Building a new machine

Gaz

Right, so im thinking of going all out and building a kick ass new system, looking for some advice from you guys in the know as to what hardware I should get.

Im thinking of a P4 3.6 ghz cpu , what mother board would you recommend ?
Also thinking of a gig of ram , what is the best type ? DDR what ? And how will i check if its compatiable with the mainboard.
And if you could recommend a video card also ...thanks.
Looking to spend a couple of grand , so id like the best stuff possible.

Mucho gracias !

SpooN_9k

whats the new rig going to be used for....?

Archytas

Yeah if its gaming... drop the P4..... And bump it up to 2gb Ram... Might as well if ur spendin so much....

And futureproof as much as possible... Well its not really possible as whatever u buy now will be past-it in 2 years....

Gaz

Its going to be used for a bit of everything really , gaming , vid capture , multimedia (dvd/mp3 etc)

Archytas

Well then you've got to decide whats more important... your vid capture dvd stuff or the gaming....

AMD seems to lag behind in the video encoding for some reason... Im going on bout the cpu cos everything u choose after it depends on it....

Here's a link to a P4 AMD comparison....
http://www.digital-daily.com/cpu/athlon64fx-p4ee/index03.htm

Its not very good.. I'll post better ones later but It gives ya an idea of what its all about?

Archytas

Now I have to say that taking my advise is probably wrong. I only offer it because recently I've had to do all this research myself the past while... I'm building a new machine myself and am just awaiting delivery of my new CPU.... I built backwards but always knowing what my plan was... I have a beautiful mobo and Slot loading DVD drive(Makeshift Modded Bay but Im looking for a more perm one?) and dual SATA harddrives, 400euro Graphics Card(6800GT), etc....

So my opinion is exactly that.. An opinion..... Please make sure that you've got the advice of more experienced members than myself!

Gaz

Ok so i have a rough idea of what im after , how does this sound ...


Case
Aspire X-Navigator Aluminum (this one)

CPU
Intel Pentium 4 560J 3.6 GHz Boxed Socket LGA775, 1MB cache

Motherboard
Asus P5AD2-E Premium Mainboard S775 I925XE,SATA,ATX,Dual-GbLAN,DDR2,PCI-Ex16

Memory
Corsair XMS2 5400 DDR2, 1024MB PC5400 64Meg x 8, CAS 4-4-4-12, 667MHz, 240pin

PSU
Thermaltake Silent Purepower 560W Powersupply, Black

HDD
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM

Sound
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum PCI Soundcard w/1394,THX,DD EX7.1

Video
Sapphire Radeon X800SE 256MB GDDR3 AGP,ATI X800SE,DVI-I,TV-Out

DVD
Sony DVD recorder Dual Layer DRU710A

Watercooling
Coolermaster Aquagate (Liquid Cooling) (from peats)

SpooN_9k

you will want to change ur graphics as uv picked out an AGP one...you want PCI-Express to go with ur mobo

nice case (im awaiting delivery on the black version of it)

Nukem

First off where are ye buying those cases from. Sweet as a nut they are.

Also on the mobo front check asus,that has a cracking built in soundcard. Might save some cash so you might buy a x800xl what a card.

Gaz

UK site http://www.xcase.co.uk will have that case available in the near future , would build in sound be as good though ? I want the system to be a gaming pc but also a media theather ...7.1 and all that.

Also , i'll change the video for PowerColor Radeon X800XL 256MB PCI-E PCI Express, GDDR3, VIVO/2xDVI , is there any loss in PCI-express over AGP ?

TacT

I recommend a different psu. Something nice and beefy like an OCZ modstream? Fortron 550W, an Enermax noisetaker or even a Tagan 480W would be stronger than the TT psu, they're all watts and no amps. That card will be nice, don't bother thinking about it being different, just think of it as a graphics card and that's a damn nice one.

SpooN_9k

Darth Homer wrote:

UK site http://www.xcase.co.uk will have that case available in the near future

be aware that xcase will be selling a lower model then the one you showed us (from what i can make out in the pictures anyway) which is why im getting mine from newegg in the States, or at least somebody i asked is shipping it to me

Archytas

Darth Homer wrote:

Also , i'll change the video for PowerColor Radeon X800XL 256MB PCI-E PCI Express, GDDR3, VIVO/2xDVI , is there any loss in PCI-express over AGP ?

PCI-express and AGP are different slots... But PCI-express is supposed to be faster and cheaper... PCI-express has a greater bandwidth to mobo and thus to ram and CPU... Dont know much bout it tho... spent 400euro on my AGP 6800GT bout 2 months ago. Can throw any game at it....

padraigf

That graphics card is a lemon, watch out for it. It stands out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the PC. My friend has it and it's comparable to a 9800 Pro/ XT.
For such a high end machine you really should go for a 6800GT/Ultra or a x800 pro/XT. Otherwise you'll definately be disappointed with your gaming performance

SpooN_9k

btw if this is going to be a gaming machine then id change your chip and jump on the AMD Athlon 64 bandwagon if i was you :cool:

Nukem

Darth Homer wrote:

http://www.xcase.co.uk

LOL i havent looked in xcase in ages and recommend it to load of people alll the time. Silly me/.

