GrumpySteelMan

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It's time to replace my everyday computer. Currently I'm running a Pentium D 935 3.2Ghz OC'd to 3.6Ghz on air. 4GB RAM. >1TB online storage on MediaCenter2005. It's not slow, but its time has come.

I've stayed out of the bleeding edge of technology for a couple years, so I'm asking humbly for suggestions as to what I should buy. I really want a skulltrail (Xeon Dual Quad Cores), but that's the same as me really wanting a Koenigsegg.

I'm not a hardcore gamer but I have been known to do some intensive video editing as a hobby...while watching a recorded TV show on the PC...downloading...A-L.com...encoding a DVD....etc. all at once, so I need the headroom.

I also run 3 monitors (32" LCD and 2-19") which I may change the configuration of, but 3 monitors is pretty much a must for me...the ultimate ADHD machine.

This will be a ground-up build, so there will be no hacking apart the old machine.

So what do those of you in the know think about this:

EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor
2 - OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Sunbeam UFO ACUF-HUVB UV Blue Clear Acrylic ATX Cube Computer Case
APEVIA ATX-AS520W BLUE 520W ATX Power Supply 115/ 230 V CB IEC 950/ TUV EN 60950/ UL 1950/ CSA 950
2 - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
LG Black 16X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 4X DVD+R DL 16X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-R 24X CD-RW 40X CD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi Blu-ray Disc Burner & HD DVD-ROM Drive
LG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 10X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache ATAPI / E-IDE Super Multi DVD Burner
EVGA 512-P3-N802-AR GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

Undecided - TV Tuner, Additional Video card (3 Monitors remember)

Perhaps my question should be:

Should I even build a socket 775/771 machine, or should I wait for Nehalem?

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telafonic

As an owner of a dual-quad core system I can say that I love it, but for most applications it is not necessary. And besides you usually have to get a very large case to support the E-ATX.
The nice surprise was that the CPU fans aren't that loud. In my case and in yours the video card will be the noisiest item, and in an acrylic case I would worry about heat and airflow issues.
Seagates are usually great drives, but are you sure you trust all of your data on a single drive?
If you're looking for a lot of headroom you may also want a little more RAM depending on what OS you're planning on running.
What's the native resolution on the 32"?

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Various G1 and G2 parts For Sale

cfprezskid

three letters for you grumps..







MAC!!!

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G2BMC

telafonic

^ Yikes, for what he's looking for, a Macpro would be a lot more expensive, about twice as much and wouldn't have Blu-ray.

Oh, and there are better power supplies out there steelman.

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Various G1 and G2 parts For Sale

cfprezskid

but a MAC will last 4ever!

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G2BMC

GrumpySteelMan

Native res on the 32" is 1366X768, nothing special by any means, but a good extension for the HTPC.

No rotten apples here! I probably won't ever go Mac.

I haven't discounted dual quads...but maybe I'll just get on the bleeding edge with Nehalem

Shit I donno, the more I read the less I know.

What's your setup telafonic? Unless I'm mistaken you're running a Dual 771 board?

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GrumpySteelMan

I had 2 - listed on my list...and probably would run 3 in the end, RAID 5.

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GrumpySteelMan

So will Genital Herpes...doesn't mean I want 'em.

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telafonic

Yep that's correct. Had it about 5 months. I do enjoy it, the only thing I dislike is the server board startup times plus it requires ECC memory, but like I mentioned the stock Intel CPU fan is very quiet, it's just the vid card that I can hear. Nothing too amazing; an 8600GT, does everything I need but when I first got it I wanted water cooling to silence it, but now I have the PC in the closet and don't worry about it. Have a couple DVD burners (Samsung and Asus) but no Blu-ray yet. I am glad Intel has some good chips again; I first built my dual CPU AMD back in '02 or so and still use it and it's still faster in many things than even the Intel Core 2 duo (except the top of the line of course).

That reminds me; I should probably get some more RAM (currently 4GB), Vista is a hog (34%), XP uses about half the RAM. I switch between the two, but have let Vista grow on me a bit. Pic is probably too small, but you get the idea.



Oh, yeah I see that now. I've had good success with my Seagate drive, it is similar to that one but only 500GB in RAID. But, I still don't completely trust hard disks, I wish solid state memory would drop a lot in price.

I enjoy Apple software and user interface, but I have 4 friends who are Mac owners who've had hardware fail pretty quickly. Luckily they were all under the 1 year warranty. It's made me hesitant to buy one. Additionaly I work in a business where we need to connect laptops to projectors and have found Mac's inconsistent interface (I believe they have 4 different ones now)
on their laptops as well as Macbook Pro problems frustrating. But I've never dealt with the Macpro.

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Various G1 and G2 parts For Sale

sourdiesel

2 letters for you. No. I hate MAC's yuck. First of all they are three times as expensive for the same or worde hardware and what do you get for all that extra money you ask???... a light up apple ont he cover and a "cute" computer. Second, Windows is the business standard and that bootcamp and parallel operating system crap for MAC is trash. I work with that all the time at my job fixing computers at school and it crashes all the time. MAC hardware fails all the time too and repairs are expensive because you wanted that "cute" little computer. I could go on for a while but Overall I feel like MAC computers are designed for morons who have no idea how to use a PC. I think PC's are more versatile and I will always run PC. I work with all MAC fanatics all year at school and it drives me nuts. Ok im done ranting.

