Building New Rig...Need Expert Advice

[djtech2k]

Ok, so it looks like I have the rig in my sig sold so I need to begin spec'ing out a new one. I have not built one in about 2 years, so I am learning the latest stuff as I go. I am looking for advice/comments/deals to help me out. I do a lot of gaming and heavy app lifting. I am going to note some of what I want or have looked at thus far. Please comment on, recommend, or answer any of all.

 

I am willing to build my own or buy a package. For packages, so far www.cyperpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com seem to be the best choices. However, if I build my own I will handle it all.

 

BUDGET: I want to stay as far below $2000 as possible, but am not dead set on any number yet. My old rig sale will only take a chunk out, so under $2k would be nice, but I want something nice so I will consider a little more.

 

CASE: Looking at coolermaster stacker 830 or coolermaster cosmos. I want something that has excellent cooling but I do not want to do case modding. I have Antec P180 now and like it. Wiring is a bit tight, but I like the case.

 

CPU: Intel core2duo or quad. I wants something relatively fast and something I can oc a little bit as well without 500 hours or work. Is the penryn available and is it much better?

 

MB: Solid, stable board. I would prefer newest technologies like pciev2 and newest other stuff like fastest FSB and memory. I have questions about like the memory and fsb. I have seen some boards that do 1333 and 1600 on the FSB and some that take DDR2 800, DDR2 1200, and DDR3 memory. What is best? I read more about the Asus P5E. I dont know much more yet though.

 

RAM: I want minimum 4GB fast, oc capable memory. I know the board determines the type/speed, but I'd rather buy something fast so its more future ready and not obsolete in 3 months.

 

VIDEO: Nice..I am open, but am probably looking at SLI with (2)8800GT or something nice.

 

PSU: Need something powerful to handle SLI and have plenty of power. Some sites say 650 or 750 will do for an SLI, but I am not sure.

 

HD: I want SATA for sure. I am thinking (1) 10k 150GB OS drive and a second normal storage drive of at least 500GB or 1TB. I am unsure about RAID....I had it before in RAID0 on the boot drive and it screwed up. I have (2)160GB drives I can bring with me to this system but they are 2 years old so I will only use them as extras or something.

 

COOLING: Want to keep everything cool. Considering liquid cooling, but am afraid of it and dont wanna spend all my money on it. If not liquid, then damn good air cooling. Some kits come with it, but again I am a bit afraid of leaking and such but like the idea of good cooling, oc, etc while being silent.

 

DRIVES: DVD-RW dual layer, dual format. Also a second CDRW.

 

SOUND: Something good for gaming. IDK much about sound.

[Guest element]

Go with the P5E it fits your ideal mobo. Although the 780i does/could fit this unless you require peryn support, as intel and nVidia are playing funny games.

 

Since you have predestined the P5E, Crossfire is what is supported with this mobo. So 3850's or 3870's ? Or consider just one 'faster' card such as the 8800GTS G92 if it's cost appeals to you.

 

CPU: personally i'd go quad now. They are pretty cheap for what you get. Unless you want to wait for peryn. And go with a cheapie like I have for the moment.

 

DVD? Pioneer/Sony's latest. Doesn't really matter look to See who has the best reliability in you generation and go for it.

 

Sound: if you don't care just leave at the onboard then

[Guest r3d c0m3t]

Ok, so it looks like I have the rig in my sig sold so I need to begin spec'ing out a new one. I have not built one in about 2 years, so I am learning the latest stuff as I go. I am looking for advice/comments/deals to help me out. I do a lot of gaming and heavy app lifting. I am going to note some of what I want or have looked at thus far. Please comment on, recommend, or answer any of all.

 

I am willing to build my own or buy a package. For packages, so far www.cyperpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com seem to be the best choices. However, if I build my own I will handle it all.

 

BUDGET: I want to stay as far below $2000 as possible, but am not dead set on any number yet. My old rig sale will only take a chunk out, so under $2k would be nice, but I want something nice so I will consider a little more.

 

CASE: Looking at coolermaster stacker 830 or coolermaster cosmos. I want something that has excellent cooling but I do not want to do case modding. I have Antec P180 now and like it. Wiring is a bit tight, but I like the case.

 

CPU: Intel core2duo or quad. I wants something relatively fast and something I can oc a little bit as well without 500 hours or work. Is the penryn available and is it much better?

 

MB: Solid, stable board. I would prefer newest technologies like pciev2 and newest other stuff like fastest FSB and memory. I have questions about like the memory and fsb. I have seen some boards that do 1333 and 1600 on the FSB and some that take DDR2 800, DDR2 1200, and DDR3 memory. What is best? I read more about the Asus P5E. I dont know much more yet though.

