DescentBB

Hi again!

SO I've decide not to try and extent the life of my current (Athlon 64 3200+ with 1gb DDR2 and a 6600GT) PC as a \"game\" rig anymore but rather re-equip it for another purpose and upgrade to a new and tech fresh game rig.

I'm currently looking at the following components:

Asus Intel P55 (P7P55D-E)
Intel CPU i5-750
Corsair value select 2x 2GB ram kit DDR3-1333 PC3-10666
Seagate Barracuda 500GB
MSI R5850-PM2D1G
Coolermaster Extreme Power Plus 650W PSU
Coolermaster Centurion 5II, Silver

That is about what I can put into a single upgrade on my budget.

Will this hold true with the current and most future game releases? Looking to do a proper upgrade, like my previous pc that has treated me pretty good for a couple of years now, without breaking the bank.

And yes I'll be switching to Win 7 64 for this rig.

Any inputs/suggestions/know issues/experience with this current combo or components?

Thanks in advance

You could grab the Seagate 7200.12 / 750 GB drive, it has double the cache and 250 GB extra vs the 500, worth the $15 more.

Make sure you get memory that runs at 1.5v (although you can get up to 1.65v but that's just the manufacturer getting lazy, 1.5 is the official spec). Any higher and it'll stand a decent chance of burning out your $200+ CPU.

And you could use the boxed retail Intel cooler, or you could use this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835186134

Everything else looks good, that system should hold up well for the next 18-24 months.

Krom wrote:You could grab the Seagate 7200.12 / 750 GB drive, it has double the cache and 250 GB extra vs the 500, worth the $15 more.

Make sure you get memory that runs at 1.5v (although you can get up to 1.65v but that's just the manufacturer getting lazy, 1.5 is the official spec). Any higher and it'll stand a decent chance of burning out your $200+ CPU.

And you could use the boxed retail Intel cooler, or you could use this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835186134

Everything else looks good, that system should hold up well for the next 18-24 months.

My computer has the clocks that rocks, but it was obsolete before I opened the box.

My AMD Phenom 950 BE has been running like a champ for a while now... so I have no particular affinity to Intel. I've always been kinda on the fence about AMD vs. Intel- This is actually my first AMD rig.

Depending on how many other things you intend to load into the computer, you might start getting close to the power supply's capacity. If you're entertaining the idea of a second/third HD, and/or a couple extra boards, you might want to think about bumping up the PSU capacity by a bit.

I do like ASUS... their products have treated me well. Also, I'm very happy with my antec case... it's pretty good as far as fan volume goes, if you're looking for opinions about cases.

be forewarned that with the i series Intel chips, do NOT overclock your ram. Timing issues arise that can damage the CPU. if you do want to try, I recommend that you read up on it on Intel's knowledge base. Also try and stay within Intel's recommended list of Ram. I did not and it's not running quite as fast as it should.

Uhmm I'll have to ask the reseller where I'm aiming to buy if they have those 750GB HDDs as its not listed on their pricelist. It jumps from a 500GB to 1TB with double the cache but at double the price too I do believe space isn't that much of an issue right now for me as I have a file server setup with about 1.5TB space so this HDD will be for us of the OS, installed apps and games only. I can see the bonus with the cache thou.

Well the reseller only have coolermaster products listed in the CPU cooler department. Currently I was thinking of sticking with the stock cooler as I usually tend not to overclock my systems until I start to feel a burden on the system not preforming to my liking. But if I were to upgrade or us a none stock cooler I might look at the Hyper N520, any inputs on that perhaps? They also have the the Hyper 212 listed but not the 212 plus that is on Coolermaster's site and the price difference is marginal enough to maybe just go with the N520 should I go this route.

Yes I might want to slap in a second HD later on once I've build up some cash in the PC kitty again but that is only if I feel the need to, but having the flexibility to do that would be a added bonus unlike my current system where I'm also limited by a PSU. But the highest I might be able to go on my current budget would be the Coolermaster GX 750W but that is a rather steep price increase for only 100w more. I don't think I'll run anything more than just a DVD burner and the above mentioned components and maybe a second HD thou.

I'll just recheck my ram too as its rated 1.6v. So I should check for a kit that is specifically rated 1.5v if possible and rather spend some more on it than being sorry in the long run?

