wacky.banana

Guys,

On here a few weeks ago was a thread with a lot of recommendations as to "optimum" kit to buy for a self build PC. Guess what...can't find it even with using search!

I am looking to build a quad core system. I am an AMD man, however I hear that Intel are now light years ahead of the game.

The kit needs to have longevity built in (needs to remain fit-for-purpose for at least 3 years) and will require a good graphics card, though not necessarily for gaming.

The kit will be used for anything from surfing the web to intensive video editing. Will also be a dual boot system running both Fedora and Win XP

Don't want to spend tons of cash on this as I don't think its necessary. I am expecting a build of this sort to come in at around £500 to £700 for:

- Power supply (already have a case)
- Motherboard & processor (full ATX board, not micro ATX. Board should have firewire, usb and lan connections plus sound and lots of room for expansion, processor should be quick but not massively expensive)
- System drive (I have a shedload of other drives that I will be using for data)
- Cooler (simple, don't want any esoteric stuff like water cooling). Cooling solution needs to be quiet but effective as I hate loud fans.
- Graphics card (vga and direct digital outputs. HDMI would be nice but not essential)
- Memory (fast, lots of it)

Key requirement, if possible, is that the motherboard should either be capable of running both SATA and IDE drives or be able to accommodate a PCI-IDE board to run IDE drives off. This is to protect and utilise my considerable investment in existing IDE drives.

Thanks in advance for your inputs - over to you for recommendations.

WB

PS....I am looking to source from the cheapest sources. Recommendations please (Overclockers, Play.com, Ebuyer,etc, etc. Which is best?)

PPS.. saw this 2 days ago and was really tempted to buy as the price versus spec ratio is good. However i held back as I wasn't sure how much room there would be in the case, scope for expansion, etc. However if it will do the job...Medion Q6600 3GB PC Base Unit with Blu-Ray - Tesco.Direct

Views please.

RexHunt

Zoostorm Core 2 Quad Q6700 Advanced Premium PC, 750GB HDD, 4 GB Ram and XFX 9800GT Over Clocked Graphics, Vista Home Premium - Ebuyer

Heres one i've been looking at not sure about the make but it sounds like a good deal, if like me you can't be botherd to build another system.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

How much do you want to spend?

CPU 2.66 1333mhz quad core 45nm processor, £185.43
Scan Computers UK: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 8x, Retail

Mobo Asus P5Q3 DDR3 1600mhz bus with wifi £138.53
Scan Computers UK: Asus P5Q3 Deluxe/WIFI-AP, iP45, S 775, PCI-E 2.0(x16), DDR3 1600MHz, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

Memory DDR3 9-9-9-24, not the fastest but you can upgrade later

2GB Scan Computers UK: 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600),240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, DHX
4GB Scan Computers UK: 4GB (2x2GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600),240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, DHX

Graphics Quick but not too expensive
Scan Computers UK: 896MB BFG GTX260 OCX MAXCORE, PCI-E 2.0(x16), Mem 2250MHz, GPU 655MHz, 216 Cores, 2xDL DVI-I/ HDTV
Or just expensive and quicker
Scan Computers UK: 1GB XFX GTX 280 XXX, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), Mem 2500MHz GDDR3, GPU 670MHz, 240 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/ HDTV (the one I wanted but wasnt in stock, now is )

PSU Modular
Scan Computers UK: 800W Tagan TG800-BZ "Quad Rail" Gold Plated PipeRock Modular Cable Management, +80% Efficiency
Non Modular
Scan Computers UK: 800W Tagan Dual Engine TG800-U25 SLi Ready PCI-E SATA EPS12V

I find things like hard drives and sound cards are down to personal preference, where as chipsets for GPU's and CPU's are normally the ones pointed out, though I do like the XFX cards the BFG are also excellent vfm
PSU's, well there is only one reason I go for Tagan, thats because they are the best

Tony

wacky.banana

Guys,

Thanks for your inputs. Tony, you don't believe in holding back do ya

Any more suggestions from anyone else please?

