New pc

[JS2004]

How then chaps - Looking for some Tech-savvy input!

 

I built my own pc approx 5 years ago and its now starting to show its age!

 

Ive overclocked it and such, but lately its been hanging a lot and taking a little too long to load stuff - so its probably time for a new one.

 

Back then I did a lot of research via similar methods to this - talking to people, reading reviews etc - but as its 5 years since ive even looked at new PC components I am a bit lost - some of the stuff in my current one can be recycled though - but im looking for decent performance upgrades.

 

MY current specs:

 

EVGA Nforce680i nforce SLI motherboard

2 X 2gb OCZ reaper pc2 8000 4-4-3-12 (http://www.ocztechnology.com/ocz-ddr2-pc2-8000-reaperx-hpc-4gb-edition-eol.html)

OCZ Vendetta heatpipe cpu cooler (reusable)

gigabyte Aurora 3d case (Reusbale)

OCZ 850W gamextreme PSU (Reusable?)

creative gamextreme x-fi soundcard

BFG GTX280 (I think, it was a geforce 8800 overclocked edition, but developed a fault and BFG replaced it under their lifetime guarantee service)

CPU is an intel cor duo e6600

3 X sata drives (7200 rpm, 320gig each)

Windows is currently on a 40gig partition of one of the drives - I have been contemplating reinstalling but not sure if this would fix the issues.

 

It is overclocked to run at around 3.2g on bootup and I have messed with the cpu, gpu and memory settings / speeds / voltages (trial and error mostly)

 

It can run all of the games I have but its really starting to show its age a bit especially on bootup - and occasionally it will 'hang' whilst im playing eve online.. which if anyone here reading plays eve you will know how massively annoying and inconvenient it is to have the system hang when you have just been engaged by a cloaky tengu & drake in your HAM legion etc..

 

So what im after would be a good solid motherboard recommendation, along with a decent CPU with big overclock potential. The e6600 was relatively a low cost budget processor but it was easily clockable to 3.2g. Also id probably look at some fast memory - we are into DDR3 these days? along with a decent video card.

 

Anyone got any good recommendations so I can start searching / comparing the various things out there?

[Scott]

Personally I think the software is at fault rather than the hardware. Have you ever reformatted the PC? After 6 months to a year windows tends to grind right down. It hasn't been so bad with Windows 7 thankfully, but anything prior to that will always start to slow down. Vista almost grinds to a hault after a month.

 

If I were in your shoes I would reformat the PC and take it from there. If it still isn't good enough then go all out on a new build

[JS2004]

I have not reformatted it recently no, I think the last time was about a year ago.

 

Ill dig out the old disks and have another stab at reformatting - but its still definately on the cards to get a new one built up in the near future =)

[Scott]

I have not reformatted it recently no, I think the last time was about a year ago.

 

Ill dig out the old disks and have another stab at reformatting - but its still definately on the cards to get a new one built up in the near future =)

 

Just make sure it's Windows 7 that you are installing

[JS2004]

Im running Xp - dont have a windows 7 disc and since vista didnt want to try anything other than XP!

 

Is it alright now or is it full of problems?

[Scott]

Im running Xp - dont have a windows 7 disc and since vista didnt want to try anything other than XP!

 

Is it alright now or is it full of problems?

 

Windows 7 is fantastic IMO. It runs similar to XP but has the visuals of Vista. Vista looked great but it was seriously flawed in the background. Windows 7 is a properly good OS, I've been running it since the beta stages.

[Guest supra_steve86]

I7 950 all the way big over cock potential, mb asus boards are the muts nuts

[DamanC]

As Scott says. Rebuild the OS, you may get another year out of her.

 

The 280 will be showing its age now.

C2D CPU's are also showing their age.

The gigabyte Aurora 3d Case will be reusable however it may limit the size of GPU you want to install. Airflow in them is limited, by today's standards.

The PSU will be reusable however 5 years is a long time for a PSU, OCZ units are not the most reliable out there and its efficiency would have taken a hit. I would opt for a new one.

CPU cooler, will need adapting for a new socket, it may not be adaptable. It maybe cost effective to simply replace it.

Sound card is reusable.

DDR2 is dead. Everything is now DDR3.

HDD's will be reusable you may wish to consider a SSD if funds permit

 

 

The 'ideal' new system taking cost into consideration would be;

 

Intel Core i5 2500K (Buget CPU - i3 2100 or i5 2300 - but not overclockable)

P67 chipset (if overclocking if not H61/H67 will suffice)

Nvidia GTX 560 Ti

4GB 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM - Good brand needed such as corsair XMS3 or Vengeance

 

Optional gear would be;

 

Good reliable and stable amp PSU - Corsair TX650 FTW

Another case

SSD

CPU Cooler if OCing

 

HTH

[JS2004]

Righto - plan of action in place.

