PC in Thailand Part II

crybaby

OK well let time I was mulling over this was a few months ago with this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055562394&page=3 and I am finally ready to buy this thing in the next three weeks.

Previously I was set at a budget of 18,000 baht but this has risen up to around 21k including VAT of 7% so I now have an extra 3,000 odd baht to play with which Im hoping can include something nice in there. I'm assuming I should be looking to up the graphics card and maybe some more RAM?

I'm going to be using the computer for gaming and the internet. This is the build list so far. Im goinna be buying it all from this lot if anybody has any other suggestions that arent on that website they are easily found elsewhere.
A couple of the prices are higher than they should be on the website and none of them include 7% VAT.

http://www.pansonicsthai.com

Intel Core2 Duo E5200 ( Ingram/Synnex ) LGA775 2,400

Kingston DDR-II 800 MHz 2 GB - 1,050

Asus P5KPL-AM LGA775 1,680

WD SATA II 500 GB ( Buffers 16 MB ) - 1,780

HIS Radeon HD4670 IceQ DDR3 512 MB 2,650

19" Acer - 3,690

LG or LITE-ON DVD-RW 22X - 800

Keyboard & Mouse - 300

Cooler Master Elite 330 - 1,250

Cooler Master 460W PSU - 1,400

Total Price : 17, 000
Including VAT: 18,190 baht minus a discount somewhere around 17,700 - 18,000

So what are the recommendations how can I make it as good as it possible be for 21,000 including VAT. I have a full 3,000 baht so I think I can defintley up that graphics card and the RAM.

I could get the HD 4770 and up the RAM to 4 gig

HD 4770 was 4,000 baht five months ago
Kingstong 4gig is 1,900 baht

so that would be an extra 2,400 baht including VAT still leaves six hundred extra baht to throw around.

Any ideas?

leninbenjamin

I'd up the RAM myself for sure, probably the most noticeable difference you're like to see for that money.

As for the Graphics card, it's entirely up to what you're doing with it. You might be able to squeeze in a better CPU for that money, but the site wont load for me so I'm not sure...

Solitaire

Argh! PST must be down again, won't load for me either :rolleyes:

The biggest issue would be to check the prices for the HD4850 and HD4770 as they've come down a lot over here so they're probably quite low there too; if you're really lucky (and I mean really) you could see HD4770s dropping as low as ~3000 baht now. 4000 would be overkill.

Another issue is that the release of AMD's budget 45nm CPUs has finally given the E5x00s a bit of competiton. If you did get an Athlon2 try to get a newer chipset AM2+ mobo rather than AM3 as DDR3 may still be pricey.

Have RAM prices in general gone up in Thailand? They've shot up over here

crybaby

I noticed that the RAM price has gone I think that monitor is two hundred baht more expensive now.

Aye like I said that GFX card price is from 5 months ago and they dont have it on that website so Im not sure on the price.

Think http://www.pansonicsthai.com is backup again and also can have a look on this one http://www.computerok.co.th/ should give ye a general sense of prices. Some more Thai sites to have a look at at

http://www.invadeit.co.th

http://www.jib.co.th/

http://www.tkcom99.com/

Would I be better to go for an Athlon?

The HD850 is 4,000 no sign of the 4770 on any websites but I have seen it in shops before.

Anyway let me know what you think

jonny72

A 4670 is okay, but definitely go with the 4850 or 4770 if you are gaming..

Your chip isn't as value orientated as the newer athlon chips, but you could overclock it a bit and it would give you optimum gaming performance in most games (with the exclusion of games like GTA4 which make use of quadcores)

RoyalMarine

just an input here, when i lived in thailand, i built myself a pc similiar to your's. mine was targeted for gaming etc. just be careful as i had heating issue's.
i ended up only using my computer when i had my air-con running.

whats the baht compared to the euro now? it was 1 euro = 49baht when i was there.

crybaby

OK cool so between the 4770 and 4850 which is the better option I am assuming its the 4850? I defintley want to use the machine for gaming quite alot

RoyalMarineComm tis at 49 at the moment I think and yes tis still just as hot here

So am i better off ditching the E5200 and looking at an Athlon?

