New PC Specs

[Scott B]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I still haven't ordered anything yet, I take my good ole time when it comes to buying PCs.

This is the way to go, in my opinion. When I want something, I usually try to take a couple months and scope out the best deals at places like Ben's Bargains and the like, get parts one at a time.

Here's my updated specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9550 (4x 2.83GHz/12MB L2 Cache/1333FSB

I still lean toward the E8X00 dual cores, myself, but can't blame you for a Q9x series quad for "future proofing." Again Q6600 is the price/performance king, especially if you're looking to overclock, but I bet the Q9550 will be solid for you too. Assume you're just going with stock cooling? (No shame in that; the Intel stock coolers are damn good these days.)

650 Watt Casegears ECO-Element 80 Plus Certificated High Efficiency PSU

No experience with the brand. Not much to these - reliability, efficiency, noise, and cable options (modularity is neat, I've learned). 650w is good, but see below.

Asus P5N-D Nvidia nForce 750i SLI Chipset

Again, Asus is pretty much top of the line, but I'm not all that impressed by the chipset. The only reason to get this board over an Intel chipset board is SLI. And if you eventually want to do SLI, is 650w going to be enough? Other than that, only real downside is 4 USB ports (I like more than that).

It sucks that XP Pro is a lot more expensive.

Why do you need Pro?

You're looking at quad core; have you priced a Core i7 system? If you're going to burn $1000 on just the machine without graphics card, that's well within reason.

[MeatEtr]

This is the way to go, in my opinion. When I want something, I usually try to take a couple months and scope out the best deals at places like Ben's Bargains and the like, get parts one at a time.

Yeah but I'm getting this from ibuypower.com and not building it from scratch. I'm just too lazy and had a bad experience in the past. It's pre-build all the way for me.

I still lean toward the E8X00 dual cores, myself, but can't blame you for a Q9x series quad for "future proofing." Again Q6600 is the price/performance king, especially if you're looking to overclock, but I bet the Q9550 will be solid for you too. Assume you're just going with stock cooling? (No shame in that; the Intel stock coolers are damn good these days.)

I've been debating this, it's either the Duo E8600 (2x 3.33GHz/6MB L2 Cache/1333FSB) or the Quad Q9550 (4x 2.83GHz/12MB L2 Cache/1333FSB). This quad costs only $9 dollars more than the Duo. I probably won't be overclocking, but couldn't I OC the Q9550 just as much as the Q6600.

Also I figure for programs/games that only use single core, there won't be that big of a performance decrease from the Quad 2.83GHz vs. the Duo 3.33GHz.

Btw, I picked this for cooling, AVC Silent Intel CPU Fan and Heatsink.

Again, Asus is pretty much top of the line, but I'm not all that impressed by the chipset. The only reason to get this board over an Intel chipset board is SLI. And if you eventually want to do SLI, is 650w going to be enough? Other than that, only real downside is 4 USB ports (I like more than that).

I really don't know much about the MBs. I'm certainly not planning on going SLI in the future. But it would be nice to have it as an option though. How are the Crossfire MBs? Would this be a better option?

Why do you need Pro?

You're looking at quad core; have you priced a Core i7 system? If you're going to burn $1000 on just the machine without graphics card, that's well within reason.

Well I've decided not to bother with Vista, heard too many bad things about it. Besides, half the reason I wanted to go with Vista was so the 4GB of RAM gets used. Instead of the about 3GB which will be used in XP Pro. Also I think XP Home only recognizes 2GB?

Yeah I've tried spec'ing out a Core i7 system, it always tended to cost more. I got the impression I get a better bang for my buck sticking with quads or duos.

I'm trying to rally this all up for about $1000 bucks. So it's a constant give and take, somethings gotta go. I initially spec'd out a PC for only $850 and was happy with it. But the more I look into the details and the more I re-spec, then the higher the price goes up.

[Redwolf]

Again:

No NForce/NVidia mainboard chipsets. Driver hell.

No weired-ass PSU brands. They can blow the whole thing up.

