The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

i was wondering that too Russ. would it have anything to do with me haven utorrent running???? i dont know... ill try again

turned off utorrent and picked up couple hundred points.????

 

DUH!!!!! You can't run benchmarks with programs running, other than what's loaded at startup. You can even fluff up the benches a little bit by turning of various running processes!

Russ

 

Got to admit a cheapy AMD rig is looking pretty easy to justify with the price of this... AMD 9600 Quad $104.99 delivered from the EGG.

Get one of those 780G mobos (Biostar or ASUS) and some inexpensive RAM and you're off and running. some mobos to choose from ....

..gm

edit: just realized that I need to look for the new AMD thread.. sorry people... Off to search for Russ's AMD thread.

 

GM,
Here it is! http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/719940

Russ

 

russ 3 of my white pins on my ACF7P snapped off

 

Shaff,
I've seen them break while trying to install them, but this is the first time I ever saw one just break while not even being moved. The earthquake we experienced about 6 weeks ago might have been the culprit. The whole house was shaking back and forth and I leaped out of bed to keep the console from falling off the desk as it was banging everytime it rocked off one side of it's feet and then back down again!

The install problem is usually caused by not having the surface of the pin pressed flush with the MB! If you try and just push it in with the black knob, it allows the tapered lock pin to slightly spread the lock pins and it will not go in that way! I've never had a problem installing one yet and I've never had one come loose after it was installed. I replaced the whole push pin assembly with one from a Stock Intel cooler I'll never use!

Must be my day for fixing weird problems. After Sam had said that he couldn't get Surround with his S/PDIF, I rearanged my room and moved everything. After that I couldn't get my Sony to find the Optical cable. I fiddled with it till I was frustrated with it all and left it for months with the Coax cable connected. The manual was no help at all! What else is new! LOL!! If they had only included the words "Video must be selected to use the Optical cable", it would have been easy! I mistakenly had DVD selected. Works magnificently now in full Dolby Surround! Crystal clear! I gave it the "Acid Test" and hooked up the keyboards, pedals and 3 swell pedals for my "Virtual" Theater Organ and it kicks A$$! As close to being the sound I get sitting behind the console playing the Real Wurlitzer, as you can get. The software is for the same model I play at the Theater, a Wurlitzer 216. The only appreciable difference is I don't hear the Pneumatics and electro-magnets that work them when I push a pre-set button on the keyboard. The ones on the real Wurlitzer make a bit of noise when I press a button as the tabs click up and down. It's eerie not to hear them clack! LOL!! It doesn't sound the least bit electronic at all! The Dynamic range is awe inspiring! It's hard to believe that I don't have the pipes hidden somewhere in my room! LOL!! Since the number of pipes is approaching 5000, that would be some hiding trick! I wouldn't have room for even one 16' pipe! LOL!! My room isn't that long or wide! Incredibly, with all the pipes loaded into memory, I still have about 70% of my computer's memory available to me.

Russ

 

Likewise, I've only broken pins on installation, they don't break by themselves. They do, however, come off by themselves, I found out.

 

Interesting note about P45 boards and games performance. The EP45-DS3R tested against the P5Q-E in games using Radeon HD4850 boards - I never usually check games performance for motherboards because they're usually identical, not so here it seems:

Single cards
Half Life 2 Episode Two: Asus 3% faster at High-res, Gigabyte 3% faster at low-res
World in Conflict: Gigabyte 11% faster at High-res, Gigabyte 5% faster at low-res

Dual cards
Half Life 2 Episode Two: Gigabyte 5% faster at High-res, Gigabyte 3% faster at low-res
World in Conflict: Asus 12% faster at High-res, Asus 2% faster at low-res

long story short, if you want Crossfire, you want a P5Q-E, if you want the best gaming performance with a single card (realistically, you probably do with boards like these), you want the EP45-DS3R. One wonders how cards like the HD4870X2 would turn out in these benchmarks.

 

Ehh, I think the Gigabyte would do better with the 4870X2. It's probably having information from 2 different slots cpming in that's messing with the gigabyte.

 

It's all in how the individual MB manufacturers implement the functions of the chipset through the bios. One of the reasons Dual Bios is a handy thing to use for games!

Russ

 

These broke off flush with the top side of the MB! How it did that without breaking the black lock pin is beyond me! The AF7-Pro had been installed for over a year without any problems. I thought it just needed cleaning! now it's back to idling at 28C-30C and the core temps are much lower.

One thing's for sure, if I ever throw away all those stock Intel coolers, I'll pull the push pin assemblies out and save them before I do. FYI! To remove them, twist the knob all the way counter clockwise and release it from the back side by gently prying with a jeweler's screwdriver on the little black lock tab. It comes right out. It won't come apart in any position but this as the little stop has to fit through the black outside part. The rest is self explanatory and they just snap back together again!

