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Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition

godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Treo360 said:
Thanks for the info. I was asking because I wanted a comparable machine to my Macpro (dual xeon 2.8 sometimes oc'd to 3.2) so instead of buying a newer Mac, I wanted to go the Hackintosh route, but all the while keeping max compatibility and being able to update without issue.

Overclocking isn't really a big deal for me. It's more for my Animation work.
Click to expand...
Ohh, I see. Yep, no such mobo afaik.
 
M

MWS Natural

Member
godhandiscen said:
No, intel hasn't released a skulltrail x58. However, the last skultrail sucked ass at OC'ing, so I doubt you will want to go that route.

Phenom II X4 955: AWESOME!

At this point, it doesnt make sense to go for a socket 775 build from scratch, considering the AM3 platform will be supported until late 2010, it is as fast, it overclocks better, and newer and faster processors will be introduced.
Click to expand...


Yeah, the more I read about it the more impressed I am. Do you think the higher 6+ core CPU's will work with the AM2+ boards or just the AM3?
 
R

rass

Member
brain_stew said:
Could you link to the retailer, you're using, I'll see if I can do any better.
Click to expand...

thanks brain_stew, retailer is MSY
Fredescu said:
Yeah, it's horrible. Unfortunately they have consistently the best prices in Aus. Go straight to the PDF http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/PARTS.pdf

Edit: It's so horrible in fact that someone not even affiliated with them took their own time to rewrite the whole site with up to date prices: http://msy.arpatubes.net/
Click to expand...
I just saw the new Phenom x4 955, I don't even know if that is available in aus
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
MWS Natural said:
Yeah, the more I read about it the more impressed I am. Do you think the higher 6+ core CPU's will work with the AM2+ boards or just the AM3?
Click to expand...
Most likely AM3 only.
iam.rass said:
I just saw the new Phenom x4 955, I don't even know if that is available in aus
Click to expand...
wait for it, the speed it achieves without raising the vcore is insane.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
iam.rass said:
my questions:
•what mouse is good?
•Are there any horrible red flags amongst that, things that aren't compatible?
•Anything i could improve for minimal cost?
•How much ram can that motherboard support?
•And how much would it cost to get 8GB ram? (am I in denial if i think it will be $67 x 2?) photoshop will use as much ram as you let it.

thanks so very much people :)
Click to expand...

If you're ok with a wired mouse I really think the MS Comfort 3000 is great for the money. $17 is nothing at all. I've never felt the need for a super duper gamerz mouse (or keyboard) myself. I have a Comfort 1000 on my secondary PC and I'm impressed by how good it feels for a $13 mouse.

You can upgrade the RAM for exactly double, yeah. Just order another 4GB kit. It looks like the GTX260 dropped in price slightly too. The Gigabyte one is now $299.

iam.rass said:
I just saw the new Phenom x4 955, I don't even know if that is available in aus
Click to expand...
Not yet, but pretty soon. Sometimes MSY takes a little while longer for new products to appear on their pricelist than other retailers due to the volumes they need to get. The x3 720 took about three weeks longer from memory.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
TheHeretic said:
Powercolor has a 2 year equal value warranty. Not the best you could find but its hard with ATi retailers. The 260 is more expensive than it over here for some reason so I went with the 4870. The motherboard has crossfire support and the case comes with an Antec Earthwatts 500 PSU.

Prices are in Australian from a pretty cheap retailer.

Edit: His budget was strictly 1500, couldn't go a dollar over. I can get him a 21.5" Samsung 1080 monitor for 20 bucks more, not sure if the hit on performance would be noticeable though.
Click to expand...
Perhaps that particular retailer took a bit longer to pass on the 260 price drop. At most places it's roughly the same. At MSY the 260 is even slightly cheaper than the 4870 1GB. If you're looking for a cheaper retailer, MSY has consistantly good prices. See iam.rass post above for links to it. With that above build you could save roughly $50.
 
G

Grayman

Member
Hey Guys and Gals,

I visited the local shop today to see what they can offer. They did not want to seem to sell me an econobox. Ended up at a grand(like 100 is tax being Canadian), but I got a paper copy of everything to do what I want with.

I heard some stuff I didn't like in there. CPU matters, will bottleneck my card. 30FPS is full motion...

