The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

It shouldn't be too bad, the 7200.10 750GB I have is nowhere near as bad as the 7200.9 250GB, but on the other hand it is still clearly audible over all the other components in the PC, whereas the Samsung 750GB isn't audible unless every other component is shut down. For the record, the Seagate 750 also runs a full 13ºC higher than the Samsung 750 too. I don't expect the 1500GB drives to be worse, but I don't expect them to be any better.

 

question about the HDD's... just what is the difference in the 7200.09,7200.10,7200.11?????

 

New versions of the board / motor etc.

 

Since this is the Building thread, I'm reporting on my latest build for a Customer of mine, using a BioStar A780G M2+SE Motherboard and an AMD 64x2 4400+ and 2GB of A-Data DDR2 800 Cas 5 memory.

First let me say that you get a lot for your hard earned $65. This thing is like the Little Engine That Could! It has HD3200 Graphics on board that are simply outstanding, with both VGA and DVI-D outputs, decent voltage adjustments and configurable NB and SB. You can adjust the CPU, Memory, NB and HT voltage and even overclock it if you chose! There's 4 USB ports on the rear, with headers for 6 additional USB ports on the MB, 6 Sata 2.0 3.0GB/s ports, 1 IDE port and 1 Floppy You can also configure the SB as well!

I'm most impressed with the Sandra benchmarks. 16664 MIPS and a memory bandwidth of 6714, at a stock 2.3GHz. You can use either Standard memory or ECC memory, it's configurable for both. I paid $154 for the MB, CPU and memory, including shipping! Want to build a computer for the Wife, kids or office, it's a tough combo to beat! No C2D, but very fast for what it cost. Encodes video surprisingly fast too! Something worthy of considering for an inexpensive build!

The Video render's Colors extremely well. I ran an old Technicolor Movie on DVD, The King and I, and the colors were magnificent. I think "Lush' would be the best word to describe the Color! The best on board graphics I've seen to date! The CPU idles at 30C to 33C with a stock AMD cooler in a 27C room, and the fan controller works well. Since it's a Mini ATX Motherboard with 2 PCI slots, 2 DDR2 Memory slots, a 16x PCI-E 2.0 slot and a 1x PCIE slot, I may put one in an eMachine case I just aquired and use it as a backup computer for cheap! Highly recommended!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I haven't heard the 7200.10, just seen a lot of reviews. I have the 7200.11 and I can't hear it at all over my other components. BTW What's a normal temperature for a HDD?

 

I know for Seagate it's 40C with a maximum high of 65C. I asked the same question at Tom's Hardware, and that was the answer I got.

Russ

 

theonejrs..How do you think the BioStar with the same configuration would do with an Intel Dual 3.0 CPU

 

Rick,
I really don't know. I would guess somewhere in the low to mid 20,000 MIPS range at stock speed for a C2D. I haven't built many C2Ds recently as everyone wants AMD for Office computers. So far the socket AM2+ AMD 780G chipset has shown very good performance. At stock speeds with the 64x2 4400+, it's almost as fast as my 64x2 4800+ on the socket AM2 MB with the nVidia 430/6150 chipset in OxiMoron. Memory bandwidth is far superior with the 780G!

Russ

 

Not trying to be quarelsome or anything, but this would probably pull in better numbers.

E5200- 83 dollars
BIOSTAR G31-M7 TE- 50 dollars
Corsair DDR2 800Mhz 4GB- 25 dollars

The CPU will OC to 3Ghz easy even with the stock cooler. You're looking at a lot more clock speed and double the RAM for 4 dollars more...

 

Hows this onboard Grafic Intel GMA 3100, is it comparable to HD3200 Graphics

 

The HD3200 is decently faster than the GMA 3100. But people are not going to use video card functionality much anyway. I think you would benifit more from the extra RAm and CPU power.

 

id agree with boozer on this one.

Or they could go the route i just went:

Intel Q9550
Powercolor 4870X2
4GB(2x2) Geil Black Dragon PC8500
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 650W
Samsung 640GB F1
Lian-Li Pc-A70B
Swiftech GTZ CPU Water Block
ThermoChill PA120.3 Radiator
Swiftech MCP655 D5 Vario Pump
EK Multioption 150 Reservoir
ASUS P45 Maximus II Formula

Unfortunately the PA120.3 needs to be RMAed as it had a pinhole crack in it, and i killed the Maximus II Formula with a screw driver, so im RMAing that, but hopefully next week ill have this all set up, and be passing sam in 3d mark . i hope i can get 4GHz on the CPU

 

I understand what you are saying, but we are talking stock speeds here, and you are talking an outlay of $210 including Tax and shipping, with a 90 day wait for a $30 rebate, not to mention inferior graphics compared to the HD 3200! Also, overclocking with on board graphics presents problems of it's own! I for one, would not like to overclock a computer for the intended purposes I mentioned before!

For about the same money I could use a 64x2 5400+ Brisbane 2.8GHz and come away with a superior stock machine. Memory control and throughput is, and will be superior until Core i7 comes out with it's on-chip memory controller and the long overdue retirement of the FSB. That's how good the 780G/700 chipset is at those things, combined with Hyper Transport 3.0. Things happen much quicker with it than present C2D motherboards, and mind you this one only has a Sata 1.5 HDD. I expected the 4400+ computer I just built to be noticeably slower than the 4800+ I have now. I was also wrong! It's only about 400 MIPS slower!

I would love to pull the 4800+ out of OxiMoron and put it in the new machine just to see how well it would perform, but it's too much work and I'm more than delighted with it just the way it is! My customer will be extremely happy as the machine she burned up was a socket 754 2.3GHz Sempron, which is worlds slower!

Respectfully,
Russ

 

Rick,
The GMA HD 3100 is inferior to the AMD HD 3200 graphics and lacks support for Hybrid graphics! The A780G M2+ SE, unlike the comparable Intel chipset offerings, can be overclocked as there's adjustments in the bios that are specifically for that purpose. I also does Hybrid CrossFire. The video has 205 million transistors in the worlds first 55nm GPU too!

The A780G M2+ SE, I paid $65 for, and it can support up to a 95w 9650 2.3gHz Phenom according to BioStar. It's by far the best low price motherboard I ever bought. All my future AMD builds will have one! You also don't need 4GB of memory as the on-chip memory controller and memory management is head and shoulders better than that of any previous AMD chipset design, by a wide margin! It's also DX-10!

Check your e-mail!

Russ

 

as long as your profits are maximised, and the customer is happy, who cares

i would also be happy, had i not killed the mobo, atleast i could have cracked on with some air OCing with an ACF7P

 

Hell Shaff, you can play back full HD video with a lowly Sempron 3500+ single core with it! That's some pretty damn good efficiency! Totally amazing motherboard, especially for $65! I expected decent performance, but I never even imagined it would be this good!

Russ

 

ok all here is what im getting for my RC690 case and my E8400.
Biostar mobo
G.Skill mem
9800gt GPU


not sure if im gonna keep my corsair 650w PSU or go with a OCZ Xstream pro600w PSU

i got a nice raise at my job and i think i deserve a little something extra...

should i get a couple extra 140mm aerocool fans for the side panel to go with the 2 i have on the top????
__________________

 

Raise?? New job?? Are you serious?? If so that's great Rob!!! OH and by all means get some extra 140mm fans!! All I think you'll need is one located in the lower vent on the RC-690.

Good luck to you.

....gm

 

Hey Rob,
Glad to hear the great news! more money too! Can't beat that with a stick! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