Please review these building blocks for new system

[palomarco]

Hi,
My son is about to build a new system. Here are the basic components that he is suggesting. I'd appreciate any feedback. I would like to avoid spending the next month trying to trouble-shoot something that was mis-guided from the get go.

Motherboard: ASUS p5N-D LGA 775 nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131232

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

Graphics Card: Foxconn 8800GT-512OC660/1940 GeFroce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814186031&Tpk=foxconn%2b8800gt

RAIDMAX Volcano RX-630A ATX12V / EPS12V 630W Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152026&Tpk=raidmax%2bvolcano

These are the basics that he has selected.
Questions:
Will these components work well together?
Are these brands that are reliable and offer good tech support?
He plays games on his computer, such as GuildWars, StrongHold, StarCraft. Are these components going to deliver a satisfying gaming experience for him?
I realize there are other components required. Anything particular to watch-out for in selecting the remaining components?

Thanks,

 

[Gravemind123]

The PSU you selected is junk. Choose a similarly priced Corsair or PC Power and Cooling so you get something of good quality. You don't want to trust all of your parts to a junk power supply. If you want to save some money then go for an Antec NeoPower 550, which will still provide much better quality then the Raidmax. The rest of the choices look good, if you don't ever plan on getting him SLI then I would go with a P35 chipset based motherboard as they are cheaper and Intel chipsets seem to be the champions right now for price/performance. The GigaByte P35-DS3L and the Abit IP35-E are great budget motherboard choices that if you don't want SLI will serve you just as well as a 750i motherboard. If you do want SLI, then the P5N-D is a good budget SLI board.

 

[palomarco]

Thank you for the advice. Regarding the PSU, how much power is appropriate for this processor and graphics card?

 

[Alex843]

Unless your wanting to SLI i don't recommend that board, i don't know if 750i supports the new 45nm quad cores coming out soon (i assume it does) but this p35 board does for sure. The only difference being it can't do sli and it has no firewire. It is also only 85 bucks right now. I've used it myself, it over clocks quite well and is a pretty solid board all around.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059

About the q6600, just about all games don't receive any noticeable benefit from the extra two cores with the big exception of supreme commander. If you really want a quad core wait until the new 45nm models come out, they will over clock much better. If you decide to build now try to find an e8400. It preforms much better in games with the exception of maybe supreme commander and it is usually cheaper. The only problem is they are out of stock just about everywhere, hopefully the will come back in soon.

 

[amd_fanboi]

about quad core OCing, not necessarily, alex...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q9300_14.html#sect0

 

[chuckm]

If your not doing SLI, this is the best deal on a PSU at the moment;
http://www.buy.com/prod/Corsair-VX-550W-Power-Supply/q/loc/101/205852646.html

 

[palomarco]

My son plans on (dreams of) doing SLI in the future (within a year).

 

[Gravemind123]

The VX-550 chuckm listed is more then enough for an SLI setup of 8800GTs, you could even get a Corsair VX-450 and still be fine with SLI, but the VX-550 is pretty good price for what you are getting power wise, but on newegg it is $100 with a $20 rebate, so overall ends up cheaper there.

 

[amd_fanboi]

doing SLI within a year is maybe not a good thing, because at that time perhaps a much better card will have come out... Will he do it within 6 months???

 

[palomarco]

Possibly...his birthday is in June. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that he doesn't just want a new, more powerful video card, but he wants two of them.

 

[geofelt]

Those parts will work together, but I do not consider them to be the best value. I presume that gaming is one of the important uses for this PC.

SLI has been a poor upgrade path in the past. It should be used only by
those who will not currently be satisfied by the fastest available single vga card
which is currently the 8800GTX-ULTRA. The more modern 8800GTS-512-G92 is very close in performance, and has a good cooling system.
To get SLI. you have to spend more up front for a SLI capable mobo, and a
more powerful SLI capable PSU. Upgrading a single card later with a
second equal card does not get you 2x increase, it is more like 1.1x to 1.5x depending on the game.
At that time, you will still be paying top dollar for a card that is closer to
being obsolete. A higher end card will likely appear before summer. It would be better to sell the old card and use the proceeds
towards a better new generation single card.

What is the best performing C2D motherboard?