If I do go the econobox off newegg, or ncix do I need to buy other parts(paste, fans, coolers, any tools that are not screw drivers)?


The PC they "built" in the spreadsheet btw was an AMD PH X3, 4gb kingston 1066, 320GB hd, 4870 512, no dvd, a cooler.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
mr stroke said:
Finally time to upgrade this summer :p

5870 this summer

GTX380 in Oct
and the NVIDIA 300 specs are out(if true?)

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2009/4/22/nvidias-gt300-specifications-revealed---its-a-cgpu!.aspx


edit-WTF are we going to play with these monster cards? I can't see anything on the horizon to even tax a current card outside of Crysis :(
Doom 4 maybe?
Click to expand...

Summer? No chance, they'll both launch in Q4 like most big GPU revisions always tend to do. Where's that site suppose to have got its information from anyway? I'll wait till Anandtech report it before I start taking serious note.

Doom 4 is targetted as 720p/30hz game on consoles. So it'll easily run at 1080p/60hz with ramped up graphics on GTX 260/4870 level hardware.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Grayman said:
Hey Guys and Gals,

I visited the local shop today to see what they can offer. They did not want to seem to sell me an econobox. Ended up at a grand(like 100 is tax being Canadian), but I got a paper copy of everything to do what I want with.

I heard some stuff I didn't like in there. CPU matters, will bottleneck my card. 30FPS is full motion...

If I do go the econobox off newegg, or ncix do I need to buy other parts(paste, fans, coolers, any tools that are not screw drivers)?


The PC they "built" in the spreadsheet btw was an AMD PH X3, 4gb kingston 1066, 320GB hd, 4870 512, no dvd, a cooler.
Click to expand...

The E5200 is a fine CPU still, and is precisely what I use. At stock its still enough for today's games, OCed your GPU will be the bottleneck in 95% of circumstances. Add http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200036 to the Econobox, switch out the GPU to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434, OC that CPU to 3.5ghz and enjoy perfect 1080p gaming.

That cooler comes with some preapplied paste.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Grayman said:
Awesome, I am going to build it up on .ca and see how I turn out. url switching failed this time.
Click to expand...

I use a GTX 260, E5200 and Akasa 965 (which that Rosewill is a rebrand myself) combination myself so I can vouch for their effectiveness when it comes to gaming.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
Did you ever try overclocking that E5200 on the stock cooler brain_stew? My E5300 is running nicely on 3.2Ghz with stock cooler at stock volts etc and I've been toying with the idea of getting a decent cooler, but I'm not even sure I need more CPU power.
 
T

TheHeretic

Banned
Fredescu said:
Perhaps that particular retailer took a bit longer to pass on the 260 price drop. At most places it's roughly the same. At MSY the 260 is even slightly cheaper than the 4870 1GB. If you're looking for a cheaper retailer, MSY has consistantly good prices. See iam.rass post above for links to it. With that above build you could save roughly $50.
Click to expand...

I've had bad experiences with MSY, as have a lot of my friends. Their stuff is constantly out of stock, their service is poor, but of course they are very cheap. Umart.net.au (the retailer I use) is more expensive, but has a much better website and better service.
 
T

TheHeretic

Banned
Fredescu said:
Umart have a GTX260 for cheaper than any of their 4870 1gb: http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=82&bid=5&sid=35157

Yeah, you always need to check MSY for stock and it can be hard to get service if you're going on a weekend or something. Mostly due to the lines and long waits. I've been buying stuff from there for years and never had a problem getting an RMA.
Click to expand...

.com and .net are different websites XD

Umart.net builds the systems for you for like 50 bucks and express posts them to you. They do a bang up job with cable management as well. All the 260's are order in though for some reason =/

I was under the impression the 4870 and 260GTX were equivalent, is there any reason to seek out one over the other?
 
G

Grayman

Member
TheHeretic said:
.com and .net are different websites XD

Umart.net builds the systems for you for like 50 bucks and express posts them to you. They do a bang up job with cable management as well. All the 260's are order in though for some reason =/

I was under the impression the 4870 and 260GTX were equivalent, is there any reason to seek out one over the other?
Click to expand...
Fanboyism! I believe you could use onboard phyx with the nvidia. Different games are probably optimized to one brand or another as well.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Fredescu said:
Did you ever try overclocking that E5200 on the stock cooler brain_stew? My E5300 is running nicely on 3.2Ghz with stock cooler at stock volts etc and I've been toying with the idea of getting a decent cooler, but I'm not even sure I need more CPU power.
Click to expand...

