DIY PC Configs, Prices, Guides [ 8 October 2010 ]
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
1)an i7 930 is the best deal for CPU speed.
2)SSD is for speed. I did mention only for those who don't do storage. I myself use only 22GB including OS, so why not? For gaming, best is with SSD. (quoted as per below)
"Quoted from kenn3th:
Shouldnt go into much details here. Just to note that while building a pc, the most essential component would be - the hard disk.
Without it, everything is useless - regardless of how good your specs are."
Besides, there is the Intel X25-m 80GB.
3)Regarding Graphics card, i did mention changing to 5830 at the bottom.(for those with budget of course)
4) As i mentioned, i'm "new" to PSU and casing so do forgive me.the i7 930 is way overkill unless u are doing intensive video editing or stuff that requires that much processing power and like i said for that budget, it costs too much
for gaming, an i5 750 is really enough plus it custs back on costs which can be diverted to getting a better gpu/casing/psu etc..
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Originally posted by jonchao72: the i7 930 is way overkill unless u are doing intensive video editing or stuff that requires that much processing power and like i said for that budget, it costs too much
If i7 980X that would be overkill, 930 isn't.
http://www.techspot.com/review/193-intel-core-i5-750/page9.html
Compared to the 930, the i5 750 loses some fps.(probably due to QPI, anyway that was on a GTX295; the gap will probably be more in better cards.)
Add: it is noted that Hyper-threading reduces FPS in games.
And it is not known whether the benchmark 930 in the link above has HT enabled.
for gaming, an i5 750 is really enough plus it custs back on costs which can be diverted to getting a better gpu/casing/psu etc..
Ok i see what you mean. i know what to do.
Change to :
ASUS P7P55D LE + i5 750 ~ 517
PowerColor HD5850 PCS ~ 419
and a PSUThe 5850 makes up for the loss of FPS in the 750(and even gives more) without much increase in price.(after downgrading the CPU)
Regarding PSU and casing,
could you guys impart some knowledge to me? xD
Casing + fans which is the best deal? (As in, fair pricing and good)
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Hmm, for PSU and casing i learnt mine more from experiences, when buying PSUs look at the side of the box and look how many amperes it can take, on which rail.
Since Power = Voltage x Current, and Power is measured in watts, voltage in volts and current in ampere( written in I),
we can say Power = V x I
And then look at the powersupply boxes(multiple rail for this eg) and see which one 12v rail can take how much current, since 12v is a constant, it is up to current, lets say the 12v rail can take 18 amps max, using P=VxI, we get P=12 x 18, giving 216watts MAX on that rail. and see how many rails the psu have
so u can do a bit of calculation and see if the box is crapping or is real when they say 450watts max* or 1000watts max.( This is like the cheap audio system which writes 5000watts PMPO, what we want is Root Means Square value, which can be calculated by dividing the peak value by root 2) The calculation may not be accurate because there are still other factors which are not considered
And depending on how your system is configured , you can consider whether you want a multiple rail or single rail PSU
Watts is one thing, and how clean is the power produced is another, cheap power supply may produce 500watts, but the dc voltage(which ideally should be either one straight line of power or no power, but impposible in real life) they produce may have more ripple(because they are stepped down and converted from AC) than a better quality 500watts, which have more capacitor to filter them
Casing also learnt from experience, some casing which look perfectly normal, but uses metal of poor quality, and you can actually 'flex' the casing. Then i dont sell this to customers who use graphics card which are heavy,as if u accidentlykick the PC, the casing will 'flex', and when taht happens parts connected via PCI and secured to the casing will 'move' along which leads to not so good contact point at the pci slots, and comp will crash.
You know pci slots cards all have an L shape which allows you to secure by a screw to your casing. When inserting you need to fit the end of the longer side of the "L" shape metal piece into the casing, and some casings do not have a cutting large enough at the end to fit the whole card in, and you need to dig it wider with a screwdriver
But then some casing looks small, but they take into consideration tat u use big cards, so they actually cut away the 5.25 or 3.5 inch bay to make room
some also have crappily drilled motherboard stand off holes which you need to use a spanner and forcfully turn that stand off in, but that is rare cases and mostly happen on cheaper casings
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
If i7 980X that would be overkill, 930 isn't.
http://www.techspot.com/review/193-intel-core-i5-750/page9.html
Compared to the 930, the i5 750 loses some fps.(probably due to QPI, anyway that was on a GTX295; the gap will probably be more in better cards.)
