Here we go again, thinking about building my next pc...

[doublea2]

Hello (some of this may already be stated in my other post)

I was here back in 2006 and I got more help than I ever needed here, this palace was wonderful. I asked over 100 different questions building that pc, and since I have built and updated pretty much anyone computer in my local family, I am the tech guy around here. But when it come to all this new stuff (ddr3) (lga775) (blu-ray) (nvdia 280 vs 9800gtx) I have no clue....

I do feel bad though, I'm abusing this community, I haven't offed anyone here much help (id probably point them in the wrong direction) Im reaping all the advantages here, I don't know if I even deserved to be helped again. :unsure:

First off the non detail list of my current pc (the one im using, and the one neowin helped me build 2.5 years ago)

amd 3800x2+

2.5 gb 2400 ddr ram (2gb corsair) (512 mb ram left from old pc, proibly does me more harm than good)

2X nvdia 7600 gt in sli

2X 250 gb 7200 rpm wd hd

2X dvd-rw drives

What I do,

I currently use pinnacle 12 to video edit, for pleasure and for work, (i know pinnacle is not the best out there, but Ive been using pinnacle since version 7 so I work well with it. I need to make hd videos, and currently my pc is just not speedy enough for me to see full quality previews, and rendering is painfully slow. my 2 hard drives are completely full and much of my video work is done off of my external 160gb wd usb drives.

I play swg, (yes its a 5 year old game most of you have never heard of) http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/players/index.vm Its time for my PC to get an upgrade in this department also, My fps just doesn't cut it for me to be happy any more. Also I always want a gaming pc rig for whatever game I may be using in the future.

I'm using my current pc to the max, I commonly use all of my 2.5 gb ram. (I love to multi task, game, music, video edit, web browse, and uploading video to you tube (vemio), when updating my anti virus all at the same time.) I also commonly run my pc 24/7. Energy efficiency is important to me.

In summery, I need CPU muscle, video muscle, and plenty of hd space. Fire wire is a must, and blu-ray is important. I'm a die hard nvdia fan (let me be in peace on that one, I already had to give up AMD) Hard-drive speed is very important to me. Hard drive space, not as important, I can throw in a 1tb 7200 rpm as I need room.

Budget (strict budget) Under $1600

_____________________________________________________________________

The parts Ive selected from what I Know already: (don't laugh if this is a mees of horrible parts)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80569Q9550 - Retail

Notes: im drooling over this...

Mo-bo: ?????

Notes: this is the peice im the least sure on... so many choices...

What north bride should i choose? Should i use a nvidia north bridge if i have a nvidia video card...

Video: BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXPOCE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card

Ram: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL4D-4GBPK - Retail

HD: Western Digital VelociRaptor WD1500HLFS 150GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - OEM

Notes: considering a 7200 rpm drive as it seems the preformance of this card isnt much better.

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

Notes: how much power do i need, and how many 12v rails?

quad intel cpu

Max ill ever used:

2 hds

2 optical drives

2 9800 video cards

Optical Drive: ASUS 2 Tone Blu-Ray Combo SATA Model BC-1205PT - Retail

Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit English for System Builders 1pk DSP OEI DVD - OEM

Notes: I need 64 bit for 4gb ram right? I remember having the choice of 64 bit back when I built my other pc, but some people said not all software worked don 64 bit yet. What is the case now?

Thank you.

Edited August 29, 2008 by doublea2

[CrashG]

Most of it looks good. There are a few questions though, what size monitor? Are you going to Overclock?

The few things I'd swap out are:

Motherboard: go with a P45 chipset based one like the Asus P5Q line. P5Q Pro or P5Q-E.

Ram: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

PSU: SeaSonic M12 SS-600HM 600W

If you want to stick with a nVidia card:

GPU: BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXPOCE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB or if you want to go all out, BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024E GeForce GTX 280 1GB.

But the ATi 4850 and 4870 have some good reviews.

ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB or

ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4870 512MB.

[gwai lo]

Go expand on CrashGordon's post (just so it doesn't seem like he's just suggesting things like "this is what I would do if I were you..")...