[Scott B]

Yeah but I'm getting this from ibuypower.com and not building it from scratch. I'm just too lazy and had a bad experience in the past. It's pre-build all the way for me.

Got it. Tried that out as an option, but never can get past the price premium of letting someone else do it. Also there's a personal pride thing, though that counts for less if you set aside an evening to build your new machine and then it turns out you got shipped a defective part.

I've been debating this, it's either the Duo E8600 (2x 3.33GHz/6MB L2 Cache/1333FSB) or the Quad Q9550 (4x 2.83GHz/12MB L2 Cache/1333FSB). This quad costs only $9 dollars more than the Duo. I probably won't be overclocking, but couldn't I OC the Q9550 just as much as the Q6600.

I haven't heard as much about the overclocking of the Q9550, but the Q6600 has been getting rave reviews in this regard. Doesn't look like it's on offer at ibuypower, which is a shame, since half of the advantage is it'd be $100 bucks less. You get what you pay for, though, and that Q9550 is going to be a monster.

Btw, I picked this for cooling, AVC Silent Intel CPU Fan and Heatsink.

Never heard of it. Google'd it, first few links from people warning it's loud.

One of the big things I spent time on when building my current machine was reducing noise. I didn't go fully silent - too much work - but I did get it to the point that my old PC, on the other side of the room, drowns out the noise from it. Best site for this I've found is Silent PC Review, and especially the reference pages and forums there. It primarily influenced my choice to go with an Antec P182 case, Samsung F1 HDD, and Corsair 620 HX power supply, and later when I upgraded from the stock cooler, I got a Xigmatek HDT-1283. (At some point in the future I want to go through and upgrade all my case fans, but that'll be after I spend some time quieting the other PC.)

I really don't know much about the MBs. I'm certainly not planning on going SLI in the future. But it would be nice to have it as an option though. How are the Crossfire MBs? Would this be a better option?

Back in April/May when I was looking at this the agony of the gaming system builder was that Nvidia cards were crushing ATI cards, but Intel chipsets were straight up better with the one exception that Nvidia had withheld permission from Intel to have SLI drivers (obviously if they'd done so they'd have shot their own motherboard sales in the head). Over the summer, things got ugly for the Nvidia guys - ATI's new 4850 and 4870s are pretty good, and offer great price/performance. Then, when the Core i7 came out, Nvidia decided to back out on the motherboard front and sold SLI to Intel for the new X58 chipset. So the X58 motherboards are monsters - they really can do it all.

I've always went with Intel, not just because I don't think much of SLI, but because Intel's also making systems for industry, and they spend an enormous amount of resources testing their systems for reliability and performance. Frequently they will not be on the cutting edge of performance features, but they have consistently been the best choice in terms of reliability as long as I can remember.

Well I've decided not to bother with Vista, heard too many bad things about it. Besides, half the reason I wanted to go with Vista was so the 4GB of RAM gets used. Instead of the about 3GB which will be used in XP Pro. Also I think XP Home only recognizes 2GB?

I'll take the contrary view in this case. I've weighed in on Vista in this forum before, actually (here), and I think for a new machine with some performance overhead I don't see a downside with going with Home Premium or Ultimate. Should make upgrading to Windows 7 easier, also, as you'll already have the drivers on hand. I would go 64-bit - as you said, you want to be able to use all your RAM.

Yeah I've tried spec'ing out a Core i7 system, it always tended to cost more. I got the impression I get a better bang for my buck sticking with quads or duos.

I'm trying to rally this all up for about $1000 bucks. So it's a constant give and take, somethings gotta go. I initially spec'd out a PC for only $850 and was happy with it. But the more I look into the details and the more I re-spec, then the higher the price goes up.

You can get more for a grand. For that much, I'd be looking for a Core i7. This one popped up at NewEgg. Shipping might be a bit of a bear, but still. There are comparable deals on the ibuypower site, apparently, but the site was choking on me and it's late enough that I need to stop messing around and get back to bed...

