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Configuring PC from hardwareversand.de - advice needed
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13-03-2009 1:51pmHi,
I want to replace my current desktop PC as it is 6/7 years old. I have been putting it off for about a year but the time has come to finally get around to it!
I am basically looking for an entire machine, the only parts I won't be replacing will be the keyboard,mouse, spaekers and monitor. I'm not too pushed about price as long as what I am getting would be considered reasonable value compared to what is available at the moment.
I have absolutely no interest in overclocking, I am much more interested in reliability so would be willing to sacrifice some performance for a slightly lower spec part that would be less likely to have any problems.
Looking through various threads in this forum hardwareversand seems to be a popular choice so I have configured a PC and wonder if people could advise on specific parts as I really have no idea what to buy. I have selected the following half by looking through the gaming machine thread and half by pure guesswork.Article-No. Article Availability Delivery price HV20Q965DE Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 BOX, 775 incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 306,94 € HV1127MSDE MSI P7N SLI-FI Sockel 775 nForce750i SLI, ATX incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 104,89 € HV20OC96DE 4096MB-Kit OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper, CL5 incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 58,13 € HV203SF3DE Superflower SF566-BK, ATX, ohne Netzteil incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 45,79 € HVR650CTDE Corsair TX650W 650 Watt incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 89,08 € HV1025FSDE Laufwerk 1.44 MB,3.5" silber incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch (only 1 article) 7,50 € HV1023UADE ASUS EN9800GTX+/HTDI/512M, 512MB ,NVIDIA 9800GTX+, PCI-Express incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 167,99 € HV1023UADE ASUS EN9800GTX+/HTDI/512M, 512MB ,NVIDIA 9800GTX+, PCI-Express incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 167,99 € HV13WCG1DE WD Caviar GP 1TB WD10EACS SATA II WD10EACS incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 88,70 € HV206LD6DE LG DH16NS schwarz bare SATA II incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 13,62 € HV207SFSDE Samsung SH-223F bare schwarz incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 25,55 € HV23CXXADE Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Audio incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 55,51 € HV25NP11DE NETGEAR FA311 - Netzwerkkarte incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch (only 1 article) 9,16 € HV25S505DE Sansun SN-505M Headset mit Mikrofon incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 6,44 € Sum: 1.147,29 € 2) 1.147,29 €
A number of particular questions:
1. Are all these parts even compatable? It's quite possible they are not as I have added together parts from a number of different builds I have seen on here.
2. The main items of interest I presume are the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Will the three chosen above play the most recent games reasonably well? I don't mind spending slightly more or less depending on what people might suggest.
3. I currently use Windows XP home, would I need to switch to 64 bit XP to get proper use out of the above.
4. Definitely looking for a tower case, can anyone suggest a better alternative to the one selected above?
Appreciate any advice anyone might have, Thanks!Tagged:0
Comments
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Join Date:Posts: 18154
First problem: Reliability issues with overclocking are a drop in the ocean compared to issues with CrossFire. Which is nothing compared to issues with overvolted PC8500 RAM, especially offering from OCZ. And that's stable in comparison to the issues you'll have with SLi. Guess which two you've gone for?If you want stability get a bigger, stronger single card, or at the most a dual-GPU card, not two midrange nVidia cards straight up, that's begging for trouble and forces you to use the nForce platform, which isn't the best for heat or reliability.
What are you intending to do with this rig other than games? If you're not going to be playing GTA IV or doing heavy applications/multimedia that quad is merry overkill - the third and fourth cores won't be utilised by games or other non-massively-multithreaded applications. You could switch to a E8600 instead, save money and get better performance when you need it. If you like GTA IV though, you'll need at least a tri-core to avoid getting a CPU bottleneck even using one 9800GTX! Getting a decent AM2+ mobo and a X4-940BE should give you just as much performace as the Q9650 for less. Or if you do downsize the CPU you could get an AM3 mobo and an X3-720BE - there's not that big a difference between DDR2 and DDR3 prices anymore even without counting performance gains. I know you don't want to overclock, but those two BE (Black Edition) CPUs can be overclocked by increasing their multiplier, so they can be tweaked for a little more speed a lot easier than any Intel processor under €900If you rethink the OC business (for the CPU only) the BEs are very noob- and maintenance-friendly. But even without OC you might want a better CPU cooler than stock...
Two 9800GTX is an odd choice - why not a single GTX260+ or even a cheap GTX280 (if you find a good deal)? That means you could plump for an Intel/AMD mobo while ditching the many problems associated with SLi. If you don't want to overclock your CPU you sure as hell won't enjoy the epic fiddling needed to maintain an SLi rig - it sure ain't plug and play.
