That expensive compy

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Sun 30 Sep, 2007 11:04 am

Some of you probably remembered that I have Ã¢â€šÂ¬2500 (at the time of writing: $3550) for a new computer, I finally got around to ordering some parts..
Such as a QX6850 (Intel CoreÃ¢â€žÂ¢2 Extreme Quad, 3GHz, 8 MB L2), and a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB DDR3 XXX (not the best but very good and reasonably priced at Ã¢â€šÂ¬403), and a suitable motherboard (which was the cheapest of those parts)
I tried to order 4GB DDR2 (667), but the order failed.. (next time I'll order the 800 version)
If you're wondering how someone who doesn't work can afford this: I have nice parents

Far from complete, but it's not like I forgot about a power supply, case, dvd player, hard disk, sound card, keyboard, mouse, monitor, CPU cooler.. uhm if I forgot something here that may have 2 reasons: I forgot about it completely (please let me know!) - or - I just forgot to list it here (please tell me anyway)

So what do you all think, would this be good enough? what did I forget? I haven't build many computers yet, only 2 tbh and they were extremely-low-budget ones (MMX CPU's etc lol)

The motherboard is an Asus Striker Extreme, will that work? (edit: yes it will.)

edit: already about Ã¢â€šÂ¬2100 used - that is excluding RAM (darned failed order.. ) with the new RAM I picked but didn't order yet (just in case the older order does not get canceled even while failed) it would be Ã¢â€šÂ¬2300, wow maybe I failed to use all the money..
The Striker Extreme is going to be delayed

(about a week..)

Post by **benryves** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 10:17 am

I assume you'll be running a 64-bit OS? If not, I wouldn't bother getting more than 2GB RAM. I'm not convinced by 64-bit Windows yet (namely driver problems) and a "slow" Core 2 Duo (1.8GHz) is still blazingly fast with 2GB RAM when running 32-bit Vista Business.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 4:10 pm

I was planning on XP 64-bit, drivers can be a bother but usually for common things there is a 64 bit driver as well..
Otherwise I'd be quite annoying to waste 1GB (with /3GB switch in boot.ini) on a 32bit OS

CoBB · Post by **CoBB** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 4:18 pm

I’d definitely put Linux on a 64-bit machine today.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 4:27 pm

Don't worry, I will, but I'll need XP for many games

hop · Post by **hop** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 7:33 pm

64 bit XP drivers for core components are fine now. As far as drivers are fine on any platform lately.

In my opinion geforce 8 series isn't worth it (yet), I'd rather wait for the 9 series by which time it might actually be nessecary to take something better than say a geforce 7900 or radeon x2600 which are like 5x cheaper than an 8800/x2900.

Don't see much use for quad core in a desktop either, games barely even support 2 cores well enough to take the next step and a high end dual core will take care of any app you throw at it more than fine.

What kind of monitor did you get?

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 7:54 pm

Just a standard 17 inch crt monitor
I don't have space for anything larger, and I dislike flatscreens (their colours are usually a bit.. odd.. unless they are really expensive)
The GeForce 7 series was a bit too cheap for my liking tbh, and the 8800 GTS 640MB is nice fast with a lot of ram too (ok the Ultra has a bit more)
I think I might actually need that Quad.. quite often I would have 7zip or md5crack running in the background, if it wasn't for my single-core processor..
One day there will be games that will use quad cores to their fullest I'm sure

and I'm really aiming for the future here, I don't want to have to buy a new computer again in a year or 2.. (by which time I'll probably SLI my GeForce 8800 which will be cheaper than replacing it by a 9-series..)

edit: why does 7zip perform better in double-threaded mode than in single-threaded mode on a single-core AMD Athlon 64?
edit2: if you don't see use for quad cores in desktops, where do you see use for them? (servers?)

hop · Post by **hop** » Mon 01 Oct, 2007 9:26 pm

7zip is probably more limited by I/O performance, but yeah of course your options are faster than mine.

In my opinion quad core is for when applications use it well and yeah for servers. Maybe in a year or two.

I'm just saying that buying an ok base and upgrading as you go along is better for long term performance than going all out once. The money you save now can buy much better hardware later.

You may be able to sli the 8800 but the Ã¢â€šÂ¬300 you could save on it will buy a 9 series with functionality the 8 series simply lacks. I don't know what features that will be but it seems smarter to go for with HD video developing quickly on the consumer market now.

On the other hand now you have a killer machine, enjoy it.

