Author Topic: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone? (Read 43,935 times)

f0dder · « **Reply #25 on:** January 20, 2008, 09:21 AM »

Humm, holding back etc., intel have been on LGA775 socket for quite some time, while AMD have moved from 939 to AM2 to AM2+.

I think you'll see the LGA775 socket and core2 brand used for quite some time yet. Intel uses a tick/tock development cycle ("sorta new architecture" and "improve that architecture"), afaik the Penryn (65nm -> 45nm and SSE4) is a tock, and the next tick will integrate the memory controller on the cpu. That tick might move from LGA775 to something new, and will at least definitely require a new motherboard.

Moved down to two PCI slots? Depends which board your are buying. Most boards I see have 3+ PCI slots, a couple of pci-e slots at 1x or whatever, and one or two pci-e 16x for graphics cards. And how many regular PCI slots do you need, really, when there's 8 or 12 onboard USB slots, onboard gigabit network (or two of those), 8 onboard SATA connections, and onboard sound that's actually quite good?

Again, forget about macs. It's just x86 PC hardware now, dunno if it's even possible to buy new G5 machines anymore... the reason that it's so easy to use windows (with bootcamp) is because the macs are x86 now. What you pay for is standard x86 hardware, and then add 300% for the fancy computer case.

Lashiec · « **Reply #26 on:** January 20, 2008, 07:27 PM »

And another 300% for the components. I can't believe they charge you that much for a simple RAM stick as they do, you're better buying one on your own and getting the Mac with a minimum amount of memory.

vegas · « **Reply #27 on:** January 21, 2008, 10:44 AM »

I am in the same boat as f0dder, waiting to build using the 45nm quad-core chip coming soon from Intel. It was announced at one of the electronics shows or in a press release in the last 10 days that these have been pushed back to late first quarter in 2008. So likely coming some time between mid-February and late March. The article I read also seemed to imply there would be a new socket interface to the motherboard with these CPU's compared to the 65nm LGA775 (we'll see). If you can wait, this will be the chip to beat/buy, assuming they have reliably overcome the issues with achieving the fabrication at 45nm.

f0dder · « **Reply #28 on:** January 21, 2008, 11:14 AM »

The 45nm dualcores have just arrived on stock in my shop... I had made an old order for a E8400 chip, but cancelled the order in favor of an (on stock) E6550 because I needed a test machine capable of VMX *now*. Appearantly, the order didn't get cancelled properly though, and today I got an SMS that it was ready for pickup.

That quadcores are still set for end of january, though. And they will still be LGA775 and will work with just about any of the current LGA775 motherboards, unlike AMDs Phenom with AM2+ which doesn't work as well on AM2 as it was supposed to.

The 45nm "Penryn" series from Intel that's just arriving (a bit incorrect to call it Penryn I guess, since that's the 'extreme' CPUs, the dualcores called Wolfdale and Quadcores called Yorkfield) are the "tock" of the development cycle. The next "tick" is supposed to bring the memory controller into the CPU, and that might require a new socket interface.

vegas · « **Reply #29 on:** January 21, 2008, 06:51 PM »

Quote from: f0dder on January 21, 2008, 11:14 AM

The 45nm "Penryn" series from Intel that's just arriving (a bit incorrect to call it Penryn I guess, since that's the 'extreme' CPUs, the dualcores called Wolfdale and Quadcores called Yorkfield) are the "tock" of the development cycle. The next "tick" is supposed to bring the memory controller into the CPU, and that might require a new socket interface.

OK, I am a little confused from your post. Are you saying that Penryn is the series that will incorporate the memory controller on the CPU, and that is due when? Or that Penryn is the quad-core type due at the end of January, or are they one in the same.

Lashiec · « **Reply #30 on:** January 21, 2008, 07:20 PM »

f0dder, you confused poor vegas!

Penryn is the new 45nm architecture that should be out soon. I feel lazy, so...there you have some of the details. Penryn is the codename for the whole family, and applicable to the laptop processors as well, as the Core 2 architecture is essentially a evolution of the different laptop processors the guys at Intel Israel have been developing all these years, so the desktop counterparts are souped-up versions of the laptop iterations. Then you have Wolfdale (dual core), and Yorkfield (quad core, two Core 2 Duo in the same die), they're simpy codenames for different versions of the same architecture.