Nvidia chipsets run warmer, have more issues, and do not overclock as well as Intel's chipsets. There is no good reason to go with them except because you want SLI on your board (which you don't have now and will not need unless you run a resolution of 25?16).

RAM - DDR2-1066 is more than what you need, unless you had a nice cooling setup and high overclocking aspirations. 533 FSB will be quite a feat to reach, if you did plan on overclocking past 3.4 GHz, then check out this sticks. In case you want to run the RAM faster than the FSB, reviews have demonstrated that the architecture does not benefit greatly except in Winzip..so if you all you do is compression stuff..

The WD6400AAKS is both a better deal (12.6 cents per gb here) as well as faster in a few cases than that older Raptor. If it isn't faster it will be even if not very close.

OCZ's GameXstream and StealthXstream line are based on FSP's Epsilon platform, which has demonstrated itself to be a poor regulator of voltages. It may go out of spec at higher loads, which could kill your components...you probably won't run into that with this build, but why pay for an inferior product? There are power supplies that can supply the wattage up to what it says on the box and they also do it better. I'd check out the TX750 because it's just a really good deal for its price. It doesn't have modular cabling though..if you like that stuff.

[CrashG]

It was getting late and I was sleepy, so I didn't go into the usual "why I would change this" details. :)

[gwai lo]

I got your back. ;)

[doublea2]

Go expand on CrashGordon's post (just so it doesn't seem like he's just suggesting things like "this is what I would do if I were you..")...

Nvidia chipsets run warmer, have more issues, and do not overclock as well as Intel's chipsets. There is no good reason to go with them except because you want SLI on your board (which you don't have now and will not need unless you run a resolution of 25?16).

I do have 2 nvidia 7600 gt's in sli? do I not? Does it only work at a certain resolution? I do notice a performance ans fps increase when im running in sli mode. I like leaving the doors open for expansion, if i want more video performance, i buy another video card for a much cheaper price as it will go down over 6 months time.

RAM - DDR2-1066 is more than what you need, unless you had a nice cooling setup and high overclocking aspirations. 533 FSB will be quite a feat to reach, if you did plan on overclocking past 3.4 GHz, then check out this sticks. In case you want to run the RAM faster than the FSB, reviews have demonstrated that the architecture does not benefit greatly except in Winzip..so if you all you do is compression stuff..

Ah, K because the ddr3 boards are expensive and so is the ddr3 ram it self. To be honest I'm scared of Overclocking, I did a tiny bit on my setup now, and my CPU temp kept rising and rising and rising, and I barley bumped it up. Who knows what i did wrong... Maybe Ill get into ocing on my new pc. But my overclocking ability on my new pc is low on the list for me.

The WD6400AAKS is both a better deal (12.6 cents per gb here) as well as faster in a few cases than that older Raptor. If it isn't faster it will be even if not very close.

I'm scared of raid everyone told me don't do raid it has double the chance for errors.... Looking at the board specifications it looks like there are a few newer kinds of raid setups now. I just assumed that 10000 rpm drive would be a much simpler way to get more performance out of a drive.

OCZ's GameXstream and StealthXstream line are based on FSP's Epsilon platform, which has demonstrated itself to be a poor regulator of voltages. It may go out of spec at higher loads, which could kill your components...you probably won't run into that with this build, but why pay for an inferior product? There are power supplies that can supply the wattage up to what it says on the box and they also do it better. I'd check out the TX750 because it's just a really good deal for its price. It doesn't have modular cabling though..if you like that stuff.

I like modular cabling, but that's not crucial on my budget.

Thank you for your replies guys.

[doublea2]

Most of it looks good.

There are a few questions though, what size monitor?

I use a 20' 4:3 Lcd right now, but Id be buying a 22" or a 24" screen soon. (16:9)

Are you going to Overclock?

Probably not.

The few things I'd swap out are:

Motherboard: go with a P45 chipset based one like the Asus P5Q line. P5Q Pro or P5Q-E.

Both of those boards don't do sli... but I may have to go with ati if they are cheaper, I don't know how to compare ati to nvidia cards. Again The mother board is the piece of hardware I know the least about choosing what I need. I choose the $299 board and your suggesting a $159 board which is nice price savings to me.

