building a pc

[Ewan]

Offcourse, if the programs you will be using is the ones needing more from your CPU then as 404 said don't cut corners on that. My recommendations is more in general, I don't know what the specific needs of engineering is.

Another note on cooling: Get yourself a new CPU cooling system rather than the stock shit you get. You don't need to get the extreme stuff, just a decent cooler like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118223

Do not underestimate the importance of having the proper cooling your computer needs. Get atleast two fans for your cabinet, one in the front and one in the back.

The stock cooler for the Core 2 line is fine. You only need to get an aftermarket one if you're planning to overclock.

[Noah]

The stock cooler for the Core 2 line is fine. You only need to get an aftermarket one if you're planning to overclock.

The only time one of my friends skipped buying the cooler he ended up buying one the day after finishing his rig and checked the temperature levels. I wouldn't risk going with the stock cooler for any CPUs others than those who is shipped with something different than the stock cooler.

In regards to Crysis, I'll put a temporarily break on that sidetrack. I'm swamped with stuff to do (I'm moving), and I don't want to derail the topic. I do have more to say, but it's not like I won't catch you on these forums again.

[Cops]

I don't really know Cops. It would take a substantial change in the CPU marked today for Quadcore to be the alternative delivering the most bang for your buck.

What surprises me is actually how little the difference is, look at this:


Dualcore can pretty much deliver everything a quadcore can for normal computer usage. Quadcore CPUs will always be more expensive than dualcores, so as long as you don't have the specific need of more cores I'd say that dualcore will be the better choice untill quadcore somehow becomes cheaper than dualcore. Dualcores will always be the cheapest option of those two.

My guess is that the only thing that will change this is a new generation of software that can exploit the extra cores better than what we have today.

Why do you want a quadcore anyway?

Edit: AZHRAN I SEE YOU VIEWING THIS THREAD, HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU MAN?

Kolar and myself both want to upgrade our system but neither of us want to dump money into a dual core and then quad cores become cheaper within a short time period. I'd like to play age of conan but other than that our p4 pretty much does everything we need, we said we'd ride the p4 into the ground before upgrading. I guess the way I look at it is I need to dump money into a computer every 3-4 years so the longer I can go without putting money into my machine the more money I have in my pocket. Right now I have my macbook, it's a 2.1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM. I think I may be able to connect my macbook to my monitor and just run age of conan using boot camp.

[Noah]

As I said, for other uses that niche use quadcore doesn't really bring a noticeable difference. Look up some benchmarks where they test it. The difference is surprisingly small for gaming. My dualcore has never been the bottleneck in my system, and there aren't anything that are announced that I can't handle with this CPU.

Quadcores won't be dumped to the same price level as dualcores since it's newer technology. The prices of both will probably go steadily down, but the dualcores will always be cheaper, and as I've said many times you won't need those two extra cores unless you have a specific need for them.

[Cops]

when I said we'd ride the p4 into the ground I didn't mean literally, the power supply just popped/smoked and I'm pretty sure it might have fucked up more than just the power supply.

[Fit of Rage]

At my experience level though, I think I would give Matlab itself a seizure or have to write a really really long complicated code to utilize 4 cores. A dual core should probably be sufficient for my needs. As long as I get a motherboard that's quad compatible, I can just upgrade the chip later if necessary.

[Ewan]

Yeah that sounds sensible, it's really personal choice, there are arguments either way.

[PUNK rock]

A dual core should probably be sufficient for my needs. As long as I get a motherboard that's quad compatible, I can just upgrade the chip later if necessary.

Just stumbled upon this thread, but Noah and Ewan and some others have given solid advice.

That's not a bad idea for a motherboard. Keep in mind that many of the newer Core 2 chips use 1333MHz frontside bus, so find a board that has that. They'll be the chips that still get sold when Intel releases their new Nehalem series later this year.

Something too keep in mind when selecting a power supply is trying to find one that's 100% modular as it helps with organizing your wires and getting good airflow.