WB

staffs Mike

I'd probably go for,

Intel E5200 + scythe ninja II ~£80 (It's a pentium dual core, 2.5Ghz, but will overclock so easily to 3.5GHz or more). If you want quad core th Q6600 is probably best bang for buck).
4GB PC6400 RAM, probably corsair XM2 ~£50
Asus P5Q-E ~£95 (tonnes of features but you can get cheaper boards obviously)
Nvidia GTX260 ~£165 (if you want to game, good for 3D rendering as well though I suppose, if it's in Direct3D)
Corsair 520W HX ~£65 (800W is crazy, you could run this PC twice on that).
640GB Western Digital AAKS ~£50 (It's big sure, but it's pretty much the best bangs for bucks, super quiet and one of the fastest drives out there)

That's about £510 as it stands. Everything there barely makes a peep in terms of noise

I'd get all of that from scan and if you will find lots of parts mentioned on this weekends.. today only. Scan Computers UK: Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online

If you want a GTX280 as mentioned the stock clocked (more than adequate for any resolution) leadtek card is £240 on the today only page, which is where you will also find and EVGA GTX260 for £175. That's a good one to go for as it comes with a 10 year warranty

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Mike, those latest 260/280 chipset GPU cards need a little more than a 520w (500w reallity) psu, they say the minimum spec is a 550w, recommended is 600+w with a 40amp output, I went 800 because I like a bit of extra there running a 600 (580w reallity) psu thats not compliant to the latest specs will just cost you money when you go back for a bigger, more upto date usable one

The quad core cpu in the E6600 is a great chip but its outdated and at 130 quid for a 2.4ghz 65nm, well tbh for 50 quid more your getting one thats a little quicker (2.66mhz and 45nm) plus a mobo thats ddr3 compatable with the fsb (and fast ddr3 memory) as ddr2 is pushing its limits now

Basically if your buying for future proof, dont get the 65nm chips, get the 45nm chips and push towards the top end components (my last pc lasted 3 years before i upgraded and that had some near top end stuff in when I bought the parts for it )

Tony

staffs Mike

They really don't need more than 400W as long as it has decent rails. When you consider that Dell used to run their 8800GTX systems (pretty much as power hungry) on a 350W PSU, you can pretty much rest assured that you are covered with 520W. It's a fantastic PSU, seasonic made and it's as quiet as you could want it to be. If you really feel the need to go ott then the 650W TX would be about the same price, but it is non-modular.

Most reviews will confirm the realistic power requirements
Asus ENGTX260: A Quiet Graphics Card for Gamers? | silentpcreview.com

Nvidia will always aim far too high with their requirements as they are covering themselves against the people who buy ez-cool and Q-TEC PSUs etc..

The Q6600 has gone up unfortunatly. At £105 it was certainly best bang for buck, I'm inclined to agree with it being £130 now though. The E5200 is my pick right now, it's a bargain at £55.

There is no future proofing on S775.. it's dead at the end of this year really. If you want future proof save your money and get an i7 based system but your budget isn't going to go anywhere on an i7 system with DDR3 etc.. Best just to go for a cheap(ish) Mobo, cpu, ram combo now and then if you feel an upgrade later you can happily swap over to i7.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Never measure anything running less than 100% at 30% gpu one of those cards is running 151w of power hence go bigger rather than be underpowered

Though I do agree with you that the E5200 is a good buy, the 45nm is defintately the way forward even if the 775 socket is pushing towards its life expectancy, you can still go for a ddr3 board over the ddr2 one because ddr3 will drop in price and push ddr2 out (hence ive a duel memory board so when my ddr2 sucks, ill just update to ddr3 )

Being futureproof is never cheap

Tony

staffs Mike

I can't see there being a good reason for having DDR3 on a S775 board personally. The gains are minimal if any are made, and it would only be useful for extreme overclocking of already high FSB chips.

How about this review then.
AnandTech: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216: Competition for the 4870

Honestly it is rare to see a single graphics system bust the 300W mark without heavy overclocking. The 280 manages to just about do it and the HD4870X2 does but that's really 2 GPUs.

