Need advice for building a new computer - Page 2

Cruelty · 2006-11-24, 23:57

Hmmm, at 3500MHz you will be running FSB @437,5 (effective: 1750). You will have to increase both Vcore and Vmch to retain stability... Intel stock cooler will be very loud at such speed and MCH will get cooked between passively cooled GFX and CPU (to overcome this you will need a rear case fan)

As for the revievs, well let's just say that I don't believe them too much...

Anyways: good luck with your overclocking, and don't forget to post your results

garo · 2006-11-25, 19:19

I will increase FSB slowly. 3500 is ambitious. It was meant as the upper limit of my overclocking. I will happily settle for 3200 or even 3000. Will let you know how it goes. And definitely a rear case fan is in order.

patrik · 2006-11-25, 19:24

I chose Antec Sonata II Piano for my latest computer, running a Core 2 Duo E6300. I also got the pre-cut soundproofing kit for that case. It is not completely quiet when running Prime95, but it is probably my quietest computer. I think it is mostly due to the stock CPU cooler running quieter. (I'm not overclocking (yet).)

Otherwise the case is OK. The side cover of the side you don't open can't be removed (as it can on another case I have). This makes it tricky to remove the front to mount the soundproofing material there. (With my hand I couldn't reach to press to release the front everywhere I needed, but then I realised I could use a pencil.)

garo · 2006-12-28, 12:34

Just thought I would report back now that the build is done - got it finished just in time for Christmas. Have the computer still running at stock. I will probably do some overclocking this weekend. Here is a list of what I eventually bought stacked up against my initial plans from the first post.

CPU: Core 2 Duo 6400 as planned.
Mobo:
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

MSI P965 Neo-F E101 OR
BioStar TForce 965 Deluxe E118 OR
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 E138

Memory:
2GB Geil Ultra PC-6400 4-4-4-12

2GB Geil Value PC5300 E256 OR
2GB Crucial Ballistix (PC-5300) (CL3) E277 OR
A-Data PC-6400 E287

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce 7600GS 256MB (fanless)

HDD:

Seagate 3.0Gbps 250GB 7200.10 8MB E.75 OR
Samsung 3.0Gbps 250GB SpinPoint P120S E.81 OR
Western Digital 250 GB SE16 (noisier but faster) E.81 OR
Seagate 3.0Gbps 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Barracuda 7200.10 E97

Case & PSU:
Spent some more here and went for
Antec P150 with NeoHe 430W power supply.

Antec SLK3800B 400W ATX12V 2.0 PSU E.94 OR
Antec Sonata II SmartPower 450W E.109 OR
Antec NSK4400 + Seasonic S12-380: E.105

DVDRW: Pioneer DVR-111D

And here are the benchmarks:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
CPU speed: 2133.33 MHz
CPU features: RDTSC, CMOV, Prefetch, MMX, SSE, SSE2
L1 cache size: 32 KB
L2 cache size: 2048 KB
L1 cache line size: 64 bytes
L2 cache line size: 64 bytes
Prime95 32-bit version 24.14, RdtscTiming=1
Best time for 512K FFT length: 12.036 ms.
Best time for 640K FFT length: 15.940 ms.
Best time for 768K FFT length: 19.582 ms.
Best time for 896K FFT length: 23.194 ms.
Best time for 1024K FFT length: 26.592 ms.
Best time for 1280K FFT length: 33.014 ms.
Best time for 1536K FFT length: 40.228 ms.
Best time for 1792K FFT length: 47.805 ms.
Best time for 2048K FFT length: 53.154 ms.
Best time for 2560K FFT length: 70.348 ms.
Best time for 3072K FFT length: 85.577 ms.
Best time for 3584K FFT length: 102.110 ms.
Best time for 4096K FFT length: 113.958 ms.
Best time for 58 bit trial factors: 5.273 ms.
Best time for 59 bit trial factors: 5.257 ms.
Best time for 60 bit trial factors: 5.253 ms.
Best time for 61 bit trial factors: 5.240 ms.
Best time for 62 bit trial factors: 8.359 ms.
Best time for 63 bit trial factors: 8.364 ms.
Best time for 64 bit trial factors: 8.013 ms.
Best time for 65 bit trial factors: 7.960 ms.
Best time for 66 bit trial factors: 7.959 ms.
Best time for 67 bit trial factors: 7.927 ms.