Ok i see what you mean. i know what to do.
Change to :
ASUS P7P55D LE + i5 750 ~ 517
PowerColor HD5850 PCS ~ 419
and a PSUThe 5850 makes up for the loss of FPS in the 750(and even gives more) without much increase in price.(after downgrading the CPU)
Regarding PSU and casing,
could you guys impart some knowledge to me? xD
Casing + fans which is the best deal? (As in, fair pricing and good)
NZXT casings are chio with relatively good performance, but if you really want substance, get CM's HAF series
PSU get seasonic
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Originally posted by jonchao72:
NZXT casings are chio with relatively good performance, but if you really want substance, get CM's HAF series
PSU get seasonic
The HAF 922's price of $189 does it including full set of fans?
Does it have support for the LGA 1366 motherboard?
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Not sure if it comes with full set of fans
But the HAF922 supports ATX and microATX motherboards, so if your particular LGA1366 motherboard falls into this two form factors, you can mount it in
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
The HAF 922's price of $189 does it including full set of fans?
Does it have support for the LGA 1366 motherboard?
HAF 922 & HAF 932 do come with the full set of fans.
as for LGA1366 motherboards, u have to look at the form factor. as stated by Pillow, HAF 922 supports microATX & ATX, HAF 932 supports the above 2, as well as eATX.
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Theorily if there are two holes in which you can secure the motherboard, it will be fine
Jst make sure the two screws are tight
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HAF comes with a set of fans, that is the front 230mm, side 230mm, and rear & top 120mm silent fans.
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My current casing is the Elite RC330 which actually also is ATX casing.
So the HAF should work out just fine too.
Anyway, i have decided not to change the casing.
Instead, i'll look to upgrading my graphics card.
The 128-bit memory bottleneck of the HD5750 is not too pleasant.
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
My current casing is the Elite RC330 which actually also is ATX casing.
So the HAF should work out just fine too.
Anyway, i have decided not to change the casing.
Instead, i'll look to upgrading my graphics card.
The 128-bit memory bottleneck of the HD5750 is not too pleasant.
It's 128-bit with GDDR5. That's no bottleneck. It's like 256-bit with GDDR3.
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Originally posted by Raraken:
It's 128-bit with GDDR5. That's no bottleneck. It's like 256-bit with GDDR3.
ATI admitted it themselves.
It is the 128-bit memory controller that put the 57xx in the low price range.
Anyway, alot of current games use 256-bit so 128 IS a bottleneck. xD
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
ATI admitted it themselves.
It is the 128-bit memory controller that put the 57xx in the low price range.
Anyway, alot of current games use 256-bit so 128 IS a bottleneck. xD
The 128-bit cards are in the low price range because they are CHEAPER to make. And the games don't care if it's 128-bit or 256-bit. As long as there's enough bandwidth, they don't care. As long as the memory can keep the GPU fed (Which should not be a problem), it's fine. 5750 = 4850. Looking at memory speeds and accounting for GDDR5's QDR, both cards have the same memory bandwidth, and the 4850 was never straved for bandwidth unless overclocked to 4870 speeds, in which case the lack of faster memory took it's toll. I overclocked the memory on my 4850 from 993 to 1100MHz and never got a FPS boost.
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The memory bus sure does play a big part.
In graphic intensive applications, memory play a more important role.
At least for DX11, tessellation works better with a bigger memory bus.
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
The memory bus sure does play a big part.
In graphic intensive applications, memory play a more important role.
At least for DX11, tessellation works better with a bigger memory bus.
Yes, that is true, though in the case of a 5750, the memory bandwidth is high enough to keep up with the 4850's bandwidth. The bandwidth issue is only a problem for the 5770, where it has half the bandwidth of the part it was supposed to replace, the 4890. In graphics intensive applications:
GPU has the most important role. Memory bus has to keep up, yes, but it isn't THAT important in graphics-intensive apps. Take Crysis for example. The 5770 loses a few FPS due to it only having half the bandwidth. But again, it's only a few. The human eye will not notice it unless you intend to play Crysis at 1600p. Then that's a problem.
