Finishing an upgrade and being very lazy :)

[Jupitus]

Hey guys,

uber lazy of me, I know, but there are some of you who relish putting specs together for new systems so I figured I'd get some free assistance

I started and aborted a system upgrade at the start of the year when the wife and kids spent all my dosh. I'm in the process of *ahem* securing some more funds and want to price up the remaining upgrade bits and bobs.

So far, I have a new 400W quiet PSU, a nice quiet case, a decent SATA HDD, decent DvD writer (these are the newer bits). Currently the other components are:

ATI 9800 Pro AGP GFX card.
Intel D865PERL mobo.
Intel P4 2.6 MHz HT processor.
1 Gb (2 x 512) RAM (not sure exact type, but 800 MHz FSB capable).

These are the 4 bits I want to upgrade... the old parts will go in an old case with PSU for my eldest to use, and the old DELL he has goes to the youngest budding computer genius in the house (don't worry about MrsJ, she likes soap operas).

So... without wanting to start the almighty 'OMG go Nvidia and AMD FFS!' discussion, I will be going Intel processor, ATI GFX and probably an Intel mobo, although the mobo I am open to suggestions on. Other variables include going PCI-E, availability of SATA-2 in the future, upgradability for the future, as I don't really want to get a while new system in the next couple of years... minor GFX card upgrades etc may be permissible.

I don't feel comfortable paying through the nose just to have the very latest and greatest either, so we're probably looking at 2nd tier technology. I don' really hammer the machine alot, it's mainly a games machine, so I am not sure whether Dual core stuff is worth extra... also I think it would be wise to allow the possibility of a memory upgrade to 2 Gb RAM in the future, although 1 Gb is enough for me for now.

O/S will remain as Win2K pro for now. I need 100 Mbit networking on the card. Case is ATX form.

Hopefully this is plenty of info for you budding peeps to have a go with... budget-wise, bearing mind comments above, would probably be about 500-600 quid, but open to ideas.

Off ya go

 

[Jupitus]

Oh... another thing. I started looking at processors etc in a bit more detail and Im confuzzled about clock speeds, FSB etc. One mobo I have seen uses the intel 955X chipset which seems a decent choice to me. It supports an FSB speed of 800 or 1066, but all of the intel processors I have looked at are 800 FSB only. Does this mean I can only run at 800? The RAM they recommend for the board is clock speed of 533, which I guess work on a 1066 FSB... right?



My brain hurts

 

[Draylor]

without wanting to start the almighty 'OMG go Nvidia and AMD FFS!' discussion

Does that mean I can start a 'OMG go AMD FFS' thing going here?

No? bleh

Why Intel? its a fairly simple pay more, get less deal currently.

 

[Clown]

I would also like to know this. What will you be using the computer for?

 

[Jupitus]

I would also like to know this. What will you be using the computer for?

Currently:

Playtime: IRC, TS, WoW. That's pretty much it.

Worktime: IRC, Lotus Notes, MS Office apps (not an issue tbh).

Future: IRC, TS, GodKnowsWhatGameMayComeAlongAndGrabMe

 

[Jupitus]

Does that mean I can start a 'OMG go AMD FFS' thing going here?

No? bleh

Why Intel? its a fairly simple pay more, get less deal currently.

2 reasons:

1) I have owned AMD previously and had a few stability issues, although I recognise the speed advantage - they ARE good chips and I am not knocking them, just happy with what I know is stable.

2) Swapping components around from machine to machine... it might be that I can upgrade my processor in a year or 2, and give my eldest the existing processor or other components... being able to mix and match the components I have gives maximum flexibility.

To answer the Nvidia champions, I used to have Nvidia, now I have ATI and I am more than happy with the results. Nuff said.

 

[JBP|]

Here is what i came up with allthough a bit over budget.

Intel Pentium 4 670 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.8GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-109-IN)
£374.95
Asus P5WD2 Premium Intel 955X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-105-AS)
£129.95
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.95
Connect3D ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-029-CO)
£219.95
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.95
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB 6Y120M0 SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-016-MD)
£44.50
Coolermaster Wave Master - Black (No PSU) (CA-047-CM)
£71.00
Subtotal £1,035.25
VAT £181.17
Total £1,216.42

 

[inactionman]

Here is what i came up with allthough a bit over budget.

