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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: redrumloa on November 03, 2008, 10:40:18 PM
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I'm way behind on PC hardware, my mind is in about 2006 technology. Who is the leader atm in price/performance ratio right now? I don't do cutting edge, I like the most bang for the buck or slightly better.
AMD or Intel? Which CPU and MB do you recommend?
Video card suggestion under ~$250? Dual head prefered.
Hard drive?
Thanks.
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I went AMD because its significanlty cheaper to get cpu, motherboard, but intel chips are generally faster at the moment. I don't play the latest games and don't do a lot of audio/video encoding. But if you are willing to spend $250 on a video card then I'd recommend that you go intel, much as it pains me to say it. Having said that I'm happy with my AMD X2 5000+
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my impression is that cpu/$ = AMD, while raw cpu is Intel. I might be wrong though )
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AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Brisbane 2.8GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core black edition Processor - Retail @ $77
ECS A780GM-A AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail @ $69.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA-300 Hard Drive - OEM @ $89.99
EVGA 512-P3-N861-TR GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail @ $104.99 ($84.99 after mail in rebate)
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail @ $49.99
All from newegg.com
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go for a seagate for sure. gigabyte rocks too. :-)
i prefer (and use) amd, but for the moment, the power is at intel cpus... :roll:
this nvidia 9800 gt (http://www.e-shop.gr/show_per.phtml?id=PER.512681) cost 151.396 USD here in greece.
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AMD is best bang for the buck,
But stay away from El Cheepo motherboards like ECS and Foxcom etc. 9 out of 10 fail in the first 30 days. Stay away from motherboards with "onboard" graphics also. Too many conflicts. I just built an entire AMD system with an AMD 5000+ and ASUS M2N Motherboard, and I built the whole thing for less then $700 Cad (including tax). that was with a Nvidia 8500 GT 1 gig graphics, 500 gig SATA drive, Upgraded case (I love to use the Antec Sonata cases) and 2 gigs for ram, SATA DVD burnner etc. Heck, without the XP license, it was under $600. :lol:
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I can't advise. I went a bit nuts when building my current PC, which has turned out to be far more powerful than strictly necessary, but with the associated extra cost.
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Nothing wrong with cheap moherboards and motherboards with onboard graphics really.
Most motherboards comes with onboard graphics these days, I am actually running on the built in graphics at the moment on this quad-workstation at a rock solid 1920x1200, and if I want to I can connect a second screen to the other display port to run a dual setup.
If you run into a conflict with a graphics board then you can disable the IGP in the Bios.
My vote is for a dual core intel CPU or a second hand AMD CPU (since some of the older ones are so energy efficient and extremely cheap, got my own 3200+ for free), currently my Ubuntu server runs on a 2 GHz AMD and an el cheapo motherboard with integrated graphics, consumes 42 watt idle with 4 spun down hard drives and one 2.5" sys drive running. 35 watts less than my quad workstation with q6600.
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First off look for deals. That's how I got my motherboard. An Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless off eBay for $90 about two years ago. It was DOA but only six months into the three year warranty. Sent it in and go a whole new retail box. The rest of that build was an AMD x64 2x 5800. I just upgraded the RAM from 2 to 4 GB thanks to a good deal w rebate at Newegg. For a graphics card I have an ATI Radeon 2600. This runs all my games full out. Granted I would not allow me to run Crysis at full settings. Graphics card will likely be the next upgrade, sometime after Christmas. Not only is it my gaming rig but my TV too. I have Dual montiors for that. Media Center gets displayed on the 24" 1900x1200 Samsung.
Really, you don't need to spend alot to get a great working PC. Oh, I'm running Vista x64.
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redrumloa wrote:
AMD or Intel? Which CPU and MB do you recommend?
Hi redrumloa,
You have to get a quad core Intel, as they are making 16 core CPUs at the end of next year, it would probably be a mistake to get only 2 cores now. Use the power that is available NOW.
Intel Q9xxx line, however, they are $250 and up.
Here's a cheapo AMD quad core (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103287) and a full blown cheapest Intel quad core (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115043) CPU. Should be really powerful, though.
redrumloa wrote:
Video card suggestion under ~$250? Dual head prefered.
I have a Nvidia Ti4600 card in my computer from when I got it in 2002 and am happy with it.
However, Nvidia seems to be falling apart at the moment so I think the best card you can get for that price is the ATI 4850. It has 800 registers!
They have a 4870 now, but it's more than what you want to spend for a graphics card, and I don't know it's specifics.
I would definitely get the 4850 if I was buying a computer today (or, the 4870, if it's much better (at least 35% as it costs considerably more)).
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However, Nvidia seems to be falling apart at the moment so I think the best card you can get for that price is the ATI 4850. It has 800 registers!
800, eh? Such figures are a bit meaningless on GPU's nowadays. For example, my GTX 260 can be running 24576 hardware threads at any given instant (24 multiprocessors running 32 "warps" of 32 threads each).
The GTX280 is the fastest consumer GPU on the market, but the 4870 X2 cards, having 2 GPU's are, of course, faster.
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Hi Karlos,
But, you can get a 4850 for $189, and a GTX280 is a whopping $389, including a $30 mail in rebate. Is the GTX280 twice as fast as the 4850? I don't think it is. (I don't know.)
The 4870 is $269.99, including $20 rebate.
This is from newegg.com.
The cards might be even cheaper, if you look around.
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How about ...
Nevermind ...
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My personal recommendation for CPU is and has always been AMD. Unless you have a massive amount of cash to blow, you'll never go bleeding edge. While AMD has made great strides in advancing beyond Intel, the pattern of Intel coming up with a design and AMD improving upon it and being significantly cheaper has held true for decades.
Multiple CPU cores are wonderful for those who do heavy multitasking, but there's a limit to how many cores and/or CPUs an individual needs. Running multiple CS3 apps at once, you need the extra cores (my counterpart at work for example, a graphic artist, runs In Design, Photoshop and Illustrator all at once opening catalogs full of hires images. She brings her dual core iMac to it's knees)... Otherwise stick with dual core and go for higher clock speed.