Nope, when an excellent custom cooler can be had for $20/£13 I never saw the point. The reduction in noise levels is worth it alone. That Rosewill cooler is really great for an E5200 rig, its basically a rebranded Akasa AK-965 which has been reviewed in many places and been proven to be the ultimate bang for buck socket 775 cooler.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
TheHeretic said:
.com and .net are different websites XD

Umart.net builds the systems for you for like 50 bucks and express posts them to you. They do a bang up job with cable management as well. All the 260's are order in though for some reason =/

I was under the impression the 4870 and 260GTX were equivalent, is there any reason to seek out one over the other?
Click to expand...
Ah, fair enough.

I don't think there is much difference between the two. Crysis performs slightly better with Nvidia drivers, you can use PhysX with Mirror's edge, and that's about it. The ATi card will most likely support audio over HDMI if that's your thing too. I have a 4870 1gb myself.
 
J

jett

D-Member
I'm looking into buying a 4850...is not having a PSU with a dedicated 6-pin PCI-E cable gonna cause problems? :p Or will I do fine with a molex adapter?
 
B

brain_stew

Member
TheHeretic said:
.com and .net are different websites XD

Umart.net builds the systems for you for like 50 bucks and express posts them to you. They do a bang up job with cable management as well. All the 260's are order in though for some reason =/

I was under the impression the 4870 and 260GTX were equivalent, is there any reason to seek out one over the other?
Click to expand...

The excellent headroom of the GTX 260 is a pretty major reason, the GTX 260 really pulls away once both are OCed. As is the much more consistent performance that you'll experience, games like GTA4 and TLR perform like crap on ATI hardware for instance. Nhancer is a huge deciding factor for me, ATI's profile management is still utter shit.

The fact that the GTX 260 was cheaper than a 4870 1GB when I bought it, and came with custom cooling, a factory OC and a copy of Mirror's Edge made it a no brainer for me.
 
T

TheHeretic

Banned
Fredescu said:
Ah, fair enough.

I don't think there is much difference between the two. Crysis performs slightly better with Nvidia drivers, you can use PhysX with Mirror's edge, and that's about it. The ATi card will most likely support audio over HDMI if that's your thing too. I have a 4870 1gb myself.
Click to expand...

I'm building it for a mate of mine, and he'll never notice the difference tbh (which tends to swing 10% here or there from what i've read). I can order in a Leadtek 260 Core 216 for $10 less, I'll probably get him that after all.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
brain_stew said:
Nope, when an excellent custom cooler can be had for $20/£13 I never saw the point. The reduction in noise levels is worth it alone. That Rosewill cooler is really great for an E5200 rig, its basically a rebranded Akasa AK-965 which has been reviewed in many places and been proven to be the ultimate bang for buck socket 775 cooler.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. I don't think we get that particular cooler here and I'd need to spend at least $50 AUD to get something decent. I think 3.2GHz will do me fine for a while.
 
G

Grayman

Member
any suggestions on an alternative case <$120(cdn). I am guessing I can go with the lesser motherboard because my ram has a lowerclock and I do not know what the mystery(to) connections do.

a good standalone psu/case combo would do as well. I am looking but do not know how to find a good power supply.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
Treo360 said:
did I just hit pay dirt?

Motherboard $480

Two i7 940's $1120
Click to expand...
That board looks like a server board for Xeons. I'd be suprised if it supported i7s. I read something about the i7 not being designed for multi-cpu boards due to missing some kind of interface. Wikipedia says it only has one "Quickpath" interface and therefore wouldn't suit a multi-cpu board. Might want to read up on that.

Edit: The product page only says it has support for Xeons: http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=uubLblnIvItIDTV8

Also, the board layout would mean any reasonable gaming video card would bump into the heatsink on one of the CPUs.
 
S

Slavik81

Member
My parts are in the mail.
I bought a second BenQ V2400W to go with it too.

