Which quad?

Frederico

I am taking the prices from hardwareversand.de

My initial idea was to try and build a PC for about 600, well have these guys build it for me, a Quad, with 1TB and good graphics for every day use, speed and gaming. I am not obessed with ultra high quality but I would like it to be able to run new games decently..

I know 600 is a bit of a tight budget, but if I go any higher I might aswell go with i920 etc.

I know the core2duos might be a little better for certain things but I would just like to have a quad..

The chip I am looking at is the q6700, is it better than the q8300?
Theres an AMD ph 2 x4 940 for almost the same price.. would it be better perhaps?

Maybe should I try to squeeze a 9550 / new amd x4 955 or is the performance increase not that much to justify an extra 50 euros out of the budget for the chip..

Also how about graphics? the bigger cards on HWV seem to require a huge power supply.. what would be good to fit into the 600 budget

I'd need 4 gig ram and 1 tb drive, i am not obsessed with overclocking but may tinker much later on just to extend the life of the pc


thanks

Blazer

Go with the Q8300.
It's newer tech and built on 45nm so comsumes less power and runs cooler.
Plus the FSB is 1333mhz as opposed to 1066 for the q6700.
Those Q6700 do run very hot and need a top end cooler whereby you'll get by with a midrange cooler for the Q8300.

**UPDATE: However instead of the Q8300 go for the Q9400.
For €16 more on komplett it's faster than the Q9300 (about 160mhz) and has 6meg of L2 cache as opposed to the 4meg on the Q8300.

The AMD cpu is a good proc as well.
It's about the same as the mid-range Intel Core 2 Quads but cheaper.
Together with the board/cpu and ram you'll save a few euro going the AMD route.

As for video why not pick up a 2nd hand card here on adverts?
Seeing some great bargains there for ATI 4870's, GTX260s etc all of which would keep you going a few years.

nice deal here by Terrorfirmer..

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=126708&cat=8


Word of warning: Do not get a cheap PSU...this will cause you lots of issues in the long term.

I suggest the Corsair model below.
Extremely reliable, plenty of power and about €70.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=340676

Gonzales24

dont go with the amd phenoms1, there low performance and high power consuption, getting very hot. even phenom 2 arent the best.
when u start new, go for the inetl quads. very good OC potencial.
Q6600 is an oldtimer, but a very good one in OC. easely OC to 3.7GHZ even saw 4.1GHZ on some rigs but thats whit water cooling.
Q8300 can do easy 3.3Ghz
other good once with good oc
Q9300 from 2.5Ghz to 3.3Ghz
Q9450 from 2.66 to 3.12
Q9550 from 2.83 to 3.3
but from the oldys the best is Q9650 u can put out an lovely 3.96Ghz its a yorkfield, so less power consumption then the older Q6600.
with a MUGEN2 cpu cooler, u cant go wrong..
when u go with ATI go for a HD4870 1GB, 512MB wouldnt be good enough.
get a good case like the ANTEC 900-2 or 1200(my favorite)
PSU good one(dont save on a PSU) regret it later, corsair, antec, get ureself a 850watt. u will see later when upgrading why.
do not go with cheap SLI or CrossFir rather get one good one.

Frederico

thanks for the replies

just to note..
the machine will run at stock for most of its life, thats why I want to choose the chip more for its current power than its overclocking potential

Also I am not in ireland so I can't buy adverts

I'd like to try and do the whole machine from hardwareversand and get it built by them

If I go for the 9300 or 9400 its best just to skip up to the 9550 on hws because of the price diff
Is the 9550 worth the 50 euro price different over the q6700, whats the performance increase?
What kinda board and power supply can I fit into that 600 euro budget?