Obviously, cram as much RAM into the system as you can... You WILL need it.
As for the motherboard and video, I suggest going with an all nVidia solution. Components designed to function together for maximum efficiency. It's hard to find any video card without dual monitor capability these days.
Hard drive, the faster the better, stick with the main brands and go SATA. Were it me, I'd get a lower capacity (60GB or less) 10K RPM drive as your boot drive with a high capacity (500GB+) 7200 RPM storage drive. Between boot times and memory swapping, you'll be glad you did.
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Intel + nVidia + 8gb RAM. Go Asus, MSI or ABit for your motherboard and video cards. HD wise, SATA3, as much as you can get. Go with a dual-terabyte RAID setup and never need drive space again*.
*=until 2013 or thereabouts ;-)
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My AMD 386 clone was a complete turd, but that doesn't say much about today's products. I'm still using an AMD Athlon 64 4000+, and my nVidia 8800 GTS 512 picks up most of the slack.
If you want stability, go with an Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad and an Intel boxed motherboard. Intel's boards don't have legacy connectors--parallel ATA, PS/2, floppy, etc.--or even PCI slots in some cases, so keep that in mind. i.e. If you want to a use a Catweasel, go with another brand. I like Asus.
Buy memory tested and approved by the motherboard manufacturer. If you're running a 32-bit operating system (not just Windows), don't install more than 3 GB or so of RAM, depending on how your motherboard maps your add-in cards and onboard widgets into the 4 GB address space. If you're running a 64-bit operating system, don't worry about it, and buy as much memory as you can afford. I'm still using 1 GB but could probably benefit from upgrading to 2 GB.
Buy a hard disk based on cost and warranty. (My rule of thumb: buy the disk just below the point at which the cost increases at a higher rate than the capacity. Seagate's 1TB "SATA-II" disks are reasonably priced, and they have a 5 year warranty.)
Buy a SATA optical drive that meets your needs. DVD+/-RW DL at minimum, Blu-Ray if you can swing the added cost now.
Buy a media-friendly graphics card--any of the midrange nVidia and ATI cards should do; however, nVidia is doing wonderful things with CUDA, PhysX, and general purpose programming on their GPUs, i.e. not just for gaming. The midrange cards typically have hardware-assisted Blu-Ray/HD-DVD decoding while some of the high-end cards do not. Do a bit of research before buying.
If you plan on watching high-definition video content, make sure your monitor supports HDCP over DVI or HDMI (or use something like AnyDVD HD--an awesome and easy to use program--to disable HDCP completely).
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Please DON'T go AMD.
They used to be good but Intel is much better nowadays.
Just check the various benchmarks and you'll see what i mean.
Also, AMD's run a LOT hotter than Intels.
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Thanks guys, I'm leaning towards Intel. I'm also thinking DDR3, is it worth it? Is EVGA an ok brand nowadays :-? So far only DDR3 motherboard I am finding are EVGA.
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You probably won't see much of a difference between DDR2 and DDR3 today, given the slow refresh rates of current DDR3 parts. You can always buy faster parts when they become available. It really depends on what you plan to spend on the combinbation of motherboard and memory. You have two options: 1) buy DDR2 board and memory and upgrade to DDR3 board and memory later; 2) buy DDR3 board and memory and upgrade to faster DDR3 memory later. Option 2 should be less expensive long-term, but it depends on what motherbard you buy.
EVGA is an excellent brand. Both their products and their support are great. They do tend to be more expensive than other brands, though. Keep in mind that most nVidia-based products (video cards and motherboards) are rebranded reference designs. You're really paying for the reputation of the company and their warranty and support policies. EVGA does have a nice upgrade policy.
If you're going with an Intel processor, look for P45-based boards. Many of them should support DDR3.
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My rule of thumb has been:
For home/games/overclocking/experimental build go AMD.
For servers/enterprise/uptime/stability go Intel.
Am I a little out of touch or does anyone else support that rule?
For work I go Intel board and Intel chip. Whilst some other MB manufacturers may give better performance, the Intel motherboards do seem to be rock solid.
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intel. It has been the obvious choice since core2.
I'm still very happy with the E6320 running at 2.8GHz. My next system will likely be a Core i7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_i7) setup, though.
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Agreed. AMD has had very little to offer desktop users lately; however, their server products perform quite well. AMD has had the advantage in memory bus speed for quite some time, but Intel is quickly catching up.
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My 2c's
Gigabyte MB (all solid state but shut done the Dynamic Energy saver)
4GB Cosair 1066
Intel Core 2 or Quad depends on what you want to do. (they are faster atm)
Seagate ES drives
Nvidia 9600 (but the ATI is much much faster and the 4870 kills the lastest nvidia by 2 times look up the spec on websites).
depending on how long you want the computer to last invest in some quality components.
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On this moment Intel is my preferred processor, Costs a bit more but is much faster and stable.
I'm very happy with my E6600 core 2 duo clocked form 2,4 Ghz to 3,0 and it works flawless.
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Intel all the way. Either Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad. I just bought my son a Dell XPS 420 Core 2 Quad off of ebay for $731 shipped.. brand new in box. Came w/a 19" widescreen Dell LCD. Steal of a deal :))
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I'll throw in my 2 cents as well even though I haven't posted much here, as I am trying to absorb as much information about Amiga's since I haven't been around them since I was 12. For you questions about processors, it really depends on what you are going to use the computer for.