Russ

 

I plan on doing my first build in January, and I'm having trouble deciding which CPU I need. My current computer is a six year old Dell, and I'm afraid that the problems I have with it due to its age have left me with the mindset that I need more power than I really do. I don't play intense games or anything, but I'm a big multi-tasker. My Dell is so old, if I try to play music in Windows Media Player and run Firefox at the same time, Media Player skips. I surf the web, IM, watch videos, play music, do a lot of word processing, and play around with Photoshop a bit. I usually do at least 2-3 of these things at the same time. Any CPU recommendations?

 

Chui I'm betting that you need to build a new computer altogether. A new cpu in that rig won't benefit you enough to make a difference. :O If you could post your exact model # we could prolly make a determination on the statement I just made. lol.

We've been discussing inexpensive builds here and on the AMD thread. Russ and I put one (separately) together earlier on the AMD thread that was under $350 easily for a good little dual core system. It can be done with an Intel as well.

Just name your needs and let us have some fun picking parts.

...gm

 

Chui2k8,
We need a bit more information about your computer in order to make suggestions. If it's 6 years old, I doubt if anything you can do short of adding more memory would be worth the effort. Chances are good that it's either a Dimension or an Optiplex followed by a model number!

We need to know the followingell Model, usually on the front around the power button, not the numbers on the back! The Service Tag number would be the best as that information will tell us how it was configured when it left the factory. What CPU and speed it has. Memory size and speed, you can get that info from the setup. Being 6 years old it's probably PC-100 or PC-133.

Welcome to AD,
Russ

 

Chui2k8

Just based on the type of applications and multitasking that you say that you do I'm going to recommend a quad core and a fair chunk of RAM. From what you've told us so far I don't think that you need a processor with a high clock speed so a lower to mid range quad should be enough. In fact it doesn't even have to be Intel although over all Intel's have more gas.


On the low end of processors you could easily get away with an AMD pheonom 9600 Agena Black edition for $105 at Newegg. It has an ulocked clock multiplier which would allow for some minor overclocking to increase it's power to that of the next version above it. This is an important decision since it will guide you to your next choices.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103244

If you're looking to stay with Intel then you can move up in price to $179 for a Q6600.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017


These two choices merely set a baseline based on what you've told us so far. If you have other intended uses and an operating budget it would be helpful if you would mention what they are. Gaming does have it's expenses since it requires some considerable portion of your budget going into a graphics card, but even not being a gamer there are other areas that can also point to increased costs such as encoding.

 

Chui2k8.. You've probably got all the addons DVDRW, 3.5Drive Small HDD & Room for one more HDD
My first build I used my old E-Machine cabinet. Just replaced The PSU, MotherBoard, CPU, Memory, 1 500gig HDD
So just with these items you could probably end up with an impressive unit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153023
($20.99 after $15.00 Mail-In
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145177
($9.99 after $40.00 Mail-In Rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128360
$79.99 + about $8.00 shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136073
$59.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103299
$49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185125
CPU Cooler $26.99
TOTAL $242.00 ...THIS SHOULD BE QUITE Adequate

 

rick nothing wrong with the suggestions you posted you just have to take into consideration that Dell "cabinets" are custom and might not except the mobo, psu, or cooler. I actually like the suggestions for the build and am/are considering them myself.

....gm

 

Rick

All decent suggestions but I would still recommend the quad core over the dual core, especially since we are discussing the 9600 Black edition for only $105 dollars. It has an unlocked multiplier which would allow even a novice to quickly up it to a more expensive $180 9850. It requires just two minor setting changes to make them identical in all respects.

 

It's a Dimension 2300. Service tag is FTT9021. CPU is Pentium 4 2.0 GHz. According to Newegg's memory configuration tool the memory is PC-133 (Computer came with 512 MB, I upgraded to 1 GB a while back and it didn't make any noticeable difference).

I'm not concerned at all with upgrading it. I want to build a new one from scratch. When I'm done I'm just going to let my mom have this one, since all she does it check her email and order stuff from QVC.

Other than what I posted earlier, it's possible that I might do some video encoding. I'll probably upgrade to a Blu-ray drive later on when the technology gets more affordable. I'm an IT and Networking student, so I use some network simulators, and if I had the power I'd run some virtualization software to try to learn about other operating systems and things.

If it helps, I'll probably have in the neighborhood on $1000 to buy the components and an OS. I've got a general idea of what I want. I definitely have to have a DVD burner and plenty of HD space. I was going to get a 1TB HD but I decided to go with dual 500 GB HDs instead to eliminate the single point of failure.

Anything else specific you guys need to know?

 

That's a long time ago, I'm going to guess at 2002 for build date. You may find it hard getting hold of replacement bits for that system for cheap.