With video cards, check out the warranty on it. I'd rather pay $20 to get a lifetime warranty than have a 1-3 year warranty.

[Fit of Rage]

1333 FSB was my primary concern, hence my selection of this bad boy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

also, does this look like a valid motherboard? I think it's got everything I'm looking for (1333 FSB, quad-compatible, 4 memory slots (max 8GB) 6 USB, 5 PCI + 2 PCI-e)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128084

Only thing is some of the reviews say it can't overclock. If I'm gonna be running a dual core at 1333 with potentially 8GB of ram (eventually), will I even need to overclock? It's gonna run so freakin' fast on its own.

[Noah]

When it comes to CPU there isn't really much competition to E8400. It's hands down the best CPU you can get unless you need four cores in terms of what you get in return for you money. I got one of the previous, less powerful CPUs of the same series, and it has delivered everything I need. There is no need to overclock at all, so don't do it. You'll just reduce the lifespan of you CPU to get extra performance that you can't exploit in a meaningful way.

Having just one PCI express slot is fine for a mobo, SLI isn't really a viable alternative if you're looking to get something back from what you pay. Also it has a P35 chipset, which is about to zone out of the marked to P45 chipsets. However, I can't really see how it will be a noticeable difference to go for a P45 chipset. I haven't even heard about anyone having their mobo as the bottleneck when it comes to performance. Both of these two things helps reducing the price of the mobo, so unless you want to have SLI or a P45 chipset for whatever reason this is a good mobo.

[Fit of Rage]

Bare with me: what's a chipset/what difference does it make? Newer processors, RAM, and gfx cards might not be compatible with the mobo?

[Displaced]

heres something i stumbled upon while bored at work.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...game,1810.html

its a bit over your budget, but if you change the processor to a Phenom 8600B and skimp on the gfx to something like a base 3870, itd be around 700 bucks.

theres probably better systems available for the price though, maybe ill take a look see at what i can throw together tomorrow

[tragiK]

i only read the first post in the thread and saw someone say E8400 was superior - yes, it's a good chip, and the best current one for CURRENT *gaming*, but if we're talking graphics and encoding and 3d modeling, the quad is far and away superior. not to mention the industry is shifting towards multiple core processing - if your upgrade cycle is over 2 years the quad is the only way to go.

the only time it's worth buying from dell is during their end of quarter sales, where a quad core config with 250gb hd, 1gb ram are around $400. i recommend to build one yourself if you know how, especially if your budget is $700, which is plenty for a very good computer.

processor (~$180): fry's has the intel q6600 (2.4 ghz quad, stock overclock to ~3.0 ghz at 1333fsb easy) for $180. newegg's everyday price is around $210 for the retail box with stock cooler, $200 for the OEM with no cooler (you want to get your own anyways, the stock fan isn't too great). microcenter has the retail box for $190

motherboard (~$120): more flexibility here, just don't buy one that sucks. you won't need SLI, so just get something that works. mwave has a gigabyte board for $117 after $20 MIR, newegg has an MSI board for $110, etc.

ram (~$80): just get 2x2gb of some of the regular stuff. newegg has some good OCZ sticks for $70 after $30 MIR

graphics card ($200): here you have a lot of choices that span from around $130 for the now-obsolete but still-good nvidia 8800gt, $160 for a very good 8800GTS g92 512mb, or the newest ati radeon 4850 for $200. if you can wait a few weeks, theres a new nvidia 9800GTX+ coming out that should push the price down on the 9800 line to around $200 to directly compete with the 4850. it seems like $200 is the new sweet spot in graphics cards, where you get mid-high performance at mid prices.
//edit: PRICE UPDATE: 4850 is now $150 after coupon/rebate, rebate expires july 15th

sound card: just use the onboard, it's not worth getting a $100 sound card unless you have speakers that can justify them (another $100+, up to $250 for a good 5.1 set)

power supply (~$30): with a single graphics card you won't need more than 400w or so. antec earthwatts 430w is a good one, newegg has it for $30 after $30 MIR.

