Building a PC

J

JayGrey

It Wandered In From the Wastes
AMD Phenom II X2, 3.00 GHz (6MB L2)
HyperTransport Bus: 2600 MHz

4086 MB RAM (1066 MHz)
Geforce 9400 GT video card w\ 1GB DDR2

LG 22x duel Layer DVD + RW Writer

600W Power Supply
Two 120 mm Thermaltake Silent (16 dBA, 63.5 CF/M)
Front Audio and USB ports

Here's what I've ended up with for $700 CND (about $650 USD) including $40 for shipping.

So, Have i wasted my money?
 
I think you done good for under $700. It is true that you could spend more on a better graphics card. But having 1GB of VRAM might be worth more than a more expensive 500MB card with a better GPU.

I just built a system this weekend for $265.

AMD Athlon II 250 dual-core 3.0GHz
4 GB DDR2 RAM 800 MHz
Asus AMD 760 chipset
500 GB HDD 7200 rpm
I kept my old case, dvd writer, and video card 9500 GT 500MB VRAM.

I was on a severe budget. If I had another $300 to spend, I would have gotten a higher grade mobo, DDR3 RAM 1066MHz, and a Radeon HD 4870 1Gb VRAM.

Misteryo
 
Yes; From what I've been readiing the past few hours, you're right, Wes. Further, the particular processor, looking it up on AMD, has a L3 cache of about 6 MB, not an L2 . . . Bu wah ha ha, silly sellers.

As told here: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Point_Of_View/GeForce_9400_GT_1_GB/29.html among others.

Well, this'll all teach me to do a bit more research. :oops:

Maybe it's not all lost, though?

"overclocks of [the 9400 GT] are 691 MHz core (26% overclock) and 424 MHz Memory (27% overclock). " Aparently able to juice up the 333 Hz DDR2, too. Though, I know not how to do such a thing.

I'm keeping the old 80 GB hard drive untill I get the money for a bit better one. Considering my old PC comes from 2001, this will still be quite an improvement. Assuming I don't fry the thing playing around.
 
Misteryo said:
But having 1GB of VRAM might be worth more than a more expensive 500MB card with a better GPU.
Click to expand...

Shit card has no use for 1GB memory anyway. DDR2 memory will kill it most certainly.
Dude, get yourself a better card, seriously. At least 9800GT, trust me, you do not want to go lower than that. Any card similar to 9800GT in terms of performance with 512 mb will be much better than your current option.
 
well, intel does shared l2/l3 cache on all their newer CPUs

AMD only goes shared l3 on their "bargin" cpus.

so if you have an amd with shared l3, you have a cheapie cpu.

amd normal cpus have usually 256-512k for l2 per cpu, and 1mb l3

and its not shared.

only intel right now is doing all shared l2/l3 which actually causes a performance hit under anything over a light load.
 
That 9400GT won't even have enough power to need 1GB, games will still stutter and get glitches. I have a 9600 GT and most games run smooth at max, even Dead Space.
 
Are you actually building this yourself, or are you buying it from some online retailer? Because the info you've given is missing some pretty big things, and looks like it was copypasted from some website.
 
Danilh said:
I have a 9600 GT and most games run smooth at max, even Dead Space.
Click to expand...

Dead Space does look nice, but it is not very demanding. 9600 however is pretty nice compared to 9400. I still recommend not going lower than 9800GT though.
 
Hiya, if you dont mind id like to use this thread for a moment to ask couple of beginners questions about building a pc, as im doing this the first time.

Ive gotten something like this so far

delivery to door (10€)
AMD ATHLON 64 X2 7850 BLACK EDITION (65€)
CLUB 3D HD 4850 PCIE 1 GB GDDR3 DVI/HDMI (104€)
4GB 1066MHZ DDR2 CL5 5-5-5-15 DIMM KITX2 (65€)
SEA BARRACUDA 7200.12 500GB SATAII 16MB (46€)
ASUS AM2+ GF7025 DDR2 SATA2 GBLAN(45€)