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“I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.” - Frank Sinatra

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.” - Drew Carey

94 Gold Acura Legend L
Mods - 6 1/2 Infinity Kappa perfects,6x9 Infinity Kappa perfects, Alpine 4 channel V12 amp, Alpine CDA-9883 HU, Alpine pdx 1.1000 amp, Eclipse SW6210 subs, Quantum Cap, 12,000k HID's

Dethred

If you aren't going to wait for Nehalem, then I'd go for a simple Quad build. Since you are planning on gaming and want to connect the machine to a TV, I'd suggest an AMD 4870 or wait for the 4870x2. Both cards will have an audio pass-through and will allow you to connect to your TV via HDMI cable and have AVIVO HD capability.

Q9450's have been disappointing concerning overclocking. A $180 Q6600 G0 stepping CPU will net you nearly the same performance for less money. I have my Q6600 at 3.6ghz @ 1.37v under load.

Skip the 790i, DDR3, etc and spend it on the video card. You can get an Asus Maximus Formula motherboard for less, and have Crossfire potential at a later date if your single video card starts lacking. Crucial Ballistix DDR2 2GB (D9GMH) of ram for as little as $25 shipped that can overclock up to 1100mhz or more.

A Q6600 DDR2 build will be more than enough for a long time. I compress files, encode video, game (a lot!), and multitask without any bottlenecks or slowdowns. I have encoded DVD's, downloaded "stuff" (@ 2-3MB/sec), and played my video games at once.

If anything, spend the extra cash on two WD Velociraptors and put them in a RAID-0 configuration for even better performance. I usually upgrade almost everything once every 6 months. My Q6600 @ 3.6ghz, 4GB DDR2 @ 1128mhz, 8800GTX, ABS BS900w PSU, and water cooling loop have calmed my upgrading for almost a year now. The only game I have that it won't play on Max settings at 1920x1200 resolution is Crysis, but that game sucks anyways.

Skip the Sunbeam case. If you want a quality cube case, try a mountain mods (google them) case. More expensive, but infinitely better quality. Skip the 1TB hard drives; in my opinion its much safer to buy smaller drives and separate the data. I have lost my data permanently multiple times due to random failures, and have since switched to 250GB and 320GB drives (1.5TB total), and any failures will not devastate my data collection. If you really need two Terabytes, I'd buy 4 500GB 7200.10 drives and still go for the Velociraptor(s) for your OS and programs. I personally separate my OS, games, downloaded material, and videos on different drives. I prefer having the ability to format my OS drive without needing a partition to save the other stuff. Also, it helps to de-compress large files from one drive to another.

Q6600 - $180
Asus Maximum Formula - $230
4gb DDR2 - $50-$70
4870x2 - ~$500 (pending release price gouging)
800w-1000w PSU - ~$250
2x300GB Velociraptor HDD's - $600 (for OS, games, and programs)

I guarantee with that setup, you'll have a better experience than with a 45nm or Nehalem setup, a lesser GPU, and slower HDD's. CPU's aren't the bottlenecks these days.

LegendLand

Did you want desktop or notebook. If notebook then Lenovo ThinkPad. I have had two. NEVER had any problems. LOVE THEM
Not too expensive either. Good for gaming and whatever else you want.

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'91 Legend LS Golden Glow Pearl w/ Type F interior- 140k miles


DONE: All new paint, Iggee seat covers w/ seat control mod, sunroof tilt, new brakes, pinstriping, red calipers, glow gauges, red needles, rear window repaired, speakers, armrest w/ cupholder mod, repaired broken headlight, new power antenna & hood supports, fogs...

TO DO: Repair A/C, Acura-Legend.com decals, repair steering wheel audio control, muffler, tires, install rims, clear corner/bumper lights, K&N intake...

Dethred

There's a screen shot of my machine doing a few things (DV8's video in background). Not even maxing out the equivalent of two cores with the CPU at 3.2ghz. FLAC->MP3 encoding, MPEG video, Firefox, 8GB DVD unzipped using multi-threaded WinRAR.

GrumpySteelMan

Food for thought Dethred.

Still, I want all my data protected from a drive failure, so even if I have to run 5 - 500GB drives, so be it.

I am split on the DDR3 architecture...sometimes a guy wants to bleed on the edge.

Got any ideas for reading on this kinda stuff? I've been out of the loop so long the damn forums are pretty tough to get back into the loop with.

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Dethred

Well, you can go to a forum like [H]ard|Forum - Powered by vBulletin (bitchy members) for a quick read, or just google some tests. From what I've gathered, bandwidth is much better, but the latencies are terrible. Either way, it won't effect gaming or general PC use.

As a matter of fact, I can't think of any situation in which the price (more than double) is justified. In a year or two it will be the standard, but right now its just not worth it. You can go and grab some 1100mhz capable ram with 5-5-5-12 timings for $25, and the closest DDR3 to that price gets 1333mhz with 7-7-7-20 (or higher) timings, and still costs over 100 bucks. At this point, with the FSB, the only good higher clocking memory will do you is overclocking headroom. Since most boards don't go much past 500FSB, 1000mhz capable ram is all you need.

I have had 667mhz, 800, 1066, and I haven't even noticed a placebo effect from the changes. No increase in gaming performance, no benchmark increase (like that matters), no real world benefits

PS: I'm on my garage machine right now using DDR400 and its bottlenecked by my IDE HDD.