If the 9550 is worth it I could stretch to 650e

I'm just not doing some heavy encoding or any of that, just normal use, internet and gaming, so perhaps the suggestion of a cheaper board and multicore amd proc, I mean someone here said that games don't really care if a chip is much about 2.5 ghz

thanks

marco_polo

Frederico wrote: »

thanks for the replies

just to note..
the machine will run at stock for most of its life, thats why I want to choose the chip more for its current power than its overclocking potential

Also I am not in ireland so I can't buy adverts

I'd like to try and do the whole machine from hardwareversand and get it built by them

If I go for the 9300 or 9400 its best just to skip up to the 9550 on hws because of the price diff
Is the 9550 worth the 50 euro price different over the q6700, whats the performance increase?
What kinda board and power supply can I fit into that 600 euro budget?

If the 9550 is worth it I could stretch to 650e

I'm just not doing some heavy encoding or any of that, just normal use, internet and gaming, so perhaps the suggestion of a cheaper board and multicore amd proc, I mean someone here said that games don't really care if a chip is much about 2.5 ghz

thanks

Some passmark cpu benchmarks here, should give you an idea of the relative strengths of the major quads:

I would think that any decent quad and at least a GTX 260 / HD 4870 and with a good brand 550-650 W psu (depending on exactly what card you choose) you are laughing for a good few years.


http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Blazer

The 9550 is definitely worth it over the Q6700.
Hell in 3 months alone you'll probably save back the extra cost on electricity costs alone.
And the Q9xxx series are amazing overclockers..easily hitting 4ghz on air cooling.

Frederico

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

The 9550 is definitely worth it over the Q6700.
Hell in 3 months alone you'll probably save back the extra cost on electricity costs alone.
And the Q9xxx series are amazing overclockers..easily hitting 4ghz on air cooling.

Thanks for all the replies, I think I will go q9550, however I've done a bit of a u-turn and I think that if I put a Q9550 into a 600 or 650 budget other bits will suffer, so what I'll do is get a q5550 capable board put a 5300 duo on it and spend the rest on one of those small silverstone cases and a really good PSU, then buy the quad later on if the system really needs it

Does anyone have any experience with the v small cases like the silverstones?
(i will only be buying on hardwareversand)

I plan to run a 4870 or 4890 in it, what kinda power supply would i need for those cards?

So the case, 4 gig ram, 1tb hdd, 5300 chip and 4890 with ps should come to about 600 euros

very importantly, can anyone suggest a good matx board that isnt too expensive, maybe about the 70e mark

thanks

Blazer

I wouldn't fancy putting a 4870 or any other high end card into a small case.
Can't imagine the airflow cooling would be that good unless you were spending about €100 on one of the better ones.
Saying that I have the Silverstone TJ09 (huge) and it's a fantastic case.
Silverstone are pretty good.
PSU: Get the Corsair one I said. You'll need that much anyway.


You say you don't want to get the quad because it'll leave you less for the other components.
Yet you're getting the 4890 which means you're cutting back on the CPU and case.
What kind of games do you play? And on what resolution monitor?

Frederico

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

I wouldn't fancy putting a 4870 or any other high end card into a small case.
Can't imagine the airflow cooling would be that good unless you were spending about €100 on one of the better ones.
Saying that I have the Silverstone TJ09 (huge) and it's a fantastic case.
Silverstone are pretty good.
PSU: Get the Corsair one I said. You'll need that much anyway.


You say you don't want to get the quad because it'll leave you less for the other components.
Yet you're getting the 4890 which means you're cutting back on the CPU and case.
What kind of games do you play? And on what resolution monitor?

Ill be using it for starcraft and diablo3, but also be able to have a bash at current games, i want them nice and smooth but am not obsessed with high res's, I have a 22 inch monitor, i just feel the 4850 wont be strong enough really and that if i am gonna get a 4870 or 260 i might aswell go for the 4890 which draws roughly the same power

Basically I believe the 2.5 core2duo proc is enough for now, apparently games don't need much more except for GTA, and it leaves me open to buy a quadcore down the line to upgrade the machine

My only issue is that i want a SMALL case, this is v important for me, small and light

Any suggestions on a small case which can take a 4890 and still stay cool
remember i won't be pushing the gpu to 100% capacity i just like smooth gaming and not big into high res

thanks

uberpixie

Frederico wrote: »

My only issue is that i want a SMALL case, this is v important for me, small and light

Any suggestions on a small case which can take a 4890 and still stay cool
remember i won't be pushing the gpu to 100% capacity i just like smooth gaming and not big into high res

good options in m-atx

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-154-LL

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-122-AN&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=160

You will always have the trade off between cooling performance and the fact the size of a lot of the good m-atx boxes are quite large.