And heres my question about the psu/casing

it says in the description of the gpu that it requires from psu 450 watts and 6 pin pci-e power cable

i thought about this casing/psu
Ace ATX Streamer 4 ATX 480W (50€)

it has enough watts but i doesnt mention anywhere about the power cable. Neither in many of the other psu`s and im wondering is it usually included or do i need special kind of psu or what. (yeah yeah i dont know a lot about this stuff)

and if you find any other things about the other parts please do mention

Help greatly appreciated
 
for PSUs you have to completely ignore the 450, 700, 650, ratings.

they are irrelevant unless you are running large raid arrays.

what you have to look at is the 12v rails, and how many it has.

figure your card needs a 24-26w rail per card. and you want to keep everything else off that "rail set" if your PSU doesnt keep them independant.

i got my PSU in 2006 and the only PSU that offered anything close to the 28w the geforce 8800 that my card wants, i had to get a 1k PSU but it only offers 24w

but i dont mind having bought the 1kw as i do run a lot of HDs/CD/DVD drives.

i have drives C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K all assigned. and i have other external drives i sometimes turn on as well.
 
TheWesDude said:
28w the geforce 8800 that my card wants
Click to expand...
You mean amperes, right? In that case, yes, the amp rating is far more important than the wattage. The only situations in which someone (who isn't building a dedicated server) needs a 600+ watt PSU are those with monster SLI/Crossfire configurations, and/or lots of hard drives. It's a lot better to pay more for a high-quality 450-500 watt PSU. It is WORTH IT to pay a bit more for a high-quality brand like Corsair, Seasonic, or PC Power & Cooling. Avoid brands like Rosewill and Aspire like the black death. You'll be lucky if their PSUs last a year without popping their capacitors while possibly taking out something else with them.


Other component reccomendations for those who are interested:

CPU is up to your preference, really. Most modern CPU's with two- or four-cores running in the 2.2-3.0ghz range is fine. Unless you're super-concerned about being able to overclock, or getting that extra fraction of a FPS, or doing a lot of rendering/encoding, CPU choice doesn't really matter much these days. The vast majority of games are far more dependent on the graphics card.

DDR2 1066mhz RAM isn't anything special. Get 800mhz with timings of 4 - 4 - 4 - 12. The more the better, but 3gb max for 32-bit operating systems. With 4gb or more you can only use up to 3.3gb or so due to addressing limitations, so it's a waste. I recommend 2gb at least. Shit, you can get 2gb for under $30, so why not?

For graphics cards on the AMD/ATi side, anything that's a HD 4850 or better is just dandy. Even the HD 4830 is pretty good. I jumped the Nvidia ship a little while back, but I think the lowest you'd want to go with them is the 9800 something-or-other. Spring for a GTX 260 if you can. I've heard those are great.

As for hard drives, get a Seagate or Western Digital. Storage is cheap as hell nowadays, so get the biggest one your budget allows. Read reviews to get a feel about the reliability of a drive if you're concerned. Seagate's 7200.11 line had a firmware issue, but that has long since been corrected. I have not had good experiences with Hitachi and Samsung drives, and I cannot reccommend them.

As for soundcards, onboard is fine. Really, it is. If you're worried about sound quality or system performance with modern onboard, and you don't use your computer to make your own music professionally, you're stupid and I hate you.

As for motherboards, that's far more complicated. What I can tell you is to read reviews and avoid JetWay and Elitegroup.
 
Leon said:
As for soundcards, onboard is fine. Really, it is. If you're worried about sound quality or system performance with modern onboard, and you don't use your computer to make your own music professionally, you're stupid and I hate you.
Click to expand...

There's a very noticeable difference in quality between onboard and a nice x-fi, assuming you aren't using $15 headphones or trash speakers.

The performance drop with onboard is very real, and in many games you'll end up with missing sounds when a lot is going on (mass effect/bioshock/oblivion for example).
 
The only difference I notice in sound quality between a good soundcard and good onboard*, and this is with decent headphones (Sennheiser HD 555), is that the onboard in some setups has a very faint hiss caused by other components, usually the video card, producing electrical intereference**. This isn't a given, and it can happen with dedicated soundcards too, if they lack shielding for some reason. The performance impact does exist but is typically negligible and the money is better spent on other components like a video card. Also, Creative's X-Fi soundcards are horribly overrated, especially for their price. If you want a sound card that is REALLY good (and you're not strapped for cash), get an HT Omega, E-MU, or M-AUDIO.