I wouldn't recommend XP64 to anyone. If you can, live with the lost RAM and stick with XP until Windows 7 64bit hits retail. If you can't (or need a new OS license) get Vista 64.
Your headset probably sucks. Your sound card certainly does. You could get a cheapie Audigy ZS and use modded drivers to get the same features (as a Live 64, ZS and X-Audio are all identical! And all suck.) for a lot less. If you don't need those feautures, chuck it and live with onboard audio. If you actually want good sound you're looking at getting at least an XtremeMusic, or possibly an XtremeGamer. And those cost a fair bit.
Why are you getting that LAN adapter? All modern mobos have 10/100 LAN built in (most have Gigabit Ethernet nowadays!) And do you actually need a floppy drive?! Card readers are usually more common nowadays (why the hell lug bulky 1.44MB plastic wafers when you can fit 2-32GB on the tip of your finger? :P) Can't you steal one from an old comp if you actually need one??
Cases can be subjective, but I can say that SFC knock-off is pretty sucky. A cheaper Coolermaster would beat it to death in terms of cooling, looks and build quality.0 -
Wow thanks for all the suggestions Solitaire, really appreciate it!
The PC would be for a bit of everything rather than specifically a gaming machine. I don't do any image or video processing so I'm sure the only thing that might utilize the specs would be newer games. My current PC is a P4 1.8GHz with a geforce3 ti200 so whatever PC I buy now will be a step up to say the least!
I have had another go at configuring as follows:Article-No. Article Availability Delivery price HV20E860DE Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 243,54 € HV1122MBDE MSI P45 Neo2-FR, Intel P45, ATX incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 113,36 € HV20D896DE 4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X DHX CL5, PC6400/800 incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 43,29 € HV203FAVDE Coolermaster Centurion 590, ohne Netzteil schwarz incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 64,24 € HVR570CTDE Corsair TX750W 750 Watt incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 107,65 € HV1025DHDE Club3D GTX285, 1024MB DDR3, PCI-Express incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 329,09 € HV13103SDE Samsung HD103UJ 1TB 32MB SATA II incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 90,59 € HV207SQSDE Samsung SH-223Q bare schwarz lightscribe incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 23,28 € HV25S505DE Sansun SN-505M Headset mit Mikrofon incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 6,42 € HVZPCDE Rechner - Zusammenbau incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 20,00 € Sum: 1.041,46 €
Haven't bothered with a floppy drive as I can indeed take one out of an old machine if I ever need one. Have also taken out the network card and soundcard as they aren't needed.
I have switched to an E8600 as you suggested and corsair RAM. There were lots of Corsair RAM options, is the above a good choice?. They don't have GTX280s in stock currently so I picked a 285, I assume there isn't much of a difference?
Copied the motherboard from the following post as it seems like a fairly similar build: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59191411&postcount=16
The headset is only for a very occasional Skype call so doesn't matter if it is crap. This is all new to me so are there any glaringly obvious changes or improvements anyone could suggest?
Thanks in advance0 -
Join Date:Posts: 18154
Hmm... Retard-head over here only just checked the E8600 prices and didn't know they were carrying that much of a premium still. D'oh. ~€250 is a bit much for a non-Extreme Edition dual-coreYou could stick with it or drop to a E8500 (3.16GHz x 2) which remains under €175. By comparison the slower (2.8GHz x 3) AMD X3-720BE costs under €135 and that third core comes in real handy if you get stuck with something that does need a bit more horsepower than two processing cores can provide alone. With gaming there are an increasing number of titles that can use the third core but only one game so far chokes on any less than that. Your choice.
Not really important to you but I noticed that the X4-940BE is now a full €100 cheaper than the Q9650 (both 3GHz quads, although the Intel chip is stronger). Interesting...
Memory-wise that Corsair looks like good value. PC6400 does have the strength of working "out of the box" most of the time, PC8500 usually requires tweaking and overvolting (because its really overvolted PC6400 - sneaky!)
Mobo is a good 'un if you go the C2D route.
GTX285 is a monster. 'Nuff said. What size monitor are we taliing about here though? Unless its native resolution is 1900x1200 that card almost borders on (very expensive) overkillKills me that the Club GTX260++ and the HD4850X2 are both out of stock, but there are some reliability issues with the latter so maybe its best left alone. BEAR IN MIND that an Intel mobo can't support SLi, so if you did go multicard in future (if) it'd have to be ATi cards.
PSU: Oh dear. We've entered the land of merry overkill here. 650W would be too much. 750W is just barmy. If you're only going to be using one GTX and have a 65W or 95W CPU then that thing is completely unneccessary. Go for a decent 550W etc. Go for either the Earthwatts 650W or the Corsair VX550, both are top-notch PSUs, and there isn't that much competition (if there had been a 550W Earthwatts for a lot less it would have been easy but life's never that simple...)
