Graphics Card - Building Computer

[Tigjaw]

Hello,
I'm considering building a new computer and I'm in the note-making stage, at the moment I'm considering which graphics card to fit in.

The price isn't important so long as it's not the equivelent price of a PC! (which some graphics cards seem to be). So long at the graphics card isn't above £350.

I'd appreciate any advice you can offer...

Thanks in advance.

PS: I'd also be very greatful for any other advice for someone building a computer for the first time.

Danke!

 

[dante6491]

sub £350, methinks a HIS iceq 1900xtx, or two cut price 7900GT's in Sli

 

[Tigjaw]

Thanks for the reply Dante, about the 1900xtx; what is it like in comparison to the latest graphics card (or the best?) I know the 7950 series are only better if you use the high resolutions or else it's not worth it.

Thanks again.

 

[dante6491]

Some think that the x1900xtx's are the best (high clock speeds, more efficant pipespeeds), whislt the Nvidias are slower but can be o/ced to foughly xtx speeds. The nvidias are quieter and less power consuming, but in Sli im not sure.

 

[Gashman]

X1900XTX, better at most things unless your running massive monitor, they have 48 shaders which makes them supreme more or less in anything shader heavy, plus a lot of nvidia cards seem to be voltage restricted in terms of overclockability, plus i heard the 7900s (not sure if 7950) have terrible reliablility. who really cares about the ATI card consuming more power, since its a better card at most thing

 

[Psycho Sonny]

dont bother with x1900xt save money and get a x1800xt exact same card just less shader processors, the difference in my 3dmark 03 score between my x1800xt and my x1900xt is 600points noth that much when you are scoring 18,300 points in the first place and the difference in game is 10% more fps, save £150 get an x1800xt and upgrade next year with the money saved to a direct x 10 card

 

[Angilion]

My advice is to start with considering, truthfully, what the PC will be used for. Unless you're a real gamehead, there's no point spending anything like £350 on a graphics card. £60 can get you a fairly decent graphics card (one of the highly over-spec 7300GTs that are just starting to appear in shops).

Other advice:

Don't skimp on the PSU. It won't save you money in the long run. £25 PSUs are not really a bargain. They'll do for budget PCs, if you don't mind the noise.

Consider how much noise will bother you. I'll take lower performance for lower noise. Maybe noise is less important to you.

Don't buy anything right now. Core 2 will change the market quite a lot.

Chose a case with mountings for 120mm fans, not 80mm ones. You'll get better case cooling with less noise for a small amount of extra money.

Put a surge protector on everything. Even a £5 one from Argos or wherever on your strip plug is a lot better than nothing.

 

[ACESHIGH]

The current price of A64 single core CPU's has got to be tempting for many & very well priced at present.

The X1900XT/XTX cards are the best single cards you can get.
If you play at high res then this is a great card to get.

Other than that the best bang per buck card with about 85-90% of that performance is the X1800XT (which can be had from OcUK currently for only £160 including VAT)

 

[stuartbat]

no one has asked what res you are going to play at, as it is a bit of a waste to have a massively powerful card and play at a low reoulution

 

[Tigjaw]

First, thanks a lot for all the replies everyone, I'm quite good with computers but I'm more with the software than with hardware so I really appreciate all the help you can offer.
Well I currently have a 17" monitor and a 6600GT (bought from OverclockerS) graphics card so I use a resolution of 1024*768 but obviously I'd bang it up a bit if I had games to play on that resolution and a better graphics card.

I use my current computer all the time and I've specced it up quite nice but I thought as I use it so much it wouldn't be too greedy to replace it with a whoppa.

The only trouble is I found all the components I want and it comes up to about £1000, don't get me wrong it would be a terrific computer and a great bargain but it may be cheaper to just replace my:
graphics card
PSU
motherboard
processor
RAM
Or would it?

