Some advice please

JohnK

Right so I've been using laptops for the last couple of years, in fact I'd say its at least about 5 or 6 years since I've really looked at any hardware; basically I'm completely out of the loop as to whats what these days so any advice on what sort of stuff I should be looking at would be appreciated.

First of all, my priorities are it must be silent or as silent as one could reasonably expect. Frankly my last two builds sounded like jet planes about to take off and it used to annoy the crap out of me. Secondly, I need it to run cool; again my last build was getting so hot that taking the side panel off was a regular occurrence which obviously didnt help with the noise aspect. As you might guess from that, I tend to be running fairly intensive applications.

That brings me to the main crux of the matter; it needs a lot of power & ram as I'm always running virtual machines with various server & client OS's on them and I'd need to be able to run 2 at any one time but possibly 3 so you're talking at least one Server 2003/2008 (with coldfusion, sql 2008 etc), either multiple XP's or multiple Windows 7 instances (or any combination really) all on top of the host which will also be Win7 and that'll nearly always be running Photoshop so another memory hog right there. When its not running all those, ideally I'd like it to be a decent gaming system so a good graphics card is also a must and a nice to have would be a bluray drive so I could watch a few movies since my collection seems to be growing quite a bit.

To top it all off, I'd like it to be fairly compact as space is an issue, but not so compact that upgrading or adding a few bits and pieces down the line is out of the question.

On the good news side of things I already have a good dell monitor which I picked up around Christmas 2008 (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055440564) and a licence for Win7 Ultimate thats lying around somewhere (picked up at the win7 launch) and I've got a bunch of 1.5tb harddrives on a shelf gathering dust so I can use one of those too – they might not be the fastest but that shouldnt be too big of an issue. Also I'm not looking for a soundcard or speakers at the moment since I'm happy enough to use onboard sound and have a soundbar under the monitor which should do fine unless theres some specific reason I should go for better. If I'm gaming etc I'll probably end up getting a fancy headset which should cover that side of things.

I'd prefer not to go above the EUR800-1,000 mark which I'd imagine should be doable since I have the monitor, os & hd already.

So any suggestions on what I should be looking at or even where to start? Does it sound realistic or is it all just a pipe-dream?

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.

Icyseanfitz

hmm im not too sure about all thos OS's etc. but id buy a gtx 460 as a gpu and maybe go AMD phenom II x4 955be as cpu find a AM3 socket that youd like (id go for the ASUS crosshair Formula IV but its a bit on the expensive side) 2x2 gigs of ram OCZ have the best value right now, get a corsair 750 W PSU (or however high in W you can go with your budget btw Antec are also a good psu supplier) and maybe get a coolermaster haf 922 (i would suggest a 932 but no place has them in stock which i know damn well as im trying to find one myself but i will be buying the 922)

marco_polo

For lots of VMs I think your best bet would be to base the build around one of the new AMD hexacores CPUS.

Icyseanfitz

ya the AMD x6 processors are very good value as well as having high performance

JohnK

Thanks, I'm looking over a few things now

I'm just wondering though - would the AMD Phenom II X6 3.2ghz Black Edition be worth the extra bit over the AMD Phenom II X6 2.8ghz normal editon? And am I right in saying the black edition bit means I'd need to get my own heatsink while the non-black comes with one?


Price really adds up quickly though, doesnt it :eek:

Icyseanfitz

as far as i know black edition is just like intel's extreme edition in thats what their higher performing cpus are labeled as, and by heat sink do you mean cpu cooler? as they all come with one these days. Personally id go for the non BE x6 as the only real difference is clock speed and you can always overclock

JohnK

Yeah I'd meant the cpu cooler allright, think I read somewhere that the black editions didnt come with them but obviously thats wrong as I've looked at some unboxings and the website itself says it comes with the cooler.

Icyseanfitz

ya BE just means their top range (usually jus higher clock rates) they still come with everything else, i think i know what your talking about though its something like oem edition or something

JohnK

So how does this sound then? Prices are from Komplett with the last 3 from OCUK.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T / 2.8 GHz - HDT55TFBGRBOX			€195.00
Crucial Ballistix - Memory - 6 GB : 3 x 2 GB - BL3KIT25664BN1608	€165.00
Linksys WMP600N Dual-Band PCI - WMP600N-EU				€ 43.00
Cooler Master HAF 922 - RC-922M-KKN1-GP					€ 93.50
LG CH10LS20 Super Multi Blue – CH10LS20.AUAR10B				€ 97.00
Akasa Internal Smart Card Reader – AK-ICR-05				€ 16.00
Asus GeForce GTX 460 1024MB DirectCU GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card	€220.00
Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 800W Power Supply				€156.00
Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX					€200.00

Unfortunately its coming in a bit over budget at approx €1,185.50 and I'd have to pay shipping to get the last 3 items from OCUK so maybe call it €1,250.

Is it worth it or am I paying over the odds? Would I be better off with something else?

Thanks

massy086

[IMG][/img]

much better value and 8 gigs ram your psu and mobo overkikll and overpriced imo total 948 euro,s

JohnK

Thanks massy, that price looks a bit more reasonable

massy086

ye and its the same chipset mobo and gigabit have been making great boards of late so you should fly with that build oh you might need to add a aftermarket cpu coler

JohnK

Does the board really lead things to getting hot enough to warrent a 3rd party cooler?

Icyseanfitz

my own opinion on getting a PSU is you might as well go all out with it as you can use them again in other builds that you will be making, id say you will be grand with that mobo though i just threw in the ASUS as its the best you currently buy for AM3 sockets, also id be careful of using komplett.ie as they have really gone down the dumps of late just check their thread

massy086

JohnK wrote: »

Does the board really lead things to getting hot enough to warrent a 3rd party cooler?

if you plan to overclock the cpu to get the most out of the chip then yes

JohnK

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

... also id be careful of using komplett.ie as they have really gone down the dumps of late just check their thread

Yeah I'd be a bit wary of them but saying that I ordered a few harddrives a couple of weeks back and had no issues so I'm cautiously optimistic.

massy086 wrote: »

if you plan to overclock the cpu to get the most out of the chip then yes

To be honest I dont know if I would be overclocking it. I might give it a go at some point but its not really a priority for me.