Their system is a 4GB, 3.2GHz Quad so.. they aren't trying to cheat you lol

As long as you get an 80+ PSU it won't make a blind bit of difference anyway, just the head room (for running the street lights as well as your PC ) and the price.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Still 275w of power out of that 520 total output is high, and thats only the 260 though its a little less than the ATI cards
I still recommend a big power supply, especially if you have the junk ive got in my pc

E6600 cpu
4bg ddr2 mem
1x XFX GT 1gb 280 gpu (use to be a nice little xfx 7950 GT card)
1 soundblaster sound card
3x dvd players/writers (im greedy )
fdd/card reader
3x built in fans
2x hdd
Asus P5K C mobo
800w Tagan BZ series PSU (upgraded from a 600w tagan which is going into another system ill be building )

Tony

staffs Mike

Probably should have mentioned I'm pointlessly running a 700W PSU myself, but I can justify it as it was one of the most efficent at the time and I was going to go SLi.

You'll find somewhere between 350 and 400W most high output PSU's will have to ramp up the fans to try and cool it down.

For example Corsairs 750W TX is essentially the same PSU as the 450W VX, and both kick the fans up at the same level of output. I have the 450 VX and the 520W HX in other systems and I've never heard the fans

wacky.banana

I nip off for a game of football and a quick pint and I find Staffs Mike and Tony Burns arguing the toss about size (again).

Appreciate the input lads and I like the friendly style adopted by both of you (thank god no dogma here).

I must say that SM's offerings are looking good because they seem cost effective; however TB's argument about future proofing is very, very persuasive indeed.

So after all that and given that I won't be overclocking (might be old fashioned but never believed in it - things are built to spec and tolerance for a reason, not to be run at the edges of their performance envelopes), what the hell do I go for?

I like the spec of the P5Q3, which I think I can mate with the Q6600 if I want to (I know the Q9400 is "quicker" but I'm mulling over cost, or should I just say to hell with it and get the 9400 anyway)? The Nvidia GTX 260 looks a good bet but then what do I go for re power supply?

What are the advantages/disadvantages between a modular and non modular supply?

Key point - what do I do about CPU cooling? I definitely don't want to do water cooling.

Anything else I should consider?

Seems Scan will be getting my business as you have both voted for them.

Look forward to hearing from you both.

Cheers

WB

staffs Mike

Well the scythe ninja II is what would get my money at the moment seen here,
Scan Computers UK: Scythe Ninja II Heatpipe Cooler, with 120mm fan Socket 478, LGA775, 754, 939 and 940 and AM2

As long as your case is of a reasonable size it will fit in, but it is massive lol

I havn't used this one yet but I have 2 of the older Ninja's and they are my favourite cooler due to it being very efficent with extremely low airflow. It can even run without a fan if you have a decent case airflow.

The ninja II comes with a scythe slipstream fan which is one of the very best for noise that is out there right now too

I'd get it while it's that price if you want one as I doubt that will last. But make sure the case will house it. If it has a 120mm fan on the back that is usually a good sign.

My problem with you buying a DDR3 motherboard and RAM now is that they are both more expensive than their DDR2 counterparts, offer you absolutely no performance advantage and never will with a Socket 775 CPU. The DDR3 will carry over to an i7 (can't remember the socket name) but then you have to buy another motherboard and by that time DDR3 will be about half the price it is now.

Look at the price difference given there is no performance difference that you will notice without overclocking

4GB PC6400 (800MHz, now I don't want to confuse you but that in RAM terms is a higher frequency than a 1333MHz FSB CPU, will explain that later if you want me to)

~£50

4GB of DDR3

~£150 ..ouch, and remember, no performance gains.

The motherboard is £40 more with no useful extra feature unless you are overclocking (I believe it has two bios chips so if one messes up you have a backup) but offers little extra over the -E. If it is the deluxe you want the DDR2 version is a bit cheaper anyway.
Scan Computers UK: Asus P5Q Deluxe, iP45, S775, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1200/1066/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

Modular PSU's are genereally just a lot easier to work with. Picking which cables to use and discarding those you don't need. Makes keeping the case tidy far easier and managing the PSU itself much easier

..that post was far longer than I thought lol

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

If you do go the DDR2 route, get the best you can, plus mate it with an Asus mobo I think Mike and Myself agree they are one of the best makers of decent boards for the money out there
Chip wise, I would still opt for the later 45nm quad core chip, it is an improvement on the very good but somewhat older Q6600 2.4ghz chip (65nm) and I dont think you will go far wrong with a GTX260 chipset GPU either