 

RAM: I want minimum 4GB fast, oc capable memory. I know the board determines the type/speed, but I'd rather buy something fast so its more future ready and not obsolete in 3 months.

 

VIDEO: Nice..I am open, but am probably looking at SLI with (2)8800GT or something nice.

 

PSU: Need something powerful to handle SLI and have plenty of power. Some sites say 650 or 750 will do for an SLI, but I am not sure.

 

HD: I want SATA for sure. I am thinking (1) 10k 150GB OS drive and a second normal storage drive of at least 500GB or 1TB. I am unsure about RAID....I had it before in RAID0 on the boot drive and it screwed up. I have (2)160GB drives I can bring with me to this system but they are 2 years old so I will only use them as extras or something.

 

COOLING: Want to keep everything cool. Considering liquid cooling, but am afraid of it and dont wanna spend all my money on it. If not liquid, then damn good air cooling. Some kits come with it, but again I am a bit afraid of leaking and such but like the idea of good cooling, oc, etc while being silent.

 

DRIVES: DVD-RW dual layer, dual format. Also a second CDRW.

 

SOUND: Something good for gaming. IDK much about sound.

 

For that which you don't know much about, that's what us other geeks are here for. :nod:

 

I'd recommend going for the Cosmos, it's a beautiful case and it's one of the best designs Cooler Master has released to date. As for the CPU, if you're looking to build right away, I'd say go for the Q6600. It'll definitely fit into the "bang for the buck" bracket, and you'll be able to overclock to 3GHz easy-peasy with little to no voltage increase. However, if you're willing to wait until February you could pick up a similarly priced Yorkfield Q9300, or even the Q9450 as it'll be the better bargain in the long run.

 

There are a couple of motherboards I'd recommend and one of them is the P5E, the other being DFI's UT P35 T2R, and one other is Gigabyte's X38-DQ6. All three are excellent boards and will undoubtedly give you enough options to overclock whichever processor you decide to go with until you're happy enough to just...stop, but where's the fun in "stopping?" :tooth:

 

As for RAM, DDR3 has higher clock speeds than DDR2, but at the cost of higher latencies, and at the cost of it's cost. There's really no need to concern yourself with DDR3 at the moment as it's too expensive, and unless you're planning to benchmark 24/7 the speeds are at a loss to everything else but overclocking, and also not to mention the boards that support DDR3 are more expensive and don't support DDR2 as the two aren't pin-for-pin compatible.

 

So, with that said, I'd go with a 4GB kit (2 x 2GB) of Patriot Extreme Performance, or the newer Patriot Viper sticks. Both can overclock like mad, providing your board of choice can supply them with enough voltage. You could also go for Corsair's XMS2 range as they can also overclock pretty well.

 

If you don't want to trouble yourself with liquid-cooling, go with Thermalright's Ultra-120 Extreme. Nuff said. :cool:

[djtech2k]

Go with the P5E it fits your ideal mobo. Although the 780i does/could fit this unless you require peryn support, as intel and nVidia are playing funny games.

 

Since you have predestined the P5E, Crossfire is what is supported with this mobo. So 3850's or 3870's ? Or consider just one 'faster' card such as the 8800GTS G92 if it's cost appeals to you.

 

CPU: personally i'd go quad now. They are pretty cheap for what you get. Unless you want to wait for peryn. And go with a cheapie like I have for the moment.

 

DVD? Pioneer/Sony's latest. Doesn't really matter look to See who has the best reliability in you generation and go for it.

 

Sound: if you don't care just leave at the onboard then

 

Is the penryn out yet and is it worth it?

 

The P5E is just one that I found. I am not set on it in any way. It was just one I saw. I do want SLI though, I won't use ATI. Will this not work with Nvidia SLI on (2)8800GT? Fro the looks, the GTS isnt worth the extra $$ for barely any performance gain.

 

For the CPU, I was thinking something like the 2.4 Quad or the 3.0 Dual Core. They are closely priced. My concern with quad is I would be getting 4 cores, but they are significantly slower than the 3.0 cores, plus I have not yet found any real multi-threaded apps that can take full advantage of dual much less quad cores. Again, I am open to both though. Whats with the new penryn? Whats the hype, is it worth it, and when is it going to be out?

 

As for optical drives, I dont care. I will probably pick something cheap like Lite-On or w/e decent brand has it cheapest.

 

Sound I am not sure about. I do some gaming, so sound is very important for detail. I normally do not trust onboard, but IDK.

