Opinions/ advice on futureproof rigs

[garygole85]

Dear respected members,

At the moment i`m running:

Case : Coolermaster HAF 932
CPU : Core 2 duo E7500 (ordered Q9650 and still waiting )
Motherboard: Asus P5Q PRO
RAM : 4 gb DDR2
GPU : ATI Saphire Radeon 4870 vapor x 1gb
PSU: Corsair VX 550 watt ( Got my HX 1000 and waiting to be installed on )
CPU Cooling : stock intel cooler ( bought a Noctua NH-D 14 to be installed on my Q9650)
Speaker : Antec lansing
Monitor : LG 22" W2252 te
Windows xp 32
Resolution i played on is 1680 x 1050 (native res)

As hardware and computing is becoming my hobby now ( expensive one as well haha ). I want to keep my self updated with my computer parts and to be futureproof for several years at least.

The reason i chose Q9650 insted of i7 920 or any LGA 1366 sockets were because, i merely built this rig for 6 months, and still loving my LGA 775.

From what i`ve researched the LGA 1366 mobo + ram + etc are expensives ( im talking the high end ones ). So i want to maximise my LGA 775 for now.

Another reason i chose noctua nh-d14 is because its air! im not convenient with liquid cooling (H50) to damaged my components haha.

Please advise what should i upgrade for future proof parts as i am into gaming mostly (hard core ones) and with budget in mind Thank you


Gargoyle85

 

[enzo matrix]

We kinda need a pricerange as to what you are willing to pay.

-Based on the past, I think a 5870 would be good. I'm running a 3870 from 2007 and it's a bit better than the 4670 which is now a low end card. I can play COD2 maxed, COD4 maxed without AA, COD6 at high without AA and crysis on medium without AA. All at 1920x1080 above 60FPS most of the time... except crysis which is above 40fps most of the time. Just to give you an idea of what I can do with a 3 year old top end card today.
-Looks like you already know about the CPU so that's good then. Good CPU too.
-Uhh... why are you getting a 1000W power supply? The only reason I can see getting something that big is if you plan to get two radeon 5970s and crossfire them with an overclocked i7.
-4GB of ram is good now, but an upgrade to 8GB will last (I would think) for the next few years.
-Major thing is your operating system is way outdated. Get windows 7. You can't even get DX10 nevermind DX11 with XP.

That being said, futureproof is all relative. Honestly though, if you are willing to upgrade, I wouldn't upgrade until I notice my computer is no longer up to my standards. It will save you money in the long run.

As for your speakers, telling us the brand name of them doesn't say much. For all we know you could have taken apart altec lansing laptop speakers and jerryrigged them to your desktop. lol.

Any overclocking intentions?

 

[garygole85]

@ enzo matrix: Thanks for your advise.
Wow.. that is pretty amazing to see how a 3870 still performs that well compared to these days high end cards.

- Yeah, was about to get Q9550 but meh.. Q9650 ftw

- Umm.. i got a HX1000w for futureproof reason, coz im planning to crossfire, sli, quad sli, and crossfirex proof (additional cards for sure in the future).

- For rams, i will keep it in mind. I`m planning to get a corsair ddr3 and might get 8 gb with socket LGA 1366

- true that the windows 7 support directx 11, which xp dont. But im still looking for reviews that which OS are better in gaming plus the stability issue (found no probs with xp so far, its a beast OS! ) but sucks when ur dxdiag only reads the ram of 3.25gb haha!

- umm.. my speaker of altec is really standard.

- yes im still a newb with overclocking and gathered resources via internet, forums, etc for doing overclock and safe as an expert wanna be haha (scared of frying my cpu and other components though) but with overclocking, should i get water cooling or air cooling?

from what ive heard, the water cooling are good only for several hours, which later the water from the condensator (or whatever the name is) gets warmer and thus creating an ineffective cooling. this is why i chose Noctua NH-D14, it has good reviews on it and even it beats H50 of entry water cooling level.

oh! and another question, with overclock should i get a cooling for my RAM and GPU as well? coz most GPUs has pretty decent stock cooler that comes with it.

 

[enzo matrix]

Yeah but compared to even a 4850, it's nothing lol. Oh and cod6 on high isn't the highest setting. Extra is higher. Same with crysis warhead; low, medium, high, enthusiast.

-Awesome. My friend actually got a 600W power supply a few years back when he built his system (high end for the day). It actually performs more like today's 700W power supplies and will still be lasting him for a while.

-Oh so you do plan to upgrade to 1366?

