Opinions needed on new PC

DublinWriter

I'm planning on replacing my aging 2003 P4 Shuttle self-build with the following:

HP Workstation xw6600 - Quad-Core Xeon E5420 2.5 GHz

There's no graphics card included. I was thinking about either a fanless

Gigabyte ATI Fanless HD 4850 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E
or
Gigabyte NVIDIA Fanless 9600GT 1GB GDDR3 PCI-E

I'm trying to put together something powerful enough for gaming & video editing that's also whisper-quiet too.

Does this seem like a good choice to you? - any opinions on my choice of GPU?

Thanks.

MooseJam

Theres no need to buy a workstation - you are paying about 600 quid extra just because woo its a HP workstation - you could put together a similar core 2 quad system for 6 hundred quid , it's just a massive waste of money

DublinWriter

MooseJam wrote: »

you could put together a similar core 2 quad system for 6 hundred quid , it's just a massive waste of money

The Xeon CPU as above, alone would be around £450 stg, and don't forget that it also comes with a license for XP/Vista.

The reviews I've read state that it's one of the quietest PCs/workstations.

Some of the quiet-cases I've been looking at have been in the region of €200. That, plus factoring in a bunch of Zalman fans still make the original HP look attractive, or am I being crazy?

PogMoThoin

DublinWriter wrote: »

The Xeon CPU as above, alone would be around £450 stg, and don't forget that it also comes with a license for XP/Vista.

No its not, this ones faster cos its got an even higher clock speed, don't be fooled by it being labelled Xeon, same chip different name

If You really want a good quality workstation, build one.

DublinWriter

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No its not, this ones faster cos its got an even higher clock speed, don't be fooled by it being labelled Xeon, same chip different name

You're indeed corrent...Xeons traditionally had more on-board cache, but they both have 12MB

PogMoThoin wrote: »

If You really want a good quality workstation, build one.

That's what I've been doing for the past 15 years - guess I'm just getting lazy in my old age.

Still tempted by the HP though...!

PogMoThoin

DublinWriter wrote: »

That's what I've been doing for the past 15 years - guess I'm just getting lazy in my old age.

Still tempted by the HP though...!

If You're able, do it man
You'd build a monster of a silent pc for €1000. Hp would cut a corner somewhere.....just seen some;

* only 250Gb hd :eek:, a 1TB Samsung F1 is less than €100
* only 2Gb if 5300 ram :eek:, 4Gb of Corsair Dominator 8500's is only €70
* only a mini tower :eek:, these sometimes have bad airflow, Some good choices here
* no mention of the wattage of the power supply :eek:

There, ripped it to shreds

Solitaire

For the love of God, you could get a HP Opteron quaddie server for ~€200 from Elara if they're in a good mood. That comp is rape, pure and simple. Oh and I seriously doubt that server would be quiet in any shade or fashion! :mad:

Currently thinking up a suitable build but you're looking at either a mid-high-end Intel or AMD setup. If you had the cash I'd recommend a Core-i7 build but you'd be looking to overclock for good gaming performance. And don't worry about L2 cache for Phenom 2 or i7, their L3 cache is equivalent to four times the L2 cache of a C2Q (due to avoiding excessive data duplication across the individual L2 caches)

DublinWriter

Solitaire wrote: »

Oh and I seriously doubt that server would be quiet in any shade or fashion! :mad:

All the reviews I've read stated that it's extremely quiet.

MooseJam

If you just want quiet you can buy a silent powersupply, you can even get fanless ones now, a quiet cpu cooler and one or two silent fans for cooling, 100 quid extra on top of what you would normally buy would get you quiet - if you are buying that hp for quiet then you are paying maybe 700 quid for it - it doesn't make sense,

there is nothing to recommend that pc seriously, pure madness to buy it,

Id consider my PC to be quiet, there's just a low pleasant humm off it and it's got 9 120mm fans, they are quiet fans though - 9 of them and they don't make more than a humm, quiet isn't hard these days

DublinWriter

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

I'm now looking at getting this instead.