 

Stage 1 is reinstall OS - I cant get hold of a Win 7 disk at the moment. Does it take more system resources to run the win 7 over xp?

 

Stage 2 is start looking into building another system. I will probably collect pieces over a number of months, one or two per month, then when its all ready I will put it together. Back when I first bought this rig I spent quite a lot, and it lasted a long time. With that in mind I am probably going to aim for a high end motherboard as the other parts can then be upgraded and plugged in as / when needed.

 

the I7 950 is a bit pricy, I tend to opt for the less pricy, but still reasonably overclockable chips. I am not sure what the differences are between an I5 or an I7, however that has given me something to start researching into (I thought we were still working with quad-cores ! yikes im out of date.. )

 

P67 chipset - that bit has me confused - do you mean motherboard? ASUS or EVGA is probably my preferred brand of motherboard.

 

What do you guys think of OCZ memory? I have always used it and not had much problems but since I have never used any other brand I cant say if its better / worse than other - I know the tech support they provide is really great - to the point of one guy helping me with my overclocking over a period of 3 weeks, sending in stress test results and pics of system snapshots etc.

 

Are todays GPU`s still as power hungry as the old geforce 8800`s were - i.e. would I be safe using an 850w psu or can it be downgraded a bit.

 

I keep hearing about solid state drives too - are these essentially big flash drives?

 

Cheers for the input thus far!

[Scott]

Righto - plan of action in place.

 

Stage 1 is reinstall OS - I cant get hold of a Win 7 disk at the moment. Does it take more system resources to run the win 7 over xp?

 

Stage 2 is start looking into building another system. I will probably collect pieces over a number of months, one or two per month, then when its all ready I will put it together. Back when I first bought this rig I spent quite a lot, and it lasted a long time. With that in mind I am probably going to aim for a high end motherboard as the other parts can then be upgraded and plugged in as / when needed.

 

the I7 950 is a bit pricy, I tend to opt for the less pricy, but still reasonably overclockable chips. I am not sure what the differences are between an I5 or an I7, however that has given me something to start researching into (I thought we were still working with quad-cores ! yikes im out of date.. )

 

P67 chipset - that bit has me confused - do you mean motherboard? ASUS or EVGA is probably my preferred brand of motherboard.

 

What do you guys think of OCZ memory? I have always used it and not had much problems but since I have never used any other brand I cant say if its better / worse than other - I know the tech support they provide is really great - to the point of one guy helping me with my overclocking over a period of 3 weeks, sending in stress test results and pics of system snapshots etc.

 

Are todays GPU`s still as power hungry as the old geforce 8800`s were - i.e. would I be safe using an 850w psu or can it be downgraded a bit.

 

I keep hearing about solid state drives too - are these essentially big flash drives?

 

Cheers for the input thus far!

 

Win7 does use more resources but you have more than enough and it handles them a lot better meaning a faster running OS in general compared to XP.

 

Different motherboards use different chipsets, the one recommended is the best for overclocking effectively.

 

OCZ memory is OK but I would always recommend Corsair with decent timing.

 

GPUs are still power hungry, they are more efficient but more powerful so still take a fair bit of drain. As mentioned a TRUE 650w PSU would be fine, corsair again FTW.

 

Solid state drives aren't big, they are very small generally. They don't have any moving parts and basically work like a big memory card. The speed of them is blistering though, running an OS and main programs on these drives makes a massive difference to speed.

[foley]

i would just get a mac and be done with it i hated macs before but they are far superior now they run smoothly you dont get virus's and you can still run windows on them if you wanted but no point seeing as everything is available for the mac. I know some people hate macs im just talking from my personal experience

[DamanC]

Righto - plan of action in place.

 

Stage 1 is reinstall OS - I cant get hold of a Win 7 disk at the moment. Does it take more system resources to run the win 7 over xp?

 

Stage 2 is start looking into building another system. I will probably collect pieces over a number of months, one or two per month, then when its all ready I will put it together. Back when I first bought this rig I spent quite a lot, and it lasted a long time. With that in mind I am probably going to aim for a high end motherboard as the other parts can then be upgraded and plugged in as / when needed.

 

the I7 950 is a bit pricy, I tend to opt for the less pricy, but still reasonably overclockable chips. I am not sure what the differences are between an I5 or an I7, however that has given me something to start researching into (I thought we were still working with quad-cores ! yikes im out of date.. )

 

P67 chipset - that bit has me confused - do you mean motherboard? ASUS or EVGA is probably my preferred brand of motherboard.

