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Hi
A friend helped me put together a new Sandy Bridge build. Thoughts? I'll be using parts from my old pc.
http://i.imgur.com/EgXdN.jpg
1150€~~ including 24" 120hz monitor and a new deathadder.
My budget is hella tight. Do you think I'm getting good value for my money? I'm mainly looking at the gpu, the price is pretty steep but on the other hand my old 4870 1gb would be a bottleneck(?) and I haven't looked at the 5xxx series. If you have suggestions, I'd prefer something quiet and not power hogging.
I think getting an aftermarket cpu cooler would be smart, but I really have no idea what coolers will fit into my Antec p182(b?) and at the same time are quiet and affordable. Help plz
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@Jh
You don't need a 650W PSU, a 550W will do fine for a single graphics card and overclocking.
You don't need 1600MHz either, 1333MHz will do fine.
Not sure about pricing but in the states, the 6950 1gb and gtx 560 are generally the same price. You can grab a MSI GTX 560 Twin Frorz and overclock it to match the GTX 570 in terms of performance.
The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ is probably the most affordable well performing heatsink there is and it'll fit in your case.
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How does the amount of hard drives affect the psu selection? I'll be running an ssd and 2-3 regular samsungs.
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Not that much... like 20w for each drive.
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First of all, both of your shops seems kind of expensive.
Like already mentioned a few posts above you can get RAM with 1333MHz instead of 1600.
Regarding the graphics card the 6950 is really good value, but it is loud and power consuming.
If you want to sacrifice some some performance for more efficiency and lower noise you should get the GTX560Ti.
On the other hand if you just play Starcraft 2, you could try it with your old graphics card, which isn't actually that bad. If it's not good enough for you, you can still buy a better card later.
As a CPU cooler I would go for the Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B (Mugen 1 fit into that case, so 2 should fit too) and imo it's the best value you get, though prices vary a lot between countries (in Germany it's about 30€, if it's more expensive for you, you should maybe get something else).
I don't know about the monitor, do you really need 120Hz 3D and all that stuff?
I'm not really familiar with the latest trends and prices regarding monitors but 320€ for a TN Panel 24" monitor seems expensive to me, but I don't really know..
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On February 22 2011 04:11 q.epsilon.p wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 03:22 skyR wrote:
Unless you are benchmarking or overclocking, there is NO difference between a 1333MHz cas7 kit, 1600MHz cas9 kit, and a 1333MHz cas9 kit. if you looked back at my original post I will over clock in the future, and there is a very small diff when mutli tasking and you do not know how much I un-pack and re-pack things so the multi tasking is relevant to me, and the bigger difference between 1333Mhz C7 and 1600C9 is the price £10 cheaper per duel channel kit and im buying 2 so that £20. any whos why hasn't any one mentioned how AWESOME that case looks for 57.49
Just curious but how important is 3D and 2D graphic design to your life? If you actually earn money from it, you might be looking into getting ECC RAM and a proper workstation card which cannot really run games all that well however will make your work infinitely more productive.
For stuff like Solidworks, even a low end Quadro will be significantly faster/accurate (dependent on software, I think Autocad and a few others can run D3D which is obviously good for typical cards) than a desktop card and far more stable due to far better driver quality. The driver certification is work its weight in gold if you actually make a living and have to pay your bills with your system.
On February 21 2011 19:45 Az0r_au wrote:I would argue that a 965be is better value than i5-2300 the 965be at stock only loses out to the 2300 by about 3 fps at 1920x1080 and with overclock actually pulls ahead and is 25-30$ cheaper. Also the amd mobo will be cheaper than the intel counterpart.
In CPU intensive games, this is completely untrue. In Starcraft 2 and Civilization 5, the Phenom II 970 is around 15 FPS slower than the i5 2400 and with such a budget system you have no right overclocking; if you want to overclock to get similar performance you're going to invest in better cooling, a motherboard that isn't rock bottom, and possibly even a beefier power supply.