DECEiFER

Exchange rate:

XE.com wrote:

Live rates at 2009.10.27 13:20:58 UTC

Notice: The THB rate shown below is the international rate. Rates used within Thailand may vary.

1.00 EUR = 49.6682 THB

EDIT: Ah, was beaten to the punch.

Effluo

Well in fairness the build you've got for yourself there is very good!
The 4850 is a slightly better performing card than the 4770, but if cooling was an issue the 4770 would be a good idea.

One other thing about your build is the motherboard... An old g31 chipset should be replaced with a p43 at least. After that you might wanna get another case fan to try keep your pc cool.
How hot does it get over there?

Otherwise it looks pretty good

crybaby

over 30 degrees most days although it should be getting a bit cooler in the next coupla months, the room it will be in doesn't have air-con in it aswell just a couple of fans.

CPU and motherboard what do you guys think I should go for? Most people on this thread seem to be of the opinion I should get change either one of them or both so what should I do?

Motherboards

http://www.pansonicsthai.com/pricelist.php?c1=0&c1=1&c2=0&c3=0&c4=0&c5=0&c6=0&c7=0&c8=0&c9=0&c10=0

CPU

http://www.pansonicsthai.com/pricelist.php?c1=0&c2=0&c3=0&c4=0&c4=1&c5=0&c6=0&c7=0&c8=0&c9=0&c10=0

So right now this is the build. We seem to be nearly there can't wait to buy the fecking thing.

Intel Core2 Duo E5200 ( Ingram/Synnex ) LGA775 2,400

Kingston DDR-II 800 MHz 4 GB - 1,900

Asus P5KPL-AM LGA775 1,680

WD SATA II 500 GB ( Buffers 16 MB ) - 1,780

HIS Radeon HD4850 IceQ4 DDR3 512 MB PCI Express x16 3,860

19" Acer - 3,890

LG or LITE-ON DVD-RW 22X - 800

Keyboard & Mouse - 300

Cooler Master Elite 330 - 1,250

Cooler Master 460W PSU - 1,400

Total Price 19,260 / incl. 7% tax - 20,600 baht

Still a whopping 400 baht to spend. So just need to sort out the CPU/Mobo combo what should I go for lads? And also what about an extra fan for the case should I throw one in there?

Solitaire

No point in getting the E5200 - the E5300 is only 40 baht more! And the E6300 is 2800 baht, if you fancy the added CPU power. Or go up to a G41 mobo (e.g. Asus P5QPM-AL), which should cost ~300 baht over the G31. They're both naff, but beggars can't be choosers!

Don't worry about AM3 much, the only half-decent compatible mobos under 2500 baht were ECS (forum vets will see the irony in that statement )... it would have been more compelling if the X3-405 (or whatever its called, savage budget CPU) had been out but PST seems to have a pretty naff selection compared to some Thai sites...

And as for the graphics... HD4850 is a hair stronger and a hair cheaper, HD4770 uses less than half as much power. Which means lower 'lecky bills - and a lot less heat!

crybaby

Right so I will up the CPU and mobo to what you recommended Solitaire.

Push comes to shove what would you recommend me to take the 4850 or 4770? I suppose the safer option is just stick with the 4770 so the machine doesnt get too hot but it doesnt seem as readily available as the 4850.

What is the difference between the E6300 and the rest of E series that all have Core2Duo in their product name? How much will I be able to overclock it?


Intel Pentium E6300 LGA775 2,800

Kingston DDR-II 800 MHz 4 GB - 1,900

Asus P5QPL-AM LGA775 1,920

WD SATA II 500 GB ( Buffers 16 MB ) - 1,780

HIS Radeon HD4850 IceQ4 DDR3 512 MB PCI Express x16 3,860

19" Acer - 3,890

LG or LITE-ON DVD-RW 22X - 800

Keyboard & Mouse - 300

Cooler Master Elite 330 - 1,250

Cooler Master 460W PSU - 1,400

Total Price 19,900 / incl. 7% tax - 21,263 baht

With a discount that will be below 21,000 baht for sure the graphics card is the only thing left to decide on and then its purchasing time.