If you have no intentions of overclocking your processor then I would recommend AMD. They are indeed slower than Core2 and Core2Quads, but they are considerably cheaper, and if you hunt around you can get the EE (Energy Efficient) which depending on the model consumes from 35 to 65 watts. Keep in mind that if you don't buy a black edition of an AMD chip you will not be able to overclock it very easily or far. AMD still uses the 65nm architecture which isn't super energy efficient. Most Core2Duo chips are 45nm and are very energy efficient. They also overclock really far, and stay very stable. Also about Core2Quads, from what I understand is that they are two Core2s with an interconnect bridge. If you want a true Quad core from Intel, wait for the Core i7. These are true Quad cores from Intel, and they are incredibly incredibly fast, somewhere in the range of 25-40% faster in certain apps than a core2duo. However, they are very expensive, as I believe I read that the entry level i7 chip is $250 USD. There is only one chipset, the X58, currently that supports the i7 as it goes to a new socket called socket 1366. It also sports an integrated memory controller like AMD CPU's do. The motherboard is as much as $300 for the i7. If you are using programs that utilize more than one or two cores, then definitely go for a quad core. However for gaming, most games work with two cores, but show very little gain on quad cores, many times being outpaced performance-wise by a faster clocked dual core. When it comes to memory, I cannot really state whether you should get DDR3 or DDR2. DDR3 does run slightly faster, but can be in the range of 50% or more expensive than DDR2. If you go with a core2duo, you can use either DDR2 or DDR3. Looking at Newegg, 4GB of DDR2 1066 can be gotten for as cheap as 79.99 where DDR3 1066 will run at least $100. Note there will not be a speed difference between the two, as the latency on the DDR3 is considerably higher. A happy note is DDR3 runs at a lower voltage, requiring less power. Note that AMD does not support DDR3 yet, as that won't be supported until their next line of processors comes out next year for a new socket called AM3.
For video cards I would recommend looking into AMD/ATI's line of 4800 series. They are a very good price to performance ratio, with the 4850 taking the crown for price/performance ratio. The card is exactly the same internally as the 4870 except it uses less, slower memory and the core is clocked slower. You can find a 4850 for as cheap as $130, as that's how much I paid for mine. It's a Powercolor. Still, even though it's slower than the NVidia series of GPU's, it's also very inexpensive. I can run Crysis Warhead (sorry don't have the first one) at 1280x1024 with the graphics set to enthusiast and still get about 30 Frames per second. I run Dead space maxed out at 1280 by 1024 (that's the highest resolution my monitor does) and it runs super smooth and is creepy as hell. :-)
I use Gigabyte motherboards as they have worked best for me over the years. I haven't run into compatibility issues with any components I use, and I always use a added in Sound Card. Currently using the X-Fi Fatality Professional PCI-E card. Very nice card. This same card caused me to purchase a new motherboard a while back as it caused my whole system to crash as I wanted an AMD chipset for my computer and the only company that had one was ASUS. That motherboard made me want to buy a Mac!
Bottom line really truly is, buy for what you need and be certain to leave what room you can for expansion, be it a faster cpu, or video card, that way you don't have to rebuild your system again in six months, cause that always stinks. :-D
I guess that's more than my 2 cents eh? Sorry for the ramble. Have fun building your new system!!!
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Also, Remember that MOST software does NOT take full or any advantage of a Quad core CPU, so in 99% of the time you are wasting your money on a Quad core. In most cases a single core processor still runs circles around Quad cores because only a single core is being used, and no Quad core yet has reached the highest speeds of a single core.
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Just bought a Geforce 9800GT as replacement for my recently deceased 7600GT - for just 120€ it absolutely kicks a**! The PhysX engine looks nifty and Folding@Home's CUDA client runs 5000 PPD. :-o
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@quarkx
In most cases a single core processor still runs circles around Quad cores because only a single core is being used, and no Quad core yet has reached the highest speeds of a single core.
Which single core are you talking about exactly?
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Retro_71 wrote:
... Gigabyte MB (all solid state but shut done the Dynamic Energy saver) ... Intel Core 2 or Quad
Couldn't agree more!
Aside from my olde P4 (for legacy 32-bit stuff and the Catweasel), I have two Core 2 machines on Gigabyte boards, one running Ubuntu 64-bit and the other running Vista 64-bit. Really can't fault them - and pretty much everything just flies along, especially on the Ubuntu machine.
The 3.17GHz Core 2 was the best value the last time I looked a few months ago, at least here in NZ.
- Ali
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An Intel Q6600 has a good if not better buck for speed ratio then AMD Phenom.
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I've placed my order. After being an AMD buyer for 10+ years, I have gone Intel. Here's what I got, feel free to critique.
ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe (Intel P45 Dual DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, CrossFireX Ready, PCI-E 2.0)
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz
Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x DIMM-PVS34G1333LLKN 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 Dual Channel)
CoolMax 700W ATX PSU (20+4 pin, Supports SATA, SLI and Cross-Fire)
1TB HD (Perpendicular Recording, SATA 3Gb/s NCQ, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache, Model: ST31000340AS)
Diamond HD4870 (512MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card.)
Oh yea and let's not forget the 28" wide screen LCD I picked up last night. Good heavens.. That thing is like looking directly into the sun!
:-o
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No criticism here red ... If what you brought feels right for you and you are happy with your decision, then who are we to judge? :-)
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@redrumloa
I'm using an AMD 2600 (~2.13Ghz), 512 RAM, Radeon 7000. I picked it up used last year for <$150 on you guessed it, ebay. Running Linux/Windows XP. It does the job for me (graphics, internet, office suite, mp3/dvd and all normal use stuff).
Added a cheap 80gb hard disk, DVD-RW and of course catweasel!
In the past i spend money on new systems, but I am unconvinced why i should invest $ again in PC as new (especially since its value drops so fast). Better keep the $ for your Amiga / Commodore hobbies !!! :-D :lol:
edit: just realized you already placed your order.
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Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x DIMM-PVS34G1333LLKN 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 Dual Channel)
Unfortunately, you may or may not see all 4GB, depending on how the motherboard allocates memory resources and whether or not you're running a 32-bit operating system. Don't get mad at the motherboard or operating system, though. It's normal. (If the motherboard and operating system support PAE, you can reclaim it.)