Here's the components I chose:
Motherboard - Intel Extreme D975bx-304 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-010-IN)
or
Asus P5WD2-E Premium Intel 975X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-130-AS)
(about £150)
CD/DVD combi drive (no specific chosen) - (about £30)
Hard Drive (no specific chosen) - 250gb OEM (about £100)
Graphics Card - x1900XT/XTX (£250-350)
or
x1800x (£160)
Operating System Software (OEM?) - (about £90)
PSU - (not specific chosen)

But if I just gave my computer an overhaul then I wouldn't need a:
CD/DVD Drive
Hard Drive

Here's the specs of my current computer anyway:
eMachines 5240
CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 515 Prescott (2.93 Ghz)
0.09 micron process
81mm² die
533MHz FSB
16k L1 cache
1MB L2 cache
RAM: 2.5GB DDR RAM - (2x 256 + 2x 1024 - PC3200)
Motherboard: Intel® D915GAGL-G1 "Augsburg"
Hard Drive: 160 GB Western Digital® Caviar® WD1600BB-00HTA0
CD/DVD Drive: Lite-On® SOHW-832S DVD/RW Combo drive
Write:
DVD+R 8x maximum by Z-CLV
DVD-R 8x maximum by Z-CLV
DVD+R9 2.4x maximum by CLV
ReWrite:
DVD+RW 4x by CLV
DVD-RW 4x by CLV
Read 12x maximum by CAV
CD Family :
Write CD-R 40x maximum by P-CAV
ReWrite CD-RW 24x maximum by Z-CLV in UltraSpeed disc
Read 40x maximum by CAV
Buffer Size 2 MB
Access Time DVD Family : 160 ms
CD Family : 160 ms
MTBF (Life) 70,000 Hours
Support OS Windows 98 / NT 4.0 / ME / 2000 / XP
OS Requirement Pentium III 450 MHz or faster CPU and 128 MB or higher RAM are required
650 MB HDD available capacity; and 5 GB free space for creating a DVD image file
Power Requirement +5V +/-5% and less than 100 mVp-p ripple voltage
+12V +/-5% and less than 200 mVp-p ripple voltage
Sound Device/Card: Integrated Realtek High Definition Audio (5.1)
Graphics Card: 6600GT 128mb

I use my computer for work, play, browsing and whatnot.

What would be the best options? upgrade? completely replace?

Thanks again everyone, if you need anymore information just ask, I'm bound to have missed something.

 

[oweneades]

For now I would just get a 7600GT and be done with it.

My 6800Ultra (roughly on par with the 7600GT) can play most new games at high / max settings @1280x1024 with AA and AF (except oblivion) and I am fine with that.

 

[Tigjaw]

Ok I've drafted up another spec that uses my current Hard Drive and CD/DVD combi drive.

Motherboard: Asus P5WDE Premium Intel 975x (lga775) PCI-E
(MB-130-AS) - £147
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 940 Dual Core "LGA775 Presler" 3.2Ghz (800fsb)
(CP-113-IN) - £174
Ram: GeIL 2GB PC5300 667Mhz DDR2 Dual Channel (GX22GBS300DC)
(MY-034-GL) - £130
OR Bundle: (BU-037-OK) - £451
Graphics Card: Connect 3D ATI Radeon X1800XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO
(GX-044-CO) - £170)
Hard Drive: Western Digital 160Gb 7200rpm (£0 - mine)
CD/DVD-RW Combi Drive: Lite-On SOHW-832S (£0 - mine)
Cooler: Not chosen specific cooler, need advice (~£30 right?)
PSU: Not chosen specific PSU (~£40-80)

OR: Buy Case (CA-000-NX) £88 Inc. Cooler and 500W PSU.

Is it all compatible? Advice/suggestions/opinions?

Thanks again.

 

[Angilion]

My main advice is to not buy anything now. You can carry on with what you currently have until after Core 2 is released. That will (a) give you a very powerful new range of CPUs to chose from and (b) drop the price on existing CPUs, in some cases by a very large margin.

Also, I can't see the point in spending £150 on a motherboard for a home PC. For a server, sure. For a home PC, no.

For the CPU cooler, I'm pleased with my Akasa EVO 120. It should fit any current socket apart from AM2.

That case doesn't seem to come with a CPU cooler and 500W PSU.

NZXT Lexa Classic Series Ultra light Aluminum Midtower (CA-000-NX), in the 'Other' section. No mention of a CPU cooler or a PSU that I can see.

 

[Tigjaw]

My main advice is to not buy anything now. You can carry on with what you currently have until after Core 2 is released. That will (a) give you a very powerful new range of CPUs to chose from and (b) drop the price on existing CPUs, in some cases by a very large margin.

Also, I can't see the point in spending £150 on a motherboard for a home PC. For a server, sure. For a home PC, no.

For the CPU cooler, I'm pleased with my Akasa EVO 120. It should fit any current socket apart from AM2.

That case doesn't seem to come with a CPU cooler and 500W PSU.

NZXT Lexa Classic Series Ultra light Aluminum Midtower (CA-000-NX), in the 'Other' section. No mention of a CPU cooler or a PSU that I can see.