Another option would be a small form factor rig such as a shuttle
e.g. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-100-SH&groupid=701&catid=110&subcat=343

downside to these is non standard PSUs which can be a pain to replace if they pop they also have limited expansion options due to size/number of spar ports etc... I have had a shuttle in the past in socket 939 which served me very well as a gaming rig. They do the job well but have limits.

Also regardless what path you take m-atx or SFF bear in mind the noise generated by these machines will always be louder that a well cooled and padded full tower and you parts will be running at higher temps also.

Solitaire

It depends on the resolution of the screen - not all 22" monitors are 1080p+! If it's a more normal 1650*1080 you should get away with a HD4850, especially if OCd from CCC. Otherwise you should stick to the 1GB HD4870 or the 55nm GTX260. At least.

Q9550 is great, most other 45nm C2Q are pretty cack though, at least compared to the Q6700 :P Also bear in mind that the X4-955BE is a very able competitor, although a bit heavier on the juice.

One VERY important thing to remember is that there aren't any mATX AM3 mobos yet, and most cheaper LGA775 mATX mobos lack most or all OC facilities. For €70 you're not really going to be able to get a mobo with any good OCability so if you want to go C2Q later and still OC it, revise your mobo budget upward or resign yourself to buying a new mobo to boot later. A €70 mobo would barely be able to keep a Q9550 stable at stock! :eek:

Not many compact cases I'd risk sticking a HD4890 into, any with sufficient ventilation would probably hit you full-blast with all the fan noise The Silverstone Sugo is easily one of your best bets, and is quite cheap on HWVS to boot.

Oh, and you don't need that powerful a PSU for this setup either - no CF/SLI and no i7 CPU. A decent brand 450-550W PSU is more than enough so long as it has two PCIe power connectors for the card (get the latter if you intend on going heavy on the overclocking; HD4890s can have a very high OC ceiling if you're lucky and get good silicon!).

Gonzales24

when someone is intrested, im selling my HD 4870 on adverts.ie.

z0oT

Frederico wrote: »

The chip I am looking at is the q6700, is it better than the q8300?
Theres an AMD ph 2 x4 940 for almost the same price.. would it be better perhaps?

Some Food for thought...
While an LGA775 processor is without doubt a solid buy, just bear in mind that intel are discontinuing that platform soon enough. Whereas AMD are continuing their current AM3+ platform right up through 2010, in other words a Phenom II along with somthing like a 790FX motherboard would have a better upgrade path.
Up to you, doesn't make much of a difference which you choose as they're both solid platforms, but you won't be able to readily upgrade the Q9XXX/Q8XXX series as easy as the Phenom platform in the future.

Frederico

Solitaire wrote: »

It depends on the resolution of the screen - not all 22" monitors are 1080p+! If it's a more normal 1650*1080 you should get away with a HD4850, especially if OCd from CCC. Otherwise you should stick to the 1GB HD4870 or the 55nm GTX260. At least.

Q9550 is great, most other 45nm C2Q are pretty cack though, at least compared to the Q6700 :P Also bear in mind that the X4-955BE is a very able competitor, although a bit heavier on the juice.

One VERY important thing to remember is that there aren't any mATX AM3 mobos yet, and most cheaper LGA775 mATX mobos lack most or all OC facilities. For €70 you're not really going to be able to get a mobo with any good OCability so if you want to go C2Q later and still OC it, revise your mobo budget upward or resign yourself to buying a new mobo to boot later. A €70 mobo would barely be able to keep a Q9550 stable at stock! :eek:

Not many compact cases I'd risk sticking a HD4890 into, any with sufficient ventilation would probably hit you full-blast with all the fan noise The Silverstone Sugo is easily one of your best bets, and is quite cheap on HWVS to boot.