Solitaire

For some reason the newer AMD CPUs and GPUs are rather hard to find over there. HD4770 is something like 4100 baht But it's cheaper to run and puts a lot less stress on the cheapie PSU nor the cooling system!

On the other hand the HD4850 might be a bit more OCable and IIRC the Ice-Qs vent their exhaust (rather than leaving it in the case). But a fully-loaded, OCd HD4850 will put a good 110-140W of load on the PSU and your electricity bill when gaming. By contrast its hard to get the HD4770 much over 50W while gaming and we're not talking a big disparity in power here! I'm afraid this one's on your shoulders. Save the planet (and your wallet) or get a few more FPS?

As for CPU... The E5200 runs on FSB800 with a whopping x12.5 multi. The E5300 has a x13 multi and is practically the same price. The E6300 is faster but runs on FSB1066, so only a x10.5 multi. On the other hand it has a bit more cache, a full featureset (E5x00 is missing a good few things you get on the E6300 and AMD budget chips, like better SSE sets, virtualisation acceleration and better hardware security) and given it still has a multi over 10 then so long as the mobo isn't utter pants the OCability should be fairly even between the lot, probably topping out around 3.9GHz so long as you can play with the voltage and have enough cooling. You'd probably want to stop around 3.33GHz with the stock cooler anyway given the weather over there.

crybaby

Thanks Solitaire for all the help another great post especially in regards to the CPU so looks like im sorted on that one.

Still don't know which graphics card to go with, I'm tempted by the 850 for that little extra added power but at the same time I don't want to get it and then be plagued by my system overheating all the time.

Thanks a million for all of the help again chaps will let you know how it works when I get the thing. I might have to do a coin toss to decide the GFX card

EDIT

After reading a couple of theads on the HD4770 vs HD4850 debate I'm leaning towards getting the 4770 and coverclocking it a wee bit, how do you think that would work out?

Solitaire

Very well, so long as you can afford the extra couple of hundred A HD4770 matches a HD4850 with just a 30MHz bump in GPU speed and a bump in memory speed to remove the slight bottleneck there. It may not need to go all the way to 993MHz - a 193MHz increase over stock - to remove it and thus match the HD4850.

Of course, if you get into that kind of pissing match the HD4850 can also be OCd, and many OC quite well; I've seen them hit 740/2320(effective)MHz which is very near HD4870 territory. The HD4770s GPU has 20% "less brains" (8 SIMD clusters rather than 10 on the HD48x0/57x0) and thus can only stay with the HD4850 by maintaining a 25% speed margin over it; while it runs much faster and can easily hit the 780MHz needed to perform on par with a stock (625MHz) HD4850, notch the bigger card up to 700MHz (easily doable) and the HD4770 will be hard-pressed to remain stable at 875MHz! On the other hand, an OCd HD4770 will need a bit over 50W to stay alive. An OCd HD4850 will cook through well over 120W and would be like a little fan heater-cum-microwave oven to cool

crybaby

Alright well thats that so the build list is as follow. I think the 4770 overclocked will just be hot enough for my system if I just can;t find it I will go for the HD4850 and not consider overclocking it.

Cheers again for all of the help will let you guys know when I have it up and running and I need some advice for overclocking


Intel Pentium E6300 LGA775 2,800

Kingston DDR-II 800 MHz 4 GB - 1,900

Asus P5QPL-AM LGA775 1,920

WD SATA II 500 GB ( Buffers 16 MB ) - 1,780

512/ATI 4770 ASUS PCI-E DDR5 Core:750/Mem:3200 128Bit DVI - 4,000

19" Acer - 3,890

LG or LITE-ON DVD-RW 22X - 800

Keyboard & Mouse - 300

Cooler Master Elite 330 - 1,250

Cooler Master 460W PSU - 1,400

Total Price 19,900 / incl. 7% tax - 21,400 or so