*- By "good" I mean something like Realtek's ALC888, which is fairly common these days.
**-This could also simply be an issue if you use the front-panel audio connector for your headphones, since the cables for those connectors are almost never shielded.


btw you're stupid and I hate you :D
 
Leon said:
*- By "good" I mean something like Realtek's ALC888, which is fairly common these days.
Click to expand...

I switched from that to simple Soundblaster X-Fi and noticed plenty of difference in sound quality, both with my Senheiser 280 headphones and Jamo e350 speakers. Of course I would have gone with something like E-MU or JULI@ if I had more money to spend at the time, but for the price those Soundblaster X-Fi's are not bad at all. It also removed some of the weird audio glitches I was having in some games with onboard card. EAX support is nice as well.
 
That's good, but others may not hear it, since it's a very subjective thing. I certainly don't, especially not enough of a difference for me to justify an extra $80+ on something better spent on other things, or to justify having to deal with Creative's drivers again although those may have improved recently.

After the Intel HD Audio standard (Azalia) was adopted, onboard sound had reached the point where it becomes harder and harder to justify using a dedicated sound card without specific need.
 
Building it.

More the details (hopefully I'm not leaving something out):

Kingston HyperX duel channel 4096 GB DDR2, 1066MHz w/ 5-5-5-15
EVGA Geforce 9400 GT 1GB w/ 550 MHz core clock and 1000 MHz memory clock, and (presumably) 16 shaders & a dedicated HDMI port
A Gigabyte MA785GM-US2H motherboard for the AM2+ socket (comes with the processor) with "CrossFireX technology"
*I'm uncertain of the chipset, outside of this blurb "Based on the AMD 785G and SB710 chipsets."
AMD Phenom II X2 545 3.0 GHz w/ 2MB L2 & 6MB L3
ULTRA 600 watt powersupply w/ 120 mm (quiet) fan [with a lifetime warrenty, for some reason]
two thermaltake silent CAT 120 mm fans
DVD + RW writer (22x; 48 x reg' CD-ROMs)
Along with a Cooler Master Elite 330 black ATX mid-tower case
-Rear exhaust, side CPU exhaust port, side VGA card vent, front intake (room for two 120 mm fans, and an 80 mm fan, if the CPU vent is worthless to an AMD)

Was the best I could find for the money (though, wish I spent the extra $20 dollars for the graphics unit), all in all. And, compared to my old PC (Pentium 4 1.8 GHz, Geforce2 MX 64 MB x64 bit, no-name motherboard, and 512 MB DDR) . . . It'll run circles around it.

Thanks for all the replies, though. Next time I go through this, I'll put more thought into it then just the price tag.

Now, if I recall, with Windows XP Professional, you're able to actually access the full 4 GB of RAM. I'm not certain though.

By the by; Why a 600 W powersupply, as opposed to a 450 W powersupply? It was on sale, for a dollar more. I believe it only uses a single 12 V rail, though. I'm unsure.
 
JayGrey said:
Now, if I recall, with Windows XP Professional, you're able to actually access the full 4 GB of RAM. I'm not certain though.
Click to expand...
No, 3.3gb max with 32-bit. It's a hardware limitation caused by the way memory is addressed ("mapped out"), not an OS limitation. You can use certain tweaks to "see" the full amount, but you cannot utilize it.
 
no, it is a software limitation, but its not a limitation of MS. in fact, that you can see 3.3 gigs is thanks to MS.

their memory address in xp 32 is 42 bits not 32 bits.


again, the full wattage of the PSU is irrelevant, the wattage it provides on a 12v rail is what is important.

doesnt do you any good to get a geforce 280 that requires 32w on the 12v rail, to have a PSU that only provides 18
 
Is it true that ATI GPUs aren't very popular over in the USA?

I can't understant how anybody would prefer a Nvidia 9800+ over an ATI 4850/70.

If someone wants to save cash an still have a great GPU I would stick to the ATI 4770.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top