Oh, and you don't need that powerful a PSU for this setup either - no CF/SLI and no i7 CPU. A decent brand 450-550W PSU is more than enough so long as it has two PCIe power connectors for the card (get the latter if you intend on going heavy on the overclocking; HD4890s can have a very high OC ceiling if you're lucky and get good silicon!).

Theres a decent little silverstone case with 2 fans which should be okay for airflow, I won't be overclocking

Any idea if I can run a 4890 on a corsair 550 watt?

Also any little trick for speccing a 4890 on hardwareversand in the PC configuator without having to spec a 700 watt power supply


Can any of you guys recommend a good mATX board compatible with q9550 chip for around 70 euro, give or take 10 euro each way, doesnt have to be purely for overclocking, I know nothing about motherboards

marco_polo

Frederico wrote: »

Theres a decent little silverstone case with 2 fans which should be okay for airflow, I won't be overclocking

Any idea if I can run a 4890 on a corsair 550 watt?

Also any little trick for speccing a 4890 on hardwareversand in the PC configuator without having to spec a 700 watt power supply


Can any of you guys recommend a good mATX board compatible with q9550 chip for around 70 euro, give or take 10 euro each way, doesnt have to be purely for overclocking, I know nothing about motherboards

If you are willing to build it yourself then you can put it a 700W PSU in the configurator and then at the end, you will hav an option to split the components in your shopping basket. Get rid of the 700W and select your chosen PSU. I am not sure if it is still possible to get them to build it once you split though, I think they might?

The Corsair 550W will comfortably handle any single graphics card, hardwareversand is a bit ridiculous on the PSU requirements alright, I remember when I was looking around a few months ago it wouldn't let me pair the Corsair TX 650W version with a HD4870.

Frederico

Hey thanks for the reply, yah the PSU thing is a bit of a pain, but I think I'll be ordering this pretty soon..

If anyone wants to try and spec me a machine with a 4890 on HWS, would be great, leave out aside 70 for the PSU, so the budget is 600 euros

I do want a 5300 chip, 4 gig ram, 1 tb hdd and the smallest case possible that wont explode from heat, i can spend a decent bit on the case
As I said I wont be overclocking

Solitaire

Here's an oddball build for ye Synopsis below.



And the whys?

