Buying a new machine, advice welcome

Cheekykid

Cheekykid

Cheekykid

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Joined
30 May 2006
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I tend to ugrade my pc every 2-3 years and I feel the time has come to upgrade my old conroe based system.

I rarely play games(if ever) and my plan is to buy the top of the line inter six core cpu, 1 top of the line mobo, along with 8GB of ram, 1 decent SSD, 1 mid range GPU, keep my current 620W PS, keep my current 7.1 soundblaster, keep my lian-li case and thats about it. Do you think this would be a worthwhile upgrade given its cost which I envisage to be about the £1500 mark.
 
Errmmm, what do you use PC for? you say not gaming but that leaves many options
Also what are you upgrading from? As that will also dictate whether or not its a "good" upgrade
 
My aim is 100% silence this time. Not sure how to use my current water cooling system with no fans. Also am planning to overclock the 980x to 4ghz. Am thinking over the reserator.
 
reserator will not be remotely silent
dont waste money on a 980x

suggested build to follow

OK this leaves £300 for case/WC which isnt a grat deal for good WC tbh,

OcUK Extreme H2O GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £400.51 (£340.86)
Options applied to the above product:
EK 480 GTX Backplate - Nickel Plated [3831109855171] £16.99 (£14.46)
Options applied to the above product:
EK 480 GTX Nickel Plexi Full Cover VGA Water Block [3831109830147] £64.98 (£55.30)
Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £232.64 (£197.99)
Asus X58 Sabertooth TUF Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £156.99 (£133.61)
XFX 850W Black Edition Modular Power Supply £122.99 (£104.67)
Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel (KHX1600C8D3K3/6GX) £117.49 (£99.99)
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £72.99 (£62.12)
Pioneer DVR-S18L 22x DVD±RW SATA Labelflash ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99 (£15.31)
Sub Total : £1,024.31
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £16.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £182.10
Total : £1,222.66
 
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Have in mind i won't be upgrading for 2-3 years hence am thinking of the 980x and 5870. Also i definetely want a SSD this time. The rest look good.
 
If you want 6 cores it will be AMD unless you spend almost a grand on an 'Extreme Edition' Intel. This really isn't good value for money; but it's your choice.
 
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Hello Cheekykid! :)

Cheekykid said:
I tend to ugrade my pc every 2-3 years and I feel the time has come to upgrade my old conroe based system

  • Intel® Core™2 Duo E6600
  • Motherboard?
  • 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 (Speed?)
  • nVidia 8800 XYZ (model?)
Click to expand...
Well straight away there is the possibility of overclocking that older chip up to 3.0GHz maybe 3.2GHz? . . . maybe even swapping out that DualCore for a used QuadCore (£80 ish) and overclocking that up to 3.0GHz . . . 2GB of DDR2 isn't loads but depending on your memory requirements it may suffice for the moment! :D

Cheekykid said:
  • my plan is to buy
    • top of the line inter six core cpu
    • 1 top of the line mobo
    • 8GB of ram
    • 1 decent SSD
    • 1 mid range GPU
      • I rarely play games(if ever)
Click to expand...
Ok well it seems somebody has been reading a PC magazine or had a quick scan of the forums to see what the latest "Buzz" is? :D . . . forget this "top of the line" business as pretty much all the hardware out now is amazing . . . top of the line stuff is a concept made by the marketing men to rob you of your cash! ££ ;)

Also, I'm not sure why somebody who owns an nVidia 8800 XYZ and who "rarely play games" is looking for a new GPU?

Cheekykid said:
  • keep
    • 620W PS
    • 7.1 soundblaster
    • lian-li case
Click to expand...
What is the make and model number of the PSU please?

Cheekykid said:
I mainly do multitasking/movie encoding
Click to expand...
Ok I know what is "movie encoding" but what do you mean when you say "I mainly do multitasking" :confused:

Cheekykid said:
  • I envisage to be about the £1500 mark
  • Do you think this would be a worthwhile upgrade
Click to expand...
No I don't . . . I think you may be about to *burn" £900+ that you don't actually need to! :eek:

Here is a spec for you costing £580 . . . this leaves you £920 of your money to spend on something else than computer hardware . . . this gives you a nice HexCore processor inc 3rd party HSF to keep it cool, 8GB of fast DDR3, a modern SATA 6Gb/s & USB3.0 motherboard featuring built-in graphics (IGP), a fast SATA 6Gb/s 64GB SSD and a nice 1TB HDD for storing your videos! . . . if your rarely game you can either keep you older nVidia Geforce 8800 or sell it and use the motherboards IGP :cool:

cheekykid.gif


Cheekykid said:
Have in mind i won't be upgrading for 2-3 years
Click to expand...
 
Big.Wayne said:
Hello Cheekykid! :)


Well straight away there is the possibility of overclocking that older chip up to 3.0GHz maybe 3.2GHz? . . . maybe even swapping out that DualCore for a used QuadCore (£80 ish) and overclocking that up to 3.0GHz . . . 2GB of DDR2 isn't loads but depending on your memory requirements it may suffice for the moment! :D


Ok well it seems somebody has been reading a PC magazine or had a quick scan of the forums to see what the latest "Buzz" is? :D . . . forget this "top of the line" business as pretty much all the hardware out now is amazing . . . top of the line stuff is a concept made by the marketing men to rob you of your cash! ££ ;)

Also, I'm not sure why somebody who owns an nVidia 8800 XYZ and who "rarely play games" is looking for a new GPU?


What is the make and model number of the PSU please?