-Well, I find it stable. I'm not sure about game benchmarks. I do know the memory requirements are much higher (running my system with 2GB right now). Also, I do not recommend windows xp 64-bit due to stability issues, lack of proper drivers and support etc.

-yeah... my point is that altec lansing is a company that produces many different kinds of speakers both low end and high end.

-Cool. That's where I started. Personally, I don't see the point of water cooling. From what I have read, the gains don't really seem to justify the cost and the setup work. Actually, I haven't found any reviews showing significant gains.

With the ram... no. From what I have read and observed myself, even the stock heatsinks on them are overkill and just for looks.
For the video card, maybe. I can't see the temperatures increasing too much. But considering the cost of good GPU cooling and the work required to install (though I guess it's not that bad), I can't see a significant advantage. Personally, I don't bother overclocking my video card anyway though. And my ram is sitting at 1000MHz compared to its stock 800MHz.

 

[garygole85]

- haha.. true tru, i found my 4870 1 gb still satisfies my gaming need for now.. played far cry 2 and crysis maxed setting @ 1680 x 1050 native res. Saw some reviews of ATI 5970 drool... some enthusiast even crossfire a 5970 or even crossfirex it. Though some complaints from people are the the most recent games still do not support dx11. gonna wait for its price to drop, then bang! dual 5970

- yep, its back to the needs of the user i guess, what they intend to do.. if they just bought a big wattage psu (say 1000 - 1500w) and not using a high end vid cards, they should consider they priorities haha

- yes, i am planning to upgrade it to LGA 1366, not this year though.. GOnna SQUEEZE out my Q9650 juice to dry then i change to i7 or i9 if its out already by then hehe..

- yep, getting windows 7 very soon though

- yep, after looking at the water cooling setups, the risks, yadda yadda yadda... i was like.. um nope.. air cooling though gotta admit that a decent water cooling expert can make your rigs looks awesome! yep, not much significant gained from water cooled. Though some conventional water cooler would argue that water beats air haha.

- ah.. makes sense, sweet stuff. i guess i would just focus on cooling my cpu?

Oh enzo, whats ur rig spec? please post thanks

 

[enzo matrix]

CPU: AMD Athlon IIx4 620 @ 3.25GHz (stock cooling, stock voltage, max temp usually around 55C depending on ambient)
I would have gotten an Athlon IIx3 but for some reason all retailers in Canada either don't sell them, or price them the same as the x4
Motherboard: Asus M4A785-M (AM2+)(radeon 4200)
Memory: 2GB Mushkin PC6400 @ 1004MHz 5-5-5-18
HDD: 160GB Seagate 7200RPM (slow old piece of crap. I would partition my 1TB but I'm too lazy)
secondary: 1TB WD Green 8mb cache
Case: Antec Three Hundred
PSU: OCZ modxstream 600W
Graphics card: HIS Radeon 3870 512mb (not the OC edition) (got it off a friend for $40 a couple months back)
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

 

[garygole85]

That is a decent spec there, awesome!

Guess we could rest easy for some years before upgrading ey enzo?

 

[enzo matrix]

Yeah you could for sure
As for me, I'll hopefully be upgrading my ram within the next year. I might also consider a graphics card upgrade before 3 years is up.

 

[garygole85]

Yay.. just got my Q9650, packed date was 02/22/2010 hmm.. with an i7 920 box look a like, quite awesome to be honest. Im Excited! just wonder what my VID with this chip when ive installed it and check it with coretemp hehe..

what games do u play atm enzo? sweet stuff.. goodluck on getting that ram and vga..

 

[jsc]

I hate to take a contrarian view, but if you have an LGA775 system, "futureproofing" is a null concept.

 

[garygole85]

@ jsc: guess u just missed what i wrote above? im planning to juice my lga 775 built till it dries up then change to lga 1366 or even when i9 comes out

 

[enzo matrix]

Well, the i9 is actually the "780X". And I think it's coming out really soon at a $1000 pricepoint.

 

[garygole85]

Hahaha damn.. and i just got my Q9650 lol! cant be bothered on getting a new socket mobo + ram + i7/i9/better.. (i would pick the high end ones). im just gonna wait and see of the reviews, what iCPU can do. Whilst doing that, Im gonna maximise my gaming experience with Q9650 and LGA775 setups.

Oh btw, i have a question as wel.. my Q9650 pack date is 02/22/10 that comes with small new box and heatsink. Batch # was started with L949Bxxx, what does the new batch will do compared to L8xxBxx something?

I havent installed the cpu yet, so i have no clue about the VID that comes with, finger cross it has good VID for OC purposes.

