Dear Tom's Hardware reader,
Two or so weeks ago i posted on this forum about wanting to build the ultimate value gaming rig. Constraints where simple, i have a laptop with a badass cpu and a gpu that i can't change. It is worth ~ 350 euro's right now. I hardly use the laptop functionality and can muster up about 100 euro's as i am a student and my budget is very limited.
So i spoke with a very helpful person by the name bambiboom in this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2946096/building-secondhand-parts.html
I have since emailed back and forth with him and figured out how to go about this. He told me to look for a complete system and recommended a few to me using the lga 1366 socket. I settled upon the Dell t3500 model and bought a unit with a xeon w3530 processor for just over 150 euro. This was still on the pricey side but other people in my life wanted to pay me to build something similar in the summer so i needed to get my own built before the prices drop to their low point to figure out where i'd inevitably hit a wall.
So fast forward a littlebit, I now have:
Dell t3500 mobo
Dell 550 watt PSU (from t3500 obv)
1tb Seagate ultra slow HDD
250GB Samsung 850 evo SSD (from my laptop, not selling this piece
)
Small but sturdy case
Intel Xeon w3530 + heatsink
things that won't help me:
6gb 667 ddr3 in dual channel so 2x3gb (some people... so dumb...)
Nvidia quadro fx580
DVD drive
Stuff i think i need:
12GB 1066-1333 ddr3 Ram in 3 or 6 pieces
Fancy smancy GPU
Raid card or other with 6Gbit/s sata connectivity
Bunch of case fans + fan controller (you'll know why in a min)
The stuff that won't help me will help me get a good deal on stuff that i do need.
Last few days i've been messaging people frantically about GPU's that they're selling for around 100 euro. (I think i contacted over 100 people) I managed to find the following:
r9 270x 90 euro
r9 280x 150 euro
gtx 650 ti 80 euro
gtx 660 ti 100 euro (maybe 110)
gtx 760 oc 110 euro (maybe 120)
I also found a listing for ECC ddr3 1066 RAM for 5 euro / gb where i can get 12 GB in either 2GB or 4GB strips, as far as i can tell (haven't actually been to the guy yet) he refurbished RAM that he obtained from a first hand power user.
So my first question to you the reader is, what GPU should i opt for? Keep in mind i'll be playing on a 60hz 1080p panel for the lifetime of the pc. I will be upgrading my CPU to a Xeon x5677 or better in the summer when its cheapest.
That ties into the next set of questions, i plan to purchase the x5677 based on bambiboom's advice combined with what i think i know about games, which is, any more then 4 cores is a luxury, anything less is garbage. Does this still hold up? If not, how big of an impact will 2 cores extra with all cores at a lower speed make?
When i boot my Dell system as is, with the uber slow HDD and GPU it has 2 problems, first the cpu fan doesn't spin, secondly the cpu gets very hot (i know right, doh!
But i noticed something else after i put the cpu fan into a different header to get it to spin and removed the ram cover so the ram fan could also help cool the cpu. Which is that the idle temperatures seemed to not change whatsoever (still anywhere between 40 and 59 depending on i don't know what, but it tends to fluctuate about 5 degrees within the span of a minute and if i reboot the system at a later time the idle temp can be vastly different (so 42 to 55 average idle temp between 2 boots) but the load temperature's changed dramatically. With no fan blowing on the CPU it was trying to cook itself before i could finish a benchmark with passmark with the changes made all of a sudden it seemed to top out at around 72. I found this post that seemed to confirm that there was something funky going on with the idle temps.
