Cyber Monday Rig

[Revalos]

Alright...I'm convinced that I will want a new computer before I want a PS3 (MGS4 delayed FTW). So, given than Cyber Monday is coming, I figure that'll be when I take the plunge. The Crysis demo did it to me...I may not buy that game, but if they are making games that I can't play, it is time to get a new rig.

Here are the specs that I plan on getting. My price point is $1000. I have some of the parts already (recycled from this rig), so I'll put down the prices I've pulled off Newegg for the things I need to buy. Suggestions and revisions are encouraged.

ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA / SE LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - $280

XFX PVT88PYDF4 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - $270

SeaSonic S12 II SS-500GB ATX12V / EPS12V 500W Power Supply - $90

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6750 - $195

GeIL Esoteria 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model GX22GB8500ESPDC - $100

Vista something-or-other - $115

(prices and equipment may change depending on what goes on sale on the 26th, but this is the general idea)

I plan on re-using:

Black Cooler Master Computer Case, Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW, 120mm fan

NEC ND-3550A BLACK 16X/16 DVD DUAL DOUBLE LAYER REWRITABLE DRIVE

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Questions:

Should I get a second drive and run RAID 0? Would the performance be worth it? The current drive I have is about a year old.

Is there an issue running DDR2 at 1066 and the CPU at 1333? Should I get DDR2 800 instead? Is there a big difference between 1066 and 800?

Are any of ATI/AMD's upcoming 8800GT competitor cards worth even looking at? I really like how OmegaDrivers can enhance those cards (he doesn't make NVidia drivers) but I haven't heard of a single other reason to go back with ATI/AMD again.

What version of Vista should I get? I can't for the life of me figure out what one would be right for gaming/power user stuff. 64 bit vs. 32 bit? Ultimate? Home Premium?

[radamanthys]

OmegaDrivers does have NVidia drivers....

That power supply is way overpriced and underpowered. I'd say you'd want at least... 600, if you wanna be able to have wiggle room with your drives and such. Get a modular one, it'll make your life better.

That processor price is seeming absurdly low... but I haven't shopped for processors in a while, so I don't know. The 6700 is over 300 bucks, and has a lower fsb. Beats me.

Video looks like a good deal.

You're gonna buy vista?

raid is not worth it. it's built for redundancy and backup, not necessarily brute performance. Meaning less total space than two drives.

[Revalos]

The last NVidia drivers on Omegadrive.net is from 2005 that I know of. If there is another good site to go to for those, I really like his work.

What would be a better PSU Price/performance wise? It seemed to me that unless I went bargain basement no-name I was going to be dropping $70 on a PSU, so I went with an 80Plus standard one. The last PSU I bought was a Thermaltake 430W for about $40, but the 12V rail doesn't have enough juice (8800s need 24A).

The processor price is ridiculous, but it is correct. I can't figure out why it is so much cheaper than all the other ones around the same type (I wonder if it is a cheap quality thing too). I figured if I'll be doing mostly gaming, a duo will work so I don't need a quad.

I figure I might as well go with Vista at this point to get DX10.1 and whatnot. I have to imagine that MS will fix the slowdown crap by next year. I can wait though and use my XP install.

Thanks for the RAID advice, I never have been able to figure out if it is useful for playing around with or not.

[radamanthys]

I meant why buy vista, not why install it... but I digress.

Also that that power supply was overpriced. Not that you were paying too much. You'll need at least 600 watts total though. I'd say get an ultra. I love mine. You can get one for 100-130 bucks on TD.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2974472&CatId=106

My choice, but there's others for less of a margin.

That raid advice was a little faulty, rereading it. I was thinking of raid 5. Raid 0 gives you better bandwidth. If one disk goes, though, they're both toast. I never thought it was worth it, to be honest, but I haven't played with it in years.

If you're going to be doing video editing or something that has large files where disk transfer times are an issue, then maybe. However, for a typical workstation I would say not worth the hassle.
That and if you're one of those crazy 'need the most out of the system, no matter the risks' kinda people.... then go for it. But it looks like its not a rational expense considering you have a third of a TB at your disposal.

[Shifted]

There's a good site that has a page on how to build a rig for under $1000, both intel and AMD, and is updated monthly... i'll see if i can find it

[Shifted]

Aha, found it. The value gamer isn't updated monthly, but it is updated every few months...
SharkyExtreme (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/MVGSBG/article.php/3697556)

This one is for august. Here's my preferred build out of that, with a few additions seeing on what you're re-using:

AMD CPU: Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3.0 GHz) - $160

Athlon 64 X2 AM2 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 (nForce 570 SLI) - $90

AMD: CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - $98

My next system I'll probably still stick with XP, but Vista:
Ultimate - $180
Home Premium - $112

Thermaltake W0106RU 700W Power Supply - $170

EVGA 512-P2-N775-AR GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI - $215


I prefer AMD usually for my processors, but a similar model can be built for around the same price. As for a second hard drive, unless right now you're using over half of your space, or plan on turning it into a Home Theatre PC, your 320 should be good.

