opinions on specs for new pc build please

DamoKen

Hi I've decided (finally) to go down the build your own rig road. Below are the parts that I'm thinking of getting (last minute change from the Asus 6800Ultra to their X800xt PE) . Haven't decided on a PSU yet, one of the things I'd like some advice on, such as good reliable brand and how much power would I need. Any opinions on the memory I've selected, mobo etc are welcome. As far as cabling etc goes, I know some of the parts at least come with their respective cables but firstly would this be enough, and secondly would the the quality of the cables be ok?

Asus A8V Deluxe (Socket 939) Wireless Edition Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939)
2 * Corsair 512MB DDR XMS3200C2 Pro CAS2
Asus ATI Radeon AX800 XT/TVD 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (AGP)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB SATA 8MB Cache
Coolermaster Wave Master - Silver (No PSU)
LiteOn SOHW-832S Dual Layer 8x DVD±RW ReWriter
LiteON 16x DVD-ROM
Creative Inspire 7.1 T7700 Speakers
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS 7.1 THX
Viewsonic VP201S Pro Series 20.1" TFT Monitor - Silver
Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse

Cheers

Damoken

Gabbo

I'm no expert put it looks like a pretty good set up just out of interest how much is that costing you?

DamoKen

Gabbo wrote:

I'm no expert put it looks like a pretty good set up just out of interest how much is that costing you?

At the moment about 3300/3400, haven't got a quote on shipping yet. Shipping was around 55 but after adding the tft it exceeded their shipping tables so waiting for a response on that, can't see it going more than another 50 over though. Initially with a smaller tft it was coming to around 2700, but as I'm buying with the aim of being able to upgrade substantially I thought rather than have to sell the tft I buy now and get the larger one later at a loss, why not bit the bullet now?, Anyway, doesn't matter that I won't be able to afford to go out the next few months, with this baby won't be planning to anyway

Azza

Excellent machine overall but I will point out a few things. Firstly you will almost certainly have a boards poster called Bloodbath posting slagging off Asus Graphics cards because there more expensive than any other brand of graphics card. They are more expensive because they come bundle with lots of software (mostly useless) and they only preform in the region of 1% better than other cards...well they where last time I checked not read any reviews for there Asus X800XT's yet. I would recommend the HIS Exaclibar Pro ICQ 2 X800XT as its got excellent cooling to allow for some overclocking (although reading reviews even with the Artic Cooler on it did not overclock as good as expected but still better than any other card I read). Its probably marginally cheaper than the Asus card. Any X800XT card will kick ass at virtually any game. As for there Asus motherboard there usually good feature wise but not great for overclocking. If you intend to overclock make sure your motherboard has a working pci lock.

As for your cpu the entry level socket 939 chip 3500 actually preforms worse than the socket 754 3400 even with full use of dual channel memory it lacks the 1mb l2 cache compared to its predcessor and is also more expensive. But then again socket 939 has more of a future than socket 754. Just a though if money was an issue.

Your memory should be fine but if you really want to do some serious overclocking the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth 3500 or 3700 is the stuff to go for.

Personally when I got my machine I got a DVD 8x Burner so I did not bother with a dvd rom. My dvd burner which is the same one you intend to get does me fine.

Having a Raptor drive myself I can't praise them high enough very fast. Almost a match for 2x7,200rpm drives in a raid setup alone. Your other drive should do you well also.

I also have the same soundcard which is good as well. As for you speakers I do not know much about them but I'm sure others do.

Finally I see your getting a TFT screen and it looks like its a gaming machine.
For best performance for games you will want to look at a monitor that can at least support 1024x768 at 75hz . You will want a good contrast ratio say mabye 500.1 and a response time of 16ms anything above 16ms is not particularly great but I recently accuired a 17" tft with a response time of 25ms and a contrast ratio of 400.1 which runs quite well except for really dark games. Again if money is an issue you can get an excellent CRT monitor with probably better specifications for probably much less.

As for cabling you will get everything you need with the compoments. Your motherboard will have Sata and Ide connectors even if your hard drives do not. AThe quality of these connectors will be perfect don't worry about them. Your PSU will have all the power connectors you need. If you are going for a PSU I would recommend the Thermaltake PSU and recommend avoiding Q-Tec PSU which are much cheaper but overstate there wattage but quiet a margin. At least 480W would be required to be on the safe side with that system. Also what Heatskin and fan you intend to get. I would recommend Zalman for excellent cooling good overclocking and its also quietish. If you want extreme overclocking from air colling I would recommend a thermalright heatskin with a 80mm or 92mm torndo fan which is nosie but with luck you could over clock up to 300mhz with a thermalright. You could probably get over 200mhz with a zalman.

