My New Build - Advice or Reassurance welcome

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 11:42

I plan on building a new computer. I have already spec'd it myself on the most part.

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But I'd just like some advice.

Are there any places that I could make changes and lose no performance? Just save on cost.

I want Quad Core, and I want 4gb RAM, I want the 1tb Hard drive and I also want the 36gb Raptor drive (OS Drive)

I guess I'm just asking for advice on the specifics, Like DDR3, The motherboard running X48 chipset, and I've just noticed I have the retail Q6600 in that list, Which I'll be changing to an OEM.

Just some general advice would be nice.

I'm spending way too much on the motherboard, Is it money well spent? Or would I be better off getting something at £130ish?

hominid · 13 Jan 2008 at 11:53

If I was buying at the moment I'd definitely not be buying DDR3 ram, it's so overpriced it's not funny.

By changing that to DDR2 and changing the mobo you could saved yourself something £300-£350! DDR3, for price/performance is not worth it!

1337z0r · 13 Jan 2008 at 11:57

Your PC is way over spec, I would not even look at DDR3 at the minute due to the prices of DDR2 ram. Also I have herd countless stories of people buying raptors and not being impressed with the performance to noise ratio as they are very noisy drives. Maybe look into getting 2 x 500GB hard drives. I recommend samsung drives they are virtually silent, plus the samsung 1TB drive is on offer this week only

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wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 12:06

hmm, I thought I was over doing on the Mobo and I was also thinking about changing the DDR3 ram. £600ish for 2 pieces of hardware which I could probably knock down to more like £300

It's just, I don't plan on upgrading again for a LONG time, So in getting DDR3 and a new chipset mobo, I expected it to last longer.

wozzizname · 13 Jan 2008 at 12:13

Personally I'd get a cheaper motherboard and memory, and a better graphics card.

hominid · 13 Jan 2008 at 12:24

wannabedamned said:
It's just, I don't plan on upgrading again for a LONG time, So in getting DDR3 and a new chipset mobo, I expected it to last longer.

There is only low single digit percentage differences in the performance of DDR2 and DDR3, because the DDR3 runs looser timings - plus the DDR3 kicks out more heat. What you gain in outright speed in the ram you lose in latency, so much so the DDR3 can be slower in certain conditions.

You can get a decent mobo for £150 and decent ram for £80-£90, so that's nearly £400 cheaper for debatable performance increase. That'll buy another upgrade 3 years down the line.

1337z0r · 13 Jan 2008 at 12:28

You might want to reconsider your hard drive configuration, you might not need 2TB of space. So you could maybe have 2X500GB drives in RAID0 and then 1X500GB on its own this way your still getting a lot of space and good performance with RAID0 but not a 1TB hard drive. Or you may just want one 1TB hard drive as they are super fast.

If you don't plan on upgrading for a while and you play games I would look into getting a better graphics card like the 8800GT. Then the whole setup will last you a long time.

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 12:37

That looks a mighty fine setup. Cheers

A few questions though, The 520 watt PSU, will that hold up again a Q6600 + 8800GT?

Also, I already have a DVD writer, Pretty new, So could save £20 there, But just wondering, I already have an Antec Sonata 2 Piano Black case, Would that case be fine, As oppose to buying a new case, and I'd just add the PSU into that one?

I wasn't sure because it's quite an old case. Bought it about 3 years ago, Wasnt sure it would hold up to current heat and cooling standards.

SGWills · 13 Jan 2008 at 13:53

with a case i think its down to whether its up to the job of housing everything and keeping good air flow and also how vein you are on pc looks

on the OP, i wouldnt bother with the raptor as the preformance vs noise is silly along with the comments about DDR3.

1337z0r spec is better and for the price i would leave the dvd drive in the spec (or use your older one and a new one) plenty of ram and storage makes it a good choice imo

sunama · 13 Jan 2008 at 14:35

Hard Disk
I think 1337z0r has nailed it pretty well. You even get 2TB of hard disk storage, so you cant really complain, though I do feel that 1TB hard disks are way overpriced just right now, so perhaps exchange the 1TB Samsung with a 750GB hard disk.

DVD Writer
I wouldnt bother buying a new DVD writer, though this does depend on what your current DVD writer is. As a guide, I still use my old NEC2500A. This was one of the early drives and I doubt yours is older. My other PC has a more up-to-date Pioneer 212D and they both write to disks as well as eachother.

Case
A new case wont improve the performance of your PC, so only you can judge whether or not you need a shiny new outer shell for your new PC. I would use your current case, but thats just me.

PSU
Corsair HX520 is more than enough to run 1337z0r's spec. Once again, dont get caught up with people advising you to spend more and waste money on 1000W PSUs. This is totally unnecessary. Computer makers such as Dell use less powerful PSUs than the HX520W, for similar spec PCs and they sell 1000s of PCs every year. Computer enthusiasts on forums have a tendency to go over the top. If you tell us your current PSU model, we might even tell you that you can use that on your new PC, thus negating the need for a new PSU

Some people on this board love to advise people to waste their money, but its good that this thread has unanimous support for saving money.