cpu heatsink/fan ($~$30): the better this is, the better you can overclock and get the most out of your cpu. well, i wouldn't overclock the q6600 past 3.0 ghz anyways, but it's still good to get a decent one: the most popular one on newegg is for $27. the same one is $20 at ewiz

ok, so that's $180 + $120 + $80 + $200 + $30 + $30 = $640 for everything minus the case, giving you around $60 to spend on a case, which is plenty for a pretty good one. the antec three hundred is $70 at newegg, prolly cheaper elsewhere, and includes all the fans u need. you can probably pick up a decent case for real cheap off craigslist too.

of course, this is all assuming you port your hard drive and dvd burner from your previous computer. if not, SATA burners are about $25. the best current price/performance hard drive is the western digital 640gb - it's the fastest high capacity drive because it only has 2 platters (less moving parts) - the trick is to partition the drive when you first get it, with the first partition around 100gb for your operating system and programs and the rest for storage. this makes sure your OS and programs won't fragment past the outer edge of the platters and keeps things running fast. newegg has it for $99

so for around $800 you're looking at a near top of the line system that's good enough to run crysis on high and will process the hell out of any graphics application. you can easily lower that by going with a cheaper video card (and maybe picking up another 4gb of ram for 8gb total)

software: you'll need a 64 bit operating system (vista or xp) in order to see more than 3gb of ram. either one is fine... i figure most of the problems people have with vista is because their computer isn't powerful enough to run it. either way, i wouldn't pay for it. sign up an account at warez-bb (dot) org and download to your heart's content. it's a safe site with no spyware / popups, so no worries. most of the files are hosted on rapidshare, which has a 100mb / hour download quota, so you might want to pick up a 1-month subscription to rapidshare premium for 6.99 euro (about $11-12, which gives u a quota of 25gb per 5 days, and warez-bb has pretty much everything so it's worth it).


if you're not in a rush to build it, keep an eye out on the deals at fatwallet dot com and slickdeals dot net - there's deals on pretty much every component of a build that show up every once in a while. takes about a month to accumulate everything, but you can be sure you're getting the best lowest prices.

[tragiK]

Calling bullshit on this.

My housemate just bought a PC about 6 months ago:
Core 2 Quad Q6600
2GB RAM
8800GT 512MB

And it runs all the modern games on max settings (even Crysis) at 1400 x 900.

no computer can run crysis on max (very high), not even close. you can triple SLI the new nvidia 280 cards ($600 each) and overclock the hell out of a quad extreme and you still wouldn't be able to do very high with full AA/AF at a playable fps.

[tragiK]

When it comes to CPU there isn't really much competition to E8400. It's hands down the best CPU you can get unless you need four cores in terms of what you get in return for you money. I got one of the previous, less powerful CPUs of the same series, and it has delivered everything I need. There is no need to overclock at all, so don't do it. You'll just reduce the lifespan of you CPU to get extra performance that you can't exploit in a meaningful way.

here's my thing about lifespan - whens the last time you heard of a cpu failing? some kid on a newegg review was able to do it by feeding his chip over 4x the voltage its built to take. well, he got a sick overclock for about 30 seconds. some wise man once said the best race car is the one that breaks down right after crossing the finish line.

you can haul ass bigtime by overclocking (granted that you have good cooling and thermal paste) and maybe decrease the lifespan of your cpu from 20 years to 15. the hard drive, ram, motherboard, graphics card are more likely to crap out sooner.

manufacturing technology is getting very good and intel's newer chips (q6600, e8400, etc) all overclock VERY well with little detriment to stability. the e8400 is better in this respect because it's smaller in size and thus uses lower power, which generates less heat. there's a new quad core series coming out soon based on the smaller size (q9000 something), but it's going to be around $350 i believe.