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Trev wrote:
Unfortunately, you may or may not see all 4GB, depending on how the motherboard allocates memory resources and whether or not you're running a 32-bit operating system. Don't get mad at the motherboard or operating system, though. It's normal. (If the motherboard and operating system support PAE, you can reclaim it.)
The motherboard darn well better for $225 :lol:
http://www.directron.com/p5q3deluxe.html (http://www.directron.com/p5q3deluxe.html)
# Memory: - 4 x DIMM, max. 16GB, DDR3 2000(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz, Non ECC, un-buffered memory - Dual channel memory architecture - Supports Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
I will be dual-booting WinXP 64bit and Ubuntu 64bit.
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Piru wrote:
@quarkx
In most cases a single core processor still runs circles around Quad cores because only a single core is being used, and no Quad core yet has reached the highest speeds of a single core.
Which single core are you talking about exactly?
If you look at any quad core, each core speed is (and I could be wrong) I think the highest speed is around 2.6-2.8. IIRC the fastest single core speed was 3.8- 4 Ghz. When you are running a multicore CPU, unless the software utilizes it, it will only run on one core.
Be advised that I stopped paying any real attention to the intel processors since the Dual core change over, so my information may be out of date, But I would rather get a Phenom Black edition processor any day over any of the Intel offerings, even if the Intel's were given to me for free. But I AM AN AMD FANBOY and always will be.
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Supporting 16GB of memory doesn't mean 16GB will be available to 32-bit operating systems (XMP is a user-friendly overclocking aid). If your peripherals are 32-bit, they get mapped into the lower 4GB of memory. The leftover physical memory is then remapped above the 4GB boundary, inaccessible to 32-bit operating systems without some means of accessing it, like PAE.
Anyhow, you're running 64-bit operating systems, so it shouldn't matter. If you do decide to go 32-bit, use Windows Server 2003 Enterprise and add the /PAE switch to the appropraite boot.ini string.
I don't run 64-bit Windows for two reasons: 1) no DOS virtual machine (I know, I could use Virtual PC, VMware, etc., but I like NTVDM); 2) no 64-bit Catweasel drivers.
I use Cygwin and Microsoft Services for UNIX (the descendant of Interix, a replacement for the POSIX subsystem bundled with Windows) for most of my UNIX-like needs. Cooperative Linux (coLinux) is great, too, and I prefer Gentoo when I actually run Linux on x86.
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Argo wrote:
Really, you don't need to spend alot to get a great working PC. Oh, I'm running Vista x64.
Definitely.
I buy my machines off a company who do ex-business. I got a fantastic IBM Thinkcentre with a 2.6GHz Celeron, CD/DVD-RW, 80gig internal HD (I had an external 160gigger anyway), on board graphics and sound, 1gig RAM all for £80 with genuine Windows XP Service Pack 2.
It is as fast as any computer I've owned and zero problems. My previous machine a 2.6GHz P4/512mb/40gb cost £60, again with genuine XP
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@quarkx
If you look at any quad core, each core speed is (and I could be wrong) I think the highest speed is around 2.6-2.8. IIRC the fastest single core speed was 3.8- 4 Ghz. When you are running a multicore CPU, unless the software utilizes it, it will only run on one core.
Speed in terms of MHz doesn't necessarily correlate to real world performance these days, even when comparing like architectures.
The operating system's scheduler will make use of the extra cores. Even if your software is single-threaded, you can still benefit from other bits (interrupt service routines, antivirus software, etc.) running on different cores. You could, in effect, see a performance gain simply through a reduction of context switches on the active execution unit. Cache coherency can hurt performance regardless, but in most cases, not so much. Productivity software spends most of its time waiting for user input.
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Win XP 64 bit won't give you too much fun - unless you're very lucky it's very thin on the drivers side...
Vista 64 is pretty OK in that respect - but it's Vista. ;-)
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Well good luck with it Red... There isn't a single component in your list I would recommend to anyone. Might as well have bought something off the shelf.
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Dr_Righteous wrote:
Well good luck with it Red... There isn't a single component in your list I would recommend to anyone. Might as well have bought something off the shelf.
Aren't those off the shelf?
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No, they're off the rack. LOL!
I meant a pre-assembled system. HP/Compaq, Sony, etc.
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@quarkx
If you look at any quad core, each core speed is (and I could be wrong) I think the highest speed is around 2.6-2.8. IIRC the fastest single core speed was 3.8- 4 Ghz.
Single C2Q core at 2.66 GHz runs circles around single core P4 CPU at 3.8 GHz.
And you have 4 such cores, running much cooler and with less power usage.
I stopped paying any real attention to the intel processors since the Dual core change over
That's exactly when intel crushed AMD.
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quarkx wrote:
If you look at any quad core, each core speed is (and I could be wrong) I think the highest speed is around 2.6-2.8. IIRC the fastest single core speed was 3.8- 4 Ghz. When you are running a multicore CPU, unless the software utilizes it, it will only run on one core.
I have a PIV maschine myself (no, I didn't chose it, it was provided me at work, *I* wanted an AMD back then), these PIVs have the worst performance/cycle you can think of. In fact I guess those PIVs were the worst fate silicon ever suffered. Intel did a dramatic turn and the Core architecture was really a huge step ahead. In the mid range AMD is still there, but Intel drives the market today more than ever.
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redrumloa wrote:
I'm way behind on PC hardware, my mind is in about 2006 technology. Who is the leader atm in price/performance ratio right now? I don't do cutting edge, I like the most bang for the buck or slightly better.
AMD or Intel? Which CPU and MB do you recommend?
Video card suggestion under ~$250? Dual head prefered.
Hard drive?
Thanks.
You mean *ALL* those people in that alternate dimension you keep in your pocket, where you get all your Amiga products from don't have any PC sh!t you could get off them?? Pssh, what losers. That's disappointing, Red. You just lost some cool points!
EPIC FAIL!
:lol: :roflmao:
*runs and hides*
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redrumloa wrote:
I've placed my order. After being an AMD buyer for 10+ years, I have gone Intel. Here's what I got, feel free to critique.
ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe (Intel P45 Dual DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, CrossFireX Ready, PCI-E 2.0)
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz
Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x DIMM-PVS34G1333LLKN 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 Dual Channel)
CoolMax 700W ATX PSU (20+4 pin, Supports SATA, SLI and Cross-Fire)
1TB HD (Perpendicular Recording, SATA 3Gb/s NCQ, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache, Model: ST31000340AS)
Diamond HD4870 (512MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card.)
:-o
Well, scratch this system completely. Directron botched the order process, for various reasons I didn't have the patience to hold their hand fixing it. I've bought all the components at CompUSA(Tiger Direct) locally. The system will be similar, but slightly better imo. I'll list the components here tomorrow.
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Methuselas wrote:
You mean *ALL* those people in that alternate dimension you keep in your pocket, where you get all your Amiga products from don't have any PC sh!t you could get off them?? Pssh, what losers. That's disappointing, Red. You just lost some cool points!
EPIC FAIL!
:lol: :roflmao:
*runs and hides*
Hey be careful! I'm bigger than you! :smack:
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Well, scratch this system completely. Directron botched the order process, for various reasons I didn't have the patience to hold their hand fixing it. I've bought all the components at CompUSA(Tiger Direct) locally. The system will be similar, but slightly better imo. I'll list the components here tomorrow.
Next time you want something from Directron, Red, lemme know. I can just go down there, pick it up personally and mail it to you.
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wrote redrumloa:
ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe (Intel P45 Dual DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, CrossFireX Ready, PCI-E 2.0)
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz
Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x DIMM-PVS34G1333LLKN 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 Dual Channel)
CoolMax 700W ATX PSU (20+4 pin, Supports SATA, SLI and Cross-Fire)
1TB HD (Perpendicular Recording, SATA 3Gb/s NCQ, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache, Model: ST31000340AS)
Diamond HD4870 (512MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card.)
Hi redrumloa,
Okay, I see that you have made an alternate purchase, but I'd like to comment on your choice:
Since you have RAID, you may want to buy 2 drives (maybe 2 500GBs, or 750 GBs), and go in striped mode. Reading, writing, booting should all be faster. (Be aware, if one drive dies, you're screwed. I've been using striped for 6 years now, no problems. 2*40GBs.)
I am surprised that you went with the 4870, when it's so much more than an ATI 4850 which I believe to be the best bang for buck video card right now.
I really think that going Quad is the right thing to do, it's current, and there are low cost options for it now and SW is only going to take more and more advantage of that feature.
This you can probably use until it literally falls apart as I think computers MUST be just now plateauing in raw CPU power needs, at least for common desktop usage.
It's no Amiga (or NatAmi) but it'll do what you need it to.
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Hey Jim,
Do what I do which is to nip over to Tiger Direct and buy a really good refurbished desktop for a few hundred bucks then add another hard drive, extra RAM and a good graphics card. You'll end up with a kick-ass brand name machine which wont cost the Earth.
Edit: Ooops! I'm a bit late. :-D
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A nice machine for $600 if anyone is interested:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4087047&CatId=2628
"HP Pavilion Media Center m8457c Refurbished Desktop PC - AMD Phenom X4 9500 2.2GHz., 5GB DDR2, 640GB HD, DVDRW Lightscribe, NVIDIA GeForce 8400 HD, WiFi LAN, Vista Home Premium"
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Don't buy a used or 6 month old system you don't know the history of.
It seems like you might be spending about $1200, then expect this to last 8 years because it's very, very fast, so, that'd be $150 per year.
That seems reasonable for such a reliable system.
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Atheist wrote:
Hi Karlos,
But, you can get a 4850 for $189, and a GTX280 is a whopping $389, including a $30 mail in rebate. Is the GTX280 twice as fast as the 4850? I don't think it is. (I don't know.)
The 4870 is $269.99, including $20 rebate.
This is from newegg.com.
The cards might be even cheaper, if you look around.
My good friend GadgetMaster happens to have a very similarly specced system to myself, albeit with the HD4850 and X38 chipset (everything else pretty much identical).
It's true that you can't really notice the difference in most cases, though when you put Crysis on the highest detail settings, my GTX260 definately has the advantage over the HD4850. I should point out that it cost considerably less than the full blown GTX280 and was pre-overclocked by XFX.
I picked nVidia over ATI principally because I was interested in writing code using CUDA. Otherwise I might have gone for the HD4870.
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Here it goes, final purchase:
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66Ghz, 8MB cache)
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GeForce GTX 260
Ultra X3 800 watt power supply
:banana:
And with that, the main PC is going offline to be gutted and updated.
/me crosses fingers
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Hi,
@redrumloa,
The best place to even think about going is to:
www.tigerdirect.com
Here you can find good pricing on just about all types of PC's.
I am using a quad core Q6600 intel chip. These are a very fine game chip, I also have two nvidia 9600 cards running in the SLI mode. I am a very heavy gamer and find that this setup is great for all the latest games. ATI right now has the best video cards I believe the 4850 or 4870 or something like that. Somebody else on the board gave the right numbers. I would stay away from AMD for right now there chips have fallen way behind Intel for speed. If you must get an AMD chip go with the new Phenom. Anyhow take a good look at tigerdirect, they have a lot of specials on, and a lot of parts so that you can make your own computer. If you get a new computer go with at least 2 gig of memory, hard drives are open to your choice (I like SATA drives). Don't try to waste your money on more than 3 gigs of ram because windows will not recognize more than 3 gig. If you get a chance try Ubuntu with a dual boot with windows xp, my recommendation is don't even try VISTA it is the most aggrevating OS on the market, unless you like calling India on MS's toll free line and talking to some one from India to reactivate your computer, I gave up after the 9th time and stick with windows xp. Another nice feature of dual core and quad core is that you can try 64 bit systems. Windows is just about useless in the 64 bit mode, but I hear Ubuntu works quite well.