CPU: What you asked for. Decent as is but you really need to OC it just a tiny bit and see what it can do. If you ran it at FSB1066 (266MHz bus) you get the memory running at full speed (at FSB800 its stuck at 800MHz) and a 3.46GHz CPU You may need to boost voltage just a tad to get it stable though. If you don't want to overvolt your mileage may vary and PC8500 memory can't run at full speed. Once you get the Q9550 you won't want or need to OC anyway
Mobo: Not much stock at the moment; I didn't list the MSI G43 as its still a way off coming back into stock. Without it we're stuck with this PoS. Poor chipset, fair sound, we can ignore the cack onboard video (thank God) and the lack of cooling on the CPU VRegs seem to be a dishearteningly widespread issue with mATX LGA775 mobos. You won't want to OC the Q9550 or any 95W TDP CPU very far on this mobo even if you wanted to! (you could probably hit 3GHz though...). Max 4GB of RAM due to the lack of DIMM slots is annoying but expected in a budget mobo.
Memory: PC8500 is cheap as chips right now and as it'll drop down to 800MHz on FSB800 (fastest memory setting on a 200MHz bus) there's no problem with getting it now; if you do end up OCing the E5300 or when you install the Q9550 it'll pop back up to its full 1066MHz speed. Stuck with Corsair as OCZ's last-gen DDR2 chips are a bit flaky
Graphics: Cheapest HD4890; hell, its little more than a cheap 55nm GTX260 which it can eat for breakfast!
HDD: 1GB, cheap, reliable (for a 3/4-platter HDD anyway...) and energy-efficient. Win.
Optical: Threw in a DVD burner as I don't know if you want/need a new one. If not fine, if you need a BluRay then get ready to shell out a few more bucks as they rarely ever appear under €90.
Case: I quite like the Sugo. Its not the coolest or smallest or cheapest mATX case but it's a very strong compromise between the three and has some damn impressive build quality for its price. There's additional active cooling in the vicinity of the HDD cage and graphics card which is pretty rare for this type of case and plenty of ventilation around the sides to expedite the passage of cool air into the case to help the CPU and GPU. You might want to change the 80mm fans above the GPU to intakes given the HD4890 is a card with a cooler that vents the hot air (otherwise those upper exhaust fans are a godsend for budget cards with coolers that leave the hot air in the case!) and see if it changes the temps. The only issue is that there's very little space above the CPU as the PSU overhangs it so you can't fit any tower cooler. The PSU fan may fight the CPU cooler for air a bit, so if you did buy a low-height aftermarket cooler you might want to reverse the fan direction and see if it performs better pointing the opposite direction (toward the PSU).
PSU: Bit cheeky here, the SuperFlower is one of the few budget PSUs that I'd chance my arm with and its half the price of the VX550. Its the minimum you'd get away with, that's for sure. Bear in mind that the Q9550 and the HD4890 together are the bulk of the power requirement in this system and even if Linpack-ing and Furmarking simultaneously you're unlikely to see anywhere near 250W between the two; even gaming it should be under 200W for the two combined. So its unlikely to push the SFC PSU (which has 468W for the 12V rails alone) that hard. The E5300 taxes it even less, even if OCd.

Bear in mind that so long as you don't get an aftermarket cooler the same build with the Q9550 off the bat comes to ~€670 shipped.

Frederico

Solitaire wrote: »

Here's an oddball build for ye Synopsis below.



And the whys?

CPU: What you asked for. Decent as is but you really need to OC it just a tiny bit and see what it can do. If you ran it at FSB1066 (266MHz bus) you get the memory running at full speed (at FSB800 its stuck at 800MHz) and a 3.46GHz CPU You may need to boost voltage just a tad to get it stable though. If you don't want to overvolt your mileage may vary and PC8500 memory can't run at full speed. Once you get the Q9550 you won't want or need to OC anyway
Mobo: Not much stock at the moment; I didn't list the MSI G43 as its still a way off coming back into stock. Without it we're stuck with this PoS. Poor chipset, fair sound, we can ignore the cack onboard video (thank God) and the lack of cooling on the CPU VRegs seem to be a dishearteningly widespread issue with mATX LGA775 mobos. You won't want to OC the Q9550 or any 95W TDP CPU very far on this mobo even if you wanted to! (you could probably hit 3GHz though...). Max 4GB of RAM due to the lack of DIMM slots is annoying but expected in a budget mobo.
Memory: PC8500 is cheap as chips right now and as it'll drop down to 800MHz on FSB800 (fastest memory setting on a 200MHz bus) there's no problem with getting it now; if you do end up OCing the E5300 or when you install the Q9550 it'll pop back up to its full 1066MHz speed. Stuck with Corsair as OCZ's last-gen DDR2 chips are a bit flaky
Graphics: Cheapest HD4890; hell, its little more than a cheap 55nm GTX260 which it can eat for breakfast!
HDD: 1GB, cheap, reliable (for a 3/4-platter HDD anyway...) and energy-efficient. Win.
Optical: Threw in a DVD burner as I don't know if you want/need a new one. If not fine, if you need a BluRay then get ready to shell out a few more bucks as they rarely ever appear under €90.
Case: I quite like the Sugo. Its not the coolest or smallest or cheapest mATX case but it's a very strong compromise between the three and has some damn impressive build quality for its price. There's additional active cooling in the vicinity of the HDD cage and graphics card which is pretty rare for this type of case and plenty of ventilation around the sides to expedite the passage of cool air into the case to help the CPU and GPU. You might want to change the 80mm fans above the GPU to intakes given the HD4890 is a card with a cooler that vents the hot air (otherwise those upper exhaust fans are a godsend for budget cards with coolers that leave the hot air in the case!) and see if it changes the temps. The only issue is that there's very little space above the CPU as the PSU overhangs it so you can't fit any tower cooler. The PSU fan may fight the CPU cooler for air a bit, so if you did buy a low-height aftermarket cooler you might want to reverse the fan direction and see if it performs better pointing the opposite direction (toward the PSU).
PSU: Bit cheeky here, the SuperFlower is one of the few budget PSUs that I'd chance my arm with and its half the price of the VX550. Its the minimum you'd get away with, that's for sure. Bear in mind that the Q9550 and the HD4890 together are the bulk of the power requirement in this system and even if Linpack-ing and Furmarking simultaneously you're unlikely to see anywhere near 250W between the two; even gaming it should be under 200W for the two combined. So its unlikely to push the SFC PSU (which has 468W for the 12V rails alone) that hard. The E5300 taxes it even less, even if OCd.

