Out of the loop with all the latest PC hardware!

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13 Aug 2006
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Hi Guys,

The PC I have at the minute is fairly old and starting to show its age so I was looking into building a new PC that will allow me to play the latest games etc.

My current PC is:

Athlon 2800+ XP
1gig DDR400
Several IDE hard drives
Geforce 4 Ti 4200
17" TFT

As you can see its all around 3 years old so I need to start totally from scratch. I have been looking round these forums for a while trying to see which is the best way to go and have several questions.

- Processors used to be all about clock speed, it looks like the new Core Duo 2 chips are the way to go and it seems the cheaper 6300 is a bit of a bargain especially when overclocked. But it is only rated at 1.8ghz, I take it that is per core? Does windows make use of two cores all the time? Will programs that dont support dual core be sluggish with just a 1.8ghz? Same with games?

- Are the raptor hard drives worth the extra cash over a normal SATA drive? They are quite a bit more expensive but opinions seem quite mixed about them, are they reliable? I was planning one of these for the OS and games and then a larger standard drive for normal downloads and storage.

The goal posts seem to be moving so quickly with IT hardware at the minute and it has been a while since I have had to buy some hardware so appologies if these questions have been asked a million times, I did try searching but its difficult to find the answers.

Thanks

Bren
 
As far as the processor goes - Yes its per core. Its up to the programs, as far as i know, if they support dual core, but your multitasking in xp is going to be far superior. As far as sluggish. Due to the conroe's architecture and the way it operates, it would probabaly be faster than your 2800 with one core running anyway.

As far as the raptor goes - yes its faster than sata, whether it worth the extra cash, well thats debatable. I have one and for an os i wont go back.

Hope this helps. I'm sure u gonna get enough info to really confuse u from here
 
Hi Bren

I would agree that conroe is the way to go, and compared to what you have now its going to be grease lightning.....

Get 2gig of ram and a decent graphics card for your games and you will be very impressed.

As for the Raptors, i think its a case of having the extra cash to justify it. Put your spec together with your budget and see what you can get and then decide. Dont think it will make a huge difference either way, though i have one for my OS and i love it. .
 
If you have a rough budget and you want someone to specify a compatible system for you then that is easily done.

Ghz is now a relatively poor way of rating CPUs, the Conroe at 1.8ghz actual clock speed(per core) will absolutely decimate the 2800XP in single cored applications and even more noticably in applications written for dual core.

Raptors are quicker(note that they are also SATA) but not hugely quicker than something like a Seagate 7200.10 which offers double or triple the capacity at around half the price as well as most of the performance. If you have a lot of cash and want the absolute fastest (without resorting to SCSI etc) then a Raptor can be a great idea but personally there are a lot of areas where I would spend money first.
 
Processors used to be all about clock speed, it looks like the new Core Duo 2 chips are the way to go and it seems the cheaper 6300 is a bit of a bargain especially when overclocked.
The other core supports apps running at the same time so it will take some load off regardless and as the above poster said, even with a single core operating it'll be faster than what you have now. It is how much the CPU can do per cycle that matters and Core 2 is one hell of a lot more efficient than any CPU out there (Athlon 64/X2 isn't that far behind but enough to make it look slow). If you compare a Core 2 (without the second core) at 1.8 Ghz to a Pentium 4 at 1.8 Ghz the difference won't even be funny, it'll totally thrash it. This is a good starting point for comparisons:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

Are the raptor hard drives worth the extra cash over a normal SATA drive?
Just get Seagate 7200.10, performance up to a Raptor in some circumstances and costs the same as normal drives. Depending on your uses all the drive will do is cut load times a little which isn't going to help with overall performance, you need more RAM for that (get 2GB for a new build).
 
Yep, Core 2 Duo is what you need. ;) The E6300 will be massively better than your XP even at stock and some people are reaching 3GHz+ with theirs. I'd say go for the E6600 if you could though. But the E6300 will still be faster than your current CPU by a fair bit.

As for memory, you can't go far wrong on OcUK as pretty much all of the brands are top notch. OCZ, G.Skill, Mushkin, GeIL, Corsair and Patiot. It's all good stuff. All I'd recommend is that you get 2GB PC6400.

Graphics, I think you should be looking at an X1900XT. Superb value at the moment and immeasurable to a 4200. I'd go for the HIS version as you get the IceQ3 cooler which is better than the stock one by a fair bit. Another one to consider maybe the 7950GX2 if you're feeling flush. But the X1900XT would be my choice at the moment due to price/performance ratio.

That should be enough to get you started shopping around. ;)

Oh, and as for the HDD, I haven't ever used a Raptor but people on here are always saying they're worth having as an extra. A nice 250GB Spinpoint would be more than sufficiant. Just consider a Raptor if you have left over cash in your budget.
 
Ok guys, been scanning around the forums at other peoples specs and what the suggest and have come up with the following:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 £194.99
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz £149.99
Connect3D ATI X1800 XT 256MB £114.99
OCZ ModStream 520w £44.99
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 Motherboard £91.99
Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower £29.99
Western Digital Raptor 74GB £91.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB £62.95
Creative Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music £49.50
Hyundai ImageQuest N91W 19" X 2 £279.98

That is just a quick rough spec for now. Any pointers? Not sure on the motherboard choice as it seems there are so many to choose from, I hear the gigabyte one mentioned on here a lot though.

Also not sure on the CPU cooler and PSU, they were just random choices really that looked a good deal.

The graphics card I chose as I am not sure it's worth spending £300 now when DX10 cards are hopefully around in the next 6 months or so?

Cheers

Bren
 
I would tend to say save a bit on the processor and get a 6400 with that 965 chipset, but if u not going to overclock then stick with the 6600. Again if u not going to overclock then the zalman is not really required. Put that extra cash towards a x1900xt 256mb
 
That spec looks great to me. Stick with the E6600 because it has double the cache. If you're unsure of the CPU cooler you've chosen I have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro and I recommend it highly.
 
Just to add my two cents to the Raptor discussion, I've recently had to resort back to using a normal SATA HD after both of my two Raptors bit the big one on the same day - why I know not.

I must say that, compared to having two of them running in RAID0 and acting as my OS and Application drive, everything is now soooo slow.

Get at least one Raptor as a OS and Programs drive and stuff your files on a second normal SATA. If you've got the cash, get two Raptors in RAID0 and everything will fly... :)
 
I agree about the raptors. I recently got a Mac mini with a 5400rpm drive in. At first I didn't spot a difference but after a week's use I can now clearly see how 10,000rpm drives are the biz. Especially if you get a couple and RAID0 them together! :D
 
AFAIK the raptors come with 5 year warranty so while its a PITA to lose a drive, at least you wont have to fork out for a replacement any time soon.

I've been running a pair of 36Gb raptors for 3 years and they're fine...
 
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