Pick the faults on this rig please....(if any!)

moggsy

moggsy

moggsy

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Joined
11 Dec 2006
Posts
223
Hi all

I've satisfied the 1st of my 2 objectives a couple of days ago, and ordered my laptop after consulting the oracle - otherwise known as OcUK Forum :)

Now for part 2 - my new desktop PC.

I was gonna buy a pre-built jobby, but decided to build my own again....my needs are NOT games orientated - more video encoding, large winrar files (packing and un-packing),mp3 encoding and Photoshop stuff....

Most of the pre-built stuff seems to match a powerful CPU with a powerful GPU...logical I s'pose - but I don't play games myself so I just want a bog-standard, vista capable card (but it must have dual output - one for the monitor and one for an adjacent LCD TV that we watch films off the PC on....)

I've literally chucked a few things into the basket using gear that I've heard mentioned on here a few times. To me it all seems pretty OK but I'm sure someone will advise me otherwise.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts....my budget is 5-600 pounds (hoping for nearer the 500 though.....)

Thanks a lot if you can chip in with your opinion.....

BTW - I'll be dabbling a little bit with OC-ing - depending on my success - hence a decent cooler.... I'll be leaving it run for the rest of it's days at it's stable OC'd speed, so wont be pushing to extremes....

Anyway, here's what I've got so far..... http://img157.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=72509_520_rig_122_1068lo.jpg

Thanks.....
 
I beleive DELL Pc's tend to be more aimed at a good cpu and terrible graphix card. Hence my friend spending 1000 pound on a dell pc which a 5200+ amd and a x1300 ati card.

However, if you want to do video rendering. Perhaps looking at the quad cores would be a better choise? the price difference is small and the performance boost should be significant if you are doing large files.
 
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The first thing I see is that you've spec'd a PATA DVD drive. While this is OK PATA is a dying tech. You'd do yourself a service to get an SATA drive so you can rid yourself of those nasty, hard-to-route PATA cables.

Other than that it looks pretty good. If you discover that you'd like to spend more money you might wish to shell out for a little better CPU cooler. The one you have is pretty good but it won't be sufficient if the OC'ing bug hits hard and you want to push your hardware to the max.
 
Personally id suggest This ram instead, better reputation, overclocks well....basically good stuff.

Everything else seems fine, but wouldnt it be worth while spending an extra £50 upgrading to a quad core, especially as youve specd a board supporting it.

For video encoding and file compression etc i was under the impression quad cores a fair bit better.
 
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)

Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme (Socket AM2/LGA775) Heatsink £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)

Pioneer DVR-112DBK 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)

OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-5400C5 Dual Channel Vista Upgrade Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2VU6674GK) £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £56.99
(£66.96) £56.99
(£66.96)

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO SILENT 256MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11109-01-10R) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)

Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)

Sub Total : £560.90
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £100.07
Total : £671.92

Overclock the quad to 3ghz stable. You may want a different case, and could get by on the 520w corsair.

Nothing you can do to that really ?

EDIT : I misread your budget as 600-700. To fix this, drop the corsair psu down to 520w, drop the ram down to 2gb of 667mhz crucial ballistix and the cooler to a tuniq tower.
 
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8igdave said:
will that gfx card support the lcd tv smoothly? would have thought it would lag at those resolutions when doing duel?
Click to expand...


Hmmm... im thinking no and yes.

Support Lcd tv smoothly - maybe?
Lag whilst in Duel - yes?
 
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £44.99
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU £54.99
£54.99
Asus ATI Radeon X1650 Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £51.99
Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle.
£269.97
Pioneer DVR-112DBK 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM.
£16.99
Sub Total : £438.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £78.55
Total : £527.43

That will also leave you extra money to upgrad where you want to ?
 
DavidB
If you say that's better RAM - that'll do for me....I haven't got a clue really with ram....I've never OC'd before.....thanks.
I'd like to get 4gig if poss and scrimp somewhere else, but I need a fast cpu.....
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will that gfx card support the lcd tv smoothly? would have thought it would lag at those resolutions when doing dual?