Bear in mind that so long as you don't get an aftermarket cooler the same build with the Q9550 off the bat comes to ~€670 shipped.

Wow I had almost the exact same build, only diff was a 550 watt corsair, great minds think alike but I think mine was more of a fluke than anything..

Dunno how you specced the 4890 with the 550wt psu though, maybe just cut and paste

I might spend an extra 30 on the mb and just take it with the 9550 for a round figure of 700 delivered, which is still insane value considering it will be still a v good pc, thanks very much

Solitaire

Bear in mind that I don't know how hot the Q9550 gets even at stock speed with the crappy Intel HSF. Then again, the only performance coolers I can think of that'd fit inside the Sugo are orb-type Zalmans or the Scythe Shruiken...

Go for the VX550 if you want the extra peace of mind. Historically SFC isn't that bad an OEM despite the crazy prices; they're no Enermax or Antec but they're no Xilence either (hell, they're probably comparable to Sirtec or FSP, which usually go around with gaudy "OCZ" stickers )

Dunno how you specced the 4890 with the 550wt psu though, maybe just cut and paste

Wha?

Solitaire

Ah, poo.

Just noticed I have the wrong HDD in that basket shot! I was aiming for the Hitachi 1TB. The "real" Samsung one is more expensive; the one up there is a very slow model and is next to the much better Hitachi I meant to put up.

Frederico

Solitaire wrote: »

Bear in mind that I don't know how hot the Q9550 gets even at stock speed with the crappy Intel HSF. Then again, the only performance coolers I can think of that'd fit inside the Sugo are orb-type Zalmans or the Scythe Shruiken...

Go for the VX550 if you want the extra peace of mind. Historically SFC isn't that bad an OEM despite the crazy prices; they're no Enermax or Antec but they're no Xilence either (hell, they're probably comparable to Sirtec or FSP, which usually go around with gaudy "OCZ" stickers )



Wha?

I am using the pc configurator which doesnt allow you to spec a 4890 with a 550 watt psu

I would go with the MSI p45 perhaps and the golden orb cooler which looks small enough

cheers again

Solitaire

I just build the system myself, so I always ignore the PC-Configurator :P

The Asus G43 there is good too, in fact it has one of the best integrated sound chips going. IIRC there isn't much difference between G43 and G45, its the G41 you'd want to avoid if possible (prehistoric ICH7 northbridge, hurts system performance a bit).

Do you have the Golden Orb already? I didn't see it for sale anywhere on HWVS... Unless you're getting it for virtually nothing I wouldn't bother, its nearly five years old and doesn't cool much better than the stock cooler. Its just a wee bit quieter. If you really think the Q9550's stock cooler isn't up to it get the Shruiken, aside from low noise its likely the cheapest ultra-low cooler that'll give much improvement in temps.