Advice Needed With Specs For My New Pc

[Trav33]

Hey All, my current PC (AMD Athlon XP2000) has done well for 5 years, but its time to upgrade!

It's been a while since i built a computer, and i havent stayed up to date, so need some advice on...

1. Should I aim for an entry level Intel i7 processor(eg i7 920 - 2.66GHZ /8MB), or spend the same money on a Intel Core2 Quad which should have come down in price with the launch if the i7. (eg Q9550 2.83GHz/12MB/1333FSB)

2. I want something to last me a few years, so looking at 8GB of RAM (4x 2GB sticks). Would DDR2 say 1066MHz suffice? Not sure if its worth the extra $$$'s to go for DDR3 1333MHz. I'm on a bit of a budget.

3. Looking at a Gigabyte video card, 9800GT 1Gig DDR3 with nVidia Chipset. Any comments?

4. Haven't started looking at motherboards yet, too many to sift through. want to sort out the above and then find a mb to match.

Thanks for any advice.

[R31Nismoid]

i7 - not really worth the coin. The mobo's are expensive, the DDR3 ram is expensive, the chips themselves are expensive.

For a proper i7 setup, you wouldnt put a 9800GT in there as you're not doing it justice.

More like the much newer GTX280/285 etc

Basically a good i7 setup will cost you 2k or so.

What are you using the PC for? Thats the key point.

Also what is the budget?

What size monitor you using?

[Trav33]

Main uses:

- Usual Internet browsing, and documents

- Video Editing (only home vid's no ultra HD stuff initially)

- Gaming - don't have a lot of time, but would like to have ability to play some 3D games

Budget...

Whenever i've bought a car, i've started with a budget but always spent a bit more to get the right car. I'm not sure what a new system will be worth - getting parts wholesale through our suppliers at work will save a few dollars. I need all new peripherals too (24" widescreen LCD, wireless k/b and mouse, decent speakers). If i spent $1500-$2000 i'd be happy, but its not hard to spend a couple hundred more here and there to improve the setup.

I plan to save a bit of money by choosing a budget case, only a DVD burner (not BluRay) initially, on-board sound, non-Kingston RAM.

[25GTT]

well for $1500 - $2000 you could get a pretty nice PC.

4GB Ram is generally ok but if you need the 8 for things like video editing well thats up to you, but i guess the higher standard these days is 4GB RAM providing you are running Vista because if memory serves me correct Windows XP only recognises up to 3GB.

As far as graphics cards go, the hot ones on the market are the ATI/Radeon cards, a model called the 4870 seems to be the go and is normally aroun say the $350 mark but you get great value for it. I am more of an nvidia man myself and as far as graphics cards go what R31Nismoid said the 260/280 model is doing well, but if i was to get a card i would have the go the radeon 4870 best bang for buck!

hope that helps a bit

[Trav33]

That 4870 seems to be a bit more pricey than the nVidia 9800GT.

Looks like an awesome card, but i might not put it to it's full use with what i do.

From the price list i'm looking at, you could almost compare these two cards pricewise, MSI is slightly more expensive:

MSI R4870-T2D512-OC PCIe ATi, 512MB DDR5, PCIe 2.0, HDTV

Gigabyte nVidia 9800GTX+ PCIe, 1GB, DDR3, HDTV, HDCP, ATX

[25GTT]

i currently run a 9800GTX and i want to upgrade to a 4870 or if i had the $$$ 4870x2. I would go the 4870. Dont get me wrong the 9800GTX is a good card but the 4870 is equivelent to the nvidia 260 (slightly better from reviews i have read) which is a whole different leaugue of cards compared to the 9800GTX, if you want something more future proof the 4870 would be the go, so many people have em right now on OCZ forums plus tomshardware.com

[R31Nismoid]

Now the new Nvidia cards have come out, expect the current pricing to drop a bit, which then either force ATI to drop pricing, as the Nvidia cards are better by far, just not as good value for the dollar but seeing what happens over the next few weeks will decide that.

IMO for $1500, you wont build any better than what i did... so forget i7

As you said you do a bit of video editing, i would say buying a Quad is what you are after

I'll price up something for you tonight when i get home, as you are using a 24", i really think you'll need a better video card to crank out decent game play on that resolution, and hey, it'll look sweet too

[bnr#@]

What you also have to consider is that if you are running a 24" screen, then you would want a PC that can run the games at that screens native resolution which will be 1920X1200, thats fairly high. I would highly advise a 4870 with 1GB RAM on it to play games comfortably and not run into problems in the future...

Having said that, now is a horible time to buy a new pc, prices are through the roof on hardware, i7 is out and should get cheaper pretty fast... DDR3 is finally becoming more affordable as more and more system manufacturers are using it and I won even go into all the chipset and conectivity changes that come with the i7 platform. If I was you Id wait about 3 to 4 months before getting a new PC.

