LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:03 am Post subject: New PC for me

If I get a Christmas bonus this year I think I am gonna build myself a new PC finally. This is what I'm looking at, see what you guys think:

Case:

Sunbeam Freezing Storm

Motherboard:

Biostar NF520-A2

Processor:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.7ghz Brisbane

Ram:

Patriot 2GB DDR2 800 (4 Gigs total)

Video:

Sapphire Radeon 3850 512MB 256bit GDDR3

HD:

Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 500GB Sata

Power Supply:

Cooler Master 460W

Grand Total: $695.92 + shipping

Gonna pull my DVD Burner from my current system and put in there, along with my 300GB IDE storage drive. Gonna put XP Pro on it, no Vista for me until I absolutely have to. But with those specs it should be good for when I do have to put Vista on, yes?

Keep in mind pretty much all I do is play WoW and surf the web/email. Use Dreamweaver and Photoshop occasionally.

I know some of this stuff seems to be overkill for such purposes, but I try to future proof things a bit, as I tend to go quite a long time between upgrades.

IE: I've had my current system for nearly 7 years now I think.

Leg Humper Joined: 11 Oct 2003 Posts: 5997

AMD?

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:48 am Post subject:

Yeah, I'm a fan of AMD stuff. Just always seem to have better luck with them.

Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject:

I don't know that I would choose any of those particular components, except the Radeon 3850, which is an excellent mid-range graphics card value.

Take a look at these guides for a few ideas:
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13660
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200711.ars

Case: Do you like the Antec NSK4480 or NSK3480 cases? How about the CoolerMaster Centurion 5 series?

PSU: The Antec EarthWatts is a good unit for a cheap price, especially if it's included with the case.

For an inexpensive socket-AM2 motherboard, I would look at one with the AMD 690G chipset and DVI or HDMI output, like the ASUS M2A-VM and similar boards. I'd probably really prefer an LGA-775 board with the Intel P35 chipset.

For a socket-AM2 processor, consider the Athlon64 X2 5000+ Black Edition. This processor has an unlocked multiplier for easy overclocking. I'd probably really prefer a Core2Duo in LGA775.

I've done okay with Patriot DDR. For DDR2, I might try to find some that requires only 1.8V, especially if I planned to go with an Intel chipset.

For your hard-drive, the Western Digital 750GB drive is a bargain at $150 with free shipping.

If you already have a valid Windows XP license, then it is good enough to continue using it for another year. If you need to purchase a new operating system anyway, I believe that now is the time to go with Windows Vista 64-bit (Home Premium OEM, for those of us too cheap to shell out for Ultimate).

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:42 am Post subject:

JustAnEngineer wrote:
I don't know that I would choose any of those particular components, except the Radeon 3850, which is an excellent mid-range graphics card value.

Take a look at these guides for a few ideas:
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13660
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200711.ars

Case: Do you like the Antec NSK4480 or NSK3480 cases? How about the CoolerMaster Centurion 5 series?

PSU: The Antec EarthWatts is a good unit for a cheap price, especially if it's included with the case.

For an inexpensive socket-AM2 motherboard, I would look at one with the AMD 690G chipset and DVI or HDMI output, like the ASUS M2A-VM and similar boards. I'd probably really prefer an LGA-775 board with the Intel P35 chipset.

For a socket-AM2 processor, consider the Athlon64 X2 5000+ Black Edition. This processor has an unlocked multiplier for easy overclocking. I'd probably really prefer a Core2Duo in LGA775.

I've done okay with Patriot DDR. For DDR2, I might try to find some that requires only 1.8V, especially if I planned to go with an Intel chipset.

For your hard-drive, the Western Digital 750GB drive is a bargain at $150 with free shipping.

If you already have a valid Windows XP license, then it is good enough to continue using it for another year. If you need to purchase a new operating system anyway, I believe that now is the time to go with Windows Vista 64-bit (Home Premium OEM, for those of us too cheap to shell out for Ultimate).

