Question about buying a PC

You didn't list the motherboard but in that price class it's probably good for overclocking so in that case you should definitely get a Q6600 (2.4 GHz) and overclock, especially since you have a non-stock cooler and an "extreme" case built for high air flow. If you don't overclock, I'd say go with an E6850 (3.0 GHz) for the higher clock.

I'd not go with a 1TB disk, it probably has a horrible GB/$ ratio compared to two 500 GB disks unless the quality is poor.

750 W is most assuredly overkill for your system, 600 W should be more than enough. Make sure the PSU has good 12 volt rails as well, if you overclock.

wow.... FIRST i am amazed this thread god resurrected lol... Lucky i never got that system it got sold and the ones that came in stock were not like that... they were lame and much more pricey.... since i didn't get a new pc i'll just wait some more and when the next video card or processor appears so the prices go down! i'm planning to get one by march.... and yes prices for electronics are a bit higher in europe...


anyway Bart... that is an UBER PC... a real monster...
my opinion: you could dump that mouse and keyboard and save some money.. you could get a quad core.... it would be almost perfect then!

Bartacus said:

Thinking about buying this one for €1949:

[...]

Btw, have you guys any idea what's the benefit of going for a 6850 or going for the Q6600?

Click to expand...

Your system choice looks OK to me. Anyway, please note that 780 means a three-slot SLI board, so if you do not even consider eventually buying a second (and in this case, a third) graphics card, it's a bit of a waste.

Very few applications or games support 4 cores for a real benefit at the moment, but I went for a Core 2 Quad 6600 just a while ago, mainly because it was already cheaper than the high-end dual cores, and because I got it significantly overclocked from the shop. With current applications, 6850 is faster. Some future games are supposed to take better advantage of 4 cores.

Also, don't do the same mistake as I did: I have 4 GB of RAM but the Vista Ultimate that I got with the machine is a 32-bit-only OEM version (I thought the 64-bit version is included), so one of my 1 GB sticks is currently not in use at all. I could have returned the Windows, but as I ordered the machine from abroad and it was sent by mail I didn't have the patience to wait for another week or two to get it up and running, as the 2,8 GB reported by Windows is enough for the moment.

MasterLich said:

Your system choice looks OK to me. Anyway, please note that 780 means a three-slot SLI board, so if you do not even consider eventually buying a second (and in this case, a third) graphics card, it's a bit of a waste.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. This is one of the main reasons why I want to build a system myself. I'm thinking seriously about SLI and I want the 2*16 PCIe. The nforce 680 will suffice. The PC that I'd build myself is difficult -> two different stores, the first at 10km, the second at 65km. The price difference and the availability of certain products made me go for this option.
The websites of the stores I go for are http://www.comtechnology.be/shop/ and http://www.codima.be/
Be advised: both sites are in Dutch. If you do not understand the language, I can translate a few words.

As you will see, I don't have a screen added just yet. My screen now is a Iiyama HM903DT (19inch crt) and it still works fine. I'll probadly waite after I bought the pc to add a really good screen rather then adding a mediocore right away.

From the first store:
Asus S775 P5N32-E SLI nF680i 188.02EUR
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD SATA150 150GB 10000RPM 16MB 188.34EUR
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 SATA300 500GB 7200RPM 32MB 106.38EUR
Antec Nine Hundred Medium Tower Black 96.04EUR
Windows Vista Ultimate oem 64-bit NL 166.93EUR

From the second store:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 Ghz 8 Mb L2 Boxed w/ Cooler S775 €229
G.Skill 4096 Mb (2x2048) DDR 2 800 Mhz CL5-5-5-15 €105,00
Sparkle Nvidia 8800 GTS 512 Ddr3 + 2x Dvi €365,00
Voeding Zalman ZM600-HP 600W €109.5
Asus DVD-ROM SATA 16x48x Retail (Black & White) €20
Asus DVD Writer DRW-2014L1T SATA 20x DL/LS Retail Black €32

A few remarks:
*It can be that my power supply doesn't suffice for the SLI I'm thinking about.
*The RAM isn't the cheapest, because I saw the latencies differ for only €5 of price difference.
*The videocard is somewhat exotic I think. It's the only 8800GTS 512 MB I could find in both stores and that's why I want it.
*Perhaps it's better to buy both the CPU and the motherboard at the same store -> the first store sells this cpu for €237. Knowing that I'm not an overclocker, I bare PJ's suggestion in mind. The 6850 is going for the same price in the first store(€237), while in the second it costs €244.

edit -> Total=€1606,21

Don't go with SLI, the diminishing returns mean that you'll be wasting a lot of money. An 8800 GTS 512 MB should be more than good enough for a couple of years anyway.