Oh, and have I mentioned Solid State HDD's? lol

[R31Nismoid]

ok

ill assume you aren't going to overclock (you dont mention it), so nothing high end for you is needed, just proven, reliable gear.

Case - CoolerMaster CM 690 - 120

CPU - Intel Q6600 - 290

Mobo - GB EP45T UD3R - 187

24" monitor - 350/400

G.Skill 4GB Kit (2x2G) DDR2 1066 - 120

Keyboard/Mouse - 150

Nvidia GeForce GTX260 Core 216 - 450

Corsair HX PSU 620w - 160

Western Digital HDD 640gb x2 - 99ea

Thats a 2k system done and dusted. Its mature, its reliable.

The Radeon car is only $30 cheaper, not as good IMO now with that price of the 216, but note the prices will drop again in the next month i suspect.

The i7 setup would cost you about another $600 ontop (mobo, ram, CPU) without much drama as prices are still high and you dont need cutting edge, so why go there?

End of the day the Q6600 will be more than enough for now, once prices fall again you can easily upgrade to a more powerful quad in the Penryn range for a interim fix in say 12months, and will easily tide you over for another year so you'll get a solid year or two before upgrading again IMO.

Hardware is so in front of software at present in many ways

Ye SSD's are coming, but it'll be a good 12months before those prices are near anything for what we have now vs size. Better gains for SSD's in laptops in the next 12 months really because SSD's now in raid or whatever are saturating the SATA controllers so new design work to be done to accommodate the new speeds yet, so i dont think lots of use in PC's before 2009.

DDR3 prices will still be high for a while yet, so build a mid level system now. IMO i7 will be slapped with the next architecture release, so i wont even bother with X58/i7 that by the time its a mature tech and the bigger step with the 32nm process which will be where its at hence i went a E8400 and overclocked it hard as i dont encode often enough to warrant a quad.

[bnr#@]

Thats pretty much dead on what I build for customers who want an above average PC that can play games and do multimedia work... Although I prefer Corsair ram, and the 4870 cards are a bit better value for $ and the drivers for them are mature enough now to not have issues

The other thing to note is that clock for clock ddr2 and ddr3 prices are very similar, its only when u start looking at much higher speed ddr3 is when prices increase greatly

Edited January 12, 2009 by bnr#@

[R31Nismoid]

Yup - the UD3R is a welcome last revision, and i think its the 3rd gen gigabyte P45 board, so its solid, i have a DS4P, and its great so the UD can only be better (with a bios update of course lol)

Ye i have OCZ ram in mine, its much of a muchness ive found, for the minor differences that the end user really wont notice, whatever is cheapest really.

I have a 4850 myself, not bad for the $$$, more value than the higher end gear but see how prices go in the next month and i might update and get a 24", so definately need a higher end card than the 9800 above, i dont think it would even run games on a 24" properly

Ive been looking around and dollar for speed the DDR2 still wins when pushed as you cant get the timings from DDR3 to beat it.. but then again like you said, higher end asks there DDR2 is still king

[bnr#@]

Funny that, I run a 4850 to for now, best value for $ card there is in my opinion. Its running a 22" screen though so the res is more friendly to it. Would struggle a bit on a 24"

[R31Nismoid]

ye its the reason i haven't purchased a 24" myself (still on my 5yr old 19)...

Once i go 24", i know i need a big mumbo card

[Trav33]

Wow, lots to read over a bit more thorougly tonight.

Can you mention your source for those prices?

I think i'd rather spend $500 more now to boost the specs a bit (processor and more RAM), and not have to worry about upgrading in 18 months.

Any reason for the 2x HDDs, instead of a 1TB?

[R31Nismoid]

www.staticice.com.au

Lets you find the best prices from various places, take into account some things are cheaper from other places so dont always shop from the same place unless your going to save a lot from postage.

Realistically i still dont agree with spending the extra $$ now... but thats your choice. Dollar vs gain if you spend anymore than what i put up there you really wont see a valueable gain for the $$$ spent. Your key area to spend the most $$ is the graphics card due to the 24" screen, otherwise the minor performance you'll barely notice with i7 unless you were doing some heavy duty encoding all day, every day.

If you ever build a PC you should only aim for a 24month useage as tech is dating so fast these days trying to aim for anything more is a waste, as is spending more $$ to try and prevent an upgrade... My last PC lasted my 3 years (upgraded recently) however it was beyond dated and struggled majorly.

With the 32nm coming with Intels next "tick" step, it'll be the one to get.

re: HDD's - One is a mirror/backup drive, and the 640's are the best $1 per GB at the moment.

