Buying a new PC time! Input requested...

spudthedestroyer

spudthedestroyer wrote:

Yes, its that time of the year when ones decided to build a new pc and is looking for everyone's input. Last time I built up a machine for me was well over a year ago, and that i consider a jump well done.

Anyway, I'm putting this beast into retirement and am looking to replace it with something a bit more modern. The general specs I want are this is going to have to last for a solid year (not including little updates). Price I'm looking to spend is ~?900, but I can afford to go past that if its necessary, but I don't want to spend heaps and heaps on just a pc. Don't need any monitors, keyboard, etc. I'm looking for comments on the hardware, alternative suggestions and would be very grateful for links to cheaper shops than the ones I post.

Okay first up, I've been looking at Processors and I've been looking at AMD64. I want a nippy little bastard.

CPU
AMD64 - 4000: Price: ?342
+ 1MB cache
+ High End of AMD current lineup
+ Cheaper than FX
- Still bloody expensive ~?342 inc VAT

Purchase link: <s>Overclockers.co.uk</s> / <s>Dabs</s> / Low

URL: Review 1 / Review 2
CPU Chart: URL

That would take a gouge out of the budget I have. Its insane, but there seems to be that price chump between okay/mediocre CPUs and ones that have 'modern' levels of performance.

Motherboard
Given my choice of possible CPU, it has to be socket 939. Now I'm personally qute fond of epox, but DFI i hear have a similar quality reputation
DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D : Price: ?129

Purchase Link: Overclockers.co.uk / Dabs
URL: Homepage / Review 1 / Comparison to Asus board

RAM
Something nice and nippy, what do you think?

Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR PC3200 Ballistix Dual Channel Kit BL6464Z402: Price: ?129

Purchase Link: Crucial.com

Graphics
Well its an SLI board, so Nvidia? I don't really know much about current card ranking. Also not sure if its best to get one, then plug another SLI one in later?

Gigabyte GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (NX68T256D-B) (GX-014-GI) Price: ?270

Purchase Link: Overclockers

HDD
I have 1.5TB in this current pc, so space isn't a major concern, noise and speed is!
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus NCQ 80GB ST380817AS SATA 8MB Cache x2: Price: ?76

Purchase Link: <s>Overclockers.co.uk</s> / Ebuyer.com

URL: Review 1/ Review 2

Case
Dunno about this, but I hear this is a nice case:

Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK) : Price: ?86

Purchase Link: <s>Overclockers.co.uk</s> / Dabs

CPU FAN
I'm a fan of Zalman and have one in my pc right now, this one gets rave reviews

Zalman CNPS7700-CU Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-010-ZA) : Price: ?35

Purchase Link: Overclockers.co.uk

PSU
Something that can supply enough juice but also doesn't sound like henry the vacuum.

Tagan TG480-U01 480W ATX2.0 SLi Compliant Silent PSU: Price: ?64

Purchase Link: Overclockers.co.uk

CPU: ?342
MainBoard: ?129
RAM: ?129
Graphics: ?270
HDD: ?76
Case: ?86
Fan/Sink: ?35
PSU: ?64
----
Total: ?1131

Input mandatory :eatthis:

Might as well ask you chapies for input too. Any is most welcome

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:56 am **Post subject:**

Are you planning on overclocking?

Cos if not, that memory is CL2.5 and you can put 3200 CL2 memory in which would be marginally cheaper and faster.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 8:58 am **Post subject:**

No overclocking itsn't really that much of a thrill for me (maybe I'm not a true geek). Thx for the tip on that. So what make of ram would you go for?

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:06 am **Post subject:**

Funnily enough I'm looking for some ram ATM myself and have narrowed it down to these :

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=61699
or
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=65736

The OCZ timings are 2-2-3-5 and
the crucial's are 2-2-2-6 so there's nothing in it, and they'll both clock up to 500Mhz+

I think I'll probably go for the OCZ if that helps

I'd be more inclined to go for the top-end ATI Gfx card or the gigabyte card with SLI on chip (although it restricts your choice of motherboard), but SLI isn't as good as it should be, it doesn't work on every game on those tailored to in the drivers.

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:22 am **Post subject:**

mmm, just done some more research and the crucial looks VERY appealing, although, if you're going to buy it Spud, don't get it from ebuyer or overclockers, it's only ?128.57 with free delivery from http://www.crucial.com
Even the ram you were looking at is only ?133.08 direct from crucial although I'm still going for the 3200 ram

Which I think may have swung it back for me, I felt it was a little overpriced compared to the OCZ

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:48 am **Post subject:**

Part No. BL6464Z402 512MB, Ballistix 184-pin DIMM
Part No. BL6464Z505 512MB, Ballistix 184-pin DIMM

Code:

BL6464Z505 512MB 4.0ns/500 MT/s Dual 32 Meg x 8
BL6464Z402 512MB 5.0ns/400 MT/s Dual 32 Meg x 8

I think i'm going to stick with the ones I posted above, thx for the Crucial.com tip. Now that i think about it, I did that with the last pc I build up too.