[Scott B]

Though it's fair to note I wouldn't buy that thing for reasons of case alone, but it looks like a comparable deal is at ibuypower, and you can pick a different case.

[Other Means]

Seriously; I'd go for the E860. When you're running on one core you'll be faster. Running on 2 you'll be faster still and when do you run on 4? Never is when.

I got this heatsink and run it without the fan - don't need it:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=3XYD

It's big though so you do need space.

I have a Corsair PSU - very quiet:

http://hothardware.com/News/Corsair-Launches-New-850-Watt-Power-Supply-/

I went for the best I could get because I tend to move them from PC to PC as I build a new one. This should last me years. Recommended.

Get all that and put it in a quiet case and you'll be laughing. I had to train the Mrs to check the keyboard light to made sure it was on as she kept thinking it was off when the screen blanked it's that quiet.

[RSColonel_131st]

OM, what was your CPU again? A heatsink without fan would be heaven.

[Other Means]

I got this:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=4MM7

I'm running CM:SF right now at 39C and 42C for each core.

It's in this case:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=3SPW

and is almost silent - the (quiet) case fan is right by the heat sink so I don't really need extra CPU cooling.

I've actually co-opted the CPU fan as axillary cooling for the video card, as I've got a GF8800GTS which runs very hot - I've seen 84C when full out with my last mobo.

I fitted a new mobo (see other thread on GF page ) and it's got scalable cooling - dynamic energy saver they call it.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?QuickLinx=54HW

but I don't think the fans I've got are variable speed. However, I've had no problems since I fitted it so I'm quite hopeful.

I actually bought it in October and only now got round to fitting it - how crap am I?

[Other Means]

Oops - looks like I overstated the PSU. It's a corsair 620.

[Lars]

Well I've decided not to bother with Vista, heard too many bad things about it. Besides, half the reason I wanted to go with Vista was so the 4GB of RAM gets used. Instead of the about 3GB which will be used in XP Pro. Also I think XP Home only recognizes 2GB?

Yeah I've tried spec'ing out a Core i7 system, it always tended to cost more. I got the impression I get a better bang for my buck sticking with quads or duos.

I'm trying to rally this all up for about $1000 bucks. So it's a constant give and take, somethings gotta go. I initially spec'd out a PC for only $850 and was happy with it. But the more I look into the details and the more I re-spec, then the higher the price goes up.

We're both in about the same boat as far as spec'ing out new systems under a grand, and then waiting.

My advice would be to keep playing with it, and just wait till Win7 comes out in a couple of months. No point in paying for either XP or Vista. And all the components will have dropped in price by then.

btw, nice system Scott. And yeah, a beige box will be fine, thank you very much...

[RSColonel_131st]

Thanks OM. Always looking for quieter systems myself.

BTW (and hopefully, not to derail the topic) what do you guys think about building self versus buying a pre-built brand model?

I have all the skills and experience needed to build my own system, yet went with a Fujitsu Siemens in Feb. last year. Partly because they have a really nice and quite silent cooler design I couldn't find elsewhere, but mainly because I wanted the three-year warranty including a technician on-site within two business days.

It's also a question of "insurance" to me - if any part of this system breaks, it will be replaced for free within three years, so that means I don't have to budget for a possible loss of computer earlier than that (which is important to my work and my finances).

With a self-build system, can you actually get three or at least two year warranty on the parts? Or do you basically take your chances - and what if you damage something yourself when mounting everything together?

I know that it saves a ton of money that way, but I need a system that won't out of the blue require me to spend big $$$ on spare parts.

[easytarget]

if you're not building it, and you're going boutique, you better trust them

in which case my advice to turn to forums where people talk about hardware all day is even more important

when you buildi yourself you can control the quality or lack thereof

when you turn to boutiques you're risking going with someone who may or may not do a good job, and probably won't in the end cooperate fully with you should something go wrong

all the more reason to find out from real purchasers what any mfg you're considering is really like

you should definitely read up on ibuypower before pulling the trigger

btw, if you want high configurability, but don't want to build yourself, check out these guys: http://www.avadirect.com/

[Scott B]

Thanks OM. Always looking for quieter systems myself.

