couple of new builds - advice

emmerdale

Hi all,

It's been around 14yrs since my last pc build so was hoping to get some advice here. I'm trying to build a couple of pc's.

One for the family - so just general internet, email, etc...
& one for myself - SW development (nothing taxing, mainly embedded stuff), gaming (Eg: COD4 at 1680*1050).

I've been looking at the following components:

Basing both builds around the same motherboard - Asus P5QC and the main differences being

Family build: processor: E5200
Gfx Card: SapphireRadeon HD 4650 - 512 MB
Case: Antec 300
Power Supply: Corsair CX400W
RAM: Corsair Twin2X PC6400 4Gb

Gaming Build: processor: E8400
Gfx Card: Sapphire RADEON HD 4890 OC 1 GB
Case: Antec 900
Power Supply: Corsair HX620W
RAM: same as above

So, questions. Is the 4890 overkill for the gaming build, given the resolution, 1680*1050, I'll be gaming at?
Is the 620W power supply adequate for the gaming build?
Is the RAM compatible/ should I be using better/faster RAM - does it make that much difference?
The Gfx card on the family build - I just picked a cheap card at random, Is there a better alternative for around the same price, 50-60euro.
The cases, if I was to replace the Antec 900 with another 300, would the 4890 still fit comfortably?

Thanks for the help.
Em.

cherryghost

you've got it bang on. maybe a little cheaper gfx card unless its being used intensely for multimedia purposes.

The 4890 is great, not overkill, and 620watts is grand for it. It will fit into the Antec 300 just fine.

Effluo

So, questions. Is the 4890 overkill for the gaming build, given the resolution, 1680*1050, I'll be gaming at?
Is the 620W power supply adequate for the gaming build?
Is the RAM compatible/ should I be using better/faster RAM - does it make that much difference?
The Gfx card on the family build - I just picked a cheap card at random, Is there a better alternative for around the same price, 50-60euro.
The cases, if I was to replace the Antec 900 with another 300, would the 4890 still fit comfortably?

At that resolution a 4850 for under a hundred euro would suffice and a 4870 512mb (e120) would be great too but it's not necessary!

The power supply is borderline overkill and if you were gonna go with the 4850 a corsair 450 watt would be loads(i fink ya?). it's up to you whether you want a modular psu or not. Keep in mind the 4870 requires two pcie power connections so the corsair 650 for 80 euro has 2 pcie power connectors and that would save you 20 on the 620watt.

Ram is fine

In terms of graphics card for the family pc? you might aswell just get a matx board with onboard graphics!
If it's just a pc for general use then there's no need for anything more. If you want to stick with the board just get any 30-35 euro card.

I have an Antec 300 and it is mad how cheap it is! it's so big inside and out!

just looking at the motherboard, it's 94 euro i'd say you're just paying for the ability to use ddr3 ram...
Prob could save a bit here!

Effluo

cherryghost wrote: »

you've got it bang on. maybe a little cheaper gfx card unless its being used intensely for multimedia purposes.

The 4890 is great, not overkill, and 620watts is grand for it. It will fit into the Antec 300 just fine.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/graphics/review/2008/07/19/ATI-HD-4850/p7

It is a bit of overkill considering he could get over 60fps on the 4850...

Solitaire

If you order from HWVS order all the parts together; it should still cost the €30 flat shipping (most other sites will be more expensive as two whole builds equals two cases, two sets of parts and one big p&p charge!) I've split the baskets here for simplicity.

Family PC: Do you need a monitor or anything? Here's a base box:



Without other bits this only comes to €250. 3GHz dual-core CPU, 4GB DDR2, 500GB SATA HDD, onboard graphics and sound capable of most things except gaming (HD movies are no problem ). I've only specced a DVD-ROM, so if the family like burning discs then add €10-15 for a DVD burner instead. Case and PSU are decent brands, not cheap rubbish :P Only other issue is that the mobo might need a BIOS update to recognise those new Athlon2 CPUs.

Now for the real thing



I'll give an extended breakdown here:
CPU: Almost as good as the E8400... until you figure in the third core. Gee, ain't that gonna come in handy the instant you stumble across something multithreaded? And it's a BE part with the unlocked multipler. It's like giving away a 3.2GHz CPU for the price of the 2.8GHz one! Although you could easily push it to (or past) 3.6GHz if so inclined I included an above-average but near-silent cooler to boot, if you do want to crank the speed up a bit.
Mobo: No point in going any higher unless you want RAID5 support or a second graphics card in CrossFire. Otherwise its every bit as good as the €100 models with the oh-so-handy ACC for that BE CPU up there
Memory: AM3 means DDR3, but while that RAM is fast, latency doesn't suffer as bad as, oh, almost any other DDR3 kit :P
Graphics: Okay, I kinda settled for a middle-of-the-road option here. More than enough for almost anything at 1650*1080. I ignored the 512MB version as there is now less than a fiver's difference with the 1GB models, and this one has a nicer cooler to boot. If you really want overkill, the cheapest HD4890 is €25 more. But if you don't want to crank up the settings in Crysis then the HD4850 will happily munch through most games at 1650*1080, and they start at over €40 less than this HD4870...
HDD: Decent 1TB model, 'nuff said.
Case: Okay, I'm being a child, but the new Xiggy is... ooooh! Two low-noise 120mm LED fans included, case window, filters, generally a nice piece of kit. Even if you have to screw in that HD4870 (the PCI/e catches suck. A lot.) Oh, and I threw in a trio of cheapie fans. Why did I do that? Because the Xigmatek case cheekily bundles a fan speed controller that supports three fans. So if the cheapie Xilence fans try to get all buzzy drop their voltage down a notch. That'll show 'em!
PSU: I put a tried-and-trusted unit in here, very good for the money, if plain. The HX620 (or indeed HX-anything) is obscenely expensive almost everywhere. But if you want shiny and modular on a budget there's a 580W Superflower Atlas lurking for a fair bit less than the EA650 or the Corsair VX550. SFC is a fairly okay OEM, nothing awesome but the non-cheapie models aren't lemons either.