Well I'm not prone to specific case. My main consideration on it would be it should just be able to house my components, not be fugly, have decent airflow and be in more or less the same price range as the listed one

A 1 TB hard drive should NOT be double the price of a 500 GB, if it is then you are getting ripped off. On newegg for double the price of a 500 GB seagate you can get a 1.5 TB seagate. I would suggest shopping around a bit.

A 650w PSU is plenty even if you threw in 6 hard drives (they only load ~6 watts per hard drive). The only thing you have to be cautious of is overclocking the CPU, and a power hungry video card. The CPU and video card you picked at stock clocks are not particularly power hungry, they should idle at or around 100-120 watts and full load won't get much past 300 even with a couple extra hard drives. Throw in a second video card and a faster CPU and start overclocking everything, and then you will run into trouble with a 650w, otherwise it will be fine.

Well to be honest I'm buying from a one of the semi distribution guys as the main distribution guys don't want to deal with you unless you are a registered reseller and have some minimum buying requirements and these prices are way cheaper than what the local guys want to sell off on me (the local guys add about 30% and more markup to it).

Another point to note is that I'm not in the states so there are lots of import tax and crap that gets added to the items once they land a shore here making it more expensive.

But that aside if I convert the prices I will end up paying (all taxes added) to US$: the 500gb = about $71 and the 1TB = $123 so its not exactly double but almost

newegg I see its $55 for the 500gb ($16 difference) and $85 for the 1TB ($38 difference) So the $52 difference ends up being mostly import taxes. Can anyone explain the maths as to how $30 = $22 more import tax In simple equation if I take the 500GB as reference the 1TB should only be about $24 more not $38 so the 500GB might be the better buy price wise

[EDIT]
I was thinking if I had to push my budget on this upgrade a bit I might be able to go with an i7-860 instead of the i5-750. Is it worth the extra $$ to rather go with the i7 then?

Thx fliptw I saw something similar regarding the game benches on another site I regularly check out the new tech stuff on.

I think I'll rather stick with the i5-750 and put the extra $$ towards a 5870 instead of the 5850 in light that I'm actually aiming to be running eyefinity at (3x) 1680x1050 on this build. And I've also read that crossfire is a rather flaky and no-no for eyefinity at this time. People get higher FPS but complain of laggy response time and stutters in some titles. It was suggested on that forum to rather get a good single GPU with a decent CPU behind it. Interestingly enough there was a comparison of an i5 and i7 setup both running a 5870 and both got the same min 55 fps and the i5 actually got the higher fps on the max but I'm not sure what i7 the guys was running. But then 4fps (being the difference on the max fps) is also negligible in my view.

[EDIT]
bha and I'm indecisive again!

Just read a review about the 5850 where it was o/c to the 5870 spec and came in just 2% short on the performance of the 5870 but once overclocked beyond that it whipped it by 8% more Yes given you're not guaranteed that you will be able to achieve the same o/c levels but that is mighty impressive to think you can get a $100 cheaper card doing the same as his big daddy. On the flip side one can argue the 5870 can also be o/c'ed But bang for buck the 5850 is mighty appealing right now. I just don't want to buy something now that I will be kicking myself over in the next year or so because it's found wanting. Yes I know a PC component is outdated faster than a speeding bullet but heck my previous build held me five years so I'm looking for something that will last me a while (5 was pushing it as I stopped playing new games last year due to studies )

I tend to lean on the side of faster CPU now rather than spending extra on the video card, because the video card can usually be upgraded later with minimal fuss (unless its a situation with like AGP vs PCIe, but that isn't going to happen again for a while). But if the CPU is too far behind then it becomes necessary to start swapping out the whole machine. My system is on its second video card and there is a good chance I will get a third.

Even if your motherboard can handle it, swapping a CPU is still a lot more involved than swapping a video card, so I always recommend trading video performance for CPU performance if you are looking for the long run. 12-18 months later a $100-$150 video card will easily match or beat then $400 one from today, while the $300 CPU today will probably still be a close match. I know my 3 year old Core 2 Duo is still quite sufficient to handle modern games, while my 2 year old 8800 GT is suffering overwhelming defeat at the hands of cards half its original price. Spending more on the video card just doesn't bring long term value to the table like spending more on the CPU does.

Ahh thanks Krom! Was just editing my post as you posted but I think that answer it then!

