a high end AMD setup is certainly nothing to sneeze at either.


Though the only real change in your setup that I'd make if I were working within your budget would be to buy a cheaper case that doesn't come with a PSU and buy a decent Seasonic unit to put in the system.
I haven't been bitten by a bad PSU, but my best friend has had several Antec branded units go bad because of leaking caps and it turned out that in every case the original OEM of the unit was either HEC or CWT.

The power supply is not the area where you want to be cheap if uptime and reliablility are a concern.

Alright, a quick question about graphic card brands:

I want a GeForce 9800GT. Either 1024DDR2 or 512DDR3 (which is better by the way?). I have found good offers for Gigabyte and Asus cards - which to pick? Are there any differences?

GDDR or DDR? DDR in both cases (2 or 3) is utter crap for a high end graphics card (which is what a 9800GT is/was).

Gigabyte/ASUS and such compete primarily on out of the box overclocking (which under 15% doesn't matter jackshit) and cooling. I like quite a few Gigabyte cards, they have good coolers, but if the choice you have (I don't know what shops you're looking at) only offer stock options, then go for the cheaper/warrenty.

Hmm, mighty interesting. I see GDDR3 Geforce 9800GT's for a very comparable price to DDR2's/3's

It's a very disgusting trick of letters, GDDR is several times faster than DDR ram, optimized for different use cases. It's just quite more expensive so you see it replaced by normal DDR RAM in lower end. This is the first I've heard of a high end card carrying DDR.

Ace Pace wrote:It's a very disgusting trick of letters, GDDR is several times faster than DDR ram, optimized for different use cases. It's just quite more expensive so you see it replaced by normal DDR RAM in lower end. This is the first I've heard of a high end card carrying DDR.

From what I've read, DDR3 and GDDR3 perform about the same, with GDDR3 holding a slight edge. At least, as far as ATI/AMD is concerned. To get real performance gains one would have to go to GDDR5, but (from what I can see) that's a generation or so beyond the 9800 GT.

Alright, I fired up my box on with new hardware in it:

CPU: E5300@2,6 Ghz
MB: Gigabyte G31M ES2L
RAM: 2GB@800

GeForce 9800GT coming in soon, Im still cruising for a good deal.

I must say that the system runs much much smoother. However, since Im not familiar with the way dual core Intel's run, I have a small question:

I've run the Easy Tune 6 utility to see the voltage/freq/multiplier settings. And I was very surprised to see this:



It seems that my cpu is running at 1200 Mhz? Is this a power saving function? When I fired up my photoshop it sped up to 1800mhz... can anyone explain me how does it work? Or do I need to tweak some things to get it running at dual 2,6 Ghz?

Thanks

Yes, it's a power saving function. As you noticed, it will speed up when you do something that requires more processing power. If you want to turn it off, you need to open the power options and change the power plan to high performance, and disable Gigabyte's Energy Saver program if you installed it.

What is the in motherboard for 1366 at the moment? I usually stick with asus, but the lower cost ones seem to have issues reported on them.

I've been looking at this. I'm hoping to keep the cost below 300, and preferably off amazon, as I have a giftcard I can use.

The rest of the build will be 4870 (in current computer, possibly upgrading to 5870 if prices drop), 6 gigs corsair xms3 1600, i7 920, and a seasonic x750. Look good?

I'm currently on a e8500 clocked at 3.8 ghz, the aforementioned 4870, 8 gigs ram.