BloodBath

Looks like a great system. Can't fault anything and if your spending that much then saving a few quid on a graphics card is probably not that important to you.

Having a Raptor drive myself I can't praise them high enough very fast. Almost a match for 2x7,200rpm drives in a raid setup alone. Your other drive should do you well also.

Not quite azza

your pcmark2002 hd score = 2541
my pcmark2002 hd score = 2280

That's with both of them raided. Little difference for a huge premium but if you have the cash it's definitely better so fire ahead and get 2 of them and raid them.

For psu get at least a 480w fortron, antec or thermaltake. They all give good output and have steady rails.


BloodBath

Azza

Well the raptors haev dropped in price now under €200 now. To be honest I noticed a good improvement over a single 7,200prm drive when running a single raptor but little performance gain from running 2 raptors in raid compared to the single.

Akula

DVD-RW drive... those liteons are decent. NEC 2500/2510 are better though for working well on cheap discs. The 2500 is the same drive as the 2510... can be flashed with its firmware and its the exact same.

If you have money to burn get the new pioneer dvr-108 from www.svp.co.uk. The best drive out there until the nec 3500a comes. Although the benq 1600/1620 is a great drive too.

If you have your heart set on liteon. Remember a few of their older drives can be flashed with the 832 firmware and work just as well.

BKtje

The socket 939 boards (*as has been said) have little or no performance increase over the 754 (in gaming anyway, dunno about other apps, 1mb l2 cache(clawhammer NOT NEWCASTLE would make a big difference in most things tho) and you are paying through the nose for it. However i esitmate that the 754's will be made for another 6-8 months before ATi discontinue them in favour of the 939's. 939's (accordin to ATI) will be around for longer. How much longer i dont know.

However that said they do cost an extra 80 euro for a chip(939) that has less l2 cache and performs worse. Personally i'd go 754 cos even if you decide to upgrade in the future to a 939 (would cost u about the same and u'd get a newer mobo) you'd only need a new motherboard/cpu (mobo cost ud probably have saved over getting a cheaper chip in the first place so you'd still only be paying for the cpu). It is a bit more hastle that way tho, your decesion in the end.

Memory: I've found (again with gaming, dunno other apps) that A64's prefer very tight timings over high fsb speeds. Even if this means using a divider. Personally i'd stick with the ram you have choosen (i assume its a relative of the stuff i got tho doesnt seem to be the exact same) as with cas2 u got good timings. However if you want high bandwidth i'd go with at least 3700 rated stuff or else u'll have the worst of both worlds (ie bad timings and bad max bandwidth).

While Raptors are very good (and noisy!) they don't increase the performance of a machine to justify the cost to most people (You dont seem to care too much about the cost tho and i plan to order mine in the near future).
Dont bother with raid 0 at all imo if you decide to go the ide (or even dual sata) route. In benchmarks it gives a decent enough increase in speed (20% i think) but in real life performance your talking about 1% tops (for double the unreliability).

A dvd player isnt really needed if u got the dvd+-RW unless you plan to be copying a lot of dvd's and want to save that bit of time. Again choice is yours.

A good psu is vital go with an antec or thermaltek, as has been said, and no less that a 480w (400w might be ok but if u plan to be more futureproof there would be no harm in getting a 480w).

Also if your gonna be overclocling dont forget to invest in a good HSF. Even if your not it can help reliability.
Rest of your questions were answered in enough detail by others so have fun

Any more questions, people here will be more than happy to answer em im sure.

BKtje

but little performance gain from running 2 raptors in raid compared to the single.

Can be as little as 1% or even -1% in gaming.

Venom

Azza wrote:

Well the raptors haev dropped in price now under €200 now. To be honest I noticed a good improvement over a single 7,200prm drive when running a single raptor but little performance gain from running 2 raptors in raid compared to the single.

The dual raptor's in a raid 0 setup isnt hugh compaired to a single raptor but it blows away 7200rpm drives bigtime. The thing to remember is how you configure the raid setup to begin with. I went with a 32kb strip as it offers a tiny decrease in performance over 16kb strip but is much better if you move large files around.