I think I should do the following then

Go with the i7-860 and the 5850 right now as I can easily o/c the 5850 to the levels of a 5870 as I just came across in my google'ing and if it need be done you can either upgrade the GPU later or add a second one if they get their crossfire troubles with eyefinity sorted

Sounds a bit more logic now.

My computer has the clocks that rocks, but it was obsolete before I opened the box.

The fact of the matter is:

Even if you had the latest available hardware... It is ALL obsolete before you even get it.

Good luck on your computer upgrade.



As for me, Windows XP will stay for a while... Windows 7 won't let me delete my files even with me as Administrator on my own PC. That's damn annoying!

SirWinner wrote:As for me, Windows XP will stay for a while... Windows 7 won't let me delete my files even with me as Administrator on my own PC. That's damn annoying!

Take ownership of the whole drive with your Windows 7 account and it will quit doing that.

Krom wrote:

SirWinner wrote:As for me, Windows XP will stay for a while... Windows 7 won't let me delete my files even with me as Administrator on my own PC. That's damn annoying!

Take ownership of the whole drive with your Windows 7 account and it will quit doing that.

sudo?

[\\derail]

Duper wrote:be forewarned that with the i series Intel chips, do NOT overclock your ram. Timing issues arise that can damage the CPU. if you do want to try, I recommend that you read up on it on Intel's knowledge base. Also try and stay within Intel's recommended list of Ram. I did not and it's not running quite as fast as it should.

Okay I think I've got most of everything down to what I want to get now but doing some more google'ing and reading I see that the memory choice isn't just get a couple of whatever dimms and your good to go.

From Corsairs site I get this

The memory I've listed is the Corsair TW3X4G1333C9DHX and it's not listed on there

My second choice then is the Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 listed and I checked the pricelist I have and its available for cheaper than the TW3X4G1333C9DHX kit


But then I read this http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=85566

FireFox wrote:But then I read this http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=85566

Don't worry about that, the reason that person ran into trouble is because he is using 4 sticks of memory instead of 2. Any system running all 4 banks of memory is likely going to have to back off on performance because of the increased capacitance from using all 4 banks. This has been going on since forever and is a problem with physics not any problem with memory or chipsets. It costs more power to run 4 sticks at 1 GB each than to run 2 sticks at 2 GB each. Thus the 2x2 can run faster than the 4x1 even though its the same 4 GB total.

In my own system when I upgraded from 2x2 = 4 GB to 4x2 = 8 GB I also had to back off the clock speeds when I added the second kit, it is just how memory works.

Oh cool almost thought I was going to have issues before I even get this system.

Now that you point it out I see the user is referring too 2 sets and the third response/post that user actually confirms the modules running at 1600 if they are ran as a single set (2x2GB in dual channel) but when the second set is added then it needs to be scaled down

Sweet then I think I'm about to settle on it as follow then: (changes in bold)

Intel CPU i7-860
ASUS Intel P55 (P7P55D-E)
Corsair 2x2GB DDR3-1600 (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
Western Digital 640GB Sata II HDD with 64mb cache (better priced per gb than my previous selected HDD)
MSI R5850-PM2D1G
Coolermaster Extreme Power Plus 650W PSU
Coolermaster Centurion 5 II
Coolermaster Hyper N520 CPU Cooler

If you were going to get a 5870 just remember you need at least 12\" of clearance for the card vs it's smaller cousin the 5850 which only needs 10.25\". also the flickering issues is mostly from BFBC2\". which is addressed already in the beta 10.4 Catalyst driver which I'm running

I saw on an image the 5870 was longer than the 5850 but 12\" damn, makes me think of those Voodoo 5 cards back in the day

my voodoo 5500 looks like a piece of flatbread compared to my HD 5870. Originally I was going to get the coolermaster 690 II Advanced but checking the manual online for internal dimensions. I changed to the HAF922, I can add a second one with plenty of space to spare

Good news all my components arrived today, the not so good news I will most likely only get to the build after the weekend because I need to remodel/revamp my PC/Hobby room first



I might just start up a new threat with all the good stuff (pics) in the cafe to take you guys with on my revamp project

FireFox wrote:I might just start up a new threat with all the good stuff ...

Heh, too good to leave alone.

HAHA my bad, little grammar mistake meant to say thread! It's evident English is my second language