Its very adequate but its not that significantly cheaper than the rock bottom Sandy Bridge builds. You might as well make a few sandwiches for two weeks instead of eating out and get the all round better build.
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I think it's more like 5-15W for each drive during normal operation, depending on the design, number of platters, and rpm. Most 7200 rpm drives should be around 10W in use, less at idle. When a normal desktop hard drive is spinning up from idle like when you turn your computer on, it takes much more power than that though. But since the rest of your system isn't using full power on boot, this usually doesn't matter unless you have a low-power storage machine with like 8 HDDs, and you can't force a staggered spin-up. SSD power consumption should be under 5W, varying a lot by model.
With the current build, you're fine on a good 430W or more. Something like 500W is preferred. Corsair TX650 is usually a bad value these days, though still solid. TX650 v2 (new version) is pretty much the same as the XFX Pro/Core 650W, and they're both very good but overkill. If you're seriously entertaining the idea of adding another HD 6950 in the future, getting one of those two 650W units would be your best bet.
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I have a quick question about a motherboards.
At a local store (Micro Center in Cambridge, MA), they are currently having a deal with AMD CPU's and MoBo's. If I buy a Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, I can get this motherboard pretty much for free: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354006
Well, as far as I can tell its PCI-e slot is 1.0 x16, not 2.0 x16. Is this that big of a deal (specifically when using this graphics card : http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0343140)? Also, its FSB is "Up to 2000/1600 MT/s," which seems to be lower than normal. How much will these factors gimp this MoBo?
I can also get a good deal on this MoBo:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0351634
Or I can pay $40 more for this one:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0334912
I'm guessing that the Biostar is better than the Asus (Asus with worse PCI-e slot and slower FSB), and I will probably get the Biostar unless it is worth the extra money to get the 880GM. What actual advantages does the 880GM offer?
EDIT: I can also get this one for about the same price as the 880GM: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0335706, which also seems good. It has two 2.0 x16 PCI-e slots (but can only run them at x16 and x4), and has USB 3.0. Right now I'm leaning towards putting an extra ~$45 into this board
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You only need one PCIe x16 slot for a single graphics card.
The FSB is ok too. I don't know about the chipset though, a quick google search told me that the nforce 630a chipset is actually 4 years old and hasn't got good reviews as far as I can tell.
I think going for a 8xx chipset mainboard is the best choice here. 870 should be the cheapest one, 880g and 890gx are the same but with integrated graphics which you don't need, 890fx would be for more than one graphics card.
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Thank you very much 
On February 22 2011 08:58 Mischi wrote:
You only need one PCIe x16 slot for a single graphics card.
So there is no significant difference between the 1.0 x16 and the 2.0 x16 PCI-e slots? And by this I mean 'version' 1.0 and 'version' 2.0 or whatever, not that there is one physical slot vs two slots. I read that if I use a 2.0 x16 card in a 1.0 x16 slot, that the throughput (I don't even know exactly what throughput means, I'm guessing its like the 'bandwidth,' for lack of a better word) of the card will be limited (possible bottleneck?). I do not at all claim to be an expert on this, I just want to be sure haha.
On February 22 2011 08:58 Mischi wrote:
The FSB is ok too.
The fact that the FSB is less than half of the other cards doesn't matter either (2000 MT/s compared to 5200 MT/s)?
On February 22 2011 08:58 Mischi wrote:
I don't know about the chipset though, a quick google search told me that the nforce 630a chipset is actually 4 years old and hasn't got good reviews as far as I can tell.
I don't really care about the onboard chipset because I will be using the graphics card anyways.
And on top of all these questions, would you just suggest that I buy the 870 MoBo? (This would nullify the PCIe and FSB questions because I am not worried about the 870 having those problems).
Thanks again for your help!
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On February 22 2011 09:14 Kazragore wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 08:58 Mischi wrote:
You only need one PCIe x16 slot for a single graphics card.