I would never spend that much money on a new PC anyway, I simply have no reason to go beyond say Ã¢â€šÂ¬500-600. Ã¢â€šÂ¬2500 for a motorbike or killer sound system? Hell yeah, but not for a desktop PC. That's just me.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 8:09 am

It is me

If the 9-series is really so much better, than nothing will be in my way of buying one, and atleast I'll know that my processor won't be the first part to be old, and more importantly, even with 4GB RAM, I can still add more

but I think that GeForce 8800 will last a while anyway..

edit: it really seems like it is limited by CPU here.. (seeing as it takes 100%) that's on Ultra mind you

hop · Post by **hop** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 10:27 am

Of course you can buy new equipment that comes out. You could buy a Ã¢â€šÂ¬400 vid card now and again in 2 years, or you could get an adequate vid card (that will run any new game on max when combined with the rest of your hardware) both times for Ã¢â€šÂ¬100 and use the remaining money for something else.

How I understand it

Your CPU can still be the first part to get old. Software may never use these cores fully if new CPU models come out soon that advance in entirely different ways than just adding more cores. Most software may never use it even if there are no different advances soon simply because quad cores aren't as common as dual cores and thus not worth optimising even more for. RAM is far less likely to be outfased this way since it's speeds advance much slower and it's technology standards even slower than that - DDR1 400MHz can still compete well in games if the rest of the hardware is good but a GPU or CPU of that time can not. Harddrive performance barely ages at all.

On your current computer 7zip may be limited by I/O and CPU, but a 3GHz dual core can handle it more than well enough for your harddrive to become a much more limiting factor than the number of cores. In fact, you may not even notice a difference between Intel 3GHz dual and quad core - at least not a positive one as quad core is very affected by memory bandwidth which really shows in video editing for example (doesn't perform worse than dual core but you're wasting 2 cores and, more importantly, money).

I don't think anyone interested in desktop hardware configuration would advice buying quad core right now, not even after the price drops following the June 22 releases. General comments would be along the lines of "huge waste of money".

Some advice before it's too late
I'd get RAM faster than 800MHz on that kind of budget anyway, especially with multiple cores to waste memory bandwidth on. You won't replace RAM (unless you really want to throw away money - in which case my bank account number is 9046826) as much as you'd add more so make sure the amount you start with at least performs as good as your mainboard can handle. I mean Get 2GB 1200 rather than 4GB of 800 if costs are an issue, you can get the other 2GB later.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 11:05 am

Well the RAM is bit of a problem really, no one really agrees on what RAM the Striker Extreme supports.
Some people say 800MHz, other people say 1200MHz, and the QV List only includes 667 and 800MHz, but the spec's also include 'SLI-ready' 1200MHz.

That failed order is finally canceled, so I can get any sort of RAM, provided it is less expensive than ~Ã¢â€šÂ¬600.

hop · Post by **hop** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 12:58 pm

You really should've checked that out before ordering anything.

Asus lists DDR2 speeds of 533, 677, and 800 MHz. The SLi-Ready speed is reported as 1200 MHz.

That means you can have the BIOS overclock a little bit easyer for you IF you buy overpriced "SLi-Ready" memory. It doesn't give extra performance over the exact same RAM that isn't SLi-Ready, it just makes it so you can do the base overclocking of memory and CPU with one bios setting rather than many bios settings. You can overclock non-Sli-Ready modules just as well by changing more bios settings yourself.

The 1200MHz Sli-Ready rating means you can overclock to 1200MHz if you have SLi-Ready RAM that supprots that speed simply by selecting the option in BIOS rather than setting everything yourself.

Mind you, for proper overclocking (stability and performance maxed) you should still set up more than the SLi-Ready options do for you.

Yay marketing.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 1:22 pm

Well it would have worked fine with the RAM that I ordered, but that order failed..
That was just 677 MHz DDR2, but it was on the QVL and would have worked (+ cheap, fast delivery)

Anyway, even though they're talking about 1200MHz SLI ready stuff, it isn't on the QVL at all, which is kinda odd
QVL: http://www.asus.com/999/download/produc ... 439_10.pdf

So.. I checked their forums a few times, and some people say that their 1200MHz memory works, but that is no real proof that it does.
I'm tempted to just buy 4GB Corsair 800MHz (as 4x 1GB).. it should work, and that's important.
But 1200MHz would be very nice..
So I'm less sure now than when I first ordered the not-so-good RAM

edit: I'll just buy 2GB at first and see how that behaves, too many people have trouble with 4GB, problems including instability and 800MHz becoming the highest RAM speed, very odd.. I could always buy more when needed

hop · Post by **hop** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 2:04 pm

QVL is just a list the marketing department made up to get some sales to official partners.

I'd try Kingston 1200MHz.

King Harold · Post by **King Harold** » Tue 02 Oct, 2007 2:31 pm

I would if it was being sold at a normal place (memoryman, pc megastore) but it isn't, I even mailed memoryman and they said they won't have it for a while..
PC Megastore has Corsair 1200MHz but it's darned expensive, almost exactly Ã¢â€šÂ¬600, what if it refuses to work?
or, less evil though bad, it'll only work at 800MHz?