You probably already knew about them, then, but just in case you haven't, I'll toss in yet another plug for the Silent PC Review site.

BTW (and hopefully, not to derail the topic) what do you guys think about building self versus buying a pre-built brand model?

I have all the skills and experience needed to build my own system, yet went with a Fujitsu Siemens in Feb. last year. Partly because they have a really nice and quite silent cooler design I couldn't find elsewhere, but mainly because I wanted the three-year warranty including a technician on-site within two business days.

It's also a question of "insurance" to me - if any part of this system breaks, it will be replaced for free within three years, so that means I don't have to budget for a possible loss of computer earlier than that (which is important to my work and my finances).

With a self-build system, can you actually get three or at least two year warranty on the parts? Or do you basically take your chances - and what if you damage something yourself when mounting everything together?

I know that it saves a ton of money that way, but I need a system that won't out of the blue require me to spend big $$$ on spare parts.

Obviously this is a personal choice, but I'm quite pleased with having built my machine last year. In my case, it's a no brainer - we have other machines in the house and I have redundant backups of data, so if it doesn't work I'm not screwed until I can get it back up and running.

The things that irk me when pricing out a machine at another site are typically some combination of the following:

1. inferior selection of parts; in some cases you really get hosed because you can't get them to tell you exactly what parts are going to get installed. Frequently this manifests as you can't *quite* get the exact set of components you want. If you're picky about brands (and I am), this is a problem.

2. pricing - sometimes they get close, but by the nature of the thing you can never quite get it as cheap as if you build yourself.

Even if they could build me exactly the machine I wanted and sell it to me for the price it'd cost me to buy all the parts over a period of a few months (I'm a bargain hunter and usually won't pull the trigger until I'm sure it's a good deal), then I don't like to give up the pride of ownership of having built my own machine. My desktop's my baby. I can tell you off the top of my head every component in it and why I got it.

Most of the stuff there does have good warranties because you do to some extent get what you pay for. I think the most likely weak point in a system is probably the hard drive, and maybe the power supply, and the better versions of these can still be had with 3-5 year warranties.

If I didn't have redundancy at home, and if I had to live or die on the reliability of my system, I'm still not sure I'd trust my machine to someone else. My power to affect my computer's performance may indeed be somewhat illusory, but I think I prefer to cling to the illusion for the sake of my ego.

[Redwolf]

Don't get a CPU with a smaller cache that normal. And as people said, for game like CM a higher clockspeed dual-core will be faster than a lower clockspeed quad.

A fanless CPU fan usually isn't required. You just need a high-quality, large-format HSF from a real vendor, not that trash Intel ships with the CPUs. I use the Arctic Cooling Freezer series, some Zalmans, Soniq Tower and a few others and with fan regulation they all go down in the general noise.

Note that the stock fan on video cards is actually much worse than even the stock intel CPU fan.

[RSColonel_131st]

If I didn't have redundancy at home, and if I had to live or die on the reliability of my system, I'm still not sure I'd trust my machine to someone else. My power to affect my computer's performance may indeed be somewhat illusory, but I think I prefer to cling to the illusion for the sake of my ego.

Thanks for the feedback. The main thing for me (and this may be cultural, since shopping online is not as common yet in Europe as it is in USA) is the whole RMA procedure when a part goes tits up.

It's good to know that even when self-building you can get two to three years warranty (after which a new system is usually due, anyway) but I heard a lot of horror storys how hard it can be to get a replacement part sent in time. With FJSCs Esprimo (company desktop line), it's a business service level agreement that they can't afford not to hold up, so you have parts and repair guaranteed within two days.

[MeatEtr]

Wow, Cyberpowerpc.com is a lot cheaper. I'm getting a better card, PSU, and HD for about the same price. But getting a cheaper CPU. I decided to try Vista Premium since it's cheaper. I can always go with dual boot with XP Pro, so whatever.