Cruelty · 2006-12-28, 13:00

What about overclocking Garo?

tha · 2006-12-28, 15:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by garo

Just thought I would report back now that the build is done -

This is what I bought at the same time:

Case: Coolermaster Centurion Silver
Power Supply Unit: Corsair HX 520W
Motherboard: Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi edition
Graphics Card: Asus Geforce 7600GS
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Memory: Corsair 2 Gb DDR2 800 MHz
HD: Seagate 320 Gb
DVD writer

The power supply was expensive ($100) but well worth it, it really is a high quality. I do not over clock, I wait for a faster processor in two years or so.

A system like this is particularly good for running multiple virtual OS's.

garo · 2006-12-28, 23:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cruelty

What about overclocking Garo?

Yup, I will get there this weekend. Want to make sure everything is rock solid at stock before proceeding. With two Prime95s running, the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool shows temps of 60 and 58 for the two cores. I think this is decent with a stock cooler and the case fan set to low speed. I have space for two 92mm fans in the front and will see if these are required when I overclock. So there is some headroom for cooling. Of course, I could always spend some money on a better cooling solution. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us see what temps we get with the overclock.

CADavis · 2006-12-29, 06:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha

The power supply was expensive ($100)

That's actually not very much for a psu. Of course compared to mine that's peanuts

Peter Nelson · 2006-12-30, 08:34

Garo wrote "scan is very cheap but has received terrible feedback when it comes to RMA and stuff. So I have already resolved to stay away from them. I will check out the other site. I was also looking at dabs.com"

Re "terrible feedback" surely not, you must be thinking of ebuyer and dabs ;-)

Seriously, I only once ordered from dabs a long time ago and they delayed on shipping and I had to chase them.

Since then they had the bright idea of removing phone numbers, and only resolving problems by email. Or should I say RARELY resolving ;-)

If your order with dabs goes well you will get a good price. Unfortunately some people found if it's not perfect eg no mouse, some RMA needed, or misbilled it can be a nightmare to sort out with dabs and usually they just give up and put it down to experience.

Ebuyer is also competitive on price but I haven't used them.

Scan are actually good, either in person at their premises or mail order. Their couriers are not necessarily the best, but can usually live with that. You have to consider a few bad stories among the vast volume of orders they ship. I'm happy with them. Also it's who you know. eg Scan have presence on custompc forums, where issues can be escalated and resolved if no progress is being made. They will want to keep their reputation on cpc clean therefore it can be a good place to highlight any "room for improvement" or to chase up orders, RMAs etc specifically. Also if you have the right people's names and numbers miracles can happen for you ;-)

Also they have emails like "themanwhocan" where you can ask them to discount certain things as specials. If you are considering 4 systems or combinations of mobo and processor and ram, that might be worth asking if they can make some relevant special offer for you rather than paying the advertised price.

If you have trade status there are channel distributors like Ingram micro, but Scan comes pretty close and will sell to the public.

As for performance, without considering overclocking, Core2duo has only small lead on amd, depending on app. Of course if you are prepared to (or want to) overclock, then the headroom on the C2D gives them an advantage at the moment until amd do a process shrink in 2007.

garo · 2006-12-31, 22:50

I'm living in Ireland these days and on boards.ie scan got terrible feedback. Perhaps you are right and it was the luck of the draw and those posters got the few bad orders that happen with every seller. Anyway, I did order with dabs on Dec 19th and received my delivery on the 22nd so was very happy with that. There was a problem with my credit card address and I received an email within a couple of hours, I fixed the problem emailed them back and they shipped the stuff out the same evening. Moreover, dabs now have an Irish site dabs.ie where the prices are quoted in euros and despite the VAT difference (21% here vs. 17.5% in the UK) are competitive with the dabs.com prices. Finally, at work we have a dabs corporate account and the hardware head honcho gave me good feedback. If there was a problem I could always have asked him to lean on them a bit. He's a nice guy so probably would have done it for me.