Fredescu said:
Is it $120 ca for just the case? If so, the Coolermaster RC-690 is a pretty popular option. http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137&Tpk=coolermaster 690
Click to expand...
DirectCanada is cheaper. And both charge similarly for shipping.
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11130AC2711&vpn=RC-690-KKN1&manufacture=COOLERMASTER

Grayman said:
any suggestions on an alternative case <$120(cdn). I am guessing I can go with the lesser motherboard because my ram has a lowerclock and I do not know what the mystery(to) connections do.

a good standalone psu/case combo would do as well. I am looking but do not know how to find a good power supply.
Click to expand...
It doesn't quite match what you're looking for, but I used this one a while back, and it turned out well:
Antec Sonata III /w 500W power supply
 
T

Treo360

Member
Fredescu said:
That board looks like a server board for Xeons. I'd be suprised if it supported i7s. I read something about the i7 not being designed for multi-cpu boards due to missing some kind of interface. Wikipedia says it only has one "Quickpath" interface and therefore wouldn't suit a multi-cpu board. Might want to read up on that.
Click to expand...


Yeah you're right, however I guess I could go this route to make my hackintosh, so my price would be about 2400 for two Quad core Xeons running at 2.6 4gb ram and a 500gb hd as apposed to the dual 2.66's that Apple is asking for the cheap price of 3299.
 
G

Grayman

Member
All parts in Canuckbucks from newegg.
Antec NSK6580B Black 0.8mm cold-rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430 Watts 80 PLUS Power Supply - Retail -$36.00 Instant $121.49
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM $79.99
EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail -$30.00 Instant $20.00 Mail-in Rebate $218.49
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5 - Retail -$6.00 Instant $25.00 USD Mail-in Rebate $66.99
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail -$6.00 Instant $113.99
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 - Retail $86.99
Rosewill RCX-Z940-LX 92mm Ball CPU Cooler - Retail $24.49

Subtotal $712.43
Handling: $85.63
Shipping: $52.24
Grand Total: $850.30

Just going to gut the dvd burner out of this computer i am on.
No problems stick out right? Any tips on economizing more, or getting out of S/H?
 
G

Grayman

Member
Slavik81 said:
My parts are in the mail.
I bought a second BenQ V2400W to go with it too.


DirectCanada is cheaper. And both charge similarly for shipping.
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11130AC2711&vpn=RC-690-KKN1&manufacture=COOLERMASTER


It doesn't quite match what you're looking for, but I used this one a while back, and it turned out well:
Antec Sonata III /w 500W power supply
Click to expand...
Thanks. If I want to spend 140 on a case though I can go with the one i have, I was looking for something to get down to the (sold out) econobox http://techreport.com/articles.x/16721/2 price.
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
mr stroke

mr stroke

Member
brain_stew said:
Summer? No chance, they'll both launch in Q4 like most big GPU revisions always tend to do. Where's that site suppose to have got its information from anyway? I'll wait till Anandtech report it before I start taking serious note.

Doom 4 is targetted as 720p/30hz game on consoles. So it'll easily run at 1080p/60hz with ramped up graphics on GTX 260/4870 level hardware.
Click to expand...

http://www.guru3d.com/news/ati-to-ship-directx-11-capable-cards-this-summer/


it would make sense for ATI to pull the trigger early wouldn't it? Release a 58xx line in the summer to steal the high end away from NVIDIA, then release a cheaper version and an X2 in the fall to compete?
 
B

brain_stew

Member
If your current DVDRW drive is P-ATA then you should really spend the small amount to get a new SATA drive, those huge ass cables are a royal PITA.
 
G

Grayman

Member
I am very thankful towards brain_stew, Fredescu, Slavik, and Hazaro. Hopefully the order processes tomorrow so that it may reach me next week.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
mr stroke said:
http://www.guru3d.com/news/ati-to-ship-directx-11-capable-cards-this-summer/


it would make sense for ATI to pull the trigger early wouldn't it? Release a 58xx line in the summer to steal the high end away from NVIDIA, then release a cheaper version and an X2 in the fall to compete?
Click to expand...

I'm sure they'd like to but I just see the timetables as being far too tight, we'd have been seeing a lot more leaks if the cards were just two or three months away. Considering the 4890 was just launched I just can't see it happening tbh, regardless of what some random German hardware magazine says.