EDIT: Forgot the DVD burner (or Blu-Ray if you need one) for the second build. Me sorry

EDIT 2: Didn't know that HWVS already had the non-windowised Midgard. For those who dislike windows, its Alternate Build Time!




EDIT 3: Actually that was dumb. I put the PSU with tons of bling in the build with no case window. Go me! :rolleyes:

emmerdale

Thanks for the replies guys - very helpful.

with regards to my choice of mobo, I had picked that for the gaming build just to have the option of using DDR3 in the future. The reason I have it in there for the family build was just as an insurance policy - if anything went wrong, I'd have a spare board of the same type to use for debugging. I'm having second thoughts though as it turns out I probably don't need that Gfx card in the family build. I guess if I get one with integrated gfx then I can always shove a card in later, if the kids start pc gaming or something:).

The AMD route also looks interesting - I hadn't really considered it before.
Sol, you mentioned that that MSI mobo might need a bios update. Is this easy to do - I've only ever updated the bios from within windows on a few dells. I assume there are facilities within the current bios that allow you to easily do this - like from a usb stick or something.

By the way budget for the 2 builds is 1100 - 1200. No need for monitors, OS - I was just going to stick Win7 on for the moment. So it looks very doable.

Thanks again,
Em

Solitaire

emmerdale wrote:

Sol, you mentioned that that MSI mobo might need a bios update. Is this easy to do - I've only ever updated the bios from within windows on a few dells. I assume there are facilities within the current bios that allow you to easily do this - like from a usb stick or something.

If the mobo isn't old stock it might come with a recent enough BIOS to recognise the X2-245 anyway. Download CPU-Z onto the machine (once built) and see if the system reports the CPU name and stats correctly. If not...

Haven't done this in a while, IIRC the procedure (with MSI) is this:

1. Download the latest BIOS from MSI (in this case K9A2VM-F.V2 7302v15)
2. Download and install the MSIHQ Tool bootmod utility from the MSIHQ forums
3. Use option 4 to format and prepare a USB stick (make sure you choose the right drive letter!) then option 1 and browse to the .zip you dowloaded in the beginning. The Tool will dump it onto the USB stick
4. Once assembled insert the stick and start up the X2-245 rig. Go into the BIOS at startup and from the Advanced BIOS options go into the Boot Sequence and put the USB drive at the top (it needs to be inserted to show up!)
5. Reset the machine and it'll boot into the USB stick and its MSIHQ utility. Choose the option to flash the BIOS update and sit back and relax (unless there's a power cut!)

There are other ways to do it but this is arguably the most reliable and least risky or fiddly method - once you install MSIHQ Tool you just follow the instructions

By the way budget for the 2 builds is 1100 - 1200. No need for monitors, OS - I was just going to stick Win7 on for the moment. So it looks very doable.

And I went and worked with a €900 budget :rolleyes: Guess it's very doable Just get some fancier gubbins if you want to spend the extra €200 - get the HD4890, or better mobos, or the windowed Midgard plus a Superflower Atlas 680W PSU and some CCFLs for it... if you're into glowing lights

marco_polo

Solitaire wrote: »

...
Just get some fancier gubbins if you want to spend the extra €200

Allow me



Mobo + 46, CPU +67 , GPU +87 = wow a freaky 200 exactly, give or take some shrapnel either side

clearz

Effluo wrote: »

In terms of graphics card for the family pc? you might aswell just get a matx board with onboard graphics!
If it's just a pc for general use then there's no need for anything more. If you want to stick with the board just get any 30-35 euro card.

That was my initial thought also but its handy to have some sort of cheap gfx card in the family build for when them cousins/relations call round and you feel like massacring a few noobs over a lan game.

emmerdale

Hi guys, Thanks again all for your suggestions.

I've put in the order on HWVS a few days ago, and it's now on the way. the two builds are pretty much as per Solitaire's 'cept the mobo for the family build is an MSI K9A2GM-FIH - purely 'cos the other one wasn't in stock and I couldn't be arsed waiting. The MSI site says this can take the AthlonIIx2 245 so I think I should be ok - if not, too late now:).

Hopefully the build will go smoothly - looking forward to it.

Cheers
Em.

emmerdale

Hi, I'm having some problems with the second build above. ie: the following components
MSI 770-C45
PhenomIIx3 720BE
OCZ PC3 10666 platinum 4*1Gb
HD Radeon 4890
running Win7 64-bit RC

I finally got this built over the weekend and everything seemed fine, even managed to fit in about an hour of COD4, but today has been a day of random BSODs.

I had been trying some stabilty tests, in between BSODs, and these are failing. Prime95 torture test fails after barely a second, and the calculation test in AMD overdrive fails quickly also. I removed 3 sticks of RAM and everything seemed more stable - Prime95 could run for a couple of hours no problems.

So to me it looks like a RAM problem. I had just left the settings in the bios with everything on Auto, but looking on CPUz I can see that the DRAM voltage is only set to 1.5v, when the RAM is rated at 1.8. Also tRAS is set at 16, when I think it should be set to 20 for this RAM. Could these be the cause of the instability.

Is it safe enough to set just these parameters in the bios and leave everything else on Auto, or do I need to adjust some other settings in addition to these two. Has anyone got any Bios settings for a similar setup that I could safely copy.

Thanks
Em.