Memory constraints hurt more in COMPUTATIONAL apps, not graphics.
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Originally posted by Raraken:
Yes, that is true, though in the case of a 5750, the memory bandwidth is high enough to keep up with the 4850's bandwidth. The bandwidth issue is only a problem for the 5770, where it has half the bandwidth of the part it was supposed to replace, the 4890. In graphics intensive applications:
GPU has the most important role. Memory bus has to keep up, yes, but it isn't THAT important in graphics-intensive apps. Take Crysis for example. The 5770 loses a few FPS due to it only having half the bandwidth. But again, it's only a few. The human eye will not notice it unless you intend to play Crysis at 1600p. Then that's a problem.
Memory constraints hurt more in COMPUTATIONAL apps, not graphics.
Give a few examples of COMPUTATIONAL apps if you don't mind.
Seems that people are saying the core is unimportant, while the shader is.
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Originally posted by Call4ljw:
Give a few examples of COMPUTATIONAL apps if you don't mind.
Seems that people are saying the core is unimportant, while the shader is.
Ah, AMD Stream.
There are few programs that run AMD Stream, but I can use for NVidia's CUDA.
I have a 9500GS. Card sucks, memory bandwidth sucks more. I used Badaboom to test out my overclocks (Once deemed stable) and just by overclocking the memory to its limits (DDR2 @ 1200MHz) I gained quite a fair bit of speed. Cut transcoding time by about half a minute, which I deem pretty good for a sucky ass card. Other computational apps?
Folding @ Home. I have both a CUDA and a Stream version. Using the CUDA version on said 9500GS, I managed to accomplish more "tasks" overnight with OC'ed memory than without.
But gaming? Nah. Sucky ass card couldn't keep up.
For NVidia, overclocking core speed by 6% won't really give you a 6% increase in speed. Maybe 2%? But overclocking shaders will give you the biggest increase. 6% OC might net you 5% boost?
AMD locks both the core and shader speeds of their Radeon cards. So you increase both.
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Nvidia's core and shader are separated, unlike the new gtx470 & 480 which are 1:2 core and shader respectively.
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Reading what you guys wrote is really interesting. So knowledgable about hardware. Also the guide by the TS is very useful, thanks for it. I find it abit curious why nobody talks about water cooling system for a CPU? is it really not that good? I wanted to do that mainly because it's quiet.
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Originally posted by DailyFreeGames.com:
Reading what you guys wrote is really interesting. So knowledgable about hardware. Also the guide by the TS is very useful, thanks for it. I find it abit curious why nobody talks about water cooling system for a CPU? is it really not that good? I wanted to do that mainly because it’s quiet.
I don't think anyone here uses water cooling.
Each has its own disadvantage.
Anyway, if you're looking for "quiet", just get those high end cases like sniper and pump in many big fans. The bigger the fan the quieter it is.
If i'm not wrong, hydrogen is quiet too.
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Originally posted by DailyFreeGames.com:
Reading what you guys wrote is really interesting. So knowledgable about hardware. Also the guide by the TS is very useful, thanks for it. I find it abit curious why nobody talks about water cooling system for a CPU? is it really not that good? I wanted to do that mainly because it’s quiet.
Water cooling is very good, but some of us can only dream of having a system like that. Like me. My CPU gets too hot because it's overclocked too far. It's stable, just now enough cooling.
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Hijack.
Laptop HDD usually what size ah, for 14-inch model.
I would like to save up and buy myself an SSD.
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Originally posted by SBS7484P:
Hijack.
Laptop HDD usually what size ah, for 14-inch model.
I would like to save up and buy myself an SSD.
Laptop HDD is almost always 2.5", unless in netbook. Netbook one is 1.8"
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OK, laptop then.
Does a 500GB SSD exist. :D
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Originally posted by SBS7484P:
OK, laptop then.
Does a 500GB SSD exist. :D
Yeah, 512GB. It costs more than twice as much as an i7 rig though. Don't bother.