Venom

B-K-DzR wrote:

While Raptors are very good (and noisy!) they don't increase the performance of a machine to justify the cost to most people (You dont seem to care too much about the cost tho and i plan to order mine in the near future).
Dont bother with raid 0 at all imo if you decide to go the ide (or even dual sata) route. In benchmarks it gives a decent enough increase in speed (20% i think) but in real life performance your talking about 1% tops (for double the unreliability).

You sooo notice a difference in real life performance. Windows bootup time is lowered dramaticly. Applications and game while not running faster do indeed load ALOT faster and that makes a big difference to real life usage of your pc. As for the noise level they can be a bit clickly but nothing to the level that people make them out to be. Raiding up the raports will imporve there performance alot as well, you just have to configure the raid setup correctly.

BloodBath

Dont bother with raid 0 at all imo if you decide to go the ide (or even dual sata) route. In benchmarks it gives a decent enough increase in speed (20% i think) but in real life performance your talking about 1% tops (for double the unreliability).

Aye your wrong mate. I run RAID 0 and the difference is definitly a hell of a lot more than 1%. My loading times for everything have practically halved. That's a 100% increase. Xp boots from power on in 30-35 seconds. I have a friend with a rig with 1gb of ram and one 7200rpm drive and if we are on a lan and loading a map for a game mine loads nearly twice as fast as his. For big games anyway.

As for noise level I don't notice anything from the samsungs anyway. They are very quiet.

When I set it up though I didn't know what stripe size to use so I picked 64kb. What is the best size to use?


BloodBath

DamoKen

Azza wrote:

Your memory should be fine but if you really want to do some serious overclocking the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth 3500 or 3700 is the stuff to go for.


If you are going for a PSU I would recommend the Thermaltake PSU and recommend avoiding Q-Tec PSU which are much cheaper but overstate there wattage but quiet a margin. At least 480W would be required to be on the safe side with that system. Also what Heatskin and fan you intend to get. I would recommend Zalman for excellent cooling good overclocking and its also quietish. If you want extreme overclocking from air colling I would recommend a thermalright heatskin with a 80mm or 92mm torndo fan which is nosie but with luck you could over clock up to 300mhz with a thermalright. You could probably get over 200mhz with a zalman.

Cheers for the tips Azza, some really useful stuff there. Looked up the ICQ 2 as you suggested, I'll do a bit more research on that this evening when I get the chance. On the memory checked out this at Overclockers where I'm sourcing all the parts, what do you reckon? OCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC3700 Dual Channel Platinum Edition , would that be better than the Corsair I listed?, also would it be compatible with the mobo?
As you guessed, going for the 3500 for the moment is to try and cut cost, hopefully the higher spec 939 chips will drop in price within the next year or so. From the reviews I read, not a bad chip either, I know the 3400 matches if not beats it in a lot of tests, but then, the 754 family doesn't look like where AMD will be pushing new designs.
On PSU's, is there any other brand you'd recommend?, main reason for asking is I'm going to order hopefully everything through Overclockers, heard a lot of good things about them, great range too, unfortunately Thermaltake PSU's was the one thing so far I haven't found there .
As to the heatsink and fan, the 3500 comes with a heatsink included which I'm told will be fine (will it?), and the Wavemaster has 3 inbuilt fans that again I've read are more than adequate for cooling. Again, not too sure here, any advice on this again much appreciated.

Cheers

Damoken

BKtje

Aye your wrong mate. I run RAID 0 and the difference is definitly a hell of a lot more than 1%

Seems like i stand corrected. I wont argue as i dont have them and am just regurgitating what i've read. The raptor vs 7200 ill see on monday (just got one on the for sale board ) whe i get it (i hope).

BloodBath

I quote myself ;

For psu get at least a 480w fortron, antec or thermaltake. They all give good output and have steady rails.

Have a look on www.shop4memory.co.uk

They are based in Ireland and have a nice selection of RAM with great prices and free delivery.

The heatsink that comes with your 3500 will be fine for stock speeds but not for overclocking so that's your choice. The thermalright sp-97 is the best one for that.

-edit- B-K-DzR you will notice a difference even with that. All it it improves is loading times. The benchmarks confirm the boost and loading large levels in games is very quick compared to one 7200rpm drive. There is always the fear of one drive failing but hd's are reasonably reliable these days.


BloodBath

Venom

BloodBath wrote:

When I set it up though I didn't know what stripe size to use so I picked 64kb. What is the best size to use?


BloodBath

Its really depends on what you do most with your pc man. I move alot of big files around from my Zen to C: drive and then to my backup drive if I plan on keeping it so for me the 32kb strip gives best of both worlds. While 16kb is the fastest for reading data the downside is when writing data.