If they want the performance crown its there's to have right now, they just need to let their partners release the rumoured 4GB, 1GHZ 4890X2s they supposedly have in the pipeline.
 
G

Grayman

Member
brain_stew said:
If your current DVDRW drive is P-ATA then you should really spend the small amount to get a new SATA drive, those huge ass cables are a royal PITA.
Click to expand...
Ok if it gives me too much guff trying to install it I can get one locally without shipping costs, or investigate USB booting a windows install (i've done it for linux) then putting a virtual disc drive program on it.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
Grayman said:
Ok if it gives me too much guff trying to install it I can get one locally without shipping costs, or investigate USB booting a windows install (i've done it for linux) then putting a virtual disc drive program on it.
Click to expand...

Oh it'll work just fine, its just that those huge ass cables make cable management, and achieving good airflow 10x harder. With Sata drives going so cheap, there's no reason to use them anymore.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Treo360 said:
Yeah you're right, however I guess I could go this route to make my hackintosh, so my price would be about 2400 for two Quad core Xeons running at 2.6 4gb ram and a 500gb hd as apposed to the dual 2.66's that Apple is asking for the cheap price of 3299.
Click to expand...
Well, if you are saving yourself some money then it is ok, even if you have to get the more expensive Xeon processors. There is no performance difference between the Xeon and the i7's besides the QPI which allows you to link processors. I think the extreme edition i7 has the same QPI speed of the Xeon and can act effectivily as a Xeon though. Also, why an ATI card for that purpose, doesn't Apple use Nvidia?
 
B

Broadbandito

Member
well my upgrades have been complete and my "new" machine has been awesome. I was able to OC my e4400 from 2.0 to 2.67. I see so many people getting it to 3.0 so I need to learn how to get it there! :lol
 
T

Treo360

Member
godhandiscen said:
Well, if you are saving yourself some money then it is ok, even if you have to get the more expensive Xeon processors. There is no performance difference between the Xeon and the i7's besides the QPI which allows you to link processors. I think the extreme edition i7 has the same QPI speed of the Xeon and can act effectivily as a Xeon though. Also, why an ATI card for that purpose, doesn't Apple use Nvidia?
Click to expand...


So there is no difference (major) if I cut down to 4 cores as opposed to 8? Remember I'm not looking too much into gaming, but more for Animaton, and the occasional gaming here and there :p

Guess I'm bored as I haven't built a PC for nearly 10 years now, however I want to keep my Mac Os.

Apple has been using both Ati and Nvidia for years now.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Treo360 said:
So there is no difference (major) if I cut down to 4 cores as opposed to 8? Remember I'm not looking too much into gaming, but more for Animaton, and the occasional gaming here and there :p

Guess I'm bored as I haven't built a PC for nearly 10 years now, however I want to keep my Mac Os.

Apple has been using both Ati and Nvidia for years now.
Click to expand...
No, there is a MAJOR difference in rendering times with video editing applications when going from 4 cores to 8 cores. In games, you will see no difference and actually games would benefit of a higuer core speed rather than more cores. QPI is just a property that the Nehalem (i7 and current Xeon) architecture has and determines the connectivity speed between cores. The Xeon processor have higuer QPI than the regular i7's, but the i7 extremes have a QPI matching that of a Xeon. Also, the extreme i7 has an unlocked multiplier.
 
T

Toby

Member
Grayman said:
All parts in Canuckbucks from newegg.
Antec NSK6580B Black 0.8mm cold-rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430 Watts 80 PLUS Power Supply - Retail -$36.00 Instant $121.49
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM $79.99
EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail -$30.00 Instant $20.00 Mail-in Rebate $218.49
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5 - Retail -$6.00 Instant $25.00 USD Mail-in Rebate $66.99
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail -$6.00 Instant $113.99
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 - Retail $86.99
Rosewill RCX-Z940-LX 92mm Ball CPU Cooler - Retail $24.49

Subtotal $712.43
Handling: $85.63
Shipping: $52.24
Grand Total: $850.30

Just going to gut the dvd burner out of this computer i am on.
No problems stick out right? Any tips on economizing more, or getting out of S/H?
Click to expand...

This cpu cooler (the Rosewill Z940) does not say it is compatible with LGA 775, the socket on your motherboard.

I believe brain_stew meant to link to this cooler.
 
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