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 15:30

okay thanks guys, I'm in the process of putting myself together a new Spec, Using all that has been said here.

Just a question, I don't really need more than 1TB of space on my storage drive, and my OS drive is probably going to be overkill at 500gb? So I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a Hard drive, that is cheapish, Quieter than a Raptor, But would give me some sort of access time increase over a 500gb drive?

If that drive doesn't exist I may aswell go with the 500gb drive, But I thought I'd ask anyways.

This system will be overclocked btw, So will the raptor drives noise production be worse than that of a 120mm CPU fan thats throttling up and a 8800GT cooler?

Thanks

sunama · 13 Jan 2008 at 15:45

Just pick any combination of drives from Samsung and Western Digital. You wont be dissapointed. The new Seagates tend to be a little noisy (not all of them though).

I would use 2 WD 750GB hard disks as they currently offer good value for money. 1TB HDs are expensive, GB/£. Are you sure you wish to RAID0 them? Research suggests that under normal usage, RAID0 doesnt offer that much of an advantage, if any.

I own Seagates, WDs and Samsung. The Seagates are the loudest. The WDs the quietest. The Samsung is in between. In my other PC, I have a Samsung HD and a Noctua 120mm fan on a Thermalright Heatsink. The samsung HD is MUCH louder than the 120mm fan. I cannot advise you on the noise created by a fan on a 8800GT as I watercool my video card.

I think its safe to say that your hard disk is going to be the loudest component in your PC, so make it a quiet one.

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 16:01

Thats a done deal then.

And I like the fact that putting in 2 x 750gb drives has brought my price total under £1000

My new spec is this. I'm using my brothers computer now which lacks any good graphics package so i'll type it manually

Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU - £88.11
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler - £41.11
Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin - £14.09
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz oem - £166
Asus P5K Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) - £85.76
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit - £117.49
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £7.04
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 (PCI-Express) - Retail - £173.89
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - £70.49
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache x 2 - £216.18

£993.86

I've got Gskill RAM in there, because thats what i'm using now, and I quite like them. Company wise I mean. But RAM is easy enough to swap and change. I think I may look at some memory benchmarks and make a final decision.

I left out the case, as I've decided to use my current one, and if i decide to get a DVD writer, I can just pop into a competitor and buy it rather than buy it on here. Just because i'm still undecided on whether i need 2.

Thanks

PS - My current PSU is a Jeantech, So no way am I keeping this longer than I need to

It started out as a temporary one when my Hiper went supernova.

sunama · 13 Jan 2008 at 16:09

You can go for the Corsair HX520W if you want. Its also capable of running video cards in SLI. I know you have been dissapointed by the Hiper PSU before so are a little worried when it comes to PSUs, but the HX520W is more than capable of running the system you intend to use it with.

My other PC has that Thermalright Heatsink and it serves its function well.

1337z0r · 13 Jan 2008 at 16:13

I think you are over doing it on the ram side, you don't need ram fast than PC6400 unless your planning on overclocking the CPU a lot. Also PC6400 ram is still very good for overclocking I can achieve 3Ghz with a little work using my PC6400 ram

. I say change the ram to this and you have got your self a cracking PC there. Plus your saving a bit more money

. Also as sunama pointed out the 520W is more than capable of running a SLI setup, corsair make quality PSU's.

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 16:35

I've made the changes.

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler - £41.11
Noctua NF-S12 1200RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin - £14.09
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz oem - £166
Asus P5K Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) - £85.76
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) - £7.04
BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 (PCI-Express) - Retail - £173.89
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - £70.49
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache x 2 - £216.18
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU - £70.49
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit - £76.36

It's now £923.42, where as before it was £993.86.

So again, Thats a nice saving.

Essentially, What i'm after is a great machine, One that boots up quickly, Takes no time moving from folder to folder, or loading up simple things like photos into photoshop, then on top of that, I want a gaming machine that doesn't falter. And then if i'm not being too greedy low encoding times are always nice

Thank you very much for your help.

sunama · 13 Jan 2008 at 16:57

Looks like a good spec to me. I would suggest that you RAID0 your drives together, to improve loading times and big file transfer times.

wannabedamned · 13 Jan 2008 at 17:15

sunama said:
Looks like a good spec to me. I would suggest that you RAID0 your drives together, to improve loading times and big file transfer times.

Sounds good, Thing with that though, Is I want a setup where if something happens to the OS drive, I can fix it without having to backup my documents. So a separate OS drive would be a good start.

Does raid not merge drives? To be honest, I'm not up to speed on Raid

sunama · 13 Jan 2008 at 17:29

RAID0 does not offer redundancy. I think RAID5 does. I'm not clued up on RAID backup systems, so you might want to post a separate thread in the Hard Drive section of this forum. You will get your answer there and instructions on how to set everything up.

Your motherboard should come equipped with everything you need to set up such a RAID system. From what I remember, you may need a 3rd hard disk though, but I could be wrong. Post a new topic in the 'Hard Drives' forum.