Now the only disadvantage with modular is that they are not "quite" as efficient as a non modular design, mainly because you have the cables connected at the back, rather than straight out of the PSU, (breaks = more resistance), but its very minor (maybe 1% less efficient) and they are nicer to work with, just note you may need to modify your cradle to fit one in as I had to because of the top cross beam (doddle to do ) and im still recommending the tagan for that job (typical german engineering for you )
CPU fans, id stick with the standard intel one if your not going to overclock, its more than sufficient for the job even on their extreme chips though start going a bit silly and it would be upgrade time.

Tony

PS according to vista, the only thing that lets my system down is the 800mhz DDR2 memory (and its the good stuff ) with a high score of 56 (everything else is 59 which is top)

staffs Mike

Yeah Asus do make very good boards, it's just their customer service which leaves a little to be desired. But I've never had an Asus motherboard fail and I have more of them than I do fingers so that is a testiment to their quality (since I have managed to keep all 8+2 fingers so far ). Abit were my favourite but they are folded so.. other than DFI there isn't really anywhere to go, other than Gigabyte and I'm not buying their tat

Depending on the chip depends on whether I would use the stock cooler. The duals aren't too bad with it, it's the quads that seem to make it ramp the fan up quite a bit. Then it makes a dreadfully annoying (in a quiet/silent) humming noise. I havn't used a 45nm quad though so I don't know if this is still the case.

I think now there are two main Intel chips I would buy. The 45nm quad as mentioned, even though it goes against my "nothing costs more than £200" pc building principle it is a very good chip, the Q9550 that is. I notice scan have an OEM Q9450 now but you've saving very little (on the today only price) and you lose 2 years of warranty as well as the stock cooler. So it's not really worth it.

The other chip is as mentioned the E5200. 2.5GHz is more than enough for current games as there is often little or no difference between around 2.2GHz and beyond when at higher resolutions, where it is the graphics cards that is the main concern.

Obviously if you have very CPU intensive tasks in mind and if they are able to scale over 4 cores then a Quad core is a great asset to you

I wouldn't object to having a Q6600, but at £130 I wouldn't feel right about buying it, knowing they have been as cheap as £105. They're aren't bad value at that price though, they are very strong overclockers but if that isn't an option then nevermind.

The more expensive duals E8***'s overclock very well but to speeds that you will rarely if ever need.

wacky.banana

OK chaps,

I have been mulling over your responses. From your inputs the system I'm now looking to build is as follows:

- Board = Asus P5QDeluxe
- Chip = Q6600
- Cooler = Ninja 2
- Video Card = Nvidia GTX260
- Memory = PC6400
- Power supply = Tagan TG 800 modular
- System drive = TBC

With the Ninja being so tall I am going to have to look for a new case to be sure it will fit in.

Have gone for the Tagan power supply because I always run power supplies that are way over what I need to save me worrying about it of I add components later.

Given that I don't want to spend too much and given SM's view that the faster DDR3 kit is bound to come down at some time in the future to more acceptable price levels (plus add in the current effects of the auld credit crunch), this system looks the best compromise. Do you lads agree?

Any recommendations on a good case with lots of airflow?

Thanks again.

WB

staffs Mike

Antec 300 is good on a budget The coolermaster CM-690 is quite a nice case for about £65, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra £30.

But if the ninja is too tall there are plenty of other coolers. Scythe actually make the mini ninja as well. Save width and depth just not as tall.

Thermalright make the ultima 90 which is good too.

wacky.banana

Staffs Mike,

Thanks for this. Didn't know they made a smaller Ninja. Useful info which means I can reuse the case I have.

Was looking to get my buying basket sorted last night (ok it was 2am this morning) but couldn't find the memory you recommended. Did you see these on Scan or somewhere else?

Cheers for your inputs; much appreciated.


WB

staffs Mike

This is the one I mentioned
Scan Computers UK: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18

Don't worry about the slightly higher timings (lower being better) it really makes no difference to core 2 chips

wacky.banana

Thanks mate.

WB