So there is no significant difference between the 1.0 x16 and the 2.0 x16 PCI-e slots? And by this I mean 'version' 1.0 and 'version' 2.0 or whatever, not that there is one physical slot vs two slots. I read that if I use a 2.0 x16 card in a 1.0 x16 slot, that the throughput (I don't even know exactly what throughput means, I'm guessing its like the 'bandwidth,' for lack of a better word) of the card will be limited (possible bottleneck?). I do not at all claim to be an expert on this, I just want to be sure haha.
2.0 provides double the bandwidth of 1.0. For a single card, there won't be a bottlenecking issue. For SLI / CrossfireX, yes there will be a bottleneck with 1.0.
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On February 22 2011 07:47 Mischi wrote:
First of all, both of your shops seems kind of expensive.
Like already mentioned a few posts above you can get RAM with 1333MHz instead of 1600.
Regarding the graphics card the 6950 is really good value, but it is loud and power consuming.
If you want to sacrifice some some performance for more efficiency and lower noise you should get the GTX560Ti.
On the other hand if you just play Starcraft 2, you could try it with your old graphics card, which isn't actually that bad. If it's not good enough for you, you can still buy a better card later.
As a CPU cooler I would go for the Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B (Mugen 1 fit into that case, so 2 should fit too) and imo it's the best value you get, though prices vary a lot between countries (in Germany it's about 30€, if it's more expensive for you, you should maybe get something else).
I don't know about the monitor, do you really need 120Hz 3D and all that stuff?
I'm not really familiar with the latest trends and prices regarding monitors but 320€ for a TN Panel 24" monitor seems expensive to me, but I don't really know..
Could you post some cheaper European retailers? Hopefully they'll also have some p67 boards in stock.
And about the monitor, 120hz feels so much better than 60hz, so I obviously play better with 120. I haven't decided yet whether I'll go for the 24" (329€) or the 22" viewsonic (249€).
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The FSB is lower because it's DDR2 RAM and socket AM2 whereas the other boards are DDR3 and AM3.
8xx is the latest chipset for AM3 and has native S-Ata3 and usually USB3 via an extra chip.
If you don't need USB3 and S-Ata3 i would at least recommend getting an AM3 board with DDR3 RAM(7xx chipset), not necessarily because of speed, but for possible future upgrades and DDR3 RAM is actually cheaper than DDR2.
edit: @Jh I really only know german online stores, where I buy from, maybe someone else can help..
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kein problem, ich kann ein bisschen deutsch
I mean, as long as the site ships to Finland, I'm alright with it.
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Sites that I've had a good experience with is hardwareversand.de and mindfactory.de.
Their prices are usually pretty low. Shipping to Finland is 30€ on both sites.
All your stuff besides the monitor would be around 740€ on hardwareversand.de . (PSU I used was CoolerMaster SilentPro M500, very solid and quiet PSU)
The price for the monitor seems good, I couldn't find a cheaper one.
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On February 22 2011 08:00 Womwomwom wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2011 19:45 Az0r_au wrote:I would argue that a 965be is better value than i5-2300 the 965be at stock only loses out to the 2300 by about 3 fps at 1920x1080 and with overclock actually pulls ahead and is 25-30$ cheaper. Also the amd mobo will be cheaper than the intel counterpart. In CPU intensive games, this is completely untrue. In Starcraft 2 and Civilization 5, the Phenom II 970 is around 15 FPS slower than the i5 2400 and with such a budget system you have no right overclocking; if you want to overclock to get similar performance you're going to invest in better cooling, a motherboard that isn't rock bottom, and possibly even a beefier power supply. Its very adequate but its not that significantly cheaper than the rock bottom Sandy Bridge builds. You might as well make a few sandwiches for two weeks instead of eating out and get the all round better build.
Actually a 965 is only around 5fps slower in sc2 than an i5-2300 and 30$ cheaper on newegg(thats around 20%). I don't know how the cheapest mobo's compare but I assume the trend of amd mobos being cheaper would continue at the very lower end. Why can't you overclock a budget system? With Black Edition cpu's you can easily up the multiplier using software rather than relying on bios as long as you don't mind the loudish cpu fan.