Hmmm... im thinking no and yes.
Support Lcd tv smoothly - maybe?
Lag whilst in Dual - yes?

As for the GFX - We only watch the TV on it's own....at the mo, a Radeon 9600 AGP is great, so nothing ultra needed there.
___________________________________________________________________

Ak!ta
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R is 1333Mhz Fsb, whilst the Q6600 IS 1066 Mhz Fsb....
What dya mean by this :confused:???
___________________________________________________________________
BillytheImpaler
The first thing I see is that you've spec'd a PATA DVD drive. While this is OK PATA is a dying tech. You'd do yourself a service to get an SATA drive so you can rid yourself of those nasty, hard-to-route PATA cables.

I've used Pioneer burners for years and had no probs whatsoever so far, and as I don't think there's any significant advantage of sata burner drives over pata, I think I'll live with the one flat ribbon cable I think, but a good point though if I was short on space....
___________________________________________________________________

Thanks for all the comments so far - already got me thinking.
I'm pleased that the mobo's had no negative comments so far (coz if I do go the dual core route - I CAN upgrade to quad later on if need be....)

My thoughts so far.....

Glad DavidB brought up the ram as I've no idea what's good and what's poor with ram, so any sort of pointer is very welcome.

Was expecting a nudge or two on the PSU/case combo, but I don't need anything hyper.....just capable. My current rig is noisy so anything is gonna be quieter than what I've got at the mo I'd have thought....

Keep em coming lads and THANKS again for all your input ;)
 
Yes it will ... i totally misread the answer you gave, and got myself confused (not hard on a friday night !!!). :p ;)

That is one of the boards im looking at getting when i get my 6850.....
 
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Was expecting a nudge or two on the PSU/case combo, but I don't need anything hyper.....just capable. My current rig is noisy so anything is gonna be quieter than what I've got at the mo I'd have thought....
Click to expand...

I think youll find it to be a pretty good case/psu combo actually, certainly good value regardless and is often used in a lot of price saving rigs.

MB is fine really,cheap and future proof, last review of it i saw rated it highly just said it was a little fussy to OC on i believe... fraid i dont have a link though :(

I've used Pioneer burners for years and had no probs whatsoever so far, and as I don't think there's any significant advantage of sata burner drives over pata, I think I'll live with the one flat ribbon cable I think, but a good point though if I was short on space....
Click to expand...

I know thats mainly down to personal preference, but it will improve airflow in your case, and generally its better not having them floating around , i'd really suggest taking the plunge, but as youve said its far from crucial.

If your after a cheap 4gb solution this may suit you, though i doubt it would be as good for overclocking.

Quad core processors would be advantageous to you, or if you wanted to save cash buying an E2140 and OC'ing it too 3ghz would only set you back £46.
 
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One point regarding the 4gb of ram.....I've read somewhere....Crucial I think it was...that the 32bit version of XP will only recognise 3-3.5gb ram and the 64bit version or Vista is needed to see the full 4gb - is this true?

I've only got the 32bit version of XP :(

DavidB
Thanks again for that pointer to that memory (sheesh, there are SO many different types of ram aren't there?).....seems a REALLY nice price and despite what you mentioned about it's overclockability(?) - the reviews say they have it running @8-900mhz!! As I mentioned earlier, I will be leaving my machine running (usually 24/7) at a medium o'clocked speed - nowhere near the max - so that memory might be OK for me.

Thanks for all the comments - really helpful.
 
sheesh, there are SO many different types of ram aren't there?
Click to expand...
lol yes, they rather like to confuse the general public.

But your right 4gb would require Vista 64bit, so unless your planning to upgrade operating system, stick with the previously selected ram.

Thats not to say 4gb would be of absolutely no benefit though, from what ive read windows reads up to 2gb of memory, then uses the excess left over RAM for the kernal, not sure how beneficial that would be for performance, but it would be doing something lol.
 
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