How does my new PC stack up?

[KALSTER]

Hey guys.

Here is my current system, if you want to have a laugh!

AMD 3500+
1.5 Gig ValueRam 667
Sparkle GeForce 7100gs
160 Gig Maxtor ATA Hard Drive

So, I have been surfing around looking for the best deal for a more respectable setup and have narrowed onto these components:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz 6MB 1333Mhz FSB R1787
Leadtek WinFast PX9800 GT 16xPCIE 256-bit 512MB GDDR3 R1629
2 * Corsair DDR2-800 1GB XMS2 Xtreme Performance R500
Asus P5KPL-C/1600 IG31 Motherboard w/A8 + LK + SATA2 R712
500 W Power supply R374

Now, that graphics card’s price has got me somewhat worried. The closest comparable card I could find was a Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT for R2006. In fact, at another online computer store the Leadtek 9600 GT is actually more expensive than the 9800GT! Is there something wrong with this card, or does it still use the 65nm form factor? Does anyone have one of those cards and if so, how are they? Are they fairly soft overclockable? Does the stock fan do a good enough job? It does not seem to be a very popular card and I can’t even find a review for it online.
That motherboard has the Intel G31/ICH7 Chipset, while a bit more expensive one has the Intel® P35 chipset and the still more expensive ones the Intel® P43 chipset. What are the differences and is the extra money worth it?

Is the power supply big enough? I won’t run the monitor off of it, so it will only be the above plus a DVD Writer and sound card.

I know the processor will do the job, but how are my choices for the rest? Any comments or advice would be highly appreciated!

[Frozenfireside]

Now, that graphics card’s price has got me somewhat worried. The closest comparable card I could find was a Gigabyte GeForce 8800GT for R2006.
In fact, at another online computer store the Leadtek 9600 GT is actually more expensive than the 9800GT! Is there something wrong with this card, or does it still use the 65nm form factor? >Nothings wrong. The prices are slightly screwed in the head. The worse 8800GT is R300 more then the 9800GT.


Does anyone have one of those cards and if so, how are they? >Not bad. I own the 8800GT and it works well.

Are they fairly soft overclockable? >Moderate to good.

Does the stock fan do a good enough job? >Yes. The card will run a bit hot but it won't explode.

It does not seem to be a very popular card and I can’t even find a review for it online.>Try tomshardware.com
That motherboard has the Intel G31/ICH7 Chipset, while a bit more expensive one has the Intel® P35 chipset and the still more expensive ones the Intel® P43 chipset. What are the differences and is the extra money worth it? >Yes. IMO. But a budget is a budget.

Is the power supply big enough?
>Plenty.
I won’t run the monitor off of it, so it will only be the above plus a DVD Writer and sound card.

I know the processor will do the job, but how are my choices for the rest?
>it's a good system. nice CPU. Should be fine for what you want.

[DVDL]

I agree with Frozenfireside, I also have the E8400 and 8800gt - It's great...

[Frozenfireside]

I need to get an E8500. Want the clocking ability and my E6300 with 2meg cache sucks with such slow RAM as mine.

Also looking at a 500gig HDD. Too much pron

[KALSTER]

Thanks for the replies!

I am wondering about whether 2 Gig ram would be enough for playing games in Vista?

Yeah, Tomshardware is a cool site, but they don't have a review of the Leadtek 9800GT specifically. You see, from what I have read, Nvidia apparently gave the companies permission to flash their existing stock of 8800's bios chips with the 9800's bios and then market them as 9800's; that is how close they are to each other! The main difference is that the 8800's were built using a 65nm core, while the new Nvidia produced 9800's are 55nm, which runs much cooler and so would be easier to keep cool and would use less power under overclocking. The thing is that I can't find out if the Leadtek product still has the 65nm core or not. It would still be a great card with the 65nm core, 8800's are legendary, but if I could help it I'd rather get the newer ones. That might be why some of the 9600's are more expensive, as they use 55nm, so a 9800 cheaper than that could potentially be running on old 8800 chips.