Nehalem will come either at the end of 2008 or at the beginning of 2009, and it will be essentially a Core 2 meets Athlon64, as it will integrate much of what AMD introduced in that processor back in 2003 (memory controller, Intel's own flavor of HyperTransport, etc.), and it will gives you a taste of 8 core goodness, in a single circuit, just like Phenom does now with 4.

f0dder · « **Reply #31 on:** January 22, 2008, 12:10 AM »

Well, Penryn is actually only the "extreme" series of the 45nm core2 generation, but it has become the codename for the whole generation... confused? Don't be, the same happened when Conroe was used as the codename for 65nm core2.

Memory controller integration will be for the next "tick" of intel's tick/tock development model - so not this 45nm generation.

Will be interesting to see what integrated memory controller does for Intel... it didn't give AMD that much advantage, but perhaps Intel will "do it right" and achieve massive performance boost?

Lashiec · « **Reply #32 on:** January 22, 2008, 02:20 PM »

I was wondering why the major architectural changes in Intel processors were called 'tick', as 'tock' sounds stronger, guess f0dder got it wrong

f0dder · « **Reply #33 on:** January 22, 2008, 02:32 PM »

Seem like I got it wrong, indeed - I though the ticks were the new stuff, since tick comes before tock... but oh well

Deozaan · « **Reply #34 on:** January 22, 2008, 07:35 PM »

Thanks Lashiec, that article is very informative!

Deozaan · « **Reply #35 on:** February 08, 2008, 03:20 AM »

I want this:

SLI Motherboard, Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz, 4GB PC6400 DDR2 Ram (2x2GB) for $400

Of course, then I'd also need to buy:

Hard Drive: + ~$100
Video Card: + ~$100-$200
Case: + ~$100
Power Supply: + ~$60-$80

And add shipping and the thing would cost nearly $900 and still have no monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

Deozaan · « **Reply #36 on:** February 08, 2008, 03:44 AM »

When it comes to video card ram, what's the better choice between 512MB DDR2 or 256MB DDR3?

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #37 on:** February 08, 2008, 04:48 AM »

256MB DDR3 I would assume - faster is (almost) always better, but that depends on if you need to load a little bit of things onto the GPU fast, or a lot at a slower rate.

Deozaan · « **Reply #38 on:** February 08, 2008, 07:10 AM »

Quote from: wreckedcarzz on February 08, 2008, 04:48 AM

256MB DDR3 I would assume - faster is (almost) always better, but that depends on if you need to load a little bit of things onto the GPU fast, or a lot at a slower rate.

Yeah but DDR3 would need to be twice as fast as DDR2 to make up for having only half the MB. At least that's my logic to it.

f0dder · « **Reply #39 on:** February 08, 2008, 12:34 PM »

Humm, I doubt DDR3 is that much faster, and you really do want a lot of video ram for your GPU, considering how huge textures are nowadays, and that there's also geometry processing etc done there.

Notice that more isn't always better - for instance, the best bang for the buck is currently the 8800GT-512meg cards, that actually perform better than the 640-meg

Lashiec · « **Reply #40 on:** February 08, 2008, 02:23 PM »

Good machine you have there, Deozaan.

Regarding the graphic card, 512 MB are only necessary with the latest games AND if you're running them at high resolutions. Of course, to handle all the graphic load it's necessary to have a modern and powerful card, or you have a big bottleneck. In other words, a so-so card doesn't gain anything for the extra memory, but faster memory could give you an advantage.

Quote from: f0dder on February 08, 2008, 12:34 PM

Notice that more isn't always better - for instance, the best bang for the buck is currently the 8800GT-512meg cards, that actually perform better than the 768-meg

How is that?

f0dder · « **Reply #41 on:** February 08, 2008, 03:09 PM »

Well, 8800GTS/640 is a G80 chip, 8800GT/512 is G92.

Note that you should go specifically for the 512meg versions, as those are the ones that brought along the newer chip revisions.

Lashiec · « **Reply #42 on:** February 08, 2008, 03:13 PM »

Ah, OK. That's true, but I thought you were talking about 8800GT/512 MB and 8800GT/768 MB, a particular model that I think it does not even exist. Oh well...

f0dder · « **Reply #43 on:** February 08, 2008, 03:17 PM »

Where did you get 768meg from? *cough*

Deozaan · « **Reply #44 on:** February 09, 2008, 01:46 AM »

So what's the real story behind ATI vs nVidia? I see you guys talking about the 8800 GT, which is nVidia, but I've always gotten ATI myself. Not for any particular reason, other than perhaps the price.

I've been kind of stingy in the past when it comes to prices, but these days I would consider spending $100-$200 on a video card. I'm more concerned about value than price.

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #45 on:** February 09, 2008, 01:54 AM »

I always go ATI: 100%, will not buy another nVidia no matter what. I have had 2 nVidia cards and both have badly disappointed me (low FPS, low resolutions, uses system RAM for graphic purposes...). All my ATI's are great. You can get both of them, even high end models, fairly cheap - just gotta look around.