Why does everybody keep suggesting Intel? Putting together a similar system to the AMD one I was looking at with intel p35 board and a Conroe 2.66ghz Core 2 Duo I was up over $800 before I even added in case, power supply, and hard drive. If it's due to upgradeability to future Quad core stuff, keep in mind, it will probably be 5 years at minimum before I upgrade again.

And why would I want a motherboard with onboard video and DVI or HDMI outputs? I'm not going to run dual monitors or anything like that.

Why would you take AMD chipset over Nforce?

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:47 pm Post subject:

GibsonSG wrote:
Why does everybody keep suggesting Intel?

Intel's best C2Q and C2D processors are faster (and much more expensive) than AMD's best Phenom and Athlon64 X2 processors. The current crop of AMD and Intel processors accomplish about the same amount of work per clock cycle (Phenom is just slightly ahead of C2Q and C2D while Athlon64 X2 is just slightly behind in IPC). Intel's manufacturing process allows them to make smaller dies that cost less to produce and can run at higher clock speeds than AMD's CPUs can.

In the mid-range, either company's chips offer similar performance at a given price point. However it is comparatively easy to take a mid-range Intel CPU and overclock it to perform like a high-end CPU. If you're not going to overclock, then it doesn't matter much whether you choose AMD or Intel in the mid-range.

At the low-end, AMD still offers the least expensive options for current dual-core processors, and especially for motherboards. If gaming is not a concern, the AMD 690G chipset's integrated graphics are the best available (DX9 Windows Aero experience), and the motherboards based on this chipset are very inexpensive. NVidia's current chipsets cost more and use more power than 690G. Note that AMD just introduced a new high-performance chipset in November. Both AMD and NVidia are due to introduce new chipsets in the next three months.

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 6:27 am Post subject:

JustAnEngineer wrote:
GibsonSG wrote:
Why does everybody keep suggesting Intel?
Intel's best C2Q and C2D processors are faster (and much more expensive) than AMD's best Phenom and Athlon64 X2 processors. The current crop of AMD and Intel processors accomplish about the same amount of work per clock cycle (Phenom is just slightly ahead of C2Q and C2D while Athlon64 X2 is just slightly behind in IPC). Intel's manufacturing process allows them to make smaller dies that cost less to produce and can run at higher clock speeds than AMD's CPUs can.

In the mid-range, either company's chips offer similar performance at a given price point. However it is comparatively easy to take a mid-range Intel CPU and overclock it to perform like a high-end CPU. If you're not going to overclock, then it doesn't matter much whether you choose AMD or Intel in the mid-range.

At the low-end, AMD still offers the least expensive options for current dual-core processors, and especially for motherboards. If gaming is not a concern, the AMD 690G chipset's integrated graphics are the best available (DX9 Windows Aero experience), and the motherboards based on this chipset are very inexpensive. NVidia's current chipsets cost more and use more power than 690G. Note that AMD just introduced a new high-performance chipset in November. Both AMD and NVidia are due to introduce new chipsets in the next three months.

Ahh, got ya. Yeah, I'm not really going to overclock at all. And although WoW is not the most intensive game, I'm pretty sure it's going to need more juice than integrated graphics can provide. There are posts all over the WoW forums from people running Geforce 7100 boards and admins telling them they need a real video card to get the performance they're looking for.

Of course they did something in the last patch that changed things up majorly. Before patch with my current comp (AMD Athlon 1800+, Sapphire X1650Pro 512MB card, 1 Gig of ram) I could run at about 30 FPS in the new world with video settings about halfway up.

Now since the latest patch I get about 4 FPS in a populated area with settings all as low as they will go, but only in the new world. If I go back to the pre-expansion part I will jump up to 50 FPS or more. It's very strange. But they refuse to admit it's a problem with something they changed during patch.