From what I have read the E8400's offer the best value for money. This is because they aren't much slower than the E8500's and are quite overclockable. The E8200's are still good processors, but they have a 8* multiplier, so aren't as easily overclockable as the E8400 with their 9* multiplier, which goes for only about R100 more!

From reading some of the threads over her I think I'll go for a P35 chipset motherboard. They are not much more expensive and appears to be a popular one.

[GDI_Lord]

Vista will struggle with only 2GB of RAM. PLEASE go for four if you're going to run Vista, and PLEASE go for the 64bit version of Vista. The first prize, though, would be to stay with XP (32 bit) You'd only need 2GB of RAM then.

The E8400 looks like a great little processor. If you can afford it, go the quad core route, even if you have to get a "slower" clocked CPU. Notice that I put the word "slower" in inverted commas - there's a reason for that! Your PC will operate smoother for longer than if you had to get a dual core CPU. The more carp that your Windows installation accumulates over time, the slower it is. The "slow-down" affect is prolonged until later as your CPU has more multi-processing horsepower to take care of that accumulated carp. Also, as more and more applications and games are programmed to take multiple cores and CPUs into account, you'll be smiling broader and broader.

Check out Tom's Hardware Guide's Best Graphics Cards for the Money October 2008 for more information on your gfx card. General rule of thumb: times American prices by 10 to get a fair estimate of South African prices. My recommendation: get a nice 4850 for +-R2000 if you can afford it.

And don't feel bad about your 7100GS - I'm currently running a 9MB onboard Intel G33/G31 gfx setup. And that's 9MB MAXIMUM! In the BIOS it's either 1MB or 9MB. Fortunately, it runs Fallout 2 just fine!

[KALSTER]

Thanks GDI_Lord! Good post with good tips. I'll have a look around.

I normally format my PC every six months or so, but the quad core would be more future proof. I am also still not very fond of Vista, but I'd like to experience some DX10 graphics before I make up my mind about that. So maybe I'll get 3Gigs of ram!

[Prime]

I have a gigabyte board with the next chipset up, the G33. it runs realy well. I'd have gone for the g45 if i'd known about it at the time. I went with the gigabyte because it had more sata ports and other features than its asus counterpart and cost the same

[GDI_Lord]

Rather get 4GB of RAM, 2x 2GB sticks if your motherboard can support it. That was you still get dual channel speeds and even if you run XP you'll still get 3.2GB available (it's a 32bit OS address space limit) and when you get a 64bit OS (say, Windows 7 next year) you'll get the full 4GB.

My advice with Vista if you want the DX10 graphics: adopt the "try before you buy approach," but just make sure that you buy the OS if you're gonna keep it. While you're doing the whole 64bit thing, check out the latest 64bit version of Ubuntu Linux. 8.10 is being released in 17 days if you can wait that long. You can download it or order a CD. PM me your address and I'll post you/we can get together for a DVD of 8.04 64bit.

[Frozenfireside]

Vista will struggle with only 2GB of RAM

+1.
I have 2 gigs. gaming is hard unless I reduce the quality by a lot.

[KALSTER]

Thanks for all the help and suggestions!

So, I've decided on my final system:

Intel Core2Quad Q6600
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512 mb
2*2Gig Transcend DDR II 800 High performance ram
Seagate SataII 500GB 32 mb cache Hard Drive
500Watt Power supply
P35 Chipset Motherboard
Think I should at least put at an extra fan in the case to deal with the 4850's high running temperature .
I'll be running this on a 17" Samsung CRT monitor, for now.

Peace!

[Mow]

Ok nice rig. But if you can . try to get a slightly bigger PSU . 600w + . it give you the option of running crossfire later. The ati cards can use up to 273watt. my little isonic omega is R477 at prophecy and it has never let me down.

[KALSTER]

Ok nice rig. But if you can . try to get a slightly bigger PSU . 600w + . it give you the option of running crossfire later. The ati cards can use up to 273watt. my little isonic omega is R477 at prophecy and it has never let me down.

Hey, thanks for the info man!