Old timer needs help specing pc!!! :)

BigRick

BigRick

BigRick

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Sorting out some old stuff I came across my old Voodoo2 SLI GFX cards and thought I'd like to get back into a bit of PC gaming & need to replace my media centre, trouble is that so much has changed that I don’t know where to start and what seemed like a simple task (spec a new PC) is quickly becoming one hell of a steep learning curve!!

I’d like a PC spec'd to have the following features:-

Media player (multiple output to LCD TV (HDMI) and 19" LCD monitor)
TV tuner/recorder
Gaming PC
Quiet
1Gbps LAN
Have some overclock ability
Upgradable in future with additional GFX card sli/crossfire


General questions:-

Will running the system in SATA RAID5 offer a noticeable performance increase? Do the onboard SATA raid controllers burden the CPU and system RAM? How does onboard SATA RAID performance compare with PCI based SCSI RAID?

DDR2 or DDR3?

What’s the point of having a window on the side of the PC with lights? Do modern PC's look that good inside?

What size (watt) PSU will i require to have 2 GFX cards (eventually)? What’s the point of this modular thingy?

Are modern games compatible with vista 64? Is 64 bit Vista worth the hassle?


I'm thinking along the lines of:- (Don’t be afraid to scrap any of my suggestions if I’m sucking the wrong one) ;)

Basic case (no windows or lights) in black
PSU???
Motherboard ?????
Phenom x4 9850
ATI Radeon HD 4850
Harddisk(s)???
RAM ??? 4GB
Dual layer DVD RW
TV Tuner ???
Wireless keyboard & mouse that can operate from sofa but still be used for games???

no monitor required

Budget :- <£1500 but I’d like to have the biggest bang for my buck

If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated !!!! :D



Thanks in advance,

Richard
 
If you're seriously going to spend circa £1500 on a new PC I would wait until the X58 motherboards and the nehalem processors are out. There's not really much point in spending that much money on technology that will be shortly be surpassed (that's not to say that the existing kit is bad in any way!)
I would rethink your 'basic case' suggestion - sure you don't have to have a side window but you will still need good airflow if you're going to be running multiple graphics cards in the future.
Vista 64-bit is generally fine nowadays - no worries there.
I would prob. look at a 650/700/750w power supply to give you some headroom for later purchases.
DVD-RW are throwaway any of them will do - pretty much.
RAM - if you're going to wait for X58 mobos you will need DDR3.
 
Thanx 4 reply

Don't get me wrong I'd prefer to spend some of the £1500 on the kids but I have managed to get the missus to agree to that spending limit :p if the cost is justifiable I'll buy it ;)

I'm keen to get this thing on order and don't like the thought of paying WAY OVER the odds for next gen tech, especially as most of today's software wont take full advantage of it. I'd just like components that offer the best value for money = cost/performance (I'll admit to preferring the performance aspect over cost but don't want to stray too far from that central point) Please strike off corei7 from the list. It does not offer best bang per buck....

I didn't think that the case made that much difference.... It's just got to be black and have NO WINDOWS- any suggestions for a nice one with good air flow?
 
Here's a spec for you....

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCS Extreme 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £169.99 (£199.74)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £134.99 (£158.61)

LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - OEM LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - OEM £119.99
(£140.99)

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £94.99
(£111.61)

Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU £74.99 (£88.11)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £67.99 (£79.89)

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2 (OCZ2P10664GK) £59.99 (£70.49)

Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £33.99 (£39.94)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £15.99 (£18.79)

TOTAL PRICE: £920 inc VAT and delivery.

You'd then need to spend £50 - £100 on a decent TV card. Do a search here to find recommendations.

You could save quite a lot off this if you wanted to, without seeing much performance reduction (or even any if you never play anything that will stretch it!).

Drop the card to a 4850 - still more than enough for most games / screens.
Drop the Blu Ray for a standard DVD.
Go for cheaper RAM.
A 650w PSU.