I'll update the price

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:52 am **Post subject:**

oh and on the subject of graphics cards, every linux owner I've ever talked to have mentioned how pathetic ATI's drivers are in nix, and that they wouldn't touch one of their products with a ten foot barge pole.

Something to bare in mind I guess, seen as though there is *still* no win64 distro. Only thing we have are linux ones and a winxp beta.

I've had no overly terrible experience on my personal machine with either, i just want top performance.

Every motherboard out now that's top of the range has SLI, ati hasn't put forward its technology at all yet, and nvidia aparantly dominates every single performance chart put together. i hear the reservations about SLI though, and its down to support and drivers. I just want to end up with a system I'm not going to have to update though, and that's going to be able to run programs like Gknot, eclipse, Visual Studio .net and some other power apps.

Gaming wise if i drop frames in HL2 I'll be pissed after spending all this money.

So I'm not solidly in ati or nvidia camp, just whatevers going to last

The gigabyte card you mean is the Gigabyte 3D1 GeForce 6600GT SL right?
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzEy

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 10:10 am **Post subject:**

IIRC there's a 6800GT SL (which was the one I meant)

It's your choice of course, but the PC4000 Memory will be slower @ 3200 than the PC3200 ram solely down to the CAS latency and other timings of the ram (although the difference will be small)

PC 4000 timings = 2.5-4-4-8
PC 3200 timings = 2-2-2-6

Although it does depend on what the timings are @ 3200 on the 4000 memory, I'll mail Crucual and find out.

OK, mailed them and this was the reply :

Quote:

Thank you for your e-mail. Due to very high e-mail volumes, a response to your question or comment may take up to 5 working days. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes and will endeavor to reply as soon as possible.

Crucial Customer Support

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 2:26 pm **Post subject:**

I tell a lie about win64:
http://megagames.com/news/html/software ... gold.shtml

Windows XP64 just went gold.

killingjokezzz · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 3:08 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

I tell a lie about win64:
http://megagames.com/news/html/software ... gold.shtml

Windows XP64 just went gold.

I suppose this is too good to be true then??

http://thepiratebay.org/torrents-details.php?id=3309626

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:38 pm **Post subject:**

clickerty click... errr... research!

killingjokezzz · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2005 10:09 am **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

clickerty click... errr... research!

You might need this too:

http://thepiratebay.org/torrents-details.php?id=3263815

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Sat Apr 02, 2005 11:32 am **Post subject:**

*updated the header*

Went with PC3200 ram, and I've added some harddrives.

Suggestions for the any existing choices, and for the GFX card (6800GT... leadtek?) and PSU welcomed

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Sun Apr 03, 2005 8:21 pm **Post subject:**

shit that's a lot of money

Now to find places i can get stuff cheaper, anybody?

PC_Arcade · **Posted:** Mon Apr 04, 2005 10:25 am **Post subject:**

I've just ordered the memory direct from Crucial.

Total cost = 128.57 fully inclusive

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Tue Apr 05, 2005 11:10 pm **Post subject:**

managed to shave ?10 off the cpu by finding it OEM instead of wasting money on an extra fan thx to a link from fh.

Its still a lot of money though

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 10:55 pm **Post subject:**

Okay, I've ordered everything, I managed to get the model down of the CPU fan for free, so I'm going to try that out. I also upgraded the CPU to OEM, turns out the price was pretty much the same, I can use the fan on another machine, and best of all you get the warranty incase it goes pear shaped.

Graphic... i didn't go with the ultra, I'll see if I can clock it up a bit, but i got a 6800 GT. Yup back to nvidia

Now just wait for this thread to become... spud's expensive paperweight problems

barry · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:13 pm **Post subject:**

spudthedestroyer wrote:

Graphic... i didn't go with the ultra, I'll see if I can clock it up a bit, but i got a 6800 GT. Yup back to nvidia

Definitely the right thing to do if you're going 64bit. nVidia had their 64 bit Linux drivers from almost day one back in 2003. ATi only just release theirs some 15 months later last January. It was almost the same story in 64bit WinXP, but with only a six month gap.

spudthedestroyer · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:17 pm **Post subject:**

well i was skeptical of nvidia when i got a 9800 which was really nice and the geforce's were a bit hit and miss, but your like the 10th person to say ati's linux driver support was rubbish.

I'm going to probably be dual booting this time round, Windows XP 64bit and Gentoo most likely

drpoopypantz · **Posted:** Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:31 am **Post subject:**

Is this going to be one of a fleet of machines, or your only one?

And I wouldn't buy that case. Unless you really want black.
This one http://computing.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/ps_93 ... 16323.html seems way cooler, from a brand I know (I know Antec...I never heard of Akasa), I can't find any reviews on the Akasa case, whereas I've included a very positive review of this Antec.

And it's essentially the same price.

Here's the review of it...

http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/antec/p160/p1.htm

That's what I'd buy if I had money, anyway.

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