Case: Okay... that's a big change from your first choice... The downside is that it only comes with one combobay and two fans (for a total of 3)... and do you really need a possible eight fans? Nice case but there could be better in that price range. Antec Three Hundred is a good alternative - why did it have to be sold out?! :mad: The Coolermaster Elite 330 is also a known pedigree for quality budget cases (€30-40!) although it lacks the mad amount of fans.
Get back to me about your monitor - that graphics card may almost be a waste of money if it isn't cutting edge as well.0 -
have to agree big time with sol, but i disagree slightly with the 8500 ocz ram being so un-reliable. i have 8gb ddr2 and find it perfect for oc. running @ 3 3 3 and never gave an ounce of trouble. maybe its just luck, fingers crossed.0
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Join Date:Posts: 18154
RoyalMarineComm wrote:i have 8gb ddr2 and find it perfect for oc. running @ 3 3 3 and never gave an ounce of trouble. maybe its just luck, fingers crossed.
CL3?! What speed/voltage?! And what part number?? I know that OCZ is having tons of trouble with recent batches of DDR2 Platinum and Reaper (especially ones rated for speeds above 800MHz), I bought a 4GB Platinum kit just before I found out and lo and behold it won't run at rated despite chipset tweaking. I also noticed that data on the Platinum is all over the place, OCZ claims you should need no more than 2.0V or at worst 2.05V but the rated part voltage has risen from 2.1V to 2.15V and now 2.2V, at which I can barely keep mine stable. Then again that's nowhere near the worst - I've seen Reaper that needs a whopping 2.4V just to stay at CL4... at 800MHz. My old Team Elite could do that at 1.9V... and that's an old PC5300 part! The OCZ foums seem to continue the trend of fail as well (soooo many people screaming for RMA).
That said, I haven't seen as much anger directed at their branded modules (SLI, Fata1ity etc.) or older sets and have had good experiences with Fata1ity myself. It just looks like OCZ had such a meh shipment of PC6400 they saved the high-binned sets for the branded kits and left the mainstream kits with the slightly duddy ones :rolleyes: Its not like we're talking about "Crucial's Amazing Detonating RAM" here (that's why many are nervous of RAM with a voltage requirement increasing with every batch), just modules that aren't quite hitting their rated speeds (technically a fail and RMA issue but the problem is so minor most people just can't be bothered). The issue is sixpack doesn't want to be messing around with OCing and although most MSI boards can read EPP (even Intel ones!) profiles for PC8500 you'd still need to up the voltage manually and messing with slightly-dodgy RAM would drive him bonkers0 -
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Thanks again for all the advice.
I have revised it again taking into account some of what was said above, hopefully I am getting closer to a sensible build now.Article-No. Article Availability Delivery price HV20E850DE Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 174,47 € HV1127MSDE MSI P7N SLI-FI Sockel 775 nForce750i SLI, ATX incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 104,89 € HV20EP96DE 4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X CL5, PC6400/800 incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 33,55 € HV203KA9DE Antec Nine Hundred, ATX, ohne Netzteil incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch (only 1 article) 101,61 € HVR550CSDE Corsair VX550W 550 Watt incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 75,42 € HV1023ESDE EVGA e-Geforce GTX 260 SC "Superclocked" 55nm, 896MB, PCI-Express incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 245,26 € HV13WCG1DE WD Caviar GP 1TB WD10EACS SATA II WD10EACS incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 91,23 € HV207SQSDE Samsung SH-223Q bare schwarz lightscribe incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 23,28 € HV25S505DE Sansun SN-505M Headset mit Mikrofon incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 6,42 € HVZPCDE Rechner - Zusammenbau incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 20,00 € Sum: 876,13 €
With the previous two selections when a suggested part wasn't available I was automatically tending to go for the next one up rather than down. Have changed that this time so the price has dropped once again which certainly doesn't hurt.
My current monitor is a fairly low quality Samsung 21" LCD so the GTX285 would probably be wasted, have dropped this down a currently available GTX260.
Have also dropped down a level to the E8500 as the price difference to the E8600 probably isn't warranted for what I want/need.
Changed the memory to PC6400 as working "out of the box" is what I'm looking for, definitely don't want to go down the road of messing with voltage tweaking. Not my idea of entertainment!
