- Apr 17, 2012
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- 10,510
I recently parted out my last rig for a trade up of sorts. I sold my Q9650, 16 GB (4x4GB) 800 MHz DDR2, and gigabyte motherboard. I gave my father my Eyefinity Radeon 5850 2GB and 5750 1GB (more later). I kept my 800W PSU, 60GB SSD, 2 hard disks (1x1TB, 1x640GB) and Labelflash optical drive for my future build. Needless to say, these components performed incredibly well together. My rig was stock cooled with the exception of a decent copper Zalman 9500 on the CPU and cased in a mid size tower. Benchmarks were stable up to 4+ GHz on the CPU, 1300+ MHz memory and ~1GHz on the 5850, albeit at ridiculous temps.
This PC was built for gaming, obviously, but also for tech work and heavy audio production. I found that I used it for little else and noticed that, beside the inherent software capacities, I preferred my Macbook Pro for most of my work and daily use. Even when I needed Windows, and even when I was at home, I was on my laptop. But we all know no one uses desktops anymore, right? $#@%ing wrong, I want my six screens and tons of ram and swappable parts to play with.
With that said, my new set up is a Z68 micro ATX, 12 GB DDR3 1333MHz (2x4, 2x2), Celeron g530 2.4GHz dual core (that's right), and wait for it.......... single Radeon 7750. I paid roughly the same for all these parts as the price I sold my old processor at. Is it nearly as powerful? Absolutely not. Does it do everything I need it to and then some? Quite certainly. With the 2 cores, massive cache, and FSB I lost, load times and general response is slightly down. At the same time Sandy Bridge brings a notable improvement in encode/decode performance. When I'm mixing music and recording, it lags with less tracks than it used to, but implementing sounds, recording, and exporting are faster. As of right now under full load, overclocked at as many variables as I dare, this thing draws about 160w. Impressive considering my old specs worked an 800w PSU to the bone.
I built this rig, honestly, as a cheap way to play Mass Effect 3. But it works. I can run multiple monitors at 1680x1050. Most games look gorgeous (Civ V could play better) and word on the street is that new game systems wont be much more powerful, if that. If so, then going with an i5 or i7 down the line and another 7750 in Xfire might be just right.
On the flip side of the coin you have my dear old dad, who I gave my video cards to. He runs a server quite a few years old that he built, water-cooled, and modded extensively. Its got a Core 2 2GHz, 4 GB 667 (4x1), Radeon 5750 (upgraded from 2 Geforce 8500's), multiple TB HDD's in RAID, running on 1200w. He gets good performance and it runs consistently well. The thing is now he's got 2 5750's and a 2GB 5850, which I'm afraid won't run in 3 way Xfire together anyway. Beyond that, if it did work you've got this beautiful case and monster power supply, but you're bottlenecked at the crotch. I don't see him gaining in performance over his current setup, and he won't pay to upgrade unless it's absolutely worth it.
So I planned on buying him a new CPU & mobo for Father's Day, but he's too proud to run a Celeron processor. We both look at it as making every dollar count, just at different angles. He wants more power, like Tim Allen off Home Improvement. I'm just not sure about splurging for an i7 or dual Xeon set up right now (that's what he'd really like).
I wouldn't mind what AMD's been promising, but I'll wait till they deliver. I also like the low watt Intel processors, but they're expensive and I figure I could just downclock an i7 if I were looking to save some juice. That's the page I'm on, trying to save some money through electricity and feeling semi-green while maintaining high performance and customization options.
What are some opinions on this? If time and money allowed would you favor performance per watt, or ultimate power, function, and future-proof security?
This PC was built for gaming, obviously, but also for tech work and heavy audio production. I found that I used it for little else and noticed that, beside the inherent software capacities, I preferred my Macbook Pro for most of my work and daily use. Even when I needed Windows, and even when I was at home, I was on my laptop. But we all know no one uses desktops anymore, right? $#@%ing wrong, I want my six screens and tons of ram and swappable parts to play with.
With that said, my new set up is a Z68 micro ATX, 12 GB DDR3 1333MHz (2x4, 2x2), Celeron g530 2.4GHz dual core (that's right), and wait for it.......... single Radeon 7750. I paid roughly the same for all these parts as the price I sold my old processor at. Is it nearly as powerful? Absolutely not. Does it do everything I need it to and then some? Quite certainly. With the 2 cores, massive cache, and FSB I lost, load times and general response is slightly down. At the same time Sandy Bridge brings a notable improvement in encode/decode performance. When I'm mixing music and recording, it lags with less tracks than it used to, but implementing sounds, recording, and exporting are faster. As of right now under full load, overclocked at as many variables as I dare, this thing draws about 160w. Impressive considering my old specs worked an 800w PSU to the bone.
I built this rig, honestly, as a cheap way to play Mass Effect 3. But it works. I can run multiple monitors at 1680x1050. Most games look gorgeous (Civ V could play better) and word on the street is that new game systems wont be much more powerful, if that. If so, then going with an i5 or i7 down the line and another 7750 in Xfire might be just right.
On the flip side of the coin you have my dear old dad, who I gave my video cards to. He runs a server quite a few years old that he built, water-cooled, and modded extensively. Its got a Core 2 2GHz, 4 GB 667 (4x1), Radeon 5750 (upgraded from 2 Geforce 8500's), multiple TB HDD's in RAID, running on 1200w. He gets good performance and it runs consistently well. The thing is now he's got 2 5750's and a 2GB 5850, which I'm afraid won't run in 3 way Xfire together anyway. Beyond that, if it did work you've got this beautiful case and monster power supply, but you're bottlenecked at the crotch. I don't see him gaining in performance over his current setup, and he won't pay to upgrade unless it's absolutely worth it.
So I planned on buying him a new CPU & mobo for Father's Day, but he's too proud to run a Celeron processor. We both look at it as making every dollar count, just at different angles. He wants more power, like Tim Allen off Home Improvement. I'm just not sure about splurging for an i7 or dual Xeon set up right now (that's what he'd really like).
I wouldn't mind what AMD's been promising, but I'll wait till they deliver. I also like the low watt Intel processors, but they're expensive and I figure I could just downclock an i7 if I were looking to save some juice. That's the page I'm on, trying to save some money through electricity and feeling semi-green while maintaining high performance and customization options.
What are some opinions on this? If time and money allowed would you favor performance per watt, or ultimate power, function, and future-proof security?
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