Quick question: Building a new PC, AMD or Intel?

[stefcep2]

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.

[quarkx]

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.

[AmigaHeretic]

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

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 )

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:

[Karlos]

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 ;-)

[amigadave]

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?

[Dr_Righteous]

MUCH better Red!  :-D

[redrumloa]

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.

[redrumloa]

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:

[redrumloa]

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 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!

[terminator4]

@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

[redrumloa]

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.

[Piru]

@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?

[KimmoK]

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/ )

[AmiSake]

"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....

[adz]

Nice rig you have there Red, you gonna overclock that sucker ;-)

[Karlos]

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...