Feel free to change it to 1TB, just add another $40ea to the price of the drives. I currently have 2x 640's and ill buy a 1.5TB (for backup) in a month or so.

[Trav33]

I know it'll be out-dated in 6 months, and really out-dated in 2 years, but i'm good at making use of what i've got, and i'll prob keep struggling with it in 3-4 years time.

i did think about having a second drive, configured by hardware Raid. But then i still want a form of off-site backup. i'd be happy to risk losing a weeks worth of data and leave out the second hdd, and put those $$$s into an external HDD.

[R31Nismoid]

Here is a bit more for you to look at - honestly just focus on the i920 as the rest (as you'll see below, is not within your reach)

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showd...i=3448&p=18

But then as part of the final words of the review:

Quite possibly the biggest threat to Nehalem is that, even at the low end, $284 is a good amount for a microprocessor these days. You can now purchase AMD's entire product line for less than $180 and the cost of entry to a Q9550 is going to be lower, at least at the start, than a Core i7 product. There's no denying that the Core i7 is the fastest thing to close out 2008, but you may find that it's not the most efficient use of money. The first X58 motherboards aren't going to be cheap and you're stuck using more expensive DDR3 memory. If you're running applications where Nehalem shines (e.g. video encoding, 3D rendering) then the ticket price is likely worth it

So as i was kinda saying, a bit more cost for gain of... is questionable the i920 really isn't worth the $$ for gain as Nehalem (Core i7) really only hauls ass with the 940/965 punch for punch.

CPU

i920 - $470

i940 - $950

i965 - $1600

Mobo

Gigabyte x58 - $360

Ram

G.Skill 6G Kit(3x2G) DDR3 1333 - $335

This is compared with what i put up earlier

CPU - Intel Q6600 - $290

Mobo - GB EP45T UD3R - $187

G.Skill 4GB Kit (2x2G) DDR2 1066 - $120

(total 600)

Core i7 setup prices with difference to Core2

i920 - $1165 - Diff $565

i940 - $1640 - Diff $1045

i965 - $2295 - Diff $1695

Honestly, yes I'm trying to talk you out of i7 as for what you want/need its a waste of money simple as that. If you ran a business that depended on outright processing power and so on then i would reccomend otherwise.

I went through all these ideas myself about 3 months ago (knowing i7 was coming and i couldn't honestly see the value)

You are better off buying middle/high end mature gear than low end new gear.

All of the above does change if you overclock the system, but for the sake of the argument im assuming you want a turn-key system minimal fuss/setup as overclocking can take a bit of work depending on what you want.

Maybe a i7 fanboy can come outta the woodwork and make this thread really interesting

[Trav33]

No i7 fanboy's yet!...

My understanding of double-data RAM is that you need 2x identical sticks to make use of this.

So if you install 3x sticks of RAM, does this dual-channel faster access still work?

How do you work out the power supply required? ie 620W vs 550 vs 500.

From all of the above, the 2 video cards i'm looking at now are:

Gigabyte nVidia GTX260, 896MB DDR3

Gigabyte ATI HD 4870, 1GB DDR5

Not sure what stat's i should be comparing, but from discussion above i believe the 4870 is a better card?

[R31Nismoid]

No, dual channel is just the ram itself, you can use one stick if you wanted.

Its just that with the X58 boards, 3 or 6 channels, the DDR3 kits are being offered in 6gb formats as opposed to x48/P45 where it was 2 or 4 channels

GTX260 - you want the core216, its the beefed up card version, some places are still selling the OLD GTX260... the core216 replaces the GTX260 (by name) so make sure its a good one.

the 4870 is the better card, for the price. But thats only as @ today, i reckon that will shift in 3-4 weeks now the new nvidia card has come out so nvidia likely to make a price shift making AMD then shift... but see how that plays out.

power supply, there are some guides on the next (google), but if you get a single card, a HX or TX Corsair 620w will go nicely. Good brand, and dead quiet. you could probably get away with a slightly smaller (500-550) but a power supply a tad bigger is handy if you update to a hungrier card later

[prae]

Case - CoolerMaster CM 690 - 120

CPU - Intel Q6600 - 290

Mobo - GB EP45T UD3R - 187

24" monitor - 350/400

G.Skill 4GB Kit (2x2G) DDR2 1066 - 120

Keyboard/Mouse - 150

Nvidia GeForce GTX260 Core 216 - 450

Corsair HX PSU 620w - 160

Western Digital HDD 640gb x2 - 99ea

Pretty good system overall, nice one Nis.

The EP45T UD3R is a DDR3 board though, so you'd be looking for the EP45 UD3R to use with the DDR2.