Bartacus said:

edit -> Total=€1606,21

Click to expand...

Wow. I wonder if I'll ever be able to afford spending that much money on a PC.

Bartacus said:

Yeah, I know. This is one of the main reasons why I want to build a system myself. I'm thinking seriously about SLI and I want the 2*16 PCIe. The nforce 680 will suffice. The PC that I'd build myself is difficult -> two different stores, the first at 10km, the second at 65km. The price difference and the availability of certain products made me go for this option.
(snip)

edit -> Total=€1606,21

Click to expand...

I bought my machine from Germany, it seems to be cheaper except for processors, e.g. I found the Raptor WD1500ADFD for 154 €, the 6600 Q for 239 €/6850 for 244 € and the Sparkle graphics card for only 299 €. These are prices for products ordered on the internet (Alternate) without delivery costs but VAT included. But if you prefer to have the shop close to you, then it's not an option for you. There's always a small risk that you have to return something to the shop and if it's in a different country it can create some extra problems and costs.

More importantly, you would have already some choice concerning the graphics card if you would still wait a couple of weeks for the time when more GTS512 cards are available.

I have the 680i chipset on motherboard as well, no other complaints so far except that there is no memory remapping option in the BIOS for the board and obviously not for other boards with this chipset either. And a gameport would be nice for my ancient joystick...

Another thing one could wait for is the DirectX 10.1 support, which is already available on ATI cards, but I really do not know what it improves.

MasterLich said:

More importantly, you would have already some choice concerning the graphics card if you would still wait a couple of weeks for the time when more GTS512 cards are available.

Click to expand...

If he's supposed to wait for more GTS 512 manufacturers he might as well wait for the 9800 series due out in mid-February. There's always something new out in a month or so whenever you buy though, so I'd say: Just go for it. It's a good system.

KazikluBey said:

If he's supposed to wait for more GTS 512 manufacturers he might as well wait for the 9800 series due out in mid-February. There's always something new out in a month or so whenever you buy though, so I'd say: Just go for it. It's a good system.

Click to expand...

Of course, but it crossed my mind is that a wider choice of these cards is already available in e.g. Germany, whereas he claims that he could find only one type in his preferred shops in Belgium.

@VPeric Don't forget that the prices are likely somewhat cheaper in your country and that due to my professional activities, I can buy such a pc.

MasterLich said:

Of course, but it crossed my mind is that a wider choice of these cards is already available in e.g. Germany, whereas he claims that he could find only one type in his preferred shops in Belgium.

Click to expand...

You can say that again. I remember going to Paris and seeing Teken 3 -> 6 months later you could buy that 'new' game in Belgium. When it comes to new stuff, Belgium is usually not the place to be.

I found another store much closer to home (my own town/village).

Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Boxed € 191,10
Asus Striker Extreme (INTEL) € 234,20
Buffalo DDR2 4GB 800Mhz PC6400 Dual Channel Kit (2x 2GB) € 99,90
Asus EN8800GTS/HTDP, 512MB TV-out,2xDVI-I,PCIe,VGA,HDTV € 301,10
Western Digital Raptor 150Gb 10000rpm € 189,50
Seagate 500GB SATAII Barracuda 7200rpm 32MB € 103,90
LG DVD SATA 16/52 (zwart) € 18,50
NEC 7203 SATA DVDRW 20x12xRAM Labelflash (zwart) € 29,90
Antec Nine Hundred EU ATX (zwart) (geen voeding) € 99,00
Zalman ZM600-HP Heatpiped Cooled 600W PSU € 101,20
MS Windows Vista Ultimate (64bit) NL OEM € 175,00

Combined with that first store this gives:
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Boxed € 191,10
Asus S775 P5N32-E SLI nF680i 156.49EUR
Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5D, 2x 2048MB XMS2 119.83EUR (better RAM)
Asus EN8800GTS/HTDP, 512MB TV-out,2xDVI-I,PCIe,VGA,HDTV € 301,10
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD SATA150 150GB 10000RPM 16MB 188.34EUR
Seagate 500GB SATAII Barracuda 7200rpm 32MB € 103,90
LG DVD SATA 16/52 (zwart) € 18,50
NEC 7203 SATA DVDRW 20x12xRAM Labelflash (zwart) € 29,90
Antec Nine Hundred Medium Tower Black 96.04EUR
Zalman ZM600-HP Heatpiped Cooled 600W PSU € 101,20
Windows Vista Ultimate oem 64-bit NL 166.93EUR

Total € 1473.33

Offcourse I have a different question now -> How good is that E8400 CPU really? At Tom's Hardware, I couldn't find it yet to compare.

E8400 is a little better and a little cheaper than E6850.

Will you overclock? If not, you might as well go with a €50 motherboard.