Ok I know what is "movie encoding" but what do you mean when you say "I mainly do multitasking" :confused:


No I don't . . . I think you may be about to *burn" £900+ that you don't actually need to! :eek:

Here is a spec for you costing £580 . . . this leaves you £920 of your money to spend on something else than computer hardware . . . this gives you a nice HexCore processor inc 3rd party HSF to keep it cool, 8GB of fast DDR3, a modern SATA 6Gb/s & USB3.0 motherboard featuring built-in graphics (IGP), a fast SATA 6Gb/s 64GB SSD and a nice 1TB HDD for storing your videos! . . . if your rarely game you can either keep you older nVidia Geforce 8800 or sell it and use the motherboards IGP :cool:

[/QUOTE]

Multitasking= Photoshop/encoding/maya

My PSU is 620W Nesteq semi fanless/no longer in trade. As for my mobo its an asus P5W DH deluxe which i dont think it supports a quad core.

My concern is quietness and quickness. I kinda feel my pc being not as fast as it used to even if formated. Is the 980x really a waste of money? reviews do suggest its quite a beast.
Click to expand...
 
Hey Cheekykid :)

Cheekykid said:
Multitasking= Photoshop/encoding/maya
Click to expand...
If you do all of them at once then yeah thats "Multitasking" :D

Cheekykid said:
My PSU is 620W Nesteq semi fanless/no longer in trade
Click to expand...
Hmmm never heard of it but gOOgle has! ;) . . . looks alright . . . if you had a PSU tester you could check it out and see if the rails are all working well?


Nesteq's Semi-Fanless 620W power supply is as close as you can get to a silent power supply in a desktop PC, but it's very expensive

Cheekykid said:
As for my mobo its an asus P5W DH deluxe which i dont think it supports a quad core
Click to expand...
Ah yes I remember that Intel® 975X Express mobo . . .


Click image for ASUS product page
  • Front Side Bus 1066/ 800 MHz
  • 4 x 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. 8GB DDR2 800/ 667/ 533 memory
  • Support ATI CrossFire graphics cards (both @ x8 mode)
  • Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz,1066FSB,L2:2X4MB,rev.G0,4 cores) #2205
  • Optional Support for 45nm Wolfdale / Yorkfield CPUs, Refer to FAQ
TechSpot said:
Clearly the Intel 975X and P965 chipsets are very evenly matched in terms of performance. However, when it comes to overclocking, the P5W DH Deluxe completely blows the Gigabyte 965P-DQ6 out of the water. While the 965P-DQ6 was limited to a 300MHz FSB using the Core 2 Duo E6700 processor, the P5W DH Deluxe went all the way to a comfortable 366MHz FSB. This resulted in a total clock frequency of 3.66GHz using nothing more than a $50 after market HSF (Thermalright XP-120).

In fact, overclocking with the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe seemed almost too easy, as I found there were very few settings that required changes to achieve the 366MHz FSB. There has been countless posting of users reaching a 400MHz FSB and beyond with the P5W DH Deluxe.
Click to expand...


Cheekykid said:
My concern is quietness and quickness
Click to expand...
Yup most of us here like a quick & quiet computer . . . the slow & noisy days are long gone! :p

Cheekykid said:
I kinda feel my pc being not as fast as it used to even if formated
Click to expand...
What HDD are you using (3 year old or?) . . . what O/S are you running? . . . . 2.4GHz DualCore is no slouch for desktop but is not zippy enough for serious Photoshop/encoding/maya work really?

Cheekykid said:
Is the 980x really a waste of money?
Click to expand...
Cmon who on earth with a finite amount of money and not a professional media-producer or benchmarkers would pay that kinda money £££ for a processsor! :eek: . . . . £350-£400 maybe! :D

Cheekykid said:
reviews do suggest its quite a beast.
Click to expand...
Review sites get paid $$$$ to make the products look good . . . even the best spin doctor in the world would have a hard time convincing most people with a finite amount of money that the Intel HexCore is a "smart" purchase! :cool:
 
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Yes thats my PSU which is very quiet and seems to be holding well :). It was an excellent purchase for sure!


Big.Wayne said:
What HDD are you using (3 year old or?) . . . what O/S are you running? . . . . 2.4GHz DualCore is no slouch for desktop but is not zippy enough for serious Photoshop/encoding/maya work really?
Click to expand...

I am using a seagate .10 if i remember correctly.


Big.Wayne said:
Review sites get paid $$$$ to make the products look good . . . even the best spin doctor in the world would have a hard time convincing most people with a finite amount of money that the Intel HexCore is a "smart" purchase! :cool:
Click to expand...

Would that apply to all reviews? Do bear in mind my next upgrade will be again in 2-3 years hence I want some sort of a part that would last me a bit.

Granted i rarely play games but if I throw one at it I want to be able to play it without problems. Am thinking of the ATI 5870 which should last me 2 years.

This time I want complete silence at all costs. Have failed this goal many times but no more!:D. My idea is overcloking the 980x to 4ghz with the reserator v2 which is fanless. Any other quiet alternative? Possible I could cool down the cpu with a passive sink and a known(to my experience) to be dead silent Noctua fan. I don't exactly need to water cool the cpu. Then the gpu is left to get rid of its fans. There I need water cooling for sure but a single fan radiator should be enough to cool one northbridge and 1 cpu right?

I can't accept the noise that comes from the radiator fans so I wouldn't want more than 1.
 
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Looks like I have to use a water cooling system for gpu/chipset but not for the CPU.

Would a single rad do the job guys for these 2 components? I have the D5 pump already which is silent so I only need new tubes and a single rad unless I use my double one with 1 fan?

Someone experienced please adviced.
 
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