If you have any questions, please let me know, I will try to answer if I know. PC computing has come a long way, and is just about as much fun as the Amiga as long as you like using Ubuntu, Ubuntu is free, has a lot of stuff, and a lot of eye candy. It has just about every program that you can ever use, and if you like playing games, you can use either wine (not so good for PC games, but fun to see if you can get one running, I have half life and Castle wolfenstein running on wine) or you can join Cedega and get the use of about 75% of window games. You can also use e-uae the amiga emulator on Ubuntu, or get Amiga forever that will run on windows xp, runs really great on a quad core Q6600. One thing though get yourself one of the newer 3D graphics cards, don't go to cheap in this area, 3D graphics are the coolest.
smerf
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Hi,
Here it goes, final purchase:
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66Ghz, 8MB cache)
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GeForce GTX 260
Ultra X3 800 watt power supply
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Excellent choice, I would have gotten the ATI card though, although th GTX 260 is a good choice, but slower than the new ATI cards.
You should be very happy with this choice. Remember try Ubuntu 8.04, with a dual boot with windows xp. I use Ubuntu for stuff that I want to keep, and use windows for gaming only. By the way Ubuntu also has a nice server package. Take a look, it is free, it is cheap, it works great, it is easy and fast to load, easy to add applications on, and did I mention that it is free. It is even cheaper than windows, and works better, I have been using it for 3 years now, and have not lost any data, it has never crashed, and it is free. You can even put it on as many computers as you want without breaking any EULA's. and it is still free.
smerf
Remember Ubuntu is free
smerf
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Can't see any reason why not to use ECS. Over the past 8 years I've build a couple of ECS based systems, all at the low end of the market (read: cheapest AMD-motherboard without onboard video available) and all five are still up and running without trouble. I've read about ECS troubles but most came down due to trying to run the boards beyond specification speeds (extreem overclocking). You can't really fault ECS on that, afterall, if you want Ferrari performance you won't buy a Fiat Punto and try to stretch its performance to match the Ferrari's.
Just for the fun, you could build your PC and can proudly tell it has ECS and AAA. ECS for the mainboard, AAA being AMD, ATi and Antec.
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Smerf have you tried mandriva? I did a lot of distro hopping including Ubuntu but Mandriva is the only one that i would recommend to windows user wanting to migrate to linux. The KDE gui is very windows-like, its hardware detection works very well, it installs rpms that aren't in the repos just by double-clicking out of the box. Lots of Linux disro's claim to "Just Work" but Only Mandriva did for me. PCLinuxOS is also nice but I don't like its "meta-distro" business because you are ALWAYS updating your system and not all updates work with one another.
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amiga_3k wrote:
Can't see any reason why not to use ECS. Over the past 8 years I've build a couple of ECS based systems, all at the low end of the market (read: cheapest AMD-motherboard without onboard video available) and all five are still up and running without trouble. I've read about ECS troubles but most came down due to trying to run the boards beyond specification speeds (extreem overclocking). You can't really fault ECS on that, afterall, if you want Ferrari performance you won't buy a Fiat Punto and try to stretch its performance to match the Ferrari's.
Just for the fun, you could build your PC and can proudly tell it has ECS and AAA. ECS for the mainboard, AAA being AMD, ATi and Antec.
I worked in a few computer shops and ECS IS bar none the WORST manufacture. At one time whole lots of motherboard had to be returned for RMA, our distributor doesn't even ask anymore, they just exchange them. In the last few years (since 2003) the Average is 8 out of 10 board fail before they even go out to a customer. My bosses buy them because the whole sale price is dirt cheap, and because returns are so easy. Trust me when I say that you are lucky if you got a working board.a $50 board cost about $10 wholesale so, most computer shops buy the buy the truck load, but I have seen over and over the problems with ECS, and when you are building and testing these systems, it is a huge headache. Just stick with ASUS, plenty of sub $100 board with no on-board graphics, and a lot less hassel.
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I think it's funny people talking about how, Intel blows AMD out of the water now. All these processors are CRAZY fast and I think in normal use it would be hard to tell the difference in speed.
Not that it matters here's some bench marks of the Q6600 vs the Phenom 9600
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2226947,00.asp (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2226947,00.asp)
The Q6600 does beat the Phenom 9600 in most benchmarks, but not by a lot and the Phenom beats the Q6600 in somes tests like some 3D Mark 06 tests anyway.
Thing is Phenom 9600 (Black edition even) can be had for $118 and the Q6600 is about $180.
That's quite a lot more bang for the buck if you ask me.
Now the Phenom 9950 is out and is still only $160. (Prices from pricewatch.com (http://www.pricewatch.com/cpu/) )
Anyway, I think it's all relative. Speeds and cores have become so crazy it nearly impossible to tell what speed your computer is running at, but people still have to whip out their tally whackers and measure then with little bar graphs. :lol:
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redrumloa wrote:
Here it goes, final purchase:
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66Ghz, 8MB cache)
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GeForce GTX 260
Ultra X3 800 watt power supply
:banana:
And with that, the main PC is going offline to be gutted and updated.
/me crosses fingers
If gaming and multimedia is your objective, you can't go wrong with a card like the GTX2xx or HD48xx. The Radeon is probably better bang for buck. That said, I'm more than happy with my GTX260. One for Thierry: it has 16384 registers per multiprocessor ;-)
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redrumloa wrote:
Here it goes, final purchase:
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66Ghz, 8MB cache)
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GeForce GTX 260
Ultra X3 800 watt power supply
:banana:
And with that, the main PC is going offline to be gutted and updated.
/me crosses fingers
What was the final cost for the complete system?
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MUCH better Red! :-D
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amigadave wrote:
What was the final cost for the complete system?
Almost embarrassed to say how much I spent on this upgrade. Just about everything except the case is new, including a 28" LCD monitor. I'm up to about $2,100 total.
