2 Rigs - Which one would you choose?

Explicit

Explicit

Explicit

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11 Feb 2006
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2,185
First and foremost, hello to everyone here at Overclockers :)

I am still shamelessly on an AMD Socket A processor, so it's time for a new rig! I only need the following components: CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Graphics Card, 250GB HDD, PSU, CPU Cooler (£1000 inclusive of VAT)

I have come up with two systems, but can't decide between the two:

Rig 1 - Multitasking Machine

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£340.69
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS)
£123.32
RAM: OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC) [@2-3-2-5]
£170.32
PSU: Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS)
£103.34
Graphics Card: PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-037-PC)
£152.69
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£75.49
CPU Cooling:
ThermalRight SI-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-023-TR)
£31.69
Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK)
£10.52
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£6.46

Total: £1014.50


OR


Rig 2 - Gaming Machine

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£217.32
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS)
£123.32
RAM: OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 (OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K) (MY-057-OC) [@2-3-2-5]
£170.32
PSU: Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS)
£103.34
Graphics Card: BFG GeForce 7800 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-010-BG)
£240.82
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£75.49
CPU Cooling:
ThermalRight SI-120 (Socket 754/939/478) Heatsink (HS-023-TR)
£31.69
Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK)
£10.52
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£6.46

Total: £989.21

I tend not to game heavily during university semesters, but I do during the summer. I don't multitask (Ha! On an Athlon XP? No chance :D) but I am willing to do so on a dual core processor. The other activities include the usual: browsing, emails, MS Office, music, image editing etc.

So, which one would you recommend? Furthermore, are there any changes you would make to the above systems? Alternatively, what can you come up with for £1000?

Regards,

Explicit :)


P.S. to be purchased at the end of this month/early next month!
 
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spec2xx.gif


The good RAM is to OC the processor nicely. My 3800x2 is running with the same cooler/paste at 2.5GHz and I'm sure it could go further. If you were willing to wait for that graphics card, then go for it. If not then the XFX 7800GT will be a fine alternative.

Also, it will do fine as a dedicated gaming machine. To be honest, games are moving towards dual core processors, so there is no place for single core gaming machines now really.


edit: I didn't add case/dvd drive, but then again neither did you. With a good one of each that would push it to £1.1k
 
I would take your 'multitasking' spec, drop the AS5, cooler, 850, mobo and RAM and replace with :-

X1800XL
2 gig Geil Value ( which is far better than it's 'value' name suggests )
non-SLI mobo such as the Asus Crossfire.

If you want a quiet cooler than get a Arctic freezer.
 
Why spend a whole £120 more on getting a 4400 though? Its only 200MHz more and you can get probably 250/300MHz more just out of stock cooling.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

How well does the GeIL value RAM overclock?

Interesting to see how Eliminos & BigDom mixed the two specs together i.e. dual core + good graphics card, but 160gb HDD is too small for me. I'll need about 250 :)

Eliminos said:
Why spend a whole £120 more on getting a 4400 though? Its only 200MHz more and you can get probably 250/300MHz more just out of stock cooling.
Click to expand...

It's not the clock speed I'm worried about, it's the 1mb x2 cache :) Just thought it would be handy.
 
I put the 160 in there because the 250 was out of stock - its only £20 more so its still a possibility. The cache makes no difference at all really. One a 1M Super Pi run - it would probably total up to a second or less with both processors running at the same speeds. I really cannot stress how little point there is in spending £120 more on doubling the cache. Its not worth it unless you're spending £2k+ and you already have a monster rig to start with. For a £1k rig, especially for gaming, you might aswell put the £120 towards a pore powerful graphics card.


edit: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6360302&highlight=x1900#post6360302

Using him as an example with pretty much the same rig as me, except the 4400. Mine, AT STOCK, meaning I had 200MHz less than him on the processor, got 5167. Looking at that, personally I would find it hard to justify the 4400x2 over a 3800x2.
 
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Eliminos said:
Why spend a whole £120 more on getting a 4400 though? Its only 200MHz more and you can get probably 250/300MHz more just out of stock cooling.
Click to expand...

4400 is 1meg cache ( so effectivly 400Mhz more) and is a SD not Venice core.

Geil ram - well I havn't pushed my 2gig hard but it's running at 220 on stock volts etc. The Asus mobo does include a divider though so nothing ( and no major performance hit ) to stop you from dropping the speed to DDR333 and running the ram slightly below speed ( so at 220 it would be running around 180ish).