Leading into my next question, the intel website lists the w3530's Tcase temperature as being ~68 degrees C. I don't know about you, but i only have the temp that hardware monitor tells me, not the temp of the air going through the heatsink. What temperature is a good temp to stop all stress on the cpu? So far I've been afraid to go past 70 but I've had cpu's go upwards of 90 degrees in the past for at least an hour and be totally fine afterwards. (I think it was my dad's q6600 quad)
Yesterday i spent a good chunk of my day writing windows to my SSD a couple times because of some weird error i got. When i put it in my Dell it wouldn't boot from the SSD no matter what i did. So i tried to reinstall windows on it (got my data backed up anyway) and it told me "error: need the disk to be MBR" (not an exact quote, no error # was given) so i followed this guide and set the disk to MBR, tried to install windows got the error 0x80300024. After feeling a little defeated i tried to reinstall the SSD on my laptop but it wanted the disk first to be GPT, then error please make it MBR, then it installed, booted from the usb again and told me to make the disk GPT, i did and it installed and now its operating again. This left me very confused as to what happened, what do these disk settings mean and why does windows ask for these things during installation?*
Another question, this time without a proper lead-in is how good of an idea it is to buy ECC memory at 1066mhz for 5 euro/ GB. My understanding is that ECC memory is basically an extensively tested and more reliable form of the same thing, plain ol ddr 3. Is this understanding correct? If so, i see no reason not to opt for the ECC memory.
Another question i have is with regards to the passmark benchmark. After i did some rearranging of the fans in my system i was able to run a benchmark with the cpu not going over the 68 degrees listed on the intel website. (at least according to the thermometer...) and it had some rather disappointing results. My cpu scored a measly 3700, passmark rates the w3530 to be capable of ~5100. So a long ways to go. I was wondering, and this is also my question and the thing i tried to figure out by putting my ssd in the Dell yesterday, could it be getting bottle-necked by the HDD or the RAM in my system? Or both? Or could there be something wrong with this specific chip? What could possibly break that would diminish its performance without affecting its stability?
Any insight into any of these questions would be greatly appreciated!
P.S. If you guys prefer me to post my questions in separate posts, i can do that Its the last sunday of my work free week and i got nothing but time It's just that, for me, this is more convenient so i went with this first. Also, less clutter on the forum page
*after getting it to work on my laptop i feel confident i can do the same on the Dell (process was to long and complicated to go fully in depth in this post.) But if you're interested i can explain
Mod Edit for Language
Two or so weeks ago i posted on this forum about wanting to build the ultimate value gaming rig. Constraints where simple, i have a laptop with a badass cpu and a gpu that i can't change. It is worth ~ 350 euro's right now. I hardly use the laptop functionality and can muster up about 100 euro's as i am a student and my budget is very limited.
So i spoke with a very helpful person by the name bambiboom in this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2946096/building-secondhand-parts.html
I have since emailed back and forth with him and figured out how to go about this. He told me to look for a complete system and recommended a few to me using the lga 1366 socket. I settled upon the Dell t3500 model and bought a unit with a xeon w3530 processor for just over 150 euro. This was still on the pricey side but other people in my life wanted to pay me to build something similar in the summer so i needed to get my own built before the prices drop to their low point to figure out where i'd inevitably hit a wall.
So fast forward a littlebit, I now have:
Dell t3500 mobo
Dell 550 watt PSU (from t3500 obv)
1tb Seagate ultra slow HDD
250GB Samsung 850 evo SSD (from my laptop, not selling this piece
)Small but sturdy case
Intel Xeon w3530 + heatsink
things that won't help me:
6gb 667 ddr3 in dual channel so 2x3gb (some people... so dumb...)
Nvidia quadro fx580
DVD drive
Stuff i think i need:
12GB 1066-1333 ddr3 Ram in 3 or 6 pieces
Fancy smancy GPU
Raid card or other with 6Gbit/s sata connectivity
Bunch of case fans + fan controller (you'll know why in a min)
The stuff that won't help me will help me get a good deal on stuff that i do need.
Last few days i've been messaging people frantically about GPU's that they're selling for around 100 euro. (I think i contacted over 100 people
) I managed to find the following:r9 270x 90 euro
r9 280x 150 euro
gtx 650 ti 80 euro
gtx 660 ti 100 euro (maybe 110)
gtx 760 oc 110 euro (maybe 120)
I also found a listing for ECC ddr3 1066 RAM for 5 euro / gb where i can get 12 GB in either 2GB or 4GB strips, as far as i can tell (haven't actually been to the guy yet) he refurbished RAM that he obtained from a first hand power user.