If you do go with a low-end mobo, though, check the northbridge cooling solution. There's often a small fan there which is noisy and liable to break down. At least Zalman sells a passive heatsink for it that will get rid of that problem.

If your case is big enough (and your backup system is good enough that you can live with the slight added risk, as it should be anyway), you might want to go with a RAID-0 pair instead of the single WD Raptor in these setups: buy two 7200 rpm/500 GB disks for 1 TB of storage, or for maximum performance, by two smaller Raptors and RAID them for your system disk (and keep the single 500GB data disk in these setups).

I'd also recommend the 8800GT/512 over the GTS/512. Cheaper and about as fast, if not faster.

But overall both of these setups look pretty good to me.

@PJ The fill rate has a rather large difference between the GT and the GTS as you can see at the Nvidia site.
About the disk: some tell me to buy just the normal type of disk and add a fast disk later on. They are talking about that new type of HD that doesn't work magneitcly anymore: Solid state disks.

About the mobo -> I just want an nforce680. I am seriously thinking of putting SLI on the menu later on. The weird thing is that there are so few of them out there. I chose the asus one, both for the price and the reliability. Combine it with an asus graphics card and I'm all set.
Overclocking is something that I might do this time -> Some guys at work have some experience in that field and I think with the help I find here, I can manage -> yeah, I know that I changed my mind in this thread a few times.

About the cpu: I think it's weird to see a faster and better CPU with a price of €40 less then the Q6600 and €45 less then the 6850. I think I chose this cpu over the Q6600 -> Makes it easy to buy a headset with the saved money.

Bartacus said:

@PJ The fill rate has a rather large difference between the GT and the GTS as you can see at the Nvidia site.

Click to expand...

Did you check out THG's tests?

[ http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/12/geforce_8800_gts_512_mb/page14.html ]

You're right, though, there is more of a difference between the GT and the GTS that I remembered; if the price difference is no problem then go for it. That said, the GT would certainly be ample for just about anything about to hit the market in the next couple of years.

About the disk: some tell me to buy just the normal type of disk and add a fast disk later on. They are talking about that new type of HD that doesn't work magneitcly anymore: Solid state disks.

Click to expand...

In another year or two, the prices on those ought to have come down a quite a bit, yes.

Bartacus said:

About the mobo -> I just want an nforce680. I am seriously thinking of putting SLI on the menu later on.

Click to expand...

I'll just repeat what I said earlier:

KaziklyBey said:

Don't go with SLI, the diminishing returns mean that you'll be wasting a lot of money.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't wait for SSD, in a year you'll probably still be an early adopter and pay a premium price for a storage solution that is liable to wear itself out way faster than a HDD.

When I don't go for SLI nor the fast HD, I don't have to go for the special mobo. Then I don't have to go for that case or special zalman neither. This is the configuration I would also settle for and is bought all in the same store.

Asus P5N-E SLI,s775,2xPCIe ATX,n650i,DDR2,Glan,SATA,RAID € 93,70
Asus EN8800GT 512MB (HDCP/DVI(2) € 221,20
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz 6MB Boxed € 191,10
Buffalo DDR2 4GB 800Mhz PC6400 Dual Channel Kit (2x 2GB) € 94,90
2xSeagate 500GB SATAII Barracuda 7200rpm 32MB € 207,80
NEC 7203 SATA DVDRW 20x12xRAM Labelflash (zwart) € 29,90
LG DVD SATA 16/52 (zwart) € 18,50
Antec Sonata III 500W € 102,40
MS Windows Vista Ultimate (64bit) EN OEM english € 175,00

Total € 1134,50

As you see I took PJ's advice for this system with a RAID0 disk setup for extra speed. I don't consider homedata important, just a little annoying if I should lose it. -> That's why I already have an external HD and don't have to go for RAID1 or RAID5.
I also took PJ's advice for the videocard and went for a much cheaper 8800GT 512MB.

Some other questions:
Is it a good thing to keep my speakersystem? It's the 3500DTT from cambridge soundworks (creative branch).
Should I go for a sound blaster card too? Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer Platinum Fatal1ty Champion for € 179,90 would be on my list in that situation. I heard however that the onboard sound is of good quality and it would rather be a waste of money.

Deopends how good the sound should be for your ears.

Since I'm almost deaf on one ear and the other one isn't best anymore, too, I don't care much.

Except for music, I'm rather tending to a lower quality of sound.

So, you must decide what you want.

Keep you speakers and don't buy a discrete sound card. If you feel you can't stand the sound quality, buy a €50 X-FI (or whatever the cheapest one costs) unless you actually need the additional features of the extreme edition.

What he said. The pricier X-Fi's don't sound any better; they just have stuff that you need if you're a musician or sound designer.