Ah and as far as Core2duo vs. AMD is concerned, 1) I am overclocking and 2) the app I want max performance for is Prime95. For everything else, either processor would give me more than adequate performance.

2006-11-25, 19:19	#13
garo Aug 2002 Termonfeckin, IE 2²·691 Posts	I will increase FSB slowly. 3500 is ambitious. It was meant as the upper limit of my overclocking. I will happily settle for 3200 or even 3000. Will let you know how it goes. And definitely a rear case fan is in order. Last fiddled with by garo on 2006-11-25 at 19:44

2006-11-25, 19:24	#14
patrik "Patrik Johansson" Aug 2002 Uppsala, Sweden 5²·17 Posts	I chose Antec Sonata II Piano for my latest computer, running a Core 2 Duo E6300. I also got the pre-cut soundproofing kit for that case. It is not completely quiet when running Prime95, but it is probably my quietest computer. I think it is mostly due to the stock CPU cooler running quieter. (I'm not overclocking (yet).) Otherwise the case is OK. The side cover of the side you don't open can't be removed (as it can on another case I have). This makes it tricky to remove the front to mount the soundproofing material there. (With my hand I couldn't reach to press to release the front everywhere I needed, but then I realised I could use a pencil.) Last fiddled with by patrik on 2006-11-25 at 19:25

2006-12-28, 12:34	#15
garo Aug 2002 Termonfeckin, IE 5314₈ Posts	Just thought I would report back now that the build is done - got it finished just in time for Christmas. Have the computer still running at stock. I will probably do some overclocking this weekend. Here is a list of what I eventually bought stacked up against my initial plans from the first post. CPU: Core 2 Duo 6400 as planned. Mobo: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 MSI P965 Neo-F E101 OR BioStar TForce 965 Deluxe E118 OR Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 E138 Memory: 2GB Geil Ultra PC-6400 4-4-4-12 2GB Geil Value PC5300 E256 OR 2GB Crucial Ballistix (PC-5300) (CL3) E277 OR A-Data PC-6400 E287 Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce 7600GS 256MB (fanless) HDD: Seagate 3.0Gbps 250GB 7200.10 8MB E.75 OR Samsung 3.0Gbps 250GB SpinPoint P120S E.81 OR Western Digital 250 GB SE16 (noisier but faster) E.81 OR Seagate 3.0Gbps 320GB 7200RPM 16MB Barracuda 7200.10 E97 Case & PSU: Spent some more here and went for Antec P150 with NeoHe 430W power supply. Antec SLK3800B 400W ATX12V 2.0 PSU E.94 OR Antec Sonata II SmartPower 450W E.109 OR Antec NSK4400 + Seasonic S12-380: E.105 DVDRW: Pioneer DVR-111D And here are the benchmarks: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz CPU speed: 2133.33 MHz CPU features: RDTSC, CMOV, Prefetch, MMX, SSE, SSE2 L1 cache size: 32 KB L2 cache size: 2048 KB L1 cache line size: 64 bytes L2 cache line size: 64 bytes Prime95 32-bit version 24.14, RdtscTiming=1 Best time for 512K FFT length: 12.036 ms. Best time for 640K FFT length: 15.940 ms. Best time for 768K FFT length: 19.582 ms. Best time for 896K FFT length: 23.194 ms. Best time for 1024K FFT length: 26.592 ms. Best time for 1280K FFT length: 33.014 ms. Best time for 1536K FFT length: 40.228 ms. Best time for 1792K FFT length: 47.805 ms. Best time for 2048K FFT length: 53.154 ms. Best time for 2560K FFT length: 70.348 ms. Best time for 3072K FFT length: 85.577 ms. Best time for 3584K FFT length: 102.110 ms. Best time for 4096K FFT length: 113.958 ms. Best time for 58 bit trial factors: 5.273 ms. Best time for 59 bit trial factors: 5.257 ms. Best time for 60 bit trial factors: 5.253 ms. Best time for 61 bit trial factors: 5.240 ms. Best time for 62 bit trial factors: 8.359 ms. Best time for 63 bit trial factors: 8.364 ms. Best time for 64 bit trial factors: 8.013 ms. Best time for 65 bit trial factors: 7.960 ms. Best time for 66 bit trial factors: 7.959 ms. Best time for 67 bit trial factors: 7.927 ms.