Of course if your like me and you make your Christmas lists early (starting around December-January

) you go for the new, shiny, fast stuff. This card, for example (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129103) has caught my eye. But that is the highest of high end. And in 2 months time it will be outdated. But after that you can find it in the discount center at ATI.com...

Lashiec · « **Reply #46 on:** February 09, 2008, 02:01 AM »

Things are quite even between them. nVidia provides the best balance between price and power in the high end, with the aforementioned 8800GT. ATI rules the roost right now, thanks to the Radeon 3870X2, but that's very pricy, and it's not really recommended anyway, unless you have tons of money. It also uses some "black magic" to achieve the highest performance in the single-card field

Anyway, considering your budget, I give you the same advice that I gave to wreckedcarzz: Buy a Radeon 3850. It's an excellent card for the mid-end, quite powerful to run without problems the most advanced games, but very affordable as well. If you can spend more money, it's either the 3870 or the 8800GT, both are good options, although nVidia has the edge in this case. It used to be a price difference between them favorable to ATI, but that does not seems to be the case anymore.

One caveat though: If you're going to buy the computer now (in two weeks, for example), my recommendation still applies. If you're planning to get the machine in a month, then wait a bit more. nVidia is releasing a new line of cards in March-April, and Intel is going to update the entire Core 2 line by then as well (note that the new Core 2 Duos are available, though not in great quantities). So you may have to revise your choice of the Q6600 by then.

Ooops! Brandon finished faster than me

. So, what nVidia cards you used to give you so bad results? Reading "uses system RAM for graphic purposes" reminds of that wonderful card, the 6200 Turbo Cache, the king of the hill

wreckedcarzz · « **Reply #47 on:** February 09, 2008, 02:15 AM »

Lashiec, here is my little info-bit on my experiences with my 2 nVidia cards. Both were OEM machines, 1 card per PC, usual midrange computer that you buy at the local shop kinda deal.

nVidia GeForce 2 FX 32MB (used from back when XP was like less than a year old, up until about a year and a half ago)
nVidia GeForce 7300 LT 256MB (used for about 4 months in my dad's HP, switched to ATI card about 3 months ago)

Both cards gave (and this includes old games for the old card) about 10-15FPS in well cooled environments, with no computer issues. The hard drive would have to go nuts with its SWAP file on the old GeForce 2 (256MB of RAM, GTA III, music playing, high-resolution mods (at the time, they were)).

Neither one could keep going for a long time w/o losing FPS gradually, and the 7300 did HORRIBLE at video playback while AERO was on (it was average on XP Media Center 05).

Both lagged enough to be annoying, and it is just weird that even over time both cards do just enough to get by running the OS, and maybe light games.

-Brandon

Lashiec · « **Reply #48 on:** February 09, 2008, 02:35 AM »

I'm not familiar with the GeForce 2 FX, but the GeForce 7300, as any low-end video card, it's shitty for everything. If it came with the machine, I guess you didn't have a choice.

It should not have problems with GTA III, that's true, but who knows

Deozaan · « **Reply #49 on:** February 09, 2008, 04:50 AM »

Well right now TigerDirect.com is selling a GeForce 8600 GT 256MB DDR3 for $80 after rebate.

I'm looking at Tom's Hardware VGA Charts at it looks like overall there is a big difference between the nVidia 8600 GT and the ATI 3850.

It looks like the price for an ATI 3850 is about $180. But I just saw this: nVidia GeForce 8800 GT Overclocked 512MB DDR3 for $210 after rebate. That's only $30 more and it has twice the RAM, and according to the Tom's Hardware charts, it performs a lot better!

Quote from: Lashiec on February 09, 2008, 02:01 AM

One caveat though: If you're going to buy the computer now (in two weeks, for example), my recommendation still applies. If you're planning to get the machine in a month, then wait a bit more. nVidia is releasing a new line of cards in March-April, and Intel is going to update the entire Core 2 line by then as well (note that the new Core 2 Duos are available, though not in great quantities). So you may have to revise your choice of the Q6600 by then.

I'm not out to buy top of the line bleeding edge technology. Like I said, I'm concerned more about value than price. It doesn't seem worth it to me to spend $600 on something that in a year will be in the sub $200 range and not have any significant advantage over another product I could have gotten for $400 less at the same time.

Unless you're suggesting to wait because these new lines of GPUs and CPUs will lower the price of the ones I'm looking at now, what's the real advantage of waiting for the new stuff, taking into consideration what I just wrote about my opinion on value?