getting some new bits

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Hello again every one,

ok where to start, I am looking to buy my self some new pc parts and have chosen the bits that i would like and managed to find them all with in my budget of around £600, but the reason i am here is to get a second opinune on what I am thinking of buying The PC is going to be for gaming as well as viewing videos and the odd movie so sounds and graffics are imporant to me, i have atm the creative SB audigy 4 with 7.1 surround sound, and i am hoping to be able to keep this for when i add my new bits to the pc, ok so the bits that i have chosen are as follows, pls note there are 2 mother boards here as i am not to sure which is the best to go for, i have been told that the first is good and a bit cheaper but the second is only £20 more and should be more stable so i will need some advice on which is best, as well as for the rest advice on the other components would also be much apreached (please please for give my spelling as i am highly dyslexic and spelling is not the easiest thing in the world for me) this is going to be a 32 bit machine, and i am going to be reinstalling my copy of xp pro back on as i think this is the best OS the gap in the wall has made

ok so the parts are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3GHz Socket 775 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB Retail Boxed Processor

Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard (First motherboard)

MSI P35 Diamond iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard (Second)

Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory C5(5-5-5-18 ) (RAM)

Sapphire X1950GT 256MB GDDR3 DVI-I TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM (HD)

Belkin Serial ATA 2.0 7-pin Cable - Red 0.6m (cable)

ok well there is it, this is going to be the first pc i have bought in about 4 to 5 years so its going to be a step up for me in to the next Gen, i hope this gets some arpovil as i have had a look around your forum and seen that every one here gives out very honest and good advice so please don't pull any punches with me.

i have thought about a quad core before about i and set with duo as it give higher FPS on the new Gen games, i am not one for over clocking as i want to keep this for a good few years maybe the next 5 or 6.

thanks again for any and all advice,

Soady

 

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Seems like an ok setup to me.

As for the mobo I would get the gigabyte one but thas just my opinion.

 

You haven't mentioned the case or power suplly that you will be purchasing. On a side note I would try to get hold of a graphics card of the same or better chipset with at least 320MB of graphics memory (preferably 512MB). This would allow you to minimise/eliminate texture compression, so that texture resolutions are sharper, for instance. Also, grapter resolutions will yield better framerates because of the larger frame buffer available.

 

Good choice on the Core 2 Duo. You won't regret it.

I'd choose a Gigabyte board over an MSI board... and I'd choose an ASUS board over either of them.

Corsair's good quality, though I've had good experiences with other brands as well. I currently use a 2GB kit of Corsair memory in my box.

Sapphire can be hit or miss... check reviews of your particular model before buying. That said, I'm currently running a Sapphire X850 XT card in my box.

I prefer Maxtor/Seagate over Western Digital, but I really don't have anything against WD... I'd certainly consider WD. If your WD is capable of 3 Gbps operation, be sure to remove any jumpers that might throttle it back to 1.5 Gbps.

Don't skimp on the PSU. A cheapie PSU can cause problems that are hard to pinpoint back to the PSU - it could look like disk corruption, bad memory, faulty CPU or motherboard, bad video card, etc. I'd recommend one from a high-quality PSU vendor, such as Antec, Enermax, or Seasonic.

 

While I agree with you in theory, video cards larger than 256 MB can be prohibitively expensive. Always get the best bang for the buck, and compare the relative performance of cards on GPUReview before buying.

 

Very true, but still certainly worth going for if you want a well balanced system.

 

Not if I want a well-balanced marriage.

 

That's why I'm not married!

 

I would also and do have an ASUS board, it not the most expensive but it decent , its a P5NE-SLI good board imo.

 

Mine's the P5B.

 

When I build my new comp next year, I am looking at the Commando with the Antec P190 as my case.

I havent decided on the two PSUs or anythin else yet.

 

I've got a P180B case... I'd highly recommend that line of Antec's products, so the P190 should be excellent.

 

heya, i am hoping to be able to use my existing psu a 550watt, (sorry I cannot remember the name erf) and again i hope to use my existing case, i have a server case so sorted there, the reasions behind all this use of existing items is due to the fact i am poor, D'oh ( hangs head in shame ) so trying to make a descent pc on the very cheep, i know its possable

as for 512mb graphics memory i see your point but again price is an issue.

the card i have chosen there is no real differnce in the boreds they both support six PCI Express x1 lanes which this card does work with, but i might change it to the Gecube 2600XT 256MB GDDR4 Dual DVI HDCP X-Turbo Silent Fan Edition PCI-E Graphics Card its around the same price and uses DDR2 RAM where as the Sapphire X1950GT 256MB DDR3 RAM.
Do you think that card is a sutible choice as an alternate to the Sapphire?


slight subject change to the mother boreds

The MSI P35 Diamond iP35 Socket 775 Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 SDRAM which is of a different type to the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 iP35 which Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 SDRAM so to take the MSI bored i would have to also change the ram and as DDR3 is the more newer one of the two has proven to be slightly more expensive then the Gigabyte bored. There was one other concern although cosmetic the shape of the MSI P35 bored has 2, USB 2 built in towers which would be hidden behind part of my case and rendered useless, :|

looks like i will choose the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 bored as fits with both case shape and RAM.

just as an after thought; is my current psu stuible for the all my new parts? mine being a 550 watt, 5 fan colled, but still no name has come to me i will edit this if i get a chance to look or remember it, ok as i said i would try and do the name of my psu is a Q-Tec 550watt

Soady

 

No shame in being poor, mate. I also have to keep a watch on the budget (as my wife is a stay-at-home mom)... so I reuse parts whenever possible.

