Finally! New PC buit. first thoughts..

SwampThing

OK, first a big thanks to all who contributed to the final spec.
To recap - Striker Extreme mobo, QX6700 CPU, 4 GB GSkill RAM, Tuniq Tower (yet to be fitted), XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB OC2, 2 X 150GB Raptors in RAID 1, 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 X 500GB in RAID 1, Antec 900 Case, Tagan 800W PSU.

It's buit, it's working and I haven't really done much with it. I've put on Vista Ultimate 64-bit becasue of the 4GB RAM issue.

First impressions - in no particular order.

Not absolutely blown away by a €3.5K build to be honest.

Have to counter that straingt away by saying I've intalled little or noting to put it though. (suggestions welcome)

64-bit OS is a bit of a pain - getting compatible software can be tricky. For instance, my work VPN (checkpoint) don't have a 64-bit version yet.

Vista, so far is OK - I like it. So far...

Disappointed with the Antec case - noisy, tiht for space. It's a looker, but not the best. To be fair, the Tuniq might do something here, but the two from case fans are loud.

Windows Exp. score is 5.2 (not sure what this means)

I'll lash on PCMark or passmark and see what it does.

What's the most accurate way of measuring core temps?

More later - thatnks again.

DirkVoodoo

Get intel TAT (thermal analysis tool) and speedfan for temperature monitoring and control. With all those fans the 900 was always going to make some noise, it is a gamer case after all.

Go out now and buy supreme commander and some other visually impressive games. Also surprised by the vista 64 choice, it is known for its lack of driver support at the moment. If you bought that machine to use a lot of 32 bit software on, then it is a bit of a waste.

Myxomatosis

€3.5k? you could have bought a car for that.

No wonder your not blown away, Quad core proccessor, I mean come on, what application/game is coded to actually take advantage of 4 cores, there are hardly any still that really get the most out of 2 cores.

And as for the 4 gigs of RAM, total waste of money unless your running a server, which your obviously not.

You could have sliced 1.5 grand off that build and still ended up with something just as good in terms of real performance.

Cuddlesworth

SwampThing wrote:

Not absolutely blown away by a €3.5K build to be honest.

There hits a point, at the moment its around the 1200-1500 quid mark. After that point its seems that you have to spend 2 or 3 times the money to gain the same amount of a performance increase you were before that mark. I was always tempted to find a bunch of benchmark results and prices for the hardware used to try to work out a graph displaying this theory.

SwampThing wrote:

64-bit OS is a bit of a pain - getting compatible software can be tricky. For instance, my work VPN (checkpoint) don't have a 64-bit version yet.

Not surprising, most software vendors have been very slow on any uptake for a 64 bit OS.

SwampThing wrote:

Vista, so far is OK - I like it. So far...

Most people do, its a nice OS. Untill you have a drivers issue from a old piece of hardware, or applications refuse to install. After a while you find yourself staring at xp again.

SwampThing wrote:

Disappointed with the Antec case - noisy, tiht for space. It's a looker, but not the best. To be fair, the Tuniq might do something here, but the two from case fans are loud.

Any case with a lot of open fans grills are noisey. If you think that one is bad, try buying a Stacker. Its like the fans are not even in a case.

SwampThing wrote:

Windows Exp. score is 5.2 (not sure what this means)

Nothing.

SwampThing wrote:

What's the most accurate way of measuring core temps?

Speedfan. Or CoreTemp. Use Orthos when measuring temps for a load test.

uberpixie

krazy_8s wrote:

There hits a point, at the moment its around the 1200-1500 quid mark. After that point its seems that you have to spend 2 or 3 times the money to gain the same amount of a performance increase you were before that mark. I was always tempted to find a bunch of benchmark results and prices for the hardware used to try to work out a graph displaying this theory.

Funnily enough this months CustomPC does on performance test on a machine for £500 Vs a machine for £1500. Both machines have similar gfx cards and amount of ram.

The result was the budget machine pretty much gave the same performance of the super machine.

But the super machine could overclock better and was not "boring" like the budget machine.

L31mr0d

are you a gamer? if so I would of invested in a a 8800 GTX and a larger monitor before those Raptors. Its all about cost and returns, and for gaming, you are going to see a greater return from a more powerful graphics card and a higher resolution screen than fast HDD's. Sure your install and load times will be faster, but you might see a 1 fps increase in actual gameplay with those raptors compared to a 10+ fps increase with a RAID 0 SATA II setup and a GTX.