The answer is that they are all virtually the same if using the same processor.
If you read all of the reviews, there will be comparison charts from many different benchmarks.
The results will be within 1-2% of each other. This is particularly true for the application
benchmarks like games, or video encoding. Even across chipsets(X38,P35,P965) this is true.
For the synthetic tests like memory bandwidth, there might be more differentiation, but this
is of interest mainly to those looking for bragging level overclocks.
The buying decision then, has to be made on the basis of features that you want
like firewire, raid(not recommended by me), SLI(also not recommended by me), # of pci-E slots, # of usb ports, E-sata, # of sata ports, IDE support, ...etc.
Many of these boards will support penryn and fsb1333 processors. Check the mobo specs.
There currently is no value in DDR3 as compared to DDR2, and the latter is MUCH less expensive.

At the level of Q6600 or E8500, the vga card power is the critical gaming factor, not the cpu.
With few exceptions, current games can't take advantage of more than two cores.
flight simulator X is an exception).
For the same price, about $270, you can get a Q6600 2.4 or a E8400 3.00 for $240.
It makes more sense to me to take advantage of the higher clock speed of the duo cpu.
In addition, the new Exxx cpu's are supposed to be 10% faster in games clock for clock than their predecessors. They will take less power, and run cooler. Indications are that they will overclock higher and easier.

re: memory for the C2D:

Right now, DDR2 memory is king. It is MUCH less expensive than DDR3.
4gb of DDR3 costs $540.
4gb of DDR2 costs <$100.
The C2D processors are not very sensitive to memory speeds.
Real world application tests(vs. synthetic benchmarks) show
no difference in performance between DDR2 and DDR3 memory. In fact,
there is less than 2% difference between the slowest and the fastest modules.
If you are trying for record overclocks, then all bets are off, and faster is better.
In my opinion, it is unwise to build a system around DDR3 today.
You are better served by starting with 4gb of DDR2-800 memory. Eliminating
just a few hard page faults is worth it. Pick a 4gb kit in a 2x2gb configuration. It is usually cheaper than a 4x1gb kit, and you preserve the option to go to 8gb.


The raidmax psu is a tier 5 unit on the following list: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108088 For the same price, you can get a tier 1 or 2 unit. The important measure of a pcu is not the wattage, but the amperage that it can deliver on the 12v rails at maximum load and high temperatures. Tier 1 and 2 units do well. tier 5 don't. For the same price look at the PC P&C silencer610: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703005 The corsair units mentioned are also very good.

The best vga cards for warranty and support are EVGA XFX and BFG. I would look at EVGA first because they have a "step-up" program which allows you to trade in your card within 90 days for full price and get a better one.
The EVGA 8800GTS-512-G92 is a very strong card with an excellent cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130325

Your son will probably select a case with lots of "bling". That's ok, they all work pretty well.

---good luck---

 

[palomarco]

I want to thank you all for this advice. My son & I are revising his shopping list of components. Assuming that we abandon the idea of SLI, switch to a 8800GTS card, and switch to a e8400 3.0 processor, what would be some good recommendations for the motherboard? Oh, and we'll definitely get a new, more reputable PSU (PCP&C Silencer 610 or a Corsair 650TX).

 

[skywalker9952]

My recommendation would be to go with a Gigabyte or ASUS P35 based motherboard. Neweggs selection:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...deValue=705:9908&PropertyCodeValue=717:28997"

Then its a matter of picking the board that has all the features you want. The basic gigabyte DS3L is a good buy if all you need is the basics, no firewire (IEEE 1394), no eSATA, no extra Ethernet connector, and only four sata connections. If you need some of the above features on your motherboard then you will just pay a little more for a higher end model.

 

[skywalker9952]

Oh and make sure you get the G92 version of the 8800 GTS. You can be sure it is the G92 version if it has 512MB of vRAM and not 320 or 640 (both are based on the G80 and are significantly inferior to the G92 version).

 

[palomarco]

The 8800GT and GTS support PCI Express 2.0 x16. Should we be looking at motherboards with this kind of slot? Will there be a noticable performance increase if we get a mobo with a PCI 2.0 slot?

 

[chuckm]

They don't utilize all of PCI-E yet , from what I've been able to understand,I won't worry about 2.0 for now, you won't gain a thing. The thing to consider is EVERYTHING as far as boards and CPU's is going to change end of this yr., first of next, that's when PCI-e 2.0 and DDR3 ram will become a bigger part of the equation. Get a good P35 board and video and unless you've got a huge monitor, he should be fine.