 

Thanks!

[djtech2k]

For that which you don't know much about, that's what us other geeks are here for. :nod:

 

I'd recommend going for the Cosmos, it's a beautiful case and it's one of the best designs Cooler Master has released to date. As for the CPU, if you're looking to build right away, I'd say go for the Q6600. It'll definitely fit into the "bang for the buck" bracket, and you'll be able to overclock to 3GHz easy-peasy with little to no voltage increase. However, if you're willing to wait until February you could pick up a similarly priced Yorkfield Q9300, or even the Q9450 as it'll be the better bargain in the long run.

 

There are a couple of motherboards I'd recommend and one of them is the P5E, the other being DFI's UT P35 T2R, and one other is Gigabyte's X38-DQ6. All three are excellent boards and will undoubtedly give you enough options to overclock whichever processor you decide to go with until you're happy enough to just...stop, but where's the fun in "stopping?" :tooth:

 

As for RAM, DDR3 has higher clock speeds than DDR2, but at the cost of higher latencies, and at the cost of it's cost. There's really no need to concern yourself with DDR3 at the moment as it's too expensive, and unless you're planning to benchmark 24/7 the speeds are at a loss to everything else but overclocking, and also not to mention the boards that support DDR3 are more expensive and don't support DDR2 as the two aren't pin-for-pin compatible.

 

So, with that said, I'd go with a 4GB kit (2 x 2GB) of Patriot Extreme Performance, or the newer Patriot Viper sticks. Both can overclock like mad, providing your board of choice can supply them with enough voltage. You could also go for Corsair's XMS2 range as they can also overclock pretty well.

 

If you don't want to trouble yourself with liquid-cooling, go with Thermalright's Ultra-120 Extreme. Nuff said. :cool:

 

For CPU, I was thinking wither the 2.4ghz Quad or the 3.0ghz dual. Are they not worth it? I think Feb is probably too far out for me, but its something I want to know about in case I want to upgrade cpu then.

 

As for the board, I want a good one that will have max FSB (is that 1600 now?), pciev2 (just in case), fast memory, and supports Nvidia SLI. I thought the P5E did all that for a decent price, but I am now not sure. I will check those others out as well. I also figured DDR2 1200 was a much better choice than DDR2 800. Thats another reason the P5E showed up on newegg for me.

 

RAM I think I figured your statement. DDR3 is $$$$$$ and DDR2 has lower latency as from what I saw. I was thinking that the DDR2 1200 would be a much better choice than 800, but IDK. The mushkin DDR2 1200 was the best thing I found thus far in my brief search. I have OCZ now and I love it.

 

For cooling, this gets kinda hairy. I have NEVER liquid cooled. I have always been afraid of a leak. I have been heavily researching the kit builders, like cyberpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com, and they come with liquid kits on their high-end packages. So it make me think of how nice it would be to have a quite, oc'd machine. I am SO inexperienced at liquid cooled, so thats where I really need help. I also know the case has much to do with it as some are easliy worked and some are not. I have a nice fan system in my Antec P180 right now. I have a thermalright XP90 on my cpu now and it is nice. I have my x2 4400+ now oc'd to 2.55ghz and the cores run around 35-38c.

 

Thanks for the help. Hopefully I can get all this straight and ready to order.

[Guest r3d c0m3t]

Is the penryn out yet and is it worth it?

 

The P5E is just one that I found. I am not set on it in any way. It was just one I saw. I do want SLI though, I won't use ATI. Will this not work with Nvidia SLI on (2)8800GT? Fro the looks, the GTS isnt worth the extra $$ for barely any performance gain.

 

For the CPU, I was thinking something like the 2.4 Quad or the 3.0 Dual Core. They are closely priced. My concern with quad is I would be getting 4 cores, but they are significantly slower than the 3.0 cores, plus I have not yet found any real multi-threaded apps that can take full advantage of dual much less quad cores. Again, I am open to both though. Whats with the new penryn? Whats the hype, is it worth it, and when is it going to be out?

 

As for optical drives, I dont care. I will probably pick something cheap like Lite-On or w/e decent brand has it cheapest.

 

Sound I am not sure about. I do some gaming, so sound is very important for detail. I normally do not trust onboard, but IDK.

 

Thanks!

 

Penryn is the codename for the mobile processors, what you're referring to is Wolfdale, that's the dual-core 45nm CPUs due next year. If you want SLI, you should cease looking at the P5E as that uses the X38 chipset which only supports Crossfire.

