The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

ZoSoIV,

Yup! I look at it as getting about 900MHz for free, for me! LOL!!

Russ

 

what do ppl think of the new MEDION AKOYA P34592 (MD 8393)? Is it worth the money, or are they build cheap? got a quad core & a good graphics card?

 

Russ has a point, the HD3870 has part of the heatsink sticking up out the top of the card to radiate heat that way..

 

About Nehalem.

It's almost TWICE as fast as the Q9450. BOTH are Quad cores. And with applications that use more than one core, it gives about a 180% performance gain. Thats with UNFINISHED hardware and new mobos and this was months ago on Anandtech(I still dont trust their cooling reviews).

Intel says this will be as much a performance boost as it was from Pentium D to Core 2 Duo.

 

I know this is what I said about the Athlon 64 vs Core 2 Duo, but 'We shall see' remains my attitude. Regardless of how fast it is, Nehalem is serious dough right now, and in all honesty my CPU's still pretty good for games.

 

sammorris,

Unless I missed something I was talking about the MSI HD-4850 with the heatpipe cooler! LOL!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127370

My thinking is if I remove the case slot cover, I could get the airflow right over the whole bottom of the video card, which is pretty much covered by the 4 pipe heatsink. When you look at the rear end view, the cooler pretty much covers the next slot down. The airflow can't disturb anything because the video card effectively blocks the air from bothering any of the case airflow. It's reported to be a very cool running Video Card to begin with. Quite a bit cooler than any of the other HD-4850s. You can get the temps down on some of the others, but it requires about 80% on the part of the fan, which has proven to be very loud at that speed on most of the other brands, including others made by MSI! Mostly I'm hearing temps in the low 30s at idle with a maximum of 50C while gaming. My 7600GT idles at 55C and can't compare in performance.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

As always NEW tech is gonna cost out the nose. LOL. I'm on page with creaky, (don't tell him.... shhhhhh.... ), about Nehalem but it's still interesting to read about it and see what it's really gonna cost the customer. I think that most of us here want to see the dust clear before we buy anything.

I for one cannot and will not spend the money for something like that even after Christmas or tax time. lol. It's just to much money right now and besides I still gotta get my silly Quad running again!! At least we have the re-assurance that the existing stuff is gonna go down in price and that will make it more attractive for sure. Especially since I want to get an Intel based mobo for the Quad.

....gm

 

Seriously guys, it's not that much money.

The 2.66Gghz quad core is going to launch at a LOWER official price than the Q9450(316 vs 266). The motherboards should cost around the same, and I'm sure DDR3 memory will come down by that point.

I'm sure it's only going to cost about 100-150 more than a Q9450 setup costs today if you get a high end mobo.

 

Perhaps, but for those of us who already have socket 775 rigs we can just put a new CPU in, it's a real false economy. For those who are building PCs now, they can't really wait several months. Nehalem's use will be those who either have to have the best of the best, or those building a high end system after, or very shortly prior to its release date.

As for the GPUs, I was responding to your comment that dual slot rear-exhaust coolers don't throw ALL the air out the case, only some of it - and what I highlighted reinforces that point.
According to a review on newegg, that MSI 4850 doesn't come with a crossfire bridge connector - that sucks...

 

abuzar1,

First, it's not twice as fast as a Q9450. Intel claims a 30 to 50% increase in speed depending on the App over the Q9450! Second, a 180% performance gain over the Q9450 is impossible! The absolute theoretical limit would be a 100% performance gain, and again, that's not possible. Why? because the limiting factor is the performance of the cores themselves and the latencies involved, coupled with all the support hardware's ability to help control data to everything else. You can't speed up what isn't there, you have to wait for the data. You can split the cores into 8 with Hyper Threading and help speed it up with the L3 Cache, but it will still be well short of a 100% gain! Even then it will be along time before we see apps able to utilize the technology. Hell, we are still waiting for more dual threaded apps, and even now there's very little software out there that can utilize all 4 cores of the Quads available now


OK, so lets review what's going to be needed for a Nehalem build!
New socket 1333 CPU 2.66GHz
X58 Motherboard
3x1GB of DDR3, 1333 (PC10666) memory (memory is triple channel, so you need three memory sticks to utilize it)
New CPU cooler.

In addition, some sort of aftermarket cooling will be needed for the chipset if you overclock, as it's reported to run very hot at stock speed. It's only going to get hotter when you overclock it! Frankly, I doubt that it can be overclocked very much at all!