 

[jsc]

gary,
I didn't miss what you said. And I'm with you. I have 3 LGA775 systems; well, 4 if you count the one I built for my sis-in-law; well, 5 if you count the one I built for my work PC.

GA-EP45-UD3P | Q9550 OC'd to 3.6 GHz (425 MHz X 8.5) C3 stepping - multimedia and gaming
GA-EP45-UD3L | Q6600 OC'd to 3.6 GHz (400 MHz X 9) - workhorse
GA-EP35-DS3P | E5200 OC'd to 3.78 GHz (315 MHz X 12) - torrent box
GA-G41m-ES2L| E5200, stock, on loan to sis-in-law

I am waiting for the 32 nm die shrink for the i7-900's. But for now, LGA775 is good enough.

 

[enzo matrix]

Oh btw, i have a question as wel.. my Q9650 pack date is 02/22/10 that comes with small new box and heatsink. Batch # was started with L949Bxxx, what does the new batch will do compared to L8xxBxx something?

Absolutely nothing. It has nothing to do with the version, stepping or any changes made to the CPU.

 

[garygole85]

Umm.. just checked my VID, its 1.2625 but i havent OCed it yet.. might do it very soon though.

What does a higher VID means?

Damn my Q9650 multiplier keep changing from 6 to 9 and vice versa, is there any way to lock it to 9 multiplier? i had disable the C1E, EIST, always on (power options) from the control panel?

 

[enzo matrix]

Umm.. just checked my VID, its 1.2625 but i havent OCed it yet.. might do it very soon though.

What does a higher VID means?

Damn my Q9650 multiplier keep changing from 6 to 9 and vice versa, is there any way to lock it to 9 multiplier? i had disable the C1E, EIST, always on (power options) from the control panel?

It means the VID number will be higher-the voltage for the CPU. Means more power to the CPU. The more power, the hotter it runs and the higher you can clock it- to a limit. Don't go over the voltage limit of the CPU. I'd recommend overclocking as much as you can without increasing the voltage before you change the voltage settings.

You'll want to disable the power saving options in the Bios settings, not in windows. Unless I misunderstand you?

 

[garygole85]

@ Jsc: wow 4 lga system haha.. Awesomeness, btw I saw ur Q9550 comes with C stepping, is there by any chance u didn't look for the E0 stepping Jsc? From what I read, there are many Q9550 user actually found the E0 stepping with Q9550. But worry not, ur Q9550 is rock solid and a beast!

@ Enzo: thx mate for the info, yep I disabled the C1E and EIST from bios set, then went to windows to power options in the control panel and changed it to always on setting. Though I changed them already, I still saw the fluctuations of ups and downs from coretemp and cpu-z (x6 to x9 and vice versa) I'm pretty sure its from the power saving created by intel!! Damn ah heck, I just want the max multiplier in this case for fixed stability even idle or in loads situations.

So I went to my bios set, changed the CPU ratio setting from "auto" to 9 (it shows as 09.0). And now I have a fixed x9.0 multiplier both in coretemp and cpu-z. What a ah heck! Lolz.

I've tried some games like empire total war, crysis, prince of persia, fallout 3, grid, far cry 2 even in stock speed (3.0 ghz) this chip is a beast, it improves my frame rates significantly from E7500 (my previus chip), I'm pretty sure I can rest easy for gaming now.

Waiting for 5970 to drop its prices .. :drool: hahaha

 

[jsc]

No, I just happened to order the Q9550 before the the E0 was released. It certainly wasn't on purpose.

EIST - I turn it off, work out the overclock settings, test, turn EIST back on, and retest. In the case of the Q6600, it now loafs along at stock speed.

 

[garygole85]

Hey just wondering what is the temperature for Q9650 on idle? (im still at stock speed 3.0 ghz).

Im using Real temp and its showing

Core# 0 = 40, Core# 1 = 38, Core# 2 = 35, Core# 3 = 39

Did a test with prime 95, in large FFT and Small FFT.. under load of 100 %, it`ll become

Core# 0 = 50, Core# 1 = 48, Core# 2 = 49, Core# 3 = 47

is this normal? as im using a noctua nh-d14 and i can see the fan is spinning.. hmm

 

[enzo matrix]

Those temperatures seem about right to me. I don't own a similar processor but still.

 

[garygole85]

sweet.. ive checked it again with a couple of sensor test from real temp and prime 95. well mostly in the test my temp went up to 11 degrees celcius the max for each core ( was a 100% load) and as the test gradually went down its back to the idle temp i posted above..