Thanks for the advice Angilion, when are the core 2 coming out?

The case I mentioned does come with a PSU, you have to click on full specifications, I'm not sure if the PSU and/or cooler are optional though.

Otherwise, I'll just follow your advice with your cooler, what should I look for in a cooler and a PSU apart from the obvious? (Wattage of PSU and diameter).

If you think that motherboard is OTT then what should I be looking for in a mobo? I don't really know much about motherboards and their specs so I just looked for one that I recognised from a dell customisable computer.

 

[Angilion]

Thanks for the advice Angilion, when are the core 2 coming out?

The 23rd of July...although I've read that the release has been delayed 4 days.

The case I mentioned does come with a PSU, you have to click on full specifications, I'm not sure if the PSU and/or cooler are optional though.

If you click on full specifications you go to the manufacturer's web page for that case. If you click on 'view specs' on that page you get, amongst other things, "500 WATT PS2 ATX 12V 2.0 ( OPTIONAL )". I'd be very cautious about that even if it was included in the £88 price. PSUs supplied with a case and without even a manufacturer's name don't tend to be any good. I see no reference to a CPU cooler, though the case does come with 4 120mm case fans fitted (front, rear, side, top). That's a lot for case cooling, but I don't think it has any CPU cooling.

Otherwise, I'll just follow your advice with your cooler, what should I look for in a cooler and a PSU apart from the obvious? (Wattage of PSU and diameter).

For the cooler, I'd look for reviews. Designs vary enough to make it very difficult to predict performance without testing. You're looking for cooling performance and noise, but the only way to know those is testing them. One factor I do very much like in CPU coolers is the ability to exhaust the heat straight out the back of the case, but that isn't necessarily the sign of a good cooler.

For the PSU, I'll have to bow out and leave it to someone who knows more about them than I do. I'm not familiar enough with current PSUs. I can go as far as advising you to go for a PSU with a 24-pin main power connector and to pay attention to the current available on the 12V line more than the overall power output in watts (which is often false on cheaper PSUs anyway). Having an 8-pin auxilliary power connector seems to be useful - that connector has replaced the usual 4-pin ATX12 on some new Core 2-compatible motherboards and may indicate a change from one to the other.
But my knowledge on current PSUs is weak. Hopefully someone else will step in.

If you think that motherboard is OTT then what should I be looking for in a mobo? I don't really know much about motherboards and their specs so I just looked for one that I recognised from a dell customisable computer.

I wouldn't pay over £100 for a motherboard. My £40 Asrock board does the job, though no doubt the power regulation isn't as clean as it would be on a more expensive board.

If you're going with Intel, the first thing I'd look for is compatibility with Core 2. Right now, that does mean expensive, but that will change.

If you're planning on overclocking to the max, careful motherboard choice becomes important. A really good motherboard might get you an extra 5%. If you aren't, then you're just after stability and features you actually want. You'll usually get that in the region of £80 rather than £150. Frankly, I don't know why a motherboard would be that expensive.

The best advice I can give is (a) look at reviews and (b) ask around on here, perhaps specifically in the motherboards forum. I haven't looked for a socket 775 board recently (assuming you are sure you want to go with Intel and thus need a S775 board).

 

[Tigjaw]

Thanks again, I'll look around for reviews and posts on this board about coolers and PSUs and maybe if there's squeeze room for a new pretty case I'll get one and deduct the optional PSU and/or cooler if there are any.

I'll post in the motherboard section for further advice on the mobo, don't wanna go too off topic on here.

But I think the X1800XT/XTX graphics card will be my final choice, good price and very powerful by the looks of it and not too shabby compared to the 1900. What PSU wattage does a graphics card like this require? Some GFX cards say and some don't so I'm not sure.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Thanks again, I'll look around for reviews and posts on this board about coolers and PSUs and maybe if there's squeeze room for a new pretty case I'll get one and deduct the optional PSU and/or cooler if there are any.

I'll post in the motherboard section for further advice on the mobo, don't wanna go too off topic on here.

But I think the X1800XT/XTX graphics card will be my final choice, good price and very powerful by the looks of it and not too shabby compared to the 1900. What PSU wattage does a graphics card like this require? Some GFX cards say and some don't so I'm not sure.

Yeah, the X1800XT is one damn fast card & very cheap currently too.
Few people run the X1800XT on a good 400W PSU.
That would be a minimum & anything above is better, i would say.