 

You'll have to look into the 500 or 600-series chipsets from Nvidia, or just go with the newly-released (and better) 780i as this supports the re-released Quad-SLI option. As for a quad being significantly slower is anything but true. Yes, there isn't much software readily available that can take advantage of four execution threads, but in those that aren't fully multi-threaded the Q6600 will perform identically to it's E6600 brethren at stock speeds, and for the few applications that can take advantage of the quad's power, the results are practically unchallenged.

 

The G92 GTS performs on par with the GTX, and more often than not, better than the GTX. So, I'm not sure why you would think the G92 GTS doesn't offer any discernible performance gain.

 

There's nothing better than a dedicated sound card, because on-board sound has the tendency to "pop." There are a few on-board solutions that actually sound quite good, but you'll appreciate a sound card that much more. The X-Fi XtremeGamer is excellent, and pretty cheap too.

 

I just took notice of your signature, and you have an Audigy 2 ZS, that's perfect. You don't need to worry about a sound card.

[djtech2k]

Penryn is the codename for the mobile processors, what you're referring to is Wolfdale, that's the dual-core 45nm CPUs due next year. If you want SLI, you should cease looking at the P5E as that uses the X38 chipset which only supports Crossfire.

 

You'll have to look into the 500 or 600-series chipsets from Nvidia, or just go with the newly-released (and better) 780i as this supports the re-released Quad-SLI option. As for a quad being significantly slower is anything but true. Yes, there isn't much software readily available that can take advantage of four execution threads, but in those that aren't fully multi-threaded the Q6600 will perform identically to it's E6600 brethren at stock speeds, and for the few applications that can take advantage of the quad's power, the results are practically unchallenged.

 

The G92 GTS performs on par with the GTX, and more often than not, better than the GTX. So, I'm not sure why you would think the G92 GTS doesn't offer any discernible performance gain.

 

There's nothing better than a dedicated sound card, because on-board sound has the tendency to "pop." There are a few on-board solutions that actually sound quite good, but you'll appreciate a sound card that much more. The X-Fi XtremeGamer is excellent, and pretty cheap too.

 

I just took notice of your signature, and you have an Audigy 2 ZS, that's perfect. You don't need to worry about a sound card.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

So the P5E is out. I am trying to determine the list of things I want so that I can get a list of boards that do it. So far here are things that interest me, but I need to find out if I am off base with what I am looking at for whatever reason.

 

1) Nvidia SLI Support

2) Fast FSB (eg 1600...is it worth it?)

3) pciev2 (is it worth it?)

4) fast RAM (eg ddr2 1200..NOT DDR3..Is it worth it?)

 

 

Those are some of the major things I have been looking at. Does that all make sense?

 

As for the video, what I was trying to say was that I could not find that much a performance diff between the G92 8800GTS and the 8800GT and the GT is about $130 cheaper. Am I overlooking something? Should I buy 8800GTS instead of 8800GT?

 

The last 2 cpu;s I was comparing was the 3.0ghz dual or the 2.4ghz quad. I was not sure whether 3.0 dual was better for me than the 2.4 quad.

 

I agree about sound. For around $100 I think I can get a decent card and probably will.

[djtech2k]

One more thing. I just read about Quad Channel RAM. What is that about and is it worth while considering?

[Guest r3d c0m3t]

For SLI you'd might as well go with the 780i chipset. There are a few motherboards out there that natively support a 1600MHz FSB speed, but at current such a speed is only used on the QX9650. The normal as-of-late is 1,066 and more recently, 1,333MHz. As for the question - sure, it's worth it. With a higher FSB speed the processor is able to relay electronic signal information to and from the northbridge quicker. However, the same can be said if you were to overclock any Intel processor because the FSB naturally becomes quicker the higher it's clocked. There are a few PCI-E 2.0 cards out there, and at the moment I don't know of any one card that's able to utilize all 16 or 32 lanes, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. The 780i chipset utilizes PCI-E 2.0, I think the 600-series might support it as well.

 

You could look into DDR2 modules rated at 1,066MHz as most use Micron D9 chips and can overclock to about 1,112MHz, roughly. A good choice would be Corsair Dominator or Buffalo Firestix.

 

If you were comparing the G92 GT to the GTS, then no, there isn't much of a performance gain at all. You could simply pick up two GTs and overclock them. Clean and cut.

 

The last 2 cpu;s I was comparing was the 3.0ghz dual or the 2.4ghz quad. I was not sure whether 3.0 dual was better for me than the 2.4 quad.