Intel Pentium 4 670 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.8GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-109-IN)
£374.95
Asus P5WD2 Premium Intel 955X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-105-AS)
£129.95
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.95
Connect3D ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-029-CO)
£219.95
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£54.95
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB 6Y120M0 SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-016-MD)
£44.50
Coolermaster Wave Master - Black (No PSU) (CA-047-CM)
£71.00
Subtotal £1,035.25
VAT £181.17
Total £1,216.42

Err... he said he had everything but the cpu, mobo, 1Gb memory and graphics card. I don't normally recommend Intel, but I'd suggest (this is OCUK pricing you'll probably get equivilent bits cheaper elsewhere if you look):

Intel Pentium 4 640 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-093-IN) £134.95
Asus P5WD2 Premium Intel 955X (LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-105-AS) £129.95
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL) £69.95
Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 XL 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11053-00-40) (GX-088-SP) £159.95
Subtotal £494.80
VAT £86.59
Total £581.39

Plus about £15 delivery charge.

 

[Cask]

Have you already got a good monitor Jup?

 

[Jupitus]

Wouldn't call it 'good' in terms of some other flat screens out there, but yes, I have an ok monitor for my purposes

 

[Cask]

I was just sayin' because I bought a new monitor and the difference is almost like a getting a new PC. It actually made me better at CS.

 

[Bonelamencer]

ATI 9800 Pro AGP GFX card.

Why do you wanna change ur videocard? x800 is PCI-E analog of 9800 so if it doesn't suit you then get x850XTPE or better one.I wouldn't say that x800XL is much better then 9800pro.

 

[Bonelamencer]

ok ok i think i got it

AGP x8 bandwidth is 266mb x8=2128mb/sec
PCI-E bandwidth is 2,5gb x16=40gb/sec
the bandwidth of videocards x800/x850XTPE is 22,4-37.8 gb/sec
for AGP,as we can see,it caps at ~2gb/sec only

You were right,PCI-E is much better

 

[Insane]

Got the prices from scan, but might be better to shop around (aka. i cant be bothered doing it)

Abit AL8 PCI-E S775 i955 1066FSB DDR2 SATA RAID Gbit Lan 1394 USB2 7.1Ch Audio
(was going to put down the Nforce4 equivilant board which is SLI-enabled but im not certain if ATI's version of SLI will work with the Nvidia SLI stuff they put on the board already)
£97.64

630 Intel Pentium® 4 LGA775 CPU (3.06 Ghz 800FSB) HT 2MB Cache with Intel® EM64T *Retail*
(eyh? P4 600 series? Pentium D 800 series? wtf?)
£120.20

1Gb Corsair (2x512) DDR2-4300, 1024MB, non-ECC, 2x240 DIMM, unbuffered, 3-3-3-8, H/S, L/T Warranty
(DDR2 for the board)
£135.71

256M Sapphire PCI-E ATI X850 XT GDDR3 VGA DVI TVO Retail
(extra memory, but no VIVO, the same model X850 XT PE with VIVO is £306)
£280.83

grand total.
£634.38
my god, thats bloody expensive! and that isnt really top range either!

The boards pretty well loaded, made by abit and i've hardly seen issues with their boards, a few of my mates swear blind by them for stability particularly their NF2 boards they released, more info on the AL8 board here (i especially like the raid5 capable SATA intel controller on the board)

for the AMD lovers i done this spec:
Abit KN8 Ultra s939 with an Athlon64 3000 retail and the same graphics card and memory for approx £599.76

a grand total of £34.62 difference now, its not really that big!

 

[JBP|]

Err... he said he had everything but the cpu, mobo, 1Gb memory and graphics card.

The point being that is what i would buy.

Mr Jupitus could simply remove the articles he does not require.

 

[Jupitus]

*fluffles JBP*

Thanks all... seems to be along the lines I was thinking mainly... I am tempted to try and raise a bit extra to go for an 830 processor, and maybe claw a little back by opting for an X800 rather than X850 GFX card. Of the X800's what would be considered the best?

 

[Jupitus]

Change of plan!