BloodBath

Hmmm well that's going to have to wait until the next format.

Damn it.


BloodBath

DamoKen

BloodBath wrote:

I quote myself ;

BloodBath

Sorry guys, can only check my mail every now and then in work so I didn't see any of your replies apart from Azza's by the time I submitted my next question. Cheers for all replies, been really helpful, reckon I'll be ordering by the weekend. Defo check out that Irish place for memory and the like.
Anyone any idea what overclockers are like for delivery times?

Col_Loki

For Memory OCZ EB is the stuff to get with the AMD64's IMO anyway.

Have a look at the link in my sig for info on the PSU's and a list of the best names (pc specs help).

Azza

I reckon 7,200rpm on raid do significantly offer performance boost much more significant than raptors on raid although the raptors be a little quicker. To be honest I have noticed a difference a small difference after switching to raid but not alot. But I reckon its considerable more than 1% more in the region of 10%. I also not worried about doubling the chances of a drive failure its overstated in my view.

On the socket 754 AMD will be running there new buget semperon chips on it so it will be supported for along time but the last AMD 64 is the 3700 which clocks in at 2.4ghz and 1mb l2 cache which is marginally slower than the 3800 and also maginally cheaper.

As for the Ram the OCZ EB is the stuff but if you don't intend to overclock not as important and there quite pricey. The pc 35000 is a good compromise between the 2.

B-k-DzR what divider you using and what timings?

Venom

Azza wrote:

I reckon 7,200rpm on raid do significantly offer performance boost much more significant than raptors on raid although the raptors be a little quicker. To be honest I have noticed a difference a small difference after switching to raid but not alot. But I reckon its considerable more than 1% more in the region of 10%. I also not worried about doubling the chances of a drive failure its overstated in my view.QUOTE]


A 10,000rpm Raptor is not a tad quicker over a 7200rpm drive, its a hell of alot quicker and when two are used in raid 0 you will notice the difference without ever needing to run a speed test.

Azza

I mentioned already a raptor is faster than a 7,200rpm drive but when both are running in raid 0 the performance advantage is not that significant to the raptor the 7,200rpm drives would close up on the raptor. I would know this cause I have raptors in raid 0 and I have seen 7,200rpm drives. Loading times in games for example are not significanlty faster.

I mean compared to a 7,200rpm drive alone the raptor was quicker booting up. a raid 0 setup of 2x 7,200rpm drives are faster than a single raptor. the raid raptors are faster again but its like only a second or 2....I reckong the extra raptor improved boot time by maybe 5 sec tops.

DamoKen

another question, this one to do with static when putting your machine together. I've heard from various sources that either it's not that much of an issue as long as you handle the components correctly i.e hold them by their edges without touching any circuits, others are of the opinion that you should be grounded when handling any components.
Any suggestions?

Azza

Yeah just take off any fleeces or nylon or anything that cause static electricity. Basically just ground yourself before touching the components by touching a metal object. As you said just handle everything by the edges and yo should be fine. There not alot to it.

BKtje

and when two are used in raid 0 you will notice the difference without ever needing to run a speed test.

Not according to Anandtech (or was it toms?) who did a test. They didnt do a boot up test but in most aps the raid0 raptors were only 1% or so faster. IN one test the raptors were actually slower when in raid 0. I dunno how they set it up tho.

BloodBath

Yeah just take off any fleeces or nylon or anything that cause static electricity. Basically just ground yourself before touching the components by touching a metal object. As you said just handle everything by the edges and yo should be fine. There not alot to it.

Aye make sure the object itself is grounded though. Household radiators are usually grounded. You can handle everything then. Put it together on a non static surface as well.


BloodBath

Azza

B-K-DzR I see your buying a 36GB raptor on the for sales board. Just to let you know they are not as fast as the 74GB raptors for some reason.

That review was anandtech alright but I have noticed speed increase's and if they where less than 1% they would be indistingable to the human eye.

Venom

B-K-DzR do bear in mind that the 36gb Raptors are slower than the 74gb ones buy a good margin and very noisey.

BKtje

Slower? Hmz i wasnt aware of that. How much slower?
Noise doesnt matter, the vapo will drown out any noise a rapor would make

BloodBath

Is the vapo loud? I thought those things were reasonably quiet.


BloodBath

Col_Loki

The raptor is still going to perform very very well, its just the 74gb model is slightly better.

And there not as noisey as some of the standard WD drives, a little bit louder than some of the maxtors.........