I'm gonna skip on the quad and go with the e8500 and overclock it. So I'm gonna get the Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX Gaming CPU Cooling Fan. Btw, is it difficult overclocking the CPU? (Getting ahead of myself here)

Now about the MB. I've also decided to skip on SLI altogether and stick with just one card. Seems easier for us less tech-savy people and save some money too. What's the best MB to get? Here's the list in my duo spec: (all non SLI/Crossfire)

Asus P5GC Intel 945GC

MSI G31M-F Intel G31

Gigabyte EP43-DS3L Intel P43

MSI P43 Neo3-F P43

MSI P45 Neo-F P45

I was gonna go with the MSI P45 Neo-F P45 simply because it costs the most. So are all the new MBs out there all SLI and Crossfire? Or is there other better ones not in the list?

Updated specs I picked out:

• *BASE_PRICE: [+559]
  
• CASE: ($10 off Mail-in Rebate) Raidmax Sagitta II Mid-Tower 420W Gaming Case w/ Side-Panel Window [-7] (Blue Color)
  
• CS_FAN: Extra Case Cooling Fan [+3] (2 x Fans [+3])
  
• CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 CPU @ 3.16GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit [+26]
  
• FAN: Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Excellent Overclocking + Silent Proof 16dBA) [+45]
  
• HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
  
• MOTHERBOARD: MSI P45 Neo-F P45 Chipset LGA775 Supports Core 2 Duo CPU FSB1333 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,&7.1Audio [+50]
  
• MEMORY: 4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
  
• OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 [+104] (32-bit Edition)
  
• PRO_WIRING: Professional Wiring for All WIRINGs Inside The System Chasis with High Performance Thermal Compound on CPU [+19]
  
• POWERSUPPLY: 750 Watts Power Supplies [+79] (Corsair CMPSU-750TX - Quad SLI Ready [+90])
  
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB 16X PCI Express [+118] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

[slug88]

Get a 64 bit operating system. Either that or shave off 2 gb of your ram, since you won't be using it anyway.

Actually, I would very very strongly recommend getting the *free* Windows 7 64 beta. I've been running it myself since release, and not only do I find it to be superior to Vista in every way, but three weeks ago I went ahead and got rid of my XP partition because I hadn't used it even once. Plus, it's FREE. Then when the W7 release appears in a few months, you can spend your money on that, rather than spending it now on an OS that's already obsolete.

[Scott B]

I agree on 64-bit.

Overall, your machine looks a lot better. How much does it add up to?

When they list a motherboard as "Crossfire" or "SLI", that's just the capability - you don't have to get two graphics cards for it. In most circumstances, unless you have money to burn, it probably isn't worth doing that anyway. "Crossfire" just refers to Intel chipsets (for the most part) that have multiple PCI-express slots that can handle graphics cards, and SLI refers to Nvidia chipset boards with the same feature.

That said, the MSI board you're looking at is decent. It's a little light on USB ports for me, but that's easily corrected. And it's cheap.

The E8X00 series are fantastic for overclocking; mainly it's a matter of tweaking the bios and keeping an eye on temperature. With the stock cooler, my E8400 was running at about 43-44C at its stock clock speed; when I got a new heatsink (Xigmatek SDT-1283), I've found it holds a 3.6 Ghz overclock and the temps are actually down in the 37-38C range at idle. I'm not a diehard on the overclocking stuff; in general I want stuff to last as long as possible so I tend to be pretty cautious, but hey, it's basically free performance, and it matters in some cases.

[RSColonel_131st]

Small correction as far as I understand it: Crossfire is dual ATI cards, SLI is dual Nvidia cards. It's not related to the board chipsets.

As for the OS, as pointed out W7 would be preferable to Vista, but that means you will have to do a full reinstall in about 6 months, since you can't go from the Beta to the Retail version.

Home Premium Vista now (64bit) and a cheaper W7 upgrade option may work for you also, of course you can stick with Vista for the next years but you'd be missing some nice things.