Let's see if I can put together some sort of pricing structure for all these new goodies.
2.66GHz CPU, about $300
X58 Motherboard, about $180
3x1GB DDR3 1333 memory cas6 $220
Socket 1333 CPU Cooler $80

Looks like about $780 to me. You can save about $60 by switching to cas7 memory, so by the time you pay the tax and add shipping, you're probably looking at an investment of minimum, $750 to $800 or more! Probably more by the time you're done. That's a pretty big bite out of your a$$! I don't think there will be a lot of takers for a good while, like maybe Q3 of 09 when the 3.2GHz model is supposed to be released, and the price of the lower speed chips comes down!

I think there's a Yorkfield or a higher end Wolfdale in a lot of our futures, for a good while to come!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Were P4s with HyperThreading 100% faster than those without it? Lol. Don't forget a quad core processor at the end of it is still a quad coe processor. With 4 cores I don't really see the gain to be had from HT myself, but there you go.

 

Sorry, I mean 80% not 180%.

It's not just the HT. It's the integrated memory controllers and the different architecture. Russ, you are also inflating some of those figures.

OK let's compare.

2.66Ghz Nehalem- 270
Motherboard- 180
Memory- 220
CPU Cooler- 50

OR

Q9450- 320
Motherboard- 180(I'm assuming same price for Mobo)
Memory(4GB instead of 3 in Nehalem)- 100
CPU Cooler- 50

The Nehalem build is only 70 more. Assume a CPU cooler and mobo is a bit more expensive. So only a 100 more. Plus DDR2 will go the way of DDR1. Watch as DDR2 goes UP in price and DDr3 comes down.

Also I don't know about the Nehalems running hot. Do you have a source?

 

Nehalems will make since if you're doing a top highend new build. but for thoses of us that already have highend machines spending another 800.00 dollar just to have the latest technology (that isn't proven out here in the real world) isn't wise IMO. waiting a year or more is probably the better idea. anyway when do we top out on speed? we have to be getting close to the threshold of what a desktop machine is capable of don't we?

 

See, you guys all misunderstood me.

I was talking about NEW BUILDS. I'm saying, if you're about to do a new build anytime soon, why not wait a 2 or 3 months if you can and see how Nehalem plays out.

 

abuzar1,

Actually I didn't inflate anything!
The price most commonly heard for the 2.66GHz Nehalem at Computex 2008 from the retailers is $284, which sounds incredibly cheap. I think I'm being kind when I say $180 for the MB. More like $200+ for a good one. I chose the least expensive of the Cas6 DDR3 1333 memory, and you will need 3 sticks if you want your memory at top performance. That's about $220 Didn't you notice the 6 memory slots, three in each color? You can't run triple channel with two sticks! Cas7 will be about $60 or so less, but most here will go for the Cas6! Ya Think! LOL!! The Thermalright that everyone raves about is $60 for the Ultra 120 and then you have to get a fan. I'll use your $50 figure for the cooler though! That's $784 + $60.76 tax + shipping. That's $844.76 plus the shipping for me, here in So Cal! You can also count on some price gouging from the retailers, the same way we had with the Conroe, when they were selling them for more than retail!

The Q9450 is currently $330 ($355.58 with tax here) at the Egg, with free shipping! We already have everything else, so that's all we need to buy! That makes the real Price difference over $489! That difference gets you 60,000+ Mips performance for $355.58. using the middle figure from Intel (30 to 50%) of a 40% increase in performance with Nehalem so you're looking at about 85,000 MIPS or so for Nehalem! My DVDRB/CCE times are pretty much around 45 minutes, so that time should drop to under 30. That's a lot of money to spend to save about 18 minutes, especially in a bad economy! It's not like the old days where a new CPU could drop your encode time, an hour or more! Add to that, that the Yorkfields will have to have a pretty good price drop when Nehalem comes out, and the Q9450 will have the biggest cut, as it's the cheapest, otherwise people won't buy them, so for the next year at least, the Q9450/DDR2 will be the way to go for most folks here! In your figures you assume a lot, as you are talking about a completely new build, while truthfully all most of us will need is a bios flash on our current MB, so it shouldn't cost more than the price of a Q9450!

I didn't say the CPU ran hot, I said the chipset does! Burn your fingers hot. Most if not all of the reports from Computex 2008 say that. You can't move all those electrons that fast without a load of heat. The 2.66GHz Nehalem CPU runs very cool by all reports!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hey guys, so I got my CPU cooler attached again. I also installed the RAM cooler.

The highest core temps USED to be around 46, now it's 36. Also my CPU temps went from 50 to 35. Pretty good. Also before that was with stock speeds, now it's with a 3Ghz OC.

Two of my cores are still hotter though. Maybe it IS those damn stuck sensors. Let me check.

 

A lot of people won't want to wait 2/3 months for a new build, especially if their old one is on the blink.

 

WHOOOOOO 3.8Ghz QUAD CORE

Too bad it's not stable below 1.5v

 

and there we have it - you're happy, so why would you need a Nehalem? hehe