If you want to spend a bit more:
Q9300/9550
Tuniq Tower
Different case

DDR3 is not worth it.
Modular = only plug in the cables you need - keeps things neat and tidy.

With the TV card as well ,you might want a 120mm case fan or two, especially if you intend to OC by much, or if you add another GPU or more HDD.

Vista 64 seems to be becoming more & more the OS of choice - especially to make full use of 4Gb RAM.

RAID is probably overkill, but I'm prepared to be shot down on that one!!
 
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You can build an excellent bang-for-buck system with half of your budget. The first starting point is the motherboard - will you be wanting the option of SLI or Crossfire in the future? If you're interested in SLI then that will certainly cut down the number of options available to you which may make it easier to begin selecting your components.
As for CPU's check out either the newer Intel Quads Q9nnn's or the Duos E8nnn's.
RAM check out DDR2-8500 1066Mhz for some overclocking headroom - OCZ or Corsair are generally highly rated.
As for graphics cards check out http://http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17914835
 
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz
DFI Lan Party LP DKX48-T2RSB Plus Intel X48
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon EVO ONE
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
2x Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 750W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant PSU
Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME CPU Cooler
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-Bit

Total inc VAT+delivery: £1,321.70

Notes:

Left out a case as I'd usually recommend the Antec 900/1200 but you said quiet and no lights so rules those two out.

The CPU is the best bang per buck CPU around, it used to be the Q6600 but the most recent versions aren't as good. Re: the CPU cooler, its a beast but passively cools and so will be silent (something you mentioned).

Went for an X48 motherboard because you mentioned the possibility of going crossfire. Otherwise I'd recommend a P45 board such as the P5Q Deluxe.

Got two HDDs for RAID. The 640s are better than the 500s as they have higher density platters. (Not sure if you even needed HDDs as i didn't see them mentioned).

As with above went for blu ray writer drive, a lot could be saved here on either downgrading to just a reader or even just a DVD RW drive.

OS: Win Vista 64 no longer has any problems, and as its the same price as the 32bit version you may as well go for the extra performance.

Any other questions just ask :)
 
^^^^^ Storming PC and great spec, but surely massively more than is required to do 'a bit of PC gaming'?

Yes, this is still 'within budget' - but there is no need to spend anything like this amount to do what is required. Realistically, £750 ought to be plenty. My spec was already at the upper end.
 
TBH you can build a great pc for gaming with a 4870 for 500-600. Side by side with a computer that costs twice that your not gaining much games performance wise.

Wanting crossfire and sli support pretty much doubles motherboard cost if you want the chipsets that support true 2 x 16 lane pci-e.

Be much better to save the money and just buy a far superior graphics card with the saved money in the future or pick up a larger screen.
 
Hi,

Here's the conclusion I'm coming to following your replys

I'm getting the feeling I've negotiated for too much cash with the missus!! When I think off all those good deeds I done for that limit :( lol

Re-Spec:

Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
Intel Core 2 quad Q9550
P5Q Deluxe mboard
4GB of DDR2 - 8500 1066Mhz RAM
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Windows Vista 64
Drop SLI & crossfire and go for Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI 512MB or 1024MB?
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 750W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant PSU (can i get away with 650w?)

2x Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache (IN RAID0)
or
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache


That leaves harddisk(s) (yes, they are required) to RAID or not to RAID that is the question. I would only want to use the onboard RAID controller 1TB should be more than enough storage (media held elsewhere on LAN). Nobody has jumped in to defend RAID. I'll downgrade RAID5 to RAID0. I'm not sure what options are available with the onboard controllers?? or their performance



The way I'm looking at it following your guidance is that IF I spend half'ish of my budget then in 2 years I'll be able to buy another PC !!!! (maybe corei7 or better).

What do you think ???? Am I sucking the right one?
 
