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Please advise on my setup, buying tomorrow

Forum Homebuilt Systems : New System Build - Please advise on my setup, buying tomorrow

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Damiano   10-03-2008 at 11:44:58 AM

Core2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz / LGA775 / 1333 MHz / 6MB / 45nm
GA-EP45-DS3R P45+ICH10R
Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB SATA-II 32MB NCQ or... the WD Caviar Black 1TB 32MB?
Silencer 610 EPS12V
Reaper HPC 4GB 1066MHz (2GBx2) 5-5-5-18

 

Using windows vista ultimate

 

So not sure about which hard drive, also need a case (wouldnt mind a cheesy lit up one if it was good) and a video card. What do you guys think? Thankyou.


Message edited by Damiano on 10-03-2008 at 11:52:57 AM
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auscanzukus   10-03-2008 at 02:11:10 PM
- 0 +

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 032-6.html

Black reads faster whereas Cuda writes faster. I don't think you can go wrong with either, but Seagate offers 5 years warranty. I have dealt with their RMA. Top notch. Paid only 1-way shipping. Got a sealed refurb for my old dead drive.

The build is solid. What's the gpu?

Reply to auscanzukus
dirtmountain   10-03-2008 at 04:56:28 PM
- 0 +

Pricewise it's tough to beat the Antec300 case right now, good cooling and available a www.buy.com for $45 with free shipping or $54 from newegg free shipping. Comes with 2 120mm fans and can fit a couple more. Graphic card the performance/price king right now is the HD4850 at about $170 or $140 after rebates. 9800GT at about $110 or the 3870 or 9600GT at about $75 after rebates.

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Damiano   10-03-2008 at 05:22:59 PM
- 0 +

Thankyou very much, for the case I dont mind going up to $100, for the graphics card $200 if it will make a really big difference. What do you think?

Also is the WD green 640 gig close enough to the black 1TB in speed to justify just getting the green?

With that setup is it possible to use 800 ram instead of 1066? Would it be a bad idea?

Thanks

Reply to Damiano
dirtmountain   10-03-2008 at 05:34:13 PM
- 2 +

yes, i'd go with DDR2 800 1.8v RAM this RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820146731
this coolermaster 690 case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811119137
the 640GB western digital SATA hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136218
this HD4850 (but any HD4850 with aftermarket cooling is fine)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121272

Reply to dirtmountain
PsyKhiqZero   10-03-2008 at 05:35:40 PM
- 0 +

ddr2 800 will be fast enough for stock and slightly OC'ed speeds. if you plan to heavily overclock then get the 1066

Reply to PsyKhiqZero
jtt283   10-03-2008 at 05:57:03 PM
- 1 +

+1 for Dirtmountain. Case and RAM are particularly good choices.

------------------------------ There is ALWAYS a drone. Exactly where, or how many drones you will encounter may vary, but that there will be at least one will not.
 Reply to jtt283
the_one111   10-03-2008 at 06:01:07 PM
- 0 +

How much is that Dual Core costing, because i'm fairly certain you could get a quad for not ten bucks more... And that would make the system more future proof and the four cores would probably be used in new games such as Farcry 2 and the like..


Your processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115036
Comparable Quad: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115017

While it does have a lower clock speed, that Q6600 version has been known to go up to a stable 3.0ghz at least with its stock fan. If that aint good enough you could get a new processor cooler (about 20-40$) and then overclock it even more.

Besides think of it this way, in a few years everything is gonna be multithreaded.. will you have more power with a 6ghz (total) Dual core or a 9.6 ghz (total) Quad core?

And +1 to dirtmountain. He knows what hes doing :D


Message edited by the_one111 on 10-03-2008 at 06:02:39 PM
Reply to the_one111
geofelt   10-03-2008 at 06:04:16 PM
- 0 +

Good suggestion from damiano.

dirtmountain wrote :

Pricewise it's tough to beat the Antec300 case right now, good cooling and available a www.buy.com for $45 with free shipping or $54 from newegg free shipping. Comes with 2 120mm fans and can fit a couple more. Graphic card the performance/price king right now is the HD4850 at about $170 or $140 after rebates. 9800GT at about $110 or the 3870 or 9600GT at about $75 after rebates.


As to the vga card. Assuming that games are the primary use of this PC, read this article, and see where you fit on the charts for good/best possible gameplay.
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=vga_charts
The sweet spot is probably the 4850 or 9800GTX+ at about $170.

All 7200rpm drives will perform about the same. If you get a very large drive and use only the faster outer 10%("short stroking" ), then it can perform better.
The best performing hard drive strategy would be a WD velociraptor for the first 150gb or 300gb of your requirements, followed by a second large cheap drive for storage and backups.
If the velociraptor price is too much for you, then a single large drive is not much of a downgrade, and the difference will not be important in games.
For more info on drive performance go to www.storagereview.com and access their performance database.
http://www.storagereview.com/Testbed4Compare.sr
Look for benchmarks that reflect your real applications, not the synthetic data transfer ones.

I like the cpu, psu, and mobo.

DDR2-800 ram from a quality vendor will perform about as well as anything faster, or with lower latencies. The difference in applications or fps is on the order of 1%.

Do you really need ultimate? There are very few features that a single home user would want, compared to home premium. Go to the Vista web site for a side by side comparison of features. You can always unlock the ultimate features later by an online upgrade.
Do get the 64 bit version.

Reply to geofelt
cow_moo   10-03-2008 at 06:13:25 PM
- 0 +

get the e8400 and overclock it to 3.6 then that will be great also get an HD4850 even though I like Nvidia more the 4850 is a great card and it's faster than my 9800GTX =(

Reply to cow_moo
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