 

What do you guys think of OCZ memory? I have always used it and not had much problems but since I have never used any other brand I cant say if its better / worse than other - I know the tech support they provide is really great - to the point of one guy helping me with my overclocking over a period of 3 weeks, sending in stress test results and pics of system snapshots etc.

 

Are todays GPU`s still as power hungry as the old geforce 8800`s were - i.e. would I be safe using an 850w psu or can it be downgraded a bit.

 

I keep hearing about solid state drives too - are these essentially big flash drives?

 

Cheers for the input thus far!

 

Intel Chipsets/Socket type life;

 

775 (what you have) -> 1366 (Server based Gen 1 i7's (920, 930, 950's etc) ---> 1156 (gen 1 i3, i5 and consumer i7) ----> 1155 (Gen 2 i3, i5, i7) The latest an greatest. The chipsets I mention are from this generation.

 

http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/difference-between-h67-p67-z68-and-h61-chipsets-a-22.html

 

OCZ - Good support, better RAM out there for the money. They have fallen by the wayside in recent years when it comes to RAM.

 

 

they are far superior now

 

Incorrect.

 

they run smoothly

 

Do PC's not then?

 

you dont get virus's

 

Incorrect.

 

everything is available for the mac.

 

Guess what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Incorrect.

[JS2004]

Reformatted!

 

After initial teething problems - which included me thinking I had fried both the 320 gig hdds in the system.. ive finally managed to get it back up and running again!

 

Tons smoother, stuff loads quite quick now, no random hanging in eve (which is good!)

 

Ended up with it trying to boot from a network and didnt realise, so left it for about an hour thinking "okay.. somethings gotta happen soon surely" - beyond me how it changed the boot order in the bios without me touching it!

 

However I will be shopping for a solid state drive soon =) I like the idea of them now and figure a 50gig one for the OS will be "future proof" to a degree as it can move if / when I buy new bits!

[Wez]

Or you could just install Mac OSX on a regular PC

 

I had the iPhone SDK up and running with OSX on an Acer Revo mini desktopn;)

 

[Scott]

Told you

[Abz]

SSD is the future

 

I'd personal try running Windows 7, you'd be surprise how well it runs as Scott mentioned.

[caseys]

Personally I think the software is at fault rather than the hardware. Have you ever reformatted the PC?

 

What is this reformatting you keep speaking of?

 

Surely if you run a proper OS you don't have to do this? Upgrade, new install for new build (or even just a block-level migrate to new HW) but reformat? Ditto for reboots - once a month maybe if that?

 

People should either get to Linux or OSX or some *nix derivative. Ubuntu for instance if you need to stick to the KISS principle. Until I can have a stable windows build for 18 months with no issues quite frankly I'd rather take a cheese grater to my intimate parts.

 

*awaits people to start talking of windows 8 and how fab it'll be*

 

I agree though on the points above re SSD for the boot volume and anything requiring a large amount of swap, even the basic 64Gb SSDs (£69 now) are useful, but really... backup backup backup. People are too use to the MTBF of common HDD and cheap SSD are far from it. You want a SSD that'll last 5 years trust me, you'll be in for a shock of the prices we have to pay in enterprise.

[Wez]

Surely if you run a proper OS you don't have to do this? Upgrade, new install for new build (or even just a block-level migrate to new HW) but reformat? Ditto for reboots - once a month maybe if that?

 

People should either get to Linux or OSX or some *nix derivative. Ubuntu for instance if you need to stick to the KISS principle. Until I can have a stable windows build for 18 months with no issues quite frankly I'd rather take a cheese grater to my intimate parts.

 

Agreed

 

*awaits people to start talking of windows 8 and how fab it'll be*

 

I am sure EvinX will be along any minute now to tell us how wonderful MS are

[caseys]

Agreed

 

 

 

I am sure EvinX will be along any minute now to tell us how wonderful MS are

 

Even my mum now runs Ubuntu...

 

When my daughter starts school I'm hoping she won't have to go near Windows. I'm going to bring her up being able to use a CLI - I think it helps people visualise problems and not be dependant upon GUIs

[Wez]

When my daughter starts school I'm hoping she won't have to go near Windows. I'm going to bring her up being able to use a CLI - I think it helps people visualise problems and not be dependant upon GUIs

 

Sadly gone are the days where most engineers understand CLI`s, although where I work its a requirement, talking to equipment in tim-buck-too over a piece of string would be impossible otherwise

[Scott]

What is this reformatting you keep speaking of?

 

Surely if you run a proper OS you don't have to do this? Upgrade, new install for new build (or even just a block-level migrate to new HW) but reformat? Ditto for reboots - once a month maybe if that?