Considering I've never heard of Gecube, I'd recommend the Sapphire board.

Further, if you look here, you'll see that the 2600XT is inferior to the X1950 GT in several ways. Sure, the 2600XT is DX10 compliant... but the texture fill rate is half that of the X1950 GT, the memory bandwidth is less than that of the X1950 GT, the number of texture units are 2/3 that of the X1950 GT, and the raster operators are a third that of the X1950 GT. It's got more shaders... but it still won't be able to chunk out the pixels that fast...

Without knowing the model and/or specifics about your PSU, I wouldn't be able to tell you if your PSU is compatible with the Gigabyte board (or any new board, for that matter). Gotta have the right mobo power pins, the proper connectors for powering your video card, etc.

 

Looking at the table the only thing that X1950 has that beats the 2600XT is on the memory band width and pixel fill rate, but the 2600XT has a higher core clock, memory clock, shader clock, texture fill rate and according to the reviews on that site it also scores higher on the user rating as well. now i am really confused :| it would seam there are both pros and cons for both cards, but i think the DX10 compatibility is going to be the thing that clinches it for me, as most of the up and coming game and a good few of the new ones are going to be DX10. I have a friend that has a DX10 compatibility card he says that some DX9 games are a little bit shaky but he is running them in full DH mode where as i will not have a HD compatible monitor, also i fear that DX10 will be come the new standard if it has not already and getting a DX9 card will limit me to only those games. unless there is a patch or something that can be installed to make a DX9 GF card work using DX10 games, it sounds like a bit of a stretch to me, but thank you for finding the table and letting me compare the two cards you have helped in making process the process of choosing the card a lot easier.

also my psu as edited above in my post is a Q-TEC 550Watt psu.

 

You really shouldn't look at the comparison chart and say, "This has got this beat in 7 categories which are all equally important", because all of the categories are not equal in importance. Most important thing is how quickly can a video card pump out pixels. What good is a "fast clock" if it can't pump out the pixels very fast?

Have you seen any reviews on how DX9 looks next to DX10? I'd urge you to read some before jumping into the water. DX10 seems to offer little visual benefit at the cost of pixel processing speed.

Sure, eventually, games will work only on DX10. But by that time, the DX10 cards will come down in price, and until that happens, my DX9 card will work just fine.

Never heard of a Q-TEC. Personally, I'd avoid using it, but if you have no other way to get the box built, and if it's compatible, then use it if you must.

 

Hello,


I guess u are right about the chart was not the grate move on my part but i hope u can see why i said what i did. ,

Since I last posted I have been searching around a few different forums and have seen that DX10 is only available for vista, (no way in *#$%* am I going to get vista) so that sorts that one out.
I have also looked at the a few clips of "crisis" a DX10 game and running on a vista PC its VERY impressive and looks wonderful I have also seen the pictures that where created my M.S for the new X fighter game although they are stills and only generated by artist impressions of what DX10 is going to look like there is no real comparisons between DX9 and DX10 as far as i can see, the stills say it all (DX10 is better if the pictures are true to form), but like M.S has done in the past along with allot of other software companies they tend to make what they are going to release I.E the new, look far more impressive than the older versions, but again this is a fact of life when it comes to the new and improved products.
I think it really is up to personal choice about it, I spent a good few hours looking at different forums and they all said the same thing pretty much, some people loved the new DX10 some did not, others say its just the way M.S have set up the different cards and some say they will go out and get the new one right away. I will go back to the Sapphire as it will work with XP and should work ok, (just as a side note my current graphics card is a 512mb radian 9800pro), but my only concern now is about the the type of RAM it uses like I said before my mother bored uses DDR2 RAM and the Sapphire card uses DDR3 RAM so will this be an issue with the card and result in a poor performance?
As for my PSU I have had it for the last 3 years and never had a single problem with it, although it might not be the most popular in PSU's my philosophies is "if it is not broken don't fix it"

my current graphics card is a good one but i don't think it will be sutible for my up and coming pc which is a shame as i really do like it. unless someone knows better,

Soady

 

As far as I know your card has nothing to do with the RAM on your mobo.

My card uses GDDR3 and is DX10 compatible and my RAM is DDR2 I have never had an issue.

 

No; motherboard RAM speeds and graphics card RAM speeds do not have to match.

Different components have different power requirements. What works in one rig can be horribly underpowered in another. Not saying your PSU won't work... just saying that you can't automatically assume it WILL work. Just like your video card, below... you are assuming it won't be up to the task - why should you assume your PSU will be up to the task?

Use that GPUReview.com link I gave you to compare your 9800 Pro to other cards. But the real bottom line is this: do the games you play NOW look good on your 9800 Pro? If so... why would they look worse in your new box? Answer: they won't. Sure, eventually you will need to upgrade it. But is TODAY the day? Only you can answer that question.