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Dr_Righteous wrote:
MUCH better Red! :-D
Cool, for the cost of this beast I hope it will cook breakfast for me and massage my feet :lol:
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redrumloa wrote:
Here it goes, final purchase:
EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66Ghz, 8MB cache)
4GB Corsair DDR3 1333Mhz
GeForce GTX 260
Ultra X3 800 watt power supply
:banana:
And with that, the main PC is going offline to be gutted and updated.
/me crosses fingers
Update:
I got everything assembled last night and the computer would not turn on at all.
:headwall:
Turns out, the brand new $200 power supply (http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2937372&Sku=ULT40071) I bought is defective. I will be returning it today and finally be able to install WintendoXP 64bit and Ubuntu 64bit.
It is probably a good thing I have to return it, because 800 watt is looking to be too little down the road. With a single GTX260 it is sufficient, but if I add 2 more for SLI it requires 1,000watt or better :-o
What a beast this system is going to be, heavy too! The video card must weigh nearly 4lbs!
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@red
"Almost embarrassed to say how much I spent on this upgrade. Just about everything except the case is new, including a 28" LCD monitor. I'm up to about $2,100 total."
thats a lot of $ to spend on pc that will be outdated within 1-2 years. A final point that people have money, and can spend coin when wanted. Now, the sam's price (while technically lower specs) is not a bad price, and nice enough if you want to run amiga.
no phun or offence to anyone :-P
just sick of some a.org users complaining of amiga hardware being too expensive (look at price of pc hardware). it all depends what you want to run the computer for... if you're pc user after the gigahertz and latest fastest hw then you do this. (i'm sure vista will crawl on this nicely haha). :lol:
A m i g a F o r e v e r
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no phun or offence to anyone
just sick of some a.org users complaining of amiga hardware being too expensive (look at price of pc hardware). it all depends what you want to run the computer for... if you're pc user after the gigahertz and latest fastest hw then you do this. (i'm sure vista will crawl on this nicely haha).
You can't compare the 2, period. I could have bought a full system with monitor for $299, or I could have built one cheaper. I went closer to cutting edge and no way it will be obsolete in 1-2 years. The raw computing power will be insane, and there will be plenty of room to upgrade.
I only installed 4GB DDR3 1333, the board can take up to 16GB DDR3 2000.
I only installed a Intel Quad 2.66Ghz CPU, I can upgrade in the furute.
I only installed one GeForce GTX 260. The board supports SLI 3x16, so I can add 2 more GTX 260 down the road, or 3 newer GFX cards should I feel like it.
I don't do Vista, I'm going to dual boot Ubuntu 64bit and WinXP 64bit. Both of which will fly.
I have nothing bad to say about Sam, but you cannot compare a Sam to a modern semi-cutting edge PC. You have to compare a Sam to a 6-10 year old PC and when you do that the price of a Sam looks painful.
One more note. On second thought a fully decked out Sam with , 1TB hard drive, OS4.1 and a 28" LCD etc would be in the same price ballpark of what I just paid.
Yet another note. AmigaForever (UAE) on my computer will run circles around OS4.1 on a Sam. Keep that in mind.
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@smerf
Don't try to waste your money on more than 3 gigs of ram because windows will not recognize more than 3 gig.
64-bit Windows XP: 128GB
64-bit Windows Vista Home Basic: 8GB
64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium: 16GB
64-bit Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate: 128GB
Windows is just about useless in the 64 bit mode
Why's that?
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I would vote for Intel Atom. Mini-ITX motherboard with single core atom 1.6Ghz costs about 70€. Dual core is not much more expensive.
I think full systems cost below 250€
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/22/shuttles-atom-powered-x27-mini-pc-goes-easy-on-the-power-bill/
UPDATE:
actually ... I'm absolutely sure that I will build Atomx86 and SAM in the same computer case ....
( And use single monitor http://www.hd-zone.com/rdesktop/ )
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"I only installed a Intel Quad 2.66Ghz CPU, I can upgrade in the furute."
Hate to disappoint you. In the not so far future, Intel will bring out new cpu's with new sockets so forget about upgrading unless you can find socket 775 cpu's at that time.
My personal opinion is forget about upgrades. By the time you want to upgrade PC technology has advanced and you can no longer buy old stuff that fits your then old motherboard....
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Nice rig you have there Red, you gonna overclock that sucker ;-)
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I was considering OC'ing my Q9450, apparently it's stable on this board at 3.2GHz (from 2.66) with a beefed up cooler.
Then I read a few posts by people that had overclocked theirs for a few months only to discover it became unstable and remains so even at the stock speed.
Considering how much it cost, I think I'll give it a miss. My GTX came pre-overclocked by XFX, from a core speed of 576 to 640MHz, shader clocks up to 1363MHz and the memory speed to 2300MHz. That's fast enough for me considering my previous (PC) graphics card was a GeForce 4 MX...
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Why no Vista? On a good machine it's a great OS. In fact, Media Center alone is worth any trouble you might have.
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I have Vista 64-bit home premium on mine. I totally stripped all the services to the bone and turned off all the eye candy. Now it looks like Win2K I sort of know where I am with it.
I only use it for gaming though. For anything remotely serious, I run linux.
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Karlos wrote:
I only use it for gaming though. For anything remotely serious, I run linux.
Bah. Serious computing... Where's the fun in that?
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Karlos wrote:
Then I read a few posts by people that had overclocked theirs for a few months only to discover it became unstable and remains so even at the stock speed.
My Q6600 ran at 3.2GHz for quite a while with no problems and my Xeon 3110 has been running at 4GHz+ for a bit. I just do it for the fun of it, in day to day use, you can't even tell the difference. BTW, the 280 is now running at 689/1483/1300, knocks over a F@H work unit in less than an hour and a half. I can't believe how fast this thing is :-o
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From what I read about it, apparently the GPU client that runs on the G200 series is also taking solvent interaction into account in the folding calculations. I don't think any other non CPU version does that. One to consider when comparing it to console folders ;)
My Q6600 ran at 3.2GHz for quite a while with no problems and my Xeon 3110 has been running at 4GHz+ for a bit
Now wouldn't be a good time to have to replace any of it though :-(
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Karlos wrote:
...console folders ;)
Console folders be damned! ;-)
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adz wrote:
Karlos wrote:
...console folders ;)
Console folders be damned! ;-)
Now, now, any folder is a good folder. Just don't let them use their Cell (or whatever) optimised folding engine as a demonstration of how 1337 their hardware is. Any G200 core crushes it whilst doing significantly more complex calculations.