 

People should either get to Linux or OSX or some *nix derivative. Ubuntu for instance if you need to stick to the KISS principle. Until I can have a stable windows build for 18 months with no issues quite frankly I'd rather take a cheese grater to my intimate parts.

 

*awaits people to start talking of windows 8 and how fab it'll be*

 

I agree though on the points above re SSD for the boot volume and anything requiring a large amount of swap, even the basic 64Gb SSDs (£69 now) are useful, but really... backup backup backup. People are too use to the MTBF of common HDD and cheap SSD are far from it. You want a SSD that'll last 5 years trust me, you'll be in for a shock of the prices we have to pay in enterprise.

 

 

Windows 7 is actually fine. I haven't reformatted my laptop in over 2 years and it's still as fresh as a daisy. Vista was shocking though, XP wasn't SO bad but with all the updates etc that microsoft kept flinging at it it tended to clog up for me.

 

I got into the habit of reformatting with Windows 95. It ground to a halt virtually every month. IIRC it got even worse when I got broadband due to the rate I could choke it up at lol.

 

I've never been a unix/linux user so I would be starting from scratch. I'm too old for all that nonsense.

[JS2004]

DamanC - Dont suppose you could rank the notebook processors in order of their power could you? like you did with the desktop CPUs?

 

Gfs looking at buying a netbook.. "because its purple.." from argos.. ugh. It has an atom processor.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5084227.htm#pdpFullProductInformation

 

I personally thought argos sells junk / end of life stock for way more than its worth - but I could be wrong..

 

But seeing that the netbook has DDR2 memory isnt a good sign - is that total pants or is it alright for the price?

 

CPU and Memory:

 

Intel Atom N450.

Processor speed 1.66GHz.

1GB DDR2 RAM.

160GB hard drive.

Display features:

 

10.1in display.

Resolution 1024 x 600 pixels.

Graphics:

 

Intel GMA 3150 graphics card.

Interfaces and connectivity:

 

Multi-card media card reader.

Multi-Media Card (MMC) compatible.

3 USB ports.

B/g/n wireless/WiFi enabled.

Multi-media features:

 

1.3MP built-in webcam.

Operating system and software:

 

Microsoft Windows 7 Starter.

Preloaded manufacturers applications included:

 

Music.

Photo.

Movie.

Business.

Tuition.

Gaming.

General features:

 

Up to 4 hours battery life.

Size H2.4, W25.85, D18.5cm.

Weight 1.25kg.

EAN/MPN/UPC/ISBN: 4712842196853.

 

 

Her specification is it has to "look pretty" and be less than £200 quid - even the smart ones like pretty things I guess hehe.

[Abz]

Even my mum now runs Ubuntu...

 

When my daughter starts school I'm hoping she won't have to go near Windows. I'm going to bring her up being able to use a CLI - I think it helps people visualise problems and not be dependant upon GUIs

 

CLI? You guys used Networker for backups?

[DamanC]

DamanC - Dont suppose you could rank the notebook processors in order of their power could you? like you did with the desktop CPUs?

 

Gfs looking at buying a netbook.. "because its purple.." from argos.. ugh. It has an atom processor.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5084227.htm#pdpFullProductInformation

 

I personally thought argos sells junk / end of life stock for way more than its worth - but I could be wrong..

 

But seeing that the netbook has DDR2 memory isnt a good sign - is that total pants or is it alright for the price?

 

CPU and Memory:

 

Intel Atom N450.

Processor speed 1.66GHz.

1GB DDR2 RAM.

160GB hard drive.

Display features:

 

10.1in display.

Resolution 1024 x 600 pixels.

Graphics:

 

Intel GMA 3150 graphics card.

Interfaces and connectivity:

 

Multi-card media card reader.

Multi-Media Card (MMC) compatible.

3 USB ports.

B/g/n wireless/WiFi enabled.

Multi-media features:

 

1.3MP built-in webcam.

Operating system and software:

 

Microsoft Windows 7 Starter.

Preloaded manufacturers applications included:

 

Music.

Photo.

Movie.

Business.

Tuition.

Gaming.

General features:

 

Up to 4 hours battery life.

Size H2.4, W25.85, D18.5cm.

Weight 1.25kg.

EAN/MPN/UPC/ISBN: 4712842196853.

 

 

Her specification is it has to "look pretty" and be less than £200 quid - even the smart ones like pretty things I guess hehe.

 

Ta Dar!

 

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

 

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html

 

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/midlow_range_cpus.html

 

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/low_end_cpus.html

 

"CTRL + F" will help you find what you are looking for.

[JS2004]

Sweet! Cheers fella !