3dfx Archive - Decided to build new PC, suggestions?

gdonovan YaBB Administrator Offline Infernal Collector Posts: 2361	Decided to build new PC, suggestions? 18.01.08 at 23:42:38 Daily use machine, dual core a must, LOW power consumption and onboard RAID mirroring. Ideas? I have a pair of Seagate SATA 3.0 drives already and a decent power supply. I'm hearing good things about the Intel Core 2 Duo.
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NitroX infinity

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #1 - 19.01.08 at 00:03:30

With an Intel based system you're probably looking at the following:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2xxx or E8xxx series processor.

Chipset:

A list of chipsets, from low power to high power consumption:

i945G *
nF7150i *
P35 (best case)
X1250 *
P965
G31 *
G33 *
G35 *
G965 *
975X
RD600
nF650i Ultra
nF570i SLI
nF680i LT
nF680i
P35 (worst case)

* = IGP
P35: best case is right bios + DDR2 memory, worst case is wrong bios + DDR3 memory.

P35 related:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2993&p=16
http://techreport.com/articles.x/13351/13
http://65.38.171.212/articles/Abit_IP35_PRO_and_AB9_QuadGT_Motherboards/?page=4
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/05/21/first_look_intel_p35_chipset/12
http://techreport.com/articles.x/12940/13

Yes, DDR3 is supposed to be less powerhungry than DDR2 but apparently it isn't. See here: http://techreport.com/articles.x/13351/13

Videocard: integrated is best, otherwise low/mid end nVidia cards use less than AMD cards.

AMD processor? Go for either a BE or LE one
LE's:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103199
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103198

Don't know about the rest for AMD.

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ps47

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #2 - 19.01.08 at 00:13:58

the EE athlon64s are not too shabby either,if you arent aiming for ultra high performance.and they are dirt cheap..the new amd chipsets look good too (bought a amd770 mobo last week,I'll test it in couple of days).

intel or amd,I doubt there is really much difference in this particular segment,so I would go for the one you prefer..its amd for me (I dont care about quadcores,and I wont be caring for them for quite a while)..

only one advice: no matter which path you take,stay away from nforce chipsets,I have bad experience with them (and looking around forums,I'm not the only one).unless you really,really need to have nv SLI (I kind of doubt that).

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« Last Edit: 19.01.08 at 02:08:35 by ps47 »

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NitroX infinity YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 1936 The Netherlands Gender:	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #3 - 19.01.08 at 00:23:18 Oh yeah, if I'm not mistaking, the nVidia i680 doesn't support the new 45nm Intel cpu's
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gdonovan

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #4 - 19.01.08 at 00:27:35

Quote:

the EE athlon64s are not too shabby either,if you arent aiming for ultra high performance.and they are dirt cheap..

Looking for a platform that *can* be upgraded for more power down the road, mostly this will be used for web work, Photoshop and DVD ripping.

The most powerfull DVD ripper I have here is a 2.8c Pentium 4 which beats the hell out of the 3000+ AMD 939 I just picked up. DVD Shrink will use all cores available and the Hyperthreaded P4 beats the single core 939 3000+

The P4 isn't noted for low power consumption though.

Oh, and for the moment I have a 6600 128mb PCI-e for video so onboard or not isn't an issue.

NV-SLI not on the table for the future, Intel chipset perfered.

Not good- Can't use the Intel ICH9R RAID, driver doesn't support Windows 2000.

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« Last Edit: 19.01.08 at 00:50:04 by gdonovan »

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FalconFly

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #5 - 19.01.08 at 01:40:58

As I'm (naturally) spending alot of time, testing and attention to creating lowest-power Systems with optimal performance, here's my recommended AMD config :

Athlon X2 BE-2400 (2x 2.3GHz, 45W TDP)
AMD 480/480X or 580/580X Chipset ( if below-par USB performance isn't a show-stopper, most power-efficient AM2 Chipset existing I know of)
Seasonic S12II 330W (most power-efficient PSU I know of)

Depends on the power consumption of your Drives, but with a single 2.5" SATA Drive and PCI VGA installed, you're looking at ~67W power consumption at full CPU load with Cool&Quiet even disabled.

Idle power with Cool&Quiet enabled is far below that for this config.