Ram: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

WOW that ram is cheap! I was just going with corsair a name brand but if i can save that much then heck....

SOLD!

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Again I wanted a faster than standard drive, I don't want to have to use a scsi card, or deal with raid setups.

PSU: SeaSonic M12 SS-600HM 600W

More money... but again as much as the mobo, i don't know what im looking for.

If you want to stick with a nVidia card:

GPU: BFG Tech BFGE98512GTXPOCE GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB or if you want to go all out, BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024E GeForce GTX 280 1GB.

I must have been blind last night, Ive used BFG cards in 4 of my previous pcs (just store bought hp and dells, I always put new video cards in them.) BFG has always been good to me so sure for $10 more id do that.

But the ATi 4850 and 4870 have some good reviews.

ASUS EAH4850/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4850 512MB or

ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/512M Radeon HD 4870 512MB.

Ive always heard bad things about ati, but it sounds like things are changing. What mo-bo would be best with ati? What north bride do you need for the cross-fire/sli thingy...

[gwai lo]

I like modular cabling, but that's not crucial on my budget.

Thank you for your replies guys.

SLI works at any resolution, but if it isn't needed then there really isn't a good reason to go with it. Look at reviews and you'll notice plenty of single card solutions that can handle your resolution (1680?1050). This saves you the hassle of the extra power draw, extra heat, extra hassle of setting it up, possible issues that may crop up (e.g. microstutter), and multi-GPU solutions *theoretically* scale 100%. They don't in the real world. As for using it as an upgrade path:

Just some info on SLI / Crossfire: It's absolutely not worth considering if a) you're gaming at a resolution under 1920x1200 (as you'll see no performance benefit over a single card,) and b) if you plan to buy one card now and another later. SLI / Crossfire as an upgrade path is usually a very poor idea, as by the time you're ready to get that second card, a new single card solution will likely be available that will outperform two of your older cards in tandem. Furthermore, there really is no cost benefit to the SLI Upgrade Route, as any additional cost in getting the new card can be easily mitigated in most situations by selling the original. By avoiding an SLI / Crossfire solution when it will not be of benefit, you gain a cooler running, simpler to maintain system and more importantly, access to a much better (and broader) selection of motherboards.

So the general rule for multi-GPU platforms is to do it from the start or don't do it at all. You don't need Crossfire or SLI..

WD6400AAKS doesn't have anything to do with RAID, I think you need to read the link a little closer. It's a single hard drive, beyond cache, RPMs, and firmware for determining performance (all of which are rather insignificant IMO for desktop users) areal density plays a HUGE role. Techreport and storagereview all have articles on these hard drives.

[CrashG]

I've had a few friends that had issues with older models (around 2002-03) but they seem to be on the ball now. You should have no problems running a 22-24" monitor with game details cranked up pretty high (except for Crysis) with any of the cards listed, no real need for Crossfire/SLi. Most mobo's with an Intel chipset (P45, P35, X38, X48) will do Crossfire, there are some exceptions. Some aren't dual x16 slots only x8.

That G.Skill ram is decent stuff for the price.

The 640Gb AAKS hard drive is pretty quick, unless you want to go with one of the Western Digital VelociRaptor's but they don't perform all that much better for the cost. You pay a high premium for a little more performance.

You can go with the Corsair TX750 that gwai lo suggested, it's more than powerful enough for your build (or near future upgrades). For $83 bucks, it's a steal.

It all comes down to the Price Vs. Performance battle. You can get a very fast machine without spending a boat-load of cash. :)

[doublea2]

SLI works at any resolution, but if it isn't needed then there really isn't a good reason to go with it. Look at reviews and you'll notice plenty of single card solutions that can handle your resolution (1680?1050). This saves you the hassle of the extra power draw, extra heat, extra hassle of setting it up, possible issues that may crop up (e.g. microstutter), and multi-GPU solutions *theoretically* scale 100%. They don't in the real world. As for using it as an upgrade path:

So the general rule for multi-GPU platforms is to do it from the start or don't do it at all. You don't need Crossfire or SLI..