Leg Humper Joined: 11 Oct 2003 Posts: 5997

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-E2140-overclocking,review-29816.html

Pentium Dual-Core E2140 that sells for $75

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:29 am Post subject:

Since the video card is PCI-Express 2.0 I think you should go with a PCI-Express 2.0 compatible motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131234

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:55 am Post subject:

Serious Tom wrote:
Since the video card is PCI-Express 2.0 I think you should go with a PCI-Express 2.0 compatible motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131234

Question.... how can you tell that board is PCI-E 2.0? I don't see it anywhere in the description or the specs. I looked for a board that was 2.0 since the card was but I couldn't seem to find any.

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:10 am Post subject:

Down in the left hand corner of neweggs product discription they have a Manufacturer Product Page link.
http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=149&l3=592&l4=0&model=1934&modelmenu=1
I'm thinking of getting this one also is why I knew. Laughing

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:22 am Post subject:

Serious Tom wrote:
Since the video card is PCI-Express 2.0 I think you should go with a PCI-Express 2.0 compatible motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131234

I ended up going with this motherboard for my build, just a word to the wise.... maybe it was my hardware configuration or something, I don't know, but there was something severely screwed with the LAN drivers on the disc that came with the mobo.

When I installed them the computer hard locked and I had to reboot. While it was booting back up it would go along just fine for awhile with the XP screen up, then the little progress bar would just stop, and it would stay like that indefinitely. I wasn't entirely sure what it was at first, as I had just installed the AMD processor driver, the chipset drivers, and the realtek HD audio drivers all at the same time.

So in safe mode I disabled the audio and the LAN and it booted like normal. So I enabled the LAN and windows locked again. Went back into safe mode, tried installing generic windows drivers, all kinds of stuff and nothing helped. Then by accident when checking my ethernet cable I discovered that when it hung on the XP load screen if I would unplug the cable and plug it back in, it would boot up, everytime.

So with working LAN I went to the Asus website and downloaded the latestest driver set and it's been fine since. Was very strange. Other than that there were no issues whatsoever with the board, everything else was flawless. After I put everything together it booted the first time.

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:34 am Post subject:

I never trust the bundled disk for drivers... I always download the latest drivers from the manufacturer

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:

The final build for anybody interested:

Cooler Master Centurion 5 case

OCZ GameXstream 600W Power Supply

ASUS M3A AMD 770 Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+

Zalman 9500A CPU Cooler <-- This thing is freaking ginourmous BTW, didn't realize it was that huge when I ordered it, barely fits in my case.

G.Skill 4GB DDR800 Dual Channel Memory Kit

Sapphire Radeon 3870 GDDR4 512MB PCI-E 2.0 <-- Also ginourmous.

WD Caviar 750GB SATA drive

Samsung SATA Dual Layer DVD Burner

Acer 22" DVI Widescreen LCD

Once I saw the size of the CPU cooler, and the fans in the case, plus the fan on the video card I was worried this thing was going to sound like a jet engine, but it's really very quiet. The Zalman has a manual fan speed adjustor that plugs in between the mobo and fan, I'm running it wide open and you can still barely hear it. I've been plenty impressed so far. Last night I installed 89 windows updates in a matter of about 2 minutes. Even under load the processor never gets above about 38 degrees C.

I installed WoW and with every setting turned on/maxed out at 1680x1050 resolution I get 220 FPS in the major cities, upwards of 260-300 when not so many people around or if I'm in an instance. Only thing is that the video card gets a bit hot, running WoW it gets up to 85-90 Degrees at the stock settings. I was playing with ATI Overdrive and OC it a bit, and while it was stable during the GPU tests, it locked after about a minute of playing WoW. Seems it's because they wanted it to be quiet, fan speed is limited. I'm gonna get RivaTuner tonight and should be able to adjust those fan speeds and get it cooled down quite a bit. Some of the reviews on newegg say they got it down from 90 to around 45 under load by changing the speeds.

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:16 am Post subject:

Try ATI Tray Tools.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/atitraytools/189/