The AsRock AliveXFire-eSATA2 is currently my Board of choice, already has BIOS support for the Phenom X4 (so far, I haven't read of any significant performance loss of AM2 vs. AM2+ , and the newer AM2+ Chpsets currently draw significantly more power than the AMD480X, for example).

A good alternative is the AMD690G/V Chipset, approx. 10W higher Power consumption, but still below any stand-alone PCIe VGA Card (plus a normal USB performance).

Besides the CPU (which power rating most people are aware of), the biggest power-hogs are Video Card, Motherboard Chipset, inefficient Power Supply and fast Harddrives.

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« Last Edit: 19.01.08 at 01:49:52 by FalconFly »

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rottentreats God Member Offline 3dfx > Reality Posts: 616 Minnesota [USA] Gender:	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #6 - 19.01.08 at 03:02:09 Why are you guys so worried about power consumption? I like my overloaded power strips
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gamma742 God Member Offline 3Dfx Gamer Posts: 1668 San Diego, CA USA Gender:	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #7 - 19.01.08 at 03:30:12 You're freakin' nuts treats
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FalconFly YaBB Administrator Offline 3dfx Archivist Posts: 2445 5335N 00745E Gender:	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #8 - 19.01.08 at 10:40:33 Power consumption becomes a factor when the price per KWh exceeds 20 Euro-Cent (~ 30 US Cent) and keeps climbing every year Already old, but still nice pic
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gdonovan

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #9 - 19.01.08 at 12:28:44

Quote:

Athlon X2 BE-2400 (2x 2.3GHz, 45W TDP)
AMD 480/480X or 580/580X Chipset ( if below-par USB performance isn't a show-stopper, most power-efficient AM2 Chipset existing I know of)
Seasonic S12II 330W (most power-efficient PSU I know of)

Looks interesting, I'll check into this.

SInce the most demanding thing running off the USB is a document scanner and some printers not a huge concern, stability is though.

AMD is starting to look better and better- I can't find a single intel board that either has few issues (or a lot of issues in some cases) or in the case of the Intel OEM boards doesn't have RAID on board.

This Gigabyte AMD board looks very nice and has the features I'm looking for-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128081

I have had very good luck with Gigabyte and the board supports Win 2000 well.

Paired up with 2 gig of ram-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098

I just need to pick the CPU =)

An X2 is a must so that will narrow things down a bit.

Thoughts?

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« Last Edit: 19.01.08 at 14:02:14 by gdonovan »

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NitroX infinity YaBB Moderator Offline Posts: 1936 The Netherlands Gender:	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #10 - 19.01.08 at 14:09:28 As mentioned before; X2 BE-2400: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103204
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gdonovan

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #11 - 19.01.08 at 14:15:05

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103211

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor

More power consumption than the CPU FalconFly suggested but that is offest by the AMD 770 chipset that is very stingy on consumption compared to Nvidia chipsets that pull upwards of 35-45 watts!

So for $260 USD I can have a stout little platform and pickup a better video board in the future.

Already have case, 6600 PCI-e, SATA drives, dual DVD burners and a 550 watt coolermaster power supply (overkill for this platform but better to much than to little)

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gdonovan YaBB Administrator Offline Infernal Collector Posts: 2361	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #12 - 19.01.08 at 14:26:07 Quote: As mentioned before; X2 BE-2400 How does it compare to the 2.6 ghz 5000+ ? I'm not going to quibble over 20 watts and if the calculations are correct the above posted 5000+ configuration would actually use slightly less power than my 2600+ socket A!
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NitroX infinity

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Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions?
Reply #13 - 19.01.08 at 16:16:56

Comparison between a 200MHz slower BE-2350 and the X2 5000+.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=938&model2=933&char...

For the people who don't know:
You can switch between benchmarks in the 'Choose benchmark' dropdown list.
Selected CPU's have red bars in the graphs.

At first glance it doesn't seem to perform all that bad.

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gdonovan YaBB Administrator Offline Infernal Collector Posts: 2361	Re: Decided to build new PC, suggestions? Reply #14 - 19.01.08 at 16:27:16 The 5000+ is almost 2 minutes faster encoding DVD, I think we have a winner! Same price, faster performance but pulls a tad more power, I think I can live with it. I'll find a few more light bulbs to replace Unless someone can point out some weakness in the package I'll place the order later today.
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