Imagine, if you will, that I had 1000 quid to throw in or so... spec that one


Oh! And I still don't get whether boards and processors are available yet for a 1066 FSB speed, which DDR2 RAM should support now.... help!

 

[inactionman]

Oh! And I still don't get whether boards and processors are available yet for a 1066 FSB speed, which DDR2 RAM should support now.... help!

I'd still suggest the same (maybe a slightly faster processor, or a nice flat panel display), and suggest that you to save the rest for an upgrade later!

The board supports 1066FSB, as does the RAM, it's just that the only 1066FSB processors at the moment are xeons and the P4 extreme (rebadged xeons), but it's a simple upgrade later, just put the new processor in!

 

[Jupitus]

ok... Ive pretty much decided to forget about dual core and take a 660 processor (I think) together with the asus 955x mobo. RAM will be corsair DDR2, 2 Gb. GFX will be ATI X850 XT PE.

Decent cooler?

Edit:

How about
http://www.vapochill.com/main/page.asp?sideid=724

?

 

[Jupitus]

Eeeeep!!!

Just added up that lot... 962 quid!!

Hmmm.... itchy credit card.....

 

[TdC]

that cooler looks the biz Jup, but if your CC got frightened of the total sum I can recommend the coolermaster hyper48. it's a towering mass of copper with a (strangely) silent fan on top and works a treat!

 

[Jupitus]

I actually found a slightly higher spec cooler from the same manufacturer...



... it's all ordered!!! OMG!!!

 

[Jupitus]

Package arrived at home, so the Mrs rang me... she opened the box to verify what I'd got and saw the invoice and bollocked me over the phone

Now... next advice I'll need regards setting the whole lot up so the CPU is clocked to meet a higher FSB than 800, since the ram and mobo support 1066. I think I can do this by dropping the multiplier and upping the FSB... right?

 

[Jupitus]

Right - been playing around with the mobo a bit tonight and currently have the whole lot stable, not too hot on stock cooling, and running the processor at 4GHz, FSB at 1140 or so... clocked up 6030 on 3DMark05 with those settings so I'm pretty happy with the new kit overall. Still running a bit on the hot side, although the specs say the processor is good to 70 celcius... it's idling at 61 and hit 69 in the cpu section of 3d mark, but I have a new cooler arriving soon:

http://www.swiftnets.com/products/mcx775-V.asp

With a decent 80 mm fan on I think I can knock at least 5 celcius off the temps to have a good safe setup

 

[TdC]

ooh that seems a bit on the hot side mate! though, tbh, I'm not well versed in pentium temperatures. let me know what happens when you slap your mega-cooler on it!

one thing about the fan that I noticed is that they talk about snap-in rivits. that *may* give you some vibration in the long run I think, though I am sure that you'll have upgraded again before that happens

 

[Jupitus]

Yeah, it does seem hot but I am gradually leaning towards the belief that the chipset is not reporting it correctly... good heads up on the rivet thing, I may see if I have something better. I do have rubber fan clips on my case fan to absorb vibration but I'm not sure that would be wise in a hotter area...

*ponders*

 

[TdC]

hmm depends on how hot your hotter area actually is. have you a probe that can tell? some mobos come with a sensor that can be manually placed.
personally I don't think that the fan/cooler interface will become hot enough to damage rubber, but much of that depends on the rubber (and how hot things really are getting) so don't take my word for it

 

[inactionman]

Don't Intel processors come with a thermistor (electronic circuit that reports temperature) in the CPU? I think they do, I'm sure I've heard something about them automatically throttling down if they get too hot. If so the temps that you are being reported are correct.

Yeah, stock cooling and overclocking don't work! Have you filled all the case fan slots, got decent fans in them?

Don't worry about rubber burning, it's not hot enough, especially if it's designed to be in a heatsink.

 

[Jupitus]

Fook!


I fitted a swiftech cooler and all appeared well.... until I put the case back on and put it under my desk! It went from 60C at idle (or less) to about 68 C, I think mainly due to the side panel on the case.

The case is fitted with 2x120mm fans of decent air volume displacement, and I think the key is the airflow within the system.

 

[TdC]

erm, your fans are blowing in the correct direction I hope