What kind of monitor are you using BTW?

stevejazzx

Myxomatosis wrote:

€3.5k? you could have bought a car for that.

No wonder your not blown away, Quad core proccessor, I mean come on, what application/game is coded to actually take advantage of 4 cores, there are hardly any still that really get the most out of 2 cores.

And as for the 4 gigs of RAM, total waste of money unless your running a server, which your obviously not.

You could have sliced 1.5 grand off that build and still ended up with something just as good in terms of real performance.

Actually quite a lot of things are starting to take advantage of quad core and many more wil in the future and if buying a new cpu for high end machine t would be a mistake not to go quad.. See the June edition f PC format for a great article on such.
4 gigs of ram is heavy but for vista it is recommened (for high performance machines) not necessary at all though, 2 gigs is sufficent for most.

8T8

SwampThing wrote:

OK, first a big thanks to all who contributed to the final spec.
To recap - Striker Extreme mobo, QX6700 CPU, 4 GB GSkill RAM, Tuniq Tower (yet to be fitted), XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB OC2, 2 X 150GB Raptors in RAID 1, 2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 X 500GB in RAID 1, Antec 900 Case, Tagan 800W PSU.

It's buit, it's working and I haven't really done much with it. I've put on Vista Ultimate 64-bit becasue of the 4GB RAM issue.

First impressions - in no particular order.

Not absolutely blown away by a €3.5K build to be honest.

Have to counter that straingt away by saying I've intalled little or noting to put it though. (suggestions welcome)

64-bit OS is a bit of a pain - getting compatible software can be tricky. For instance, my work VPN (checkpoint) don't have a 64-bit version yet.

Vista, so far is OK - I like it. So far...

Disappointed with the Antec case - noisy, tiht for space. It's a looker, but not the best. To be fair, the Tuniq might do something here, but the two from case fans are loud.

Windows Exp. score is 5.2 (not sure what this means)

I'll lash on PCMark or passmark and see what it does.

What's the most accurate way of measuring core temps?

More later - thatnks again.

I'm actually in the process of building a very similar system but many factors must be taken into account.

* Quad core is largely a waste unless you have specific tasks that you know are multi-threaded and can take advantage of all the power like video encoding. If you want to see 4 cores in action try MeGUI for video encoding or Nero Digital.

* 64-bit is again not recommend for average users all though the 4GB is handy to have it really only makes sense for multi-threaded applications like again video encoding most games won't make use of it. Also 64-bit needs WHQL drivers for everything with the exception of the display driver so you need to be sure your hardware is supported.

* Install the Tuniq and turn off one of the case fans.

* The Windows Exp score is a measure of how well Vista runs on the system nothing else should be taken from that suffice to say your near the max score which is 6 but again don't read too much into it.

* Don't rely on PCMark too much as an indication of performance your system is fast no doubt about that.

If you have no need for heavy multi-threading then money spent on an E6700 & 2GB of RAM would have been more than enough.

{If you want something 64-bit that gains a little bit try 64-bit Firefox use the build on the top of the list}

Myxomatosis

stevejazzx wrote:

Actually quite a lot of things are starting to take advantage of quad core and many more wil in the future and if buying a new cpu for high end machine t would be a mistake not to go quad.. See the June edition f PC format for a great article on such.
4 gigs of ram is heavy but for vista it is recommened (for high performance machines) not necessary at all though, 2 gigs is sufficent for most. There is no issue for 4 gigs of ram on a 32 bit os with a modern mobo which you have. 64 bit os is can take up to 8 gigs of ram.

lol, stop talking through your hole.

stevejazzx

Myxomatosis wrote:

lol, stop talking through your hole.

Go away, read about it, not old articles which aren't convinced but new articles and you'll find that quad core is actually going to become the new standard. Games like Alan Wake for example have been designed to allow quad core cpus to take full advantage
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/intel-quad-core-gaming-demo
others games like crysis for example will show very noticable framerate improvements using quad core cpus
Everyday day use: Extratc:
you thought your dual-core processor was fast, you ain’t seen nothing yet: quad-core processors (which pack four CPU cores onto one chip) are on the way, and the first benchmarks are already out there. And the video performance looks to be a big improvement: PC World did some testing that shows a big increase in video rendering: a scene in Vegas 7.0a took 255 seconds on a Kentfield (the code name for the quad-core chip) processor, and 384 seconds on a Core 2 Extreme chip. HardOCP also did some tests, which showed a big increase in the speed of DivX encoding: The QX6700 (the quad-core processor) took 77 seconds, while a Core 2 Extreme X6800 took 106 seconds.