[Revalos]

Newegg doesn't sell Ultra PSUs, but I'll get it from TD if I can't find something else that piques my interest.

I didn't know if RAID 0 significantly improved game loading times, that was pretty much the only reason I'd go with it if it did. Fault tolerance isn't a big deal, I have an external drive for backing up important stuff.

Thanks for that website Shifted, it definately does give me some good baseline products. I basically want a future-upgradable motherboard architecture (PCI-E 2.0, SLI, etc...) otherwise I may pick up some of those other components there.

[Celephais]

You're gonna buy vista?
Despite having a budget some of us feel that it's worth having legal software and that for $100 it isn't worth the headache of dealing with a pirated copy.


raid is not worth it. it's built for redundancy and backup, not necessarily brute performance. Meaning less total space than two drives.
That would be true if he said RAID1, he said RAID0, RAID0 is faster in the throughput department and will improve load times, it's not a massive improvement or anything, but any improvement in disk access is a good thing, so yes, RAID0 can improve game load times, but it's not always the best performance/price investment (although you've hit all the other bottlenecks pretty good).

There are no issues running RAM at a different speed than your FSB, because of changes in timing there isn't a 25% increase from 800-1066 as some people might guess, but it is an improvement (with the exception of the most expensive tightest timing 800 beating the cheapest faulty 1066).

[radamanthys]

yea, I corrected myself. I was actually thinking of striping with distributed parity... think that's RAID 5.

Raid 0 is useful if you're copying/saving etc. big files all the time. Most game programmers are pretty cognizant of the bottleneck that exists with read/write, and they compensate for that. Most of the load goes to RAM/CPU and Video, rather than I/O... at least as far as what you should spend your money upgrading, that is.

[Celephais]

yea, I corrected myself. I was actually thinking of striping with distributed parity... think that's RAID 5.
Striping with distributed parity is indeed RAID5, this is indeed more about redundancy, but saves a lot more HD space than RAID1, can cost you in performance if you don't have a dedicated XOR chip, but can improve read performance.


Raid 0 is useful if you're copying/saving etc. big files all the time. Most game programmers are pretty cognizant of the bottleneck that exists with read/write, and they compensate for that. Most of the load goes to RAM/CPU and Video, rather than I/O... at least as far as what you should spend your money upgrading, that is.
I agree that price/performance wise it's generally not the best choice, but the OP asked about load time in a subsequent post, and that's exactly what this will improve.

I'm not sure if Vista fixed this, but regardless of RAM size you will still page all sorts of memory to disk, and most developers do not program performance around OS paging schemes, so just getting your page file on the RAID0 will be "general" improvement. I would say it's only worth it if he wants the extra 320GB, setting it in an array won't cost him anything except halving his MTBF and isn't hard to do (so long as he does it from the start and doesn't have to rebuild it).

[radamanthys]

I just have a smaller, separate disk for my paging. It also extends disk life by a bunch, since the arm doesn't have to flip back and forth so often. *shrug*

[Revalos]

That may be another idea. What kind of drive could I get just to use as a separate paging drive?

And here's another question. I generally don't plan on overclocking anything, but should I stick with the stock CPU cooler or go for an aftermarket one?

[Shifted]

Stick with the standard if you're not overclocking. Less noise.

[Celephais]

Stick with the standard if you're not overclocking. Less noise.
If you are getting the E6750 then the stock cooler is no quieter than an aftermarket cooler, you can get a Zalman or Scythe, they usually make quiet coolers, and most the overclocking enthusiast coolers have speed settings that allow them to run quieter... essentailly the more (preferably copper) surface area the quieter it can run.

I don't know the case for the AMD stock coolers, but you could still get a nice Zalman and know it'd be quieter... depends how much noise is actually worth to you.

[Celephais]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/06/best_graphics_card/
November "Best gaming card" review... worth reading over if you're in the market.

[Drew2]

This goes for everyone:

Do not use Vista.

I can't tell you how serious I am.

I guess I can elaborate. Coming from a small business IT consultant, there are so many compatibility issues with Vista and other network systems it's not even funny. Sure, most have been hotfixed, but it's a pain in the ass to have to update fucking everything on the server because one douchebag wanted a Vista laptop. Until the next generation of server/network software/equipment comes out, save yourself a few hours of Google searching for hotfixes and patches for your software and just stick with XP. There's nothing wrong with it. Well, in comparison.

[Shifted]

Oh, also look at the Athalon 5000+. It uses the new (to AMD) 65nm technology that intel has been using for a while. only 2.6Ghz, but uses almost half the power of the 6000+, which means less heat. The downside of it is the fact that it does not come with a heatsink/fan, but if you were planning on getting an aftermarket one anyways, that wouldn't matter.