 

The former is the E6850 and the latter is the Q6600. While the E6850 has a higher clock speed and FSB (3GHz/1,333MHz), you could overclock the Q6600 to such a speed and further with minimal voltage increase. You won't have to begin using excessive voltage until you break the 3.4GHz threshold. The Q6600 is the better bargain at this point and time, there might not be much support for quad cores at the time, but when such an event should occur, you won't be able to add more cores to the E6850, will you?

One more thing. I just read about Quad Channel RAM. What is that about and is it worth while considering?

 

That's just populating the available four slots with 1GB of RAM apiece. It has something to do with quad-cores and each core having it's own 1GB of RAM to address.

[djtech2k]

For SLI you'd might as well go with the 780i chipset. There are a few motherboards out there that natively support a 1600MHz FSB speed, but at current such a speed is only used on the QX9650. The normal as-of-late is 1,066 and more recently, 1,333MHz. As for the question - sure, it's worth it. With a higher FSB speed the processor is able to relay electronic signal information to and from the northbridge quicker. However, the same can be said if you were to overclock any Intel processor because the FSB naturally becomes quicker the higher it's clocked. There are a few PCI-E 2.0 cards out there, and at the moment I don't know of any one card that's able to utilize all 16 or 32 lanes, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. The 780i chipset utilizes PCI-E 2.0, I think the 600-series might support it as well.

 

You could look into DDR2 modules rated at 1,066MHz as most use Micron D9 chips and can overclock to about 1,112MHz, roughly. A good choice would be Corsair Dominator or Buffalo Firestix.

 

If you were comparing the G92 GT to the GTS, then no, there isn't much of a performance gain at all. You could simply pick up two GTs and overclock them. Clean and cut.

 

 

 

The former is the E6850 and the latter is the Q6600. While the E6850 has a higher clock speed and FSB (3GHz/1,333MHz), you could overclock the Q6600 to such a speed and further with minimal voltage increase. You won't have to begin using excessive voltage until you break the 3.4GHz threshold. The Q6600 is the better bargain at this point and time, there might not be much support for quad cores at the time, but when such an event should occur, you won't be able to add more cores to the E6850, will you?

 

 

That's just populating the available four slots with 1GB of RAM apiece. It has something to do with quad-cores and each core having it's own 1GB of RAM to address.

 

Wow thanks for more insight. It really helps.

 

On the MB, according to newegg I find only 2 780i boards. Neither of which have 1600FSB. They show a max of 1333FSB. It looks like the Intel chipsets are the only 1600FSB boards. Does that sound right? If it is right, whats the better option...Intel with 1600FSB...or 780i with 1333FSB?

 

So you think the Quad 6600 is the best thing huh? I just thought after OC the dual 3.0 would be much higher than the quad 2.4. I mean if the quad 2.4 can easily oc (without 30 hours of working on it) and get mid 3.x ghz, then I am ok with that. My goal is to get to a 64bit dual/quad running mid 3.x-4ghz processing power.

 

As for the RAM, I saw the quad channel on an 8GB kit. Depending on the board and ram speed, I will get either 4GB or maybe even 8GB of memory. I know it sounds like a lot, but I WILL be doing 64bit Vista so it will be put to use. So if I end up with DDR2 800, I am considering going over 4GB because of the availability and price. If its something a lot more pricey, like DR2 1200, then 8GB will be too much. I have learned that you can NEVER have too much ram...particularly in a 64bit system.

[Guest r3d c0m3t]

How right you are, the 780i doesn't support a 1600MHz FSB which doesn't make much sense to me with the QX9770 and 9775 due next month. Unless, Nvidia plans to release a BIOS revision to support such.

 

In any case, these are the only boards which natively support a 1600MHz FSB.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....tk=&srchInDesc=

 

So you think the Quad 6600 is the best thing huh? I just thought after OC the dual 3.0 would be much higher than the quad 2.4. I mean if the quad 2.4 can easily oc (without 30 hours of working on it) and get mid 3.x ghz, then I am ok with that. My goal is to get to a 64bit dual/quad running mid 3.x-4ghz processing power.

 

Realistically speaking, if you intend to delve that deep into the BIOS to attain something as high as a 4GHz overclock, you will have to build a W/C rig. As the voltages required to reach such a frequency will disperse plenty of heat that will require liquid to maintain stability. In any case, an overclocked dual-core can (possibly) out-pace a quad in applications that don't utilize four threads, but the performance of a quad core that's overclocked will leave your jaw dropped, without a doubt.

[Praz]

QX9775 is a Harpertown processor (Socket 771). But yeah, doesn't make much sense that nVidia isn't officially supporting the 400 front side bus.