I could go on and on...but if you don't get it by now yet then you are a spanner. I know the benchmarks show dual and quad pretty similar at the moment in a lot of apps but that is not the point here the point is future proofing as much as possible it'll be a long time before quad core is 'old'. That said pcmark 06 shows a huge improvement with quad core
As said originally if you building a high end pc not to get a quad core cpu is a mistake especially considering there wll a huge levelling off of prices in a couple of months. I bought one off adverts for 290 for example cheaper than what some people paid for their conroe dual cores just 6 months ago.
Finally I suugest that it is you sir who is talking through yor hole. Stop giving advice on things you've no idea about...now, how dya like them apples:)?

SwampThing

Hmm - a lot of 'sound' advice coming now.

I opted for the config I did for a number of reasons.

- The 4GB issue is not resolved to my knowledge (32-bit addressing issue, not a mobo issue)
- I use VMWare Workstation for various things and multi core and big memory are an advantage here. (A bit worried about VM Workstation on 64 OS - you'd think I'd have sussed that out first
- I do a reasonable amout of video encoding/decoding so hence the desire for faster disk access
- I do a reasonable amount of gaming - hence the reasonable gfx card. What i don't do is chase every last fps like a rabid dog!

steve - as I said, the issue with 4GB of RAM in 32-bit is not fixed, or fixable in 32-bit. the fix is 64-bit.

liam - I'd consider myself a gamer, but I'm not bothered if I have to set the option to turn off the 'shadows on stream of piss' option to make a game playable. On this build and gfx card, I'm confident I'll be able to play most games with a reasonable to good level of graphic detail.

uber - I'm hoping when I do OC this baby, that's when it'll shine!

I originally set out to build as future proof a machine as is possible (not, I know). I have the capacity to add a second gfx card in the future. I can add another 4GB of ram and the OS will support it. All in all, I think over a period of 3/4 years, it'll probaly have cost the same as someone constantly having to upgrade becasue they buy 'OK but not wonderful' compoonents when building.

stevejazzx

SwampThing wrote:

Hmm - a lot of 'sound' advice coming now.

I opted for the config I did for a number of reasons.

- The 4GB issue is not resolved to my knowledge (32-bit addressing issue, not a mobo issue)

Oh I though vista has addressed this, apparently not?...i knew it was a famous problem in xp that the system could only address assign up 3 gig or something...there you go.

However the issues with vista coupled with the issues of a 64 bit os would've made me wait a bit.

Gadgetman496

stevejazzx wrote:

Oh I though vista has addressed this, apparently not?...i knew it was a famous problem in xp that the system could only address assign up 3 gig or something...there you go.

However the issues with vista coupled with the issues of a 64 bit os would've made me wait a bit.

How or what does the 3GB switch recommended by Microsoft do with regard to the 4GB RAM issue?

I have 4GB onboard & the BIOS was displaying the full 4GB but Windows was only seeing 2GB. Then I applied the 3GB switch & now this is what XP is displaying.

stevejazzx

gadgetman496 wrote:

How or what does the 3GB switch recommended by Microsoft do with regard to the 4GB RAM issue?

I have 4GB onboard & the BIOS was displaying the full 4GB but Windows was only seeing 2GB. Then I applied the 3GB switch & now this is what XP is displaying.

well thats intersting becasue thats what i thought in the first
place...but different sites say different things, like even after the 3 gig switch windows can only 'manage' to assign up to 2.75 - 3.5 gigs at a time etc but if your system properties are showing 4,096 then congrats becasue thats what will be available! maybe swampthing has another angle on this?

Myxomatosis

stevejazzx wrote:

Finally I suugest that it is you sir who is talking through yor hole. Stop giving advice on things you've no idea about...now, how dya like them apples:)?

I was referring to your statement that Vista 32bit needs 4GB RAM and Vista 64bit needs 8GB RAM when I said you were talking through your hole, and I still stand by that.

Vista 32bit has a 4GB address space which has to include RAM, any Memory on the Video Card, as well as space for device mappings and such.

He has a 640MB Nvidia video card. Immediately 640MB of his 4GB goes to the video card. Then another probably 256-512MB goes to device mappings and such. And instantly Windows has less than 3GB of address space left to use for RAM.