So my first question to you the reader is, what GPU should i opt for? Keep in mind i'll be playing on a 60hz 1080p panel for the lifetime of the pc. I will be upgrading my CPU to a Xeon x5677 or better in the summer when its cheapest.
That ties into the next set of questions, i plan to purchase the x5677 based on bambiboom's advice combined with what i think i know about games, which is, any more then 4 cores is a luxury, anything less is garbage. Does this still hold up? If not, how big of an impact will 2 cores extra with all cores at a lower speed make?
When i boot my Dell system as is, with the uber slow HDD and GPU it has 2 problems, first the cpu fan doesn't spin, secondly the cpu gets very hot (i know right, doh!
But i noticed something else after i put the cpu fan into a different header to get it to spin and removed the ram cover so the ram fan could also help cool the cpu. Which is that the idle temperatures seemed to not change whatsoever (still anywhere between 40 and 59 depending on i don't know what, but it tends to fluctuate about 5 degrees within the span of a minute and if i reboot the system at a later time the idle temp can be vastly different (so 42 to 55 average idle temp between 2 boots) but the load temperature's changed dramatically. With no fan blowing on the CPU it was trying to cook itself before i could finish a benchmark with passmark with the changes made all of a sudden it seemed to top out at around 72. I found this post that seemed to confirm that there was something funky going on with the idle temps.Leading into my next question, the intel website lists the w3530's Tcase temperature as being ~68 degrees C. I don't know about you, but i only have the temp that hardware monitor tells me, not the temp of the air going through the heatsink. What temperature is a good temp to stop all stress on the cpu? So far I've been afraid to go past 70 but I've had cpu's go upwards of 90 degrees in the past for at least an hour and be totally fine afterwards. (I think it was my dad's q6600 quad)
Yesterday i spent a good chunk of my day writing windows to my SSD a couple times because of some weird error i got. When i put it in my Dell it wouldn't boot from the SSD no matter what i did. So i tried to reinstall windows on it (got my data backed up anyway) and it told me "error: need the disk to be MBR" (not an exact quote, no error # was given) so i followed this guide and set the disk to MBR, tried to install windows got the error 0x80300024. After feeling a little defeated i tried to reinstall the SSD on my laptop but it wanted the disk first to be GPT, then error please make it MBR, then it installed, booted from the usb again and told me to make the disk GPT, i did and it installed and now its operating again. This left me very confused as to what happened, what do these disk settings mean and why does windows ask for these things during installation?*
Another question, this time without a proper lead-in is how good of an idea it is to buy ECC memory at 1066mhz for 5 euro/ GB. My understanding is that ECC memory is basically an extensively tested and more reliable form of the same thing, plain ol ddr 3. Is this understanding correct? If so, i see no reason not to opt for the ECC memory.
Another question i have is with regards to the passmark benchmark. After i did some rearranging of the fans in my system i was able to run a benchmark with the cpu not going over the 68 degrees listed on the intel website. (at least according to the thermometer...) and it had some rather disappointing results. My cpu scored a measly 3700, passmark rates the w3530 to be capable of ~5100. So a long ways to go. I was wondering, and this is also my question and the thing i tried to figure out by putting my ssd in the Dell yesterday, could it be getting bottle-necked by the HDD or the RAM in my system? Or both? Or could there be something wrong with this specific chip? What could possibly break that would diminish its performance without affecting its stability?
Any insight into any of these questions would be greatly appreciated!
P.S. If you guys prefer me to post my questions in separate posts, i can do that
Its the last sunday of my work free week and i got nothing but time It's just that, for me, this is more convenient so i went with this first. Also, less clutter on the forum page *after getting it to work on my laptop i feel confident i can do the same on the Dell (process was to long and complicated to go fully in depth in this post.) But if you're interested i can explain
Mod Edit for Language
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