I will be wanting to add in 2 IDE HDDs and an IDE DVD writer drive that I already have to the SATA HDD and SATA DVD writer drive I'm buying so I will need a reasonably large case. The Antec 300 would have been my choice as I have seen it chosen in a number of builds on here but alas its not available. Would the Antec 900 be overkill again?0 -
Join Date:Posts: 18154
My current monitor is a fairly low quality Samsung 21" LCD
Yeah, but is it 1680x1050 or 1900x1200? That's the biggest problem as LCD screens don't like being run at lower-than-native resolutionIts probably the former and a stock HD4870 1GB or GTX260 can run very high settings quite happily. If it is the latter then you might need the GTX285 if you insist on very high quality settings, or live with a slight reduction in the AA department
As for your current choice? There isn't really that much difference in terms of performance or power uasge between 55nm and 65nm GTX260+ or the HD4870 1GB but the OCd version you picked may have enough of a boost to just pull ahead of a stock HD4870, especially if the monitor does run at 1900x1200. A stock HD4870, however, can be had for under €190, while all the cheaper GTX260+ are out of stockAvoid the bog-standard GTX260, there seems to be a few floating around there a fair bit cheaper than the GTX260+ but they're inferior to even a HD4870.
What's up with the sudden change in mobo? In any case you'll be stuck looking for a model with dual IDE if you want to run three IDE drives, and I don't think that's very common nowadays
Case is nice, a bit pricey but its quality. Shame HWVS don't seem to have the revised version of the 900 yet. Good news is that the 900 should come with two combobays as standard plus the top and rear fans, so you'll be well kitted out and as those are pretty decent fans you shouldn't have to buy replacements straight off the bat0 -
Thanks again for all the help Solitaire.
Current monitor is a Samsung 205BW, resolution is 1680x1050.
I hadn't actually meant to change the motherboard, oops. Should still be an MSI P45 Neo2-FR, Intel P45, ATX though I only picked it as I saw it in someone else's build list.
I can always just not bother with the old IDE DVD writer or only connect up one of my IDE HDDs at a time so not begin able to run 3 IDE drives isn't an issue.
At 1680x1050 would I notice much difference between the Powercolor HD4870 PCS+1024MB GDDR5, PCI-Express @ €212 and the EVGA e-Geforce GTX 260 SC "Superclocked" 55nm, 896MB @ €245?
Noob question alert: I notice the connectors on these cards looks different to the 'regular' DVI connectors I would be used to seeing as on the right in the attached pic. My monitor came with a spare cable to attach to the connector on the left in the pic. Will this be compatible with all the graphics cards mentioned so far?0 -
Join Date:Posts: 18154
In spite of its name the PCS+ isn't overclocked, it just has a fancy cooler. At a €25 premium. And a stock HD4870 will lag behind an overclocked GTX260+ a little - at stock speeds they match up pretty well. Its nothing more than whether you want to spend the extra €60 on a slightly faster card.
And the connector on the right isn't DVI, its VGA. DVI is the long white connector on the left, and yes you will need a DVI-D cable to attach the graphic card to the monitor's DVI port. Virtually all graphics cards come with a DVI-VGA dongle but if you got a DVI cable with the monitor it'll certainly work with any DVI port on a praphics card - more usually the problem is the monitor doesn't have any holes for the four analog pins on a "normal" DVI(-I) cable.0 -
Cheers for all the help Solitaire, very much appreciated.
I've decided to go with the GTX260+ since I probably won't upgrade or buy again for a few years, assuming all goes well with it anyway! Just in case anyone is looking for a similar build in future the list is as follows:Article-No. Article Availability Delivery price HV20E850DE Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Box 6144Kb, LGA775, 64bit incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 174,47 € HV1122MBDE MSI P45 Neo2-FR, Intel P45, ATX incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 113,36 € HV20EP96DE 4096MB DDR2 Corsair Twin2X CL5, PC6400/800 incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 33,55 € HV203KA9DE Antec Nine Hundred, ATX, ohne Netzteil incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch (discontinued line) 101,61 € HVR550CSDE Corsair VX550W 550 Watt incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 75,42 € HV1023ESDE EVGA e-Geforce GTX 260 SC "Superclocked" 55nm, 896MB, PCI-Express incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 245,26 € HV13WCG1DE WD Caviar GP 1TB WD10EACS SATA II WD10EACS incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 91,23 € HV207SQSDE Samsung SH-223Q bare schwarz lightscribe incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 23,28 € HV25S505DE Sansun SN-505M Headset mit Mikrofon incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 6,42 € HVZPCDE Rechner - Zusammenbau incl. VAT and excl. shipping costs ready for dispatch 20,00 € Sum: 884,60 €
Now I just need to wait to transfer the money from Rabodirect to AIB and then on to Hardwareversand as Rabo don't seem to have any option to transfer internationally. Bit of an awkward payment system but certainly worth it for the price savings.
PS. If I ever meet anyone named Solitaire I will definitely be buying them a pint!0 -
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yep me too!! solitair has always great advice, well appricated!!0
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