Also if anything PCI-E has a slight increase in performance (slight)

Gaz

Do you really think 64bit AMD is the way to go ?

Thordon

Generally AMD64 is the way to go, even if your machine will be doing a lot of encoding, its not like you have to be at the PC while its encoding, the same is not true for gaming.

A high end intel or amd will both meet your needs, but AMD is a bit better at gaming and Intel is a bit better at encoding, your choice.

TacT

Thordon wrote:

Generally AMD64 is the way to go, even if your machine will be doing a lot of encoding, its not like you have to be at the PC while its encoding, the same is not true for gaming.

A high end intel or amd will both meet your needs, but AMD is a bit better at gaming and Intel is a bit better at encoding, your choice.

Then again, what about the difference in speed when overclocked
If you're into your games get an A64.

Gaz

Would AMD64 still be better even though it would be at least 1-1.2ghz slower than the P4 ?

SpooN_9k

Darth Homer wrote:

Would AMD64 still be better even though it would be at least 1-1.2ghz slower than the P4 ?

in terms of gaming performance then yes it would be...

check out this, it shows the difference between AMD and Intel when playing HL2....the results are quite impressive :eek:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2330

Archytas

comparing GHz in AMD and Intel is wrong on so many levels....

Azza

Intel is only faster in mutitasking and video encoding AMD 64 is faster everywhere else. The inclusion of the SSE3 instruction set will further help AMD negate any advantages Intel is still clinging onto. That is due on the Winchester Core E revision which should make it faster than any of the other AMD 64 chips.

The reason why AMD 64 is faster than Intel despite being 1200mhz slower (taking the FX 55 at 2.6Ghz and the Intel 3.8Ghz as the highest clocked cpus) is the pipelines the cpu use. In a longer pipeline, executed data often has to be thrown out and reprocessed, and it takes more clock cycles to refill with data when that happens. Data has to be purged from a pipeline because modern CPUs are many times faster than the system memory that sends the data to them, so processors just guess which pieces of data will be sent next.

This process of guessing data is a complicated practice called branch prediction. The Pentium 4’s 20-stage pipeline allows the chip to hit very high frequencies, but it also results in a higher performance penalty when a missed prediction occurs.

The Athlon 64 features a 12-stage pipeline, and so suffers less of a performance hit when it predicts incorrectly, because there isn’t as much data in the pipeline to recompile. In addition, a shorter pipeline can often execute more instructions per clock cycle, since data doesn’t have to pass through so many stages before being fully executed.

AMD 64 is also 64bit which is a small bonus. It supports more ram and has Increased registers (64 compared to 32) allows the processor to cache more data where the execution units can access it immediately; this translates in to a reduced number of LOADs and STOREs, which means less memory subsystem traffic, less waiting for data to load, etc.
More registers also give the compiler or programmer more flexibility to schedule instructions so that dependencies are reduced and pipeline bubbles are kept to a minimum.

Did I mention the onboard memory controller which reduces latency time 60-70ms compared to Intels latency of 130ms.

Oh and the processor completely rocks at games.

Gaz

Right then AMD will perform better in games , but then i cant get a DDR2 motherboard , is that correct ? Those that matter ?

Gaz

How does this board sound then ...

MSI K8N Diamond Mainboard S939,SLI nForce4 SLI,6xSATA2,Creative Live!24bit (here)

Nukem

DD2 isnt on the 939 mobos (YET) and not that much difference in tests.Tiny gain but not ground breaking - just google it.


Also getin a SLi mobo with an ATI card seems a bit of a waste. Its up to you tho, would go nVidia if i could with that mobo.

Venom

Personaly my next upgrade is going to be AMD. Im going FX55, DFI SLI mobo and 1 6800GT to get me going. The rest of my current specs are top notch so wont need to upgrade there.

Im just gonna hold off for the time being to see how the mob SLI market shapes up

Nukem

Venom wrote:

Im going FX55

Must have cash to burn.:p As soon as i claim back my tax i am hoping for a 3500+ and x800xl

Venom wrote:

Im just gonna hold off for the time being to see how the mob SLI market shapes up

Heard loads of ups and downs about the SLi - as you said time will tell.

Venom

It seems that the biggest issue with SLI performance is the profiles needed to run a game in dual card or single card mode. nVidia need to get in gear and start releasing profiles and an easy to use way of importing these profiles into the driver settings/options so SLI kicks in for all games and not just a few select ones. I have read that they working on this big time and also on allowing users to set up there own profiles.

Nukem

Venom wrote:

I have read that they working on this big time and also on allowing users to set up there own profiles.

Should have been there in the first place IMO
Then people do the work for them - just google the SLi setting for the game and bang you have loads of what people reckoned is the best.

Snowbat

Azza wrote:

Intel is only faster in mutitasking and video encoding

Not true for video encoding when AMD64 runs 64 bit Linux - check the mencoder graph half way down this page:
http://www.linuxhardware.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/19/1654258&mode=nocomment