2006-12-30, 08:34	#20
Peter Nelson Oct 2004 23² Posts	Garo wrote "scan is very cheap but has received terrible feedback when it comes to RMA and stuff. So I have already resolved to stay away from them. I will check out the other site. I was also looking at dabs.com" Re "terrible feedback" surely not, you must be thinking of ebuyer and dabs ;-) Seriously, I only once ordered from dabs a long time ago and they delayed on shipping and I had to chase them. Since then they had the bright idea of removing phone numbers, and only resolving problems by email. Or should I say RARELY resolving ;-) If your order with dabs goes well you will get a good price. Unfortunately some people found if it's not perfect eg no mouse, some RMA needed, or misbilled it can be a nightmare to sort out with dabs and usually they just give up and put it down to experience. Ebuyer is also competitive on price but I haven't used them. Scan are actually good, either in person at their premises or mail order. Their couriers are not necessarily the best, but can usually live with that. You have to consider a few bad stories among the vast volume of orders they ship. I'm happy with them. Also it's who you know. eg Scan have presence on custompc forums, where issues can be escalated and resolved if no progress is being made. They will want to keep their reputation on cpc clean therefore it can be a good place to highlight any "room for improvement" or to chase up orders, RMAs etc specifically. Also if you have the right people's names and numbers miracles can happen for you ;-) Also they have emails like "themanwhocan" where you can ask them to discount certain things as specials. If you are considering 4 systems or combinations of mobo and processor and ram, that might be worth asking if they can make some relevant special offer for you rather than paying the advertised price. If you have trade status there are channel distributors like Ingram micro, but Scan comes pretty close and will sell to the public. As for performance, without considering overclocking, Core2duo has only small lead on amd, depending on app. Of course if you are prepared to (or want to) overclock, then the headroom on the C2D gives them an advantage at the moment until amd do a process shrink in 2007. Last fiddled with by Peter Nelson on 2006-12-30 at 08:38

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2006-11-24, 23:57	#12
Cruelty May 2005 11001011000₂ Posts	Hmmm, at 3500MHz you will be running FSB @437,5 (effective: 1750). You will have to increase both Vcore and Vmch to retain stability... Intel stock cooler will be very loud at such speed and MCH will get cooked between passively cooled GFX and CPU (to overcome this you will need a rear case fan) As for the revievs, well let's just say that I don't believe them too much... Anyways: good luck with your overclocking, and don't forget to post your results

2006-12-28, 13:00	#16
Cruelty May 2005 2³·7·29 Posts	What about overclocking Garo?

2006-12-31, 22:50	#21
garo Aug 2002 Termonfeckin, IE 2²×691 Posts	I'm living in Ireland these days and on boards.ie scan got terrible feedback. Perhaps you are right and it was the luck of the draw and those posters got the few bad orders that happen with every seller. Anyway, I did order with dabs on Dec 19th and received my delivery on the 22nd so was very happy with that. There was a problem with my credit card address and I received an email within a couple of hours, I fixed the problem emailed them back and they shipped the stuff out the same evening. Moreover, dabs now have an Irish site dabs.ie where the prices are quoted in euros and despite the VAT difference (21% here vs. 17.5% in the UK) are competitive with the dabs.com prices. Finally, at work we have a dabs corporate account and the hardware head honcho gave me good feedback. If there was a problem I could always have asked him to lean on them a bit. He's a nice guy so probably would have done it for me. Ah and as far as Core2duo vs. AMD is concerned, 1) I am overclocking and 2) the app I want max performance for is Prime95. For everything else, either processor would give me more than adequate performance.