SwampThing

stevejazzx wrote:

well thats intersting becasue thats what i thought in the first
place...but different sites say different things, like even after the 3 gig switch windows can only 'manage' to assign up to 2.75 - 3.5 gigs at a time etc but if your system properties are showing 4,096 then congrats becasue thats what will be available! maybe swampthing has another angle on this?

I could google all evening and get a definitive answer for you steve, but I'm sure you've done your research. I'm not 100% sure about XP - there are some switches in 2000 and 2003 to do with enabling bigger addressing but I won't BS you - I don't 100% know what those switches do exactly.

What I do know is this - 32-bit OS'es have have serious issues with 4GB of ram and over - no question.

sickrabbit wrote:

He has a 640MB Nvidia video card. Immediately 640MB of his 4GB goes to the video card. Then another probably 256-512MB goes to device mappings and such. And instantly Windows has less than 3GB of address space left to use for RAM.

This much is true - I spent many an evening mulling over this exact issue when I initially decided upon 4GB of RAM, with a view to upgrading to 8GB later on.

stevejazzx

Myxomatosis wrote:

I was referring to your statement that Vista 32bit needs 4GB RAM and Vista 64bit needs 8GB RAM when I said you were talking through your hole, and I still stand by that.

Vista 32bit has a 4GB address space which has to include RAM, any Memory on the Video Card, as well as space for device mappings and such.

He has a 640MB Nvidia video card. Immediately 640MB of his 4GB goes to the video card. Then another probably 256-512MB goes to device mappings and such. And instantly Windows has less than 3GB of address space left to use for RAM.

Well I did stress that i was talking sabout high end systems
Some genius in IBM who beta tested vista for 2 years reckoned vistas sweetspot was 4gb ram! xp's sweetspot was 2gb. Hold on I'll google it:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9011523

now back to the point at hand i never said that vistas needs 4gb or the 62 bit os needs 8 gb i siad that the 64 bit os could handle 8 gb and 4 gb isn't over the top for high end machines that are used for encoding and what not.

swampthing wrote:

I could google all evening and get a definitive answer for you steve, but I'm sure you've done your research. I'm not 100% sure about XP - there are some switches in 2000 and 2003 to do with enabling bigger addressing but I won't BS you - I don't 100% know what those switches do exactly.

What I do know is this - 32-bit OS'es have have serious issues with 4GB of ram and over - no question.

i'm the same actually...the switch thing isn't exactly straighforward it appears to be a reg edit allowing the os to use the extra ram. i sure it's a lot more complicated than that but know......

TonyM.

Welcome to the qx6700 club you better fit the Tuniq before you try any benchmarking expect idle temp. over 50c.

SwampThing

Suprisingly Tony, after being on all night (doing noting granted, the temps are as folows:

NVidia monitor reports the CPU @ 27, the System @ 31 and the GPU @ 51 (this bothers me - but for another thread)

Sppedfan 4.32 reports Cores 0-3 as 33, 32, 24, 30 and Temp1-4 as 24, 31,-55,40

What do you make of that?

awhir

SwampThing wrote:

Suprisingly Tony, after being on all night (doing noting granted, the temps are as folows:

NVidia monitor reports the CPU @ 27, the System @ 31 and the GPU @ 51 (this bothers me - but for another thread)

Sppedfan 4.32 reports Cores 0-3 as 33, 32, 24, 30 and Temp1-4 as 24, 31,-55,40

What do you make of that?

that gfx is fine.

TonyM.

You must be running at stock speed and and with Intel speedstep enabled when you overclock the temp. will double.Have a look at the Intel website they have a pdf on how to apply arctic silver to quad cores you just apply a thin line across the cpu.

SwampThing

Tony, would you have settings for overclocking this, please?

TonyM.

400Mhz FSB using a 9x CPU multi

CPU voltage: 1.475v
FSB voltage: 1.3v
Memory voltage: 2.1v
SPP voltage: 1.4v
MCP voltage: 1.6v
SPP-MCP voltage: 1.45v

450Mhz FSB using a 8x CPU multi

CPU:1.475
FSB: 1.4v
Vmem: 2.1v
SPP: 1.5v
MCP: 1.65v
SPP-MCP: 1.55v

For everyday use fsb 1100 x 12 multi. = 3300
best combination of speed verses temp.
Settings apply only to my Evga 680i running memory unlinked

SwampThing

Cheers - I'll give it a go when I pop in the Tuniq