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AMD can be less $$$ and still powerful enough. But, right now Intel has for sheer power. (I'm still using AMD though)
Not sure about current mobo. The last one I bought was a BioStar - and I love it! It has jumpers to push every limit you can think of, and it was not expensive ($100 or so).
My last computer was built over a year and a half ago - so it's time again.
Video card wise - ATI and Nvidia are pretty close - except that ATI's drivers are MUCH better right now.
My last 2 windoze computers have been great! Both running XP.
As for prices - newegg is good, but check pricewatch.com for the best deals.
Good luck....
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redrumloa wrote:
Update:
I got everything assembled last night and the computer would not turn on at all.
:headwall:
Turns out, the brand new $200 power supply (http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2937372&Sku=ULT40071) I bought is defective. I will be returning it today and finally be able to install WintendoXP 64bit and Ubuntu 64bit.
More :headwall: today. I was having major headaches getting this system set up. It was terribly unstable and finally started giving me BSOD's. I ended up running memory tests and 2 of the memory sticks failed the test, meaning another trip to CompUSA to exchange the bad RAM.
FINALLY I am up and humming. I picked up Dead Space and Fallout 3, gonna play some tonight. Tomorrow AmigaForever gets installed.
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@ Red
Nice system! Yea I don't know why M$ windows is so sensitive to memory, I used to get BSOD's on XP and Vista64 bit regularly (but I would only run these OS's for games as I run OSX on my PC). The only way I got rid of them is dumb down the memory (slower speed in BIOS). In OSX I can over clock my Q6600 and the memory with zero issues...
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@nine3o
Uh, if the memory is bad every OS will crash, including OS X.
Regarding overclocking: If your OC makes the system unstable "you're doing it wrong"(TM) and you should probably run your system at stock speed. Hint: You typically need to lower the FSB vs Memory ratio when raising the FSB (unless of course the rig supports insanely high memory clock and the memory chips are rated for the higher clock).
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I think it's also often necessary to raise the memory voltage on consumer boards when populating more than two slots, regardless of whether or not you overclock. That's all dependent on the motherboard and memory being used, though.
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@Trev
I think it's also often necessary to raise the memory voltage on consumer boards when populating more than two slots, regardless of whether or not you overclock.
I've never heard of that before, and I've worked on a lot of systems. Is this something that is only needed for DDR3 setups?
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Piru wrote:
Uh, if the memory is bad every OS will crash, including OS X.
Yes that is what I would expect, but for what ever reason if I leave all my bios settings to stock (not over clocking) it still BSOD's with an error reporting to the memory.
Running OSX (Hackintosh) never crashes nor does XP or Vista 64 crash when running in VMWare fusion in OSX.
Pire wrote:
Regarding overclocking: If your OC makes the system unstable "you're doing it wrong"(TM) and you should probably run your system at stock speed. Hint: You typically need to lower the FSB vs Memory ratio when raising the FSB (unless of course the rig supports insanely high memory clock and the memory chips are rated for the higher clock).
Thanks, I am aware of OC'ing machines, have been doing for years.
I just find windoze very unstable (on custom built machines) compared to other OS's.
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So Redrumloa,
How's she handling? Must be dreamy, having such a speed demon system!
Just ONE of your 4 cores is faster than my single core 2.26 GHz P4 with 400 MHz FSB.
I have 1 Gig of DDR1 ram.
And your video card is probably 15 times faster than my 128 MB Ti4600!
I know that it's waaaaayyyy to early to tell, but could you come back later with how long you think it would be comfortable using such a powerhouse?
I'm wondering if CPU power need is nearing a plateau yet?
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by Atheist on 2008/11/12 6:49:55
So Redrumloa,
How's she handling? Must be dreamy, having such a speed demon system!
Every since I exchanged the RAM it has been sweet, rock solid stable. I've only really pushed it with one new game "Dead Space", it flies full speed with all gfx options maxed out. truly amazing! This is with just one GTX 260, added 2 more in SLI would truly be nutty overkill at this time.
I look forward to trying some video conversions to see the speed.
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@Piru
I've never heard of that before, and I've worked on a lot of systems. Is this something that is only needed for DDR3 setups?
Honestly, I don't know enough about electronics to say, but it predates DDR3 by quite a bit. I had an old Via Apollo 133 board that wasn't stable with four PC133 DIMMs installed unless the voltage was ramped up. It may have had something to do with the way power was chained to the slots. Obviously, you'd want to stay within the tolerances documented for the memory and the board itself.
@redrumloa
Try Crysis. It's a system killer, regardless. I'm enjoying Fallout 3 quite a bit. It's similar enough to Oblivion that getting into the gameplay was quite easy (assuming you've played Oblivion). Apart from Pipboy and other obvious visual cues, though, it's quite different in tone from the first two games. It's neither desolate nor desperate enough, despite the post-apocolyptic environment.
Speaking of Oblivion (Elder Scrolls 4), buy it, too. You won't be disappointed. Morrowind (Elder Scrolls 3) is still quite playable as well. For the casual gamer, both provide months of gameplay.
And finally, don't forget Half-Life 2 and its continuations. It's a few years old, but it's still awesome.
@all
Mark Russinovich has a good write-up here on how Windows uses physical memory on both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. Note that the parts specific to 32-bit systems are somewhat operating system agnostic (yes, even 32-bit Linux has limitations), as all x86 operating systems rely on the same technologies to access memory.
Trev