Looks like a good selection to me - I would go for the 1GB version of the 4870 - either that or check out the new GTX260 216 1GB.
If your media is held elsewhere on your lan (assume NAS?) why do you need to run RAID on your PC? Does the onboard RAID even support RAID5? I'm not sure it will.
At the end of the day - it's your choice - what data will you be storing and how important is it?
I'm not sure about TV tuners as I have never used one - someone else may be able to help. :)
 
BigRick said:
What do you think ???? Am I sucking the right one?
Click to expand...

That is still a huge spec and will fly. If you wanted to, you could spend lots less and not really see any difference. But it will certainly do all you want and more.

I'd be really tempted to save some cash and drop one level down from the Q9550.

Do a search for TV tuners - there have been some recent threads under another part of the forums.

I think 650w would be plenty - but am not qualified to confirm that. Once you've decided on a spec, you could post in the PSU forum to get some specific advice.
 
BigRick said:
I'm getting the feeling I've negotiated for too much cash with the missus!! When I think off all those good deeds I done for that limit :( lol
Click to expand...

Spend the rest on a projector!! :D

BigRick said:
Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
Intel Core 2 quad Q9550
P5Q Deluxe mboard
4GB of DDR2 - 8500 1066Mhz RAM
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Windows Vista 64
Drop SLI & crossfire and go for Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI 512MB or 1024MB?
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 750W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant PSU (can i get away with 650w?)

2x Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache (IN RAID0)
or
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Click to expand...

I think your original idea of going AM2 wasn't really such a bad one as it seems the upgrade path will have a lot more options. The next generation of AMD cpu's will be compatible with AM2 but the next Intels won't be Skt775. Just something to think about.

I'd go with the two 640 drives in RAID0 as it'll be faster but you'll want to keep backups with RAID0 for sure, just in case.

That case is not very understated. I get the impression from your first post that you're not keen on 'flashy' looking cases?

Oh..........and welcome back! :)
 
Thanks for the feed back!!!

Just when I thought the spec had been written in stone

The next generation of AMD cpu's will be compatible with AM2 but the next Intels won't be Skt775.
Click to expand...
Thanks Wolvers a good point! has gotten me thinking again :confused: AMD / Intel which is best bang for buck taking into account future upgrade??


Spend the rest on a projector!!
Click to expand...
already have a Sony VPL DS-100 that doesn't get used much



Originally Posted by wolvers69 View Post
That case is not very understated. I get the impression from your first post that you're not keen on 'flashy' looking cases?
Click to expand...

Ummm - it's plain black.....
Click to expand...

Why would anyone want lights in a PC case?? I still don't get it?? :confused:
Does anyone know of anybody who has peered through an illuminated pc window and said "That looks the dogs balls"?

The intention is to hide the PC out of sight out of mind. We'll see how well I do once its built. Lights would make it more difficult ;) Would prefer not to have duck tape blacking out windows
 
BigRick said:
Does anyone know of anybody who has peered through an illuminated pc window and said "That looks the dogs balls"?
Click to expand...

Some people spend inordinate amounts of time and money so that when they post pictures of it on the internet people say "That looks the dogs balls".

I don't really get it either. <shrug>
 
BigRick said:
Why would anyone want lights in a PC case?? I still don't get it?? :confused:
Does anyone know of anybody who has peered through an illuminated pc window and said "That looks the dogs balls"?

The intention is to hide the PC out of sight out of mind.
Click to expand...

I agree. I have the Antec 300 and it's perfect for what I want - although it was slightly bigger than I'd anticipated - but then I hadn't really looked too closely at the dimensions!
 
BigRick said:
has gotten me thinking again :confused: AMD / Intel which is best bang for buck taking into account future upgrade?
Click to expand...

I still think Intel is the better option. You get more bang for your buck today.

Do you have plans to upgrade within the next 12-18 months? If not, when the time comes to upgrade, who knows if you'll just want a new processor or if you'll just start again?

And anyway, there are currently higher spec Intel chips already available and it's very unlikely Intel won't bring out new socket 775 processors for some time to come.
 
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