Very well then what mo-bo would you suggest for a single gpu solution? >

WD6400AAKS doesn't have anything to do with RAID, I think you need to read the link a little closer. It's a single hard drive, beyond cache, RPMs, and firmware for determining performance (all of which are rather insignificant IMO for desktop users) areal density plays a HUGE role. Techreport and storagereview all have articles on these hard drives.

I know that hd has nothing to do with raid I was just letting other people know I want to avoid raid... So all in all 7200 rpm wd vs 10000 rpm wd hd, both sata 3gb will preform about the same? And also how would you go about finding the density of the drives?

thanks again for the fast replies.

It all comes down to the Price Vs. Performance battle. You can get a very fast machine without spending a boat-load of cash.:))

This is very important to me, I dont want to buy anything I dont need. And Im convinced that sli and crossfire is not the way to go and I should just front a nice single gpu solution.

[CrashG]

This is very important to me, I dont want to buy anything I dont need. And Im convinced that sli and crossfire is not the way to go and I should just front a nice single gpu solution.

That's what were talking about! (Y)

Here's an example: My 8800GTS G92 512Mb handles everything that I've thrown at it (with the exception of Crysis, of course) with the game settings maxed out and 8x AA/AF on a 22" widescreen at 1680x1050 without any problems. So any of those 4 cards, (either ATi or nVidia) will perform at least equal to or better than mine.

[gwai lo]

For the board I'd just go with what CrashGordon suggested, any P45 really. Also, at this point in time I'd lean towards the 4850 unless the 9800GTX can be found with a price delta of >=20 dollars and the 8800GTS G92 with a delta of >35ish.

[RedFlow]

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedW...spx?ID=10565468

The RAM may be a little much but I don't know much about HD video editing so I figured the more the better on that.

[gwai lo]

You're overpaying horrendously for that RAM, just buying two 2?2GB kits would be cheaper..

The thermal paste that comes with the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 is matched if not better..so the AS5 isn't needed.

TX750 is definitely a better deal, especially since modular cabling isn't a must have.

[RedFlow]

I figured it'd be better for cooling since the airflow could be smoother. Also that power supply in general is good. And yea I knew that RAM was overpaying I just slapped it in there because I was in a hurry. Also, I figured that HD Encoding and such would take up a lot of RAM which was why I chose 8GB over 4GB but I could be wrong..

[doublea2]

For the board I'd just go with what CrashGordon suggested, any P45 really. Also, at this point in time I'd lean towards the 4850 unless the 9800GTX can be found with a price delta of >=20 dollars and the 8800GTS G92 with a delta of >35ish.

Delta who what? were talking business lingo I don't know here.

again should I choose a different mobo for the kind of video card I want?

Ie nvidia north bridge+nvdia card = hybrid mode something or other....

https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedW...spx?ID=10565468

The RAM may be a little much but I don't know much about HD video editing so I figured the more the better on that.

4X1gb sticks seems like a waste to me 2X2gb is plenty fine, I go over my 2.5 gb i have several times a week already....So video editing is demanding on that.

Thanks again, as questions are answered more arise :p

[gwai lo]

Price delta, um...the price difference between the 4850 and whatever card.

No, the motherboard doesn't have any bearing on the video card choice unless you want a multi-video card setup.

[doublea2]

Price delta, um...the price difference between the 4850 and whatever card.

No, the motherboard doesn't have any bearing on the video card choice unless you want a multi-video card setup.

Ah ok.

this basically opens up me to any mobo choice out there including the 2 suggested here...

[gwai lo]

Well yeah, but P45's are recommended because they perform similarly to the leading chipsets on the market, are priced well, and have most of the features users would want.

[CrashG]

Ah ok.

this basically opens up me to any mobo choice out there including the 2 suggested here...

Yep, you can choose any board, I was just linking to the mid-range boards that had the features that most people want/need without going... overboard (lame pun, I know) :laugh: . The P45's are solid, stable, perform well and have a good price point. Just balance the features you need to the price you want to pay, a more expensive board doesn't necessarily mean it's a better board. If it has features that you'll never use, why spend money on it?

Go with 2x2Gb sticks, it'll leave you an option to add another set later on down the road, should you need to.