Obviously, the on-board GPU won't be up to much gaming wise, so I'll probably add one of the fanless GPUs I listed in my OP.

uberpixie

You could build an Icore7 build for over €1200 that would eat that hp rig alive in multimedia.

€1,246.13 on komplett gets you:

ASUS P6 T x58 € 233.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=427378

6 gig of DDR3 1333MHz Corsair €110.01
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=393859

Icore 7 2.66Mhz quad with HT € 285.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=391447

Sapphire 4850 512mb with Vapour-X cooler € 154.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=442785

Antec p182 case € 129.53
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=341841

Corsair 750W quiet psu € 109.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=340678

Samsung 1Tb harddrive € 92.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343055

Windows Home premium 64bit oem € 112.00
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=350141

Generic NEC SATA dvd burner € 21.59
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343952

Total ex shipping: 1,246.13

Shipping circa €30 by an post.

So an icore 7 rig with 1Tb harddrive, 6gig ram, vista 64bit, radeon 4850 with a quiet cooler on it, 750W psu all in one of the best cases for airflow and noise reduction on the market.....

VS

HP rig :2.5ghz quad core socket 771, 2gig ram, 250 gig hdrives, 650w psu etc... no gfx card....

The icore 7 rig running hardore video apps that make use of multi threading would eat the HP rig alive. Also good luck trying to find an upgrade CPU later on. You would be better off going for socket 775 which are cheaper and much easier to get.

I would not be worried about noise from the above system: the only loud part in the whole rig would be the gfx card. The psu will run near silent and the antec p182 has such good airflow and thick cladding on the case panels you won't hear anything else.

You could then top the entire thing off by getting some scythe flex 120mm 1200 RPM case fans and a better cpu cooler.

I would go the self built option here, far more power for the money......


EDIT just saw the OPs new post: fair enough if you have your heart set on the pre built route.

DublinWriter

uberpixie wrote: »

I would not be worried about noise from the above system: the only loud part in the whole rig would be the gfx card.

Did you see the link for the fanless 4850 I had in my OP?

Thanks for your suggestion, looks very impressive.

uberpixie

DublinWriter wrote: »

Did you see the link for the fanless 4850 I had in my OP?

Thanks for your suggestion, looks very impressive.

I did indeed, but when I post up a build I usually put the bulk of the parts all from one site, the vapour x cooler was the quietest 4850 on komplett when I went looking. (didn't see any fanless ones!) Also if you do get a fanless 4850 watch the tmeps, the 4850 runs very hot and you need good airflow to keep it cool.

I have an antec p180 myself and would vouch for the coolling qualities/noise cancelation qualities of the antec p182(slightly updated version of the p180).

Corsair/seasonic psus are very quiet. My seasonic 600W psu is one of the quietest parts in my case.

I wouldn't be worried about going the self build route: get the right parts in and your pc will be quiet.

My loudest part is my gfx card: replaced the stock cooler for an arctic cooling heatsing, which has reduced the noise a nice bit and reduced temps greatly.

I also replaced all my case fans for scythe flex fans: you can buy these on quietpc, the 1200 rpms are the best balance they push a lot of air and are VERY quiet.

My pc is about as loud as a standard dell desktop, (much quieter than a giant dell XPS system I once came across!) the only time I can really hear any noise is very late at night when the house is dead silent: even then its not bad at all. My old shuttle was about as loud at idle as my pc is at full load.

I wouldn't write off a self build in your case.

Grim.

steer clear of komplett tbh there overpriced and have terrible customer service http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php are my company of choice for hardware at the minute

http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/index.php
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/3VjuNDJMckyi3v/home.jsp?lid=2
http://www.dabs.ie/
http://www.scan.co.uk/
http://www.specialtech.co.uk/