Incidently the reason for removing the cooler and AS5 is that the retail will be fine at least initially. In fact if you buy a Freezer cooler ( which is only £12 ) the supplied stuff looks to me just like AS5 and works as well.
 
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BigDom said:
4400 is 1meg cache ( so effectivly 400Mhz more) and is a SD not Venice core.

Geil ram - well I havn't pushed my 2gig hard but it's running at 220 on stock volts etc. The Asus mobo does include a divider though so nothing ( and no major performance hit ) to stop you from dropping the speed to DDR333 and running the ram slightly below speed ( so at 220 it would be running around 180ish).

Incidently the reason for removing the cooler and AS5 is that the retail will be fine at least initially. In fact if you buy a Freezer cooler ( which is only £12 ) the supplied stuff looks to me just like AS5 and works as well.
Click to expand...

Dom - can we just try something - run a 1M super-pi (http://www.xtremesystems.com/pi/super_pi_mod-1.4.zip). My friend has a 4400x2 at stock and you have a 3800x2 at the same speed. So we can test the difference right here. Assuming you have RAM at 200 or 250.
 
He gets 35.5s @ 2.25 with the RAM at 250 and quite tight Ballistix timings (3-3-3-8 i think).

I don't think this is quite a fair test though because mine does 34.4s at 2.5 with the ram in my sig.
 
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Mind your 34.4 is 300Mhz faster than mine.. I'll have a play with settings and see what I get on fresh boot etc. ( downloading a large file at the moment so can't reboot ).
 
Explicit said:
Rig 2 updated, is that any better?
Click to expand...

That's almost perfect. I would however suggest a Thermaltake Big Typhoon over your SI-120 + Akasa fan combo. Its a better cooler by a way. The hard drive is a nice drive but you have a choice. Reliability: go with your current one, speed: go with a hitachi t7k250 250gb. The PSU is fine, although it would bug me because of the amount of cables. You could think of getting modular and if so its £91 for a Tagan 580W Easycon.
 
Eliminos said:
That's almost perfect. I would however suggest a Thermaltake Big Typhoon over your SI-120 + Akasa fan combo. Its a better cooler by a way. The hard drive is a nice drive but you have a choice. Reliability: go with your current one, speed: go with a hitachi t7k250 250gb. The PSU is fine, although it would bug me because of the amount of cables. You could think of getting modular and if so its £91 for a Tagan 580W Easycon.
Click to expand...

I heard the Big Typhoons are a real pain to fit, but offer good cooling. Certainly cheaper than the 40 odd quid for the SI + Akasa combo. Anyone got a comparison between the two?

The seasonics are meant to be really quiet, which is why I chose that one. It also came second in the stress test conducted at tomshardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/stress_test/page30.html

And HDD, reliability is basically what I need :)
 
Explicit said:
I heard the Big Typhoons are a real pain to fit, but offer good cooling. Certainly cheaper than the 40 odd quid for the SI + Akasa combo. Anyone got a comparison between the two?

The seasonics are meant to be really quiet, which is why I chose that one. It also came second in the stress test conducted at tomshardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/11/stress_test/page30.html

And HDD, reliability is basically what I need :)
Click to expand...

With the PSU and the HDD sorted, the Big Typhoon isn't really a pain to fit. I think it took about 30 minutes and I cant imagine the SI-120 being any easier. Plus you will have to fit a fan to it when its mounted. Plus the A8N-Prem comes with the metal backplate [I assume so - the A8N32 does] on the socket, meaning you dont have to frig around fitting Thermaltake's.
 
Eliminos said:
He gets 35.5s @ 2.25 with the RAM at 250 and quite tight Ballistix timings (3-3-3-8 i think).

I don't think this is quite a fair test though because mine does 34.4s at 2.5 with the ram in my sig.
Click to expand...
Ok redone the test with the RAM at 3338 and 1T @ 220 (yes it's running overclocked AND tighter than spec.. on Geil Value)

Time :-

39.078s

So the 4400 is DEFINATLY quicker than a [email protected]. In fact judging by your superpi time, it is indeed worth about 200Mhz because your marginally faster and 300Mhz faster then him.
 
But what I'm saying is £140 out of £1000 is a fair percentage. For a gaming rig, it would be better to put the £140 towards graphics, considering the 3800x2 is still a great processor.
 
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