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5930 Posts
On February 22 2011 17:13 Az0r_au wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2011 08:00 Womwomwom wrote:On February 21 2011 19:45 Az0r_au wrote:I would argue that a 965be is better value than i5-2300 the 965be at stock only loses out to the 2300 by about 3 fps at 1920x1080 and with overclock actually pulls ahead and is 25-30$ cheaper. Also the amd mobo will be cheaper than the intel counterpart. In CPU intensive games, this is completely untrue. In Starcraft 2 and Civilization 5, the Phenom II 970 is around 15 FPS slower than the i5 2400 and with such a budget system you have no right overclocking; if you want to overclock to get similar performance you're going to invest in better cooling, a motherboard that isn't rock bottom, and possibly even a beefier power supply. Its very adequate but its not that significantly cheaper than the rock bottom Sandy Bridge builds. You might as well make a few sandwiches for two weeks instead of eating out and get the all round better build. Actually a 965 is only around 5fps slower in sc2 than an i5-2300 and 30$ cheaper on newegg(thats around 20%). I don't know how the cheapest mobo's compare but I assume the trend of amd mobos being cheaper would continue at the very lower end. Why can't you overclock a budget system? With Black Edition cpu's you can easily up the multiplier using software rather than relying on bios as long as you don't mind the loudish cpu fan.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188/6
Minimum FPS of Phenom II 970 is 22. Minimum FPS of i5 2400 is 33. There are similar differences between the two in their benchmarks in Civilization 5. Anandtech shows a larger discrepancy between the two processors of around 25 FPS because they probably deal with average FPS.
So you can overclock, you up the multiplier but you still hit a brick wall at around 3.6ghz unless you get lucky in the binning process, which still isn't really that close to beating the Sandy Bridges in the streaming/gaming performance combo. So it means you have to up the voltages and that means a lot of problems can happen when you are using the bare minimum power supply, cooling options, and motherboard.
That isn't even taking into account the fact the i5 2300 can still be overclocked to 3.3 - 3.5ghz on stock voltages and still has an obscene turbo boost which is pretty much an auto overclocker function anyway.
Anyway the point is overclocking is hardly a solution for anyone because for you and me its pretty easy but for someone who needs to ask what parts to buy, its like rocket science. To get any meaningful performance out of the AMD processor, you have to deal with the northbridge as well as the processor itself and even that stuff is pretty arcane to me without spending a whole day reading about the intricacies of AMD overclocking (unlike the Intel side of 1366 and 1156 which was basically turn turbo boost off -> up vcore and base clock -> boost and check stability).
That is not to say the AMD option is not good because its still very capable but with the requirement to stream and the rather pitiful price difference (the AM3 motherboard and Phenom II 965 is £33 cheaper than the Intel option - a whole week of sandwiches) I can't see why you wouldn't go the distance and get the stronger option.
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Point taken about overclockting. You can largely ignore the NB if you want, but yeah 3.6-3.7 is about the limit on stock voltage.
I can't get that article to work, the article I read was showing average fps of 80fps at 1080p for a i5-2300 and 75fps for a 965be, hmm.
*edit* Got the article working. They used a 30minute 8played replay as a test? I'm looking thru the graphs now and in parts the i5-2400 is outperforming the i5-2500. Dunno how well tested that is. Especially when you're comparing min fps, if the system spikes for even a second it will record that new low and compare it.
*edit2* only 33quid? wow yeah I can't advocate it at that diffrence, I thought we were talking around 50+ quid.
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How do you oc an i5-2300 to 3.5 GHz?
Imo thats not possible, you can maybe get 100MHz by BCLK OC, but more seems really unlikely to get to run stable.
I generally agree with you though, the i5-2300 will outperform the 965BE and will be less power consuming.
I would recommend getting an i5-2400 though, at least in Germany it's only 7€ more and is actually an increase in performance and it's better value.
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EPT