[MeatEtr]

Total price for the above specs after the 5% deduction is $1030. I also get Age of Conan and MS Flight X Deluxe Sim(gotta get Vista) for free.

I was still under the impression that 64-bit Vista is still too unreliable for gaming. I know it's better than XP 64-bit. I also read that most of the 4GB will be recognized in Vista 32-bit, about 3 to 3.75GB will get recognized, it's dependent on graphics card memory.

Btw, this is the benchmark that sold me on the Duo cores:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/Crysis-1680x1050,818.html

I'll just get the quads when the games start using them more often in a year or two.

Also I'm not relying on or expecting W7 to be great out of the gate. I read somewhere that the earliest it will ship is end of the year or early next year. Knowing MS, I wouldn't be surprise if we don't see it til mid-next year. I pretty much never buy any OS early after it's release anyway.

Having said that know, I've heard many good things about it. I may very well be an early adopter, who knows.

[Scott B]

I've been running Vista Ultimate 64, and haven't had any troubles that I can pin to the operating system (did have some trouble with some Nvidia graphics card drivers recently, but I actually think they were beta drivers, so technically not something I can blame on Vista either). Recently I've had some issues with getting a Civ IV mod to run, but I couldn't get it to run on XP either so I don't know for sure that was Vista, either. I have a big pile of games, but depending on what you're looking for, some teething issues should be expected (they have compatibility modes and "run as administrator" commands for a reason).

If you have specific games that you will really want to run in Vista, it'd be worth checking around on Google to see if they'll work. But overall, I have had a pretty good experience with Vista. I wouldn't upgrade to it if I had a working XP machine, but if building a new machine, I wouldn't hesitate to install it, assuming the machine has enough horsepower to deal with Vista's increased overhead. It has been stable as hell for me, secure, and some of the bells and whistles are pretty slick as well. Vista Ultimate with a dreamscene background and a few gadgets in the sidebar is a very attractive workspace.

[slug88]

Also I'm not relying on or expecting W7 to be great out of the gate. I read somewhere that the earliest it will ship is end of the year or early next year. Knowing MS, I wouldn't be surprise if we don't see it til mid-next year. I pretty much never buy any OS early after it's release anyway.

Having said that know, I've heard many good things about it. I may very well be an early adopter, who knows.

Well, the only way to really know is to try it yourself. And the thing is, it's free, so why the hell not. If after a while you decide that Vista is better for you than W7, then you can always buy Vista.

[easytarget]

how does a boutique post up pricing significantly lower than competitors?

do they have buying power that pushes down price on components? no

do they buy inferior parts? probably not, certainly not if you have brand level config as you often do at boutiques, in other words, the parts are the parts, and so is the cost of those parts, and so even more significantly are the razor thin margins

so if it's not in the box, where is this cost savings? hmm?

[howardb]

Totally agree on the 64-bit advice. I really regret not buying a 64-bit Vista when I upgraded last time. When the new Windows release I'm getting 64-bit, if it doesn't come as standard that is.

[MeatEtr]

Ok I'm finally probably gonna pull the trigger today. I've read several good reviews about the new AMD Phenom II. So I'm definitely leaning towards that over a Duo core based system. But I've never had a AMD system before, so a little nervous about reliablity and stability. Anything I should be aware about AMD?

It's either this...

CASE: Raidmax Sagitta II Mid-Tower Case

CPU: AMD Phenom™II X4 920 Quad-Core

CPU COOLER: Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX

MOTHERBOARD: Asus M3N72-D AMD 750a SLI

POWERSUPPLY: 750 Watts Corsair CMPSU-750TX

VIDEO CARD: GeForce 9600 GT 512MB Palit

OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit

MEMORY: 4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800

HD: Single Hard Drive 500GB SATA-II

Total: $1066

.. or this. (differences listed)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500

MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI Chipset

Total: $1037

Unfortunately Cyberpowers "over $1000, then 5% off" promotion expired a few days ago. Which would of been -$50, but I'm SOL on that. But I still get free shipping.