Budget PC build advice

[Fardringle]

Following the sticky:

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Very little gaming. Primarily use will be running multiple LogMeIn Rescue sessions supporting and repairing client computers, occasionally as many as 10 sessions at a time but usually less than 6 or so, along with some web based management and tracking applications at the same time. This is the primary reason for my desire to upgrade from my current Core2Duo E4600 system running XP Pro with 4GB RAM. The computer is more than adequate for my infrequent gaming, but just can't handle more than a few LogMeIn sessions at a time before it starts getting really slow and sometimes locking up completely.

I also run BOINC distributed computing projects when I'm not using the computer for work, so good BOINC performance would be a nice plus, but not worth increasing the budget but a significant amount.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread.
Smaller is better, but can go a little higher for something significantly better. The primary options I've looked at so far are this barebones system for $285 after rebate (plus the cost of a Win7 license), which seems like a really nice price for what it has, but I know very little about newer AMD CPUs so I don't know how it will perform, or Intel i5 systems from Dell or Lenovo that are running about $600-$800 (including the Windows license). I haven't looked at building an Intel system from scratch or from a barebones kit yet. Can't go over $800 even for something better, and prefer not to go much above $600 unless there aren't any promising options cheaper.

Basically I want to know if the TigerDirect kit is a good deal at that price, or if I'd be better off going for the $600+ range and an i5 from an OEM. Or if there's a better build I can put together in the price range of the TigerDirect system, that would be even better.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
In the U.S.

4. IF you're buying parts OUTSIDE the US, please post a link to the vendor you'll be buying from.
see #3

5. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Not a dedicated fan of any brand. Was definitely an AMD fan in the early days, but don't care now as long as it works. I have used WD Black drives in some business machines just for the warranty, but again don't care too much as long as it works reliably.

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
I can use my existing 450W Coolermaster PSU and Radeon HD5670, but everything else is too old and/or too small to carry over, and even those two parts are old enough that it might be better to replace them.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I may overclock now and then just to play with it, but it's not a priority at all unless there's a cheap CPU option that can overclock really well (like the AMD Socket A Semprons could) eliminating the need for a more expensive processor.

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?
1080p dual monitors, but not for gaming.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
As soon as possible, but can wait if something good/new will affect prices in the near future.

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?
I'll need a Windows 7 license, preferably Win 7 Pro. I have all of the other software that I need.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Yes, after looking at prices for seperate components I would say that the tiger direct deal is very good. I couldn't put together the same system, even using microcenter cpu/mobo bundles, for less. The only obvious improvment would be the addition of a SSD.

I'm not familiar with the software you are using is it multi-threaded or use multiple cores? When you have several sessions open does it use up all the RAM? I think the barebones system you are looking at will do well but there could be room for improvement.

 

[Fardringle]

I honestly don't know if Logmein Rescue is multi-threaded or not. I suspect that it is not but I'm not sure how I could find out other than checking CPU usage in the Task Manager when I have a session running to see if it hits both CPU cores on my current computer.

Sometimes the multiple sessions use up all available RAM and start hitting the swap file, which is probably a big part of the reason why the current computer gets slow. But sometimes I get "Out of memory at line: xxxx" errors in the web apps in Internet Explorer even when the Task Manager says that there is RAM available to be used. This might be because I'm limited to IE8 in XP, or it might be related to the Logmein sessions using a lot of RAM. I'm really not sure since the error messages (and Microsoft's articles about them) are not very helpful.

Are the CPU and motherboard in that Tiger Direct bundle good quality (and decent speed) parts, or would I get better results using something else, even if it costs a bit more?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

For the budget you are looking to spend the FX 6300 is very good. The motherboard is budget but it's made by ASUS which I consider to be top notch. It does seem to have an 8gb ram cap. That is twice the memory you are currently working with but without you really looking at how much the program uses it's hard to tell if that would be a limiting factor.

About the only way I see being able to beat the performance is with this dell pre-build for around $100.- more

 

[ggadrian]

If you're working dfrom your computer, don't you think that it would be wiser to have separate systems for work and for fun? I mean, it doesn't seem very wise to overclock your workstation when you need reliability and also use it to play games and do distributed computing.

 

[Fardringle]

Thank you for the information, monkeydelmagico. You've been very helpful!

ggadrian, that's why I said if I did any overclocking it would just be for fun (and temporary). The distributed computing projects run at night when the system is not being used for anything else.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Faildozer and that case/PSU say "no" to that bundle. You can get an Inspiron 660 with an i5 and 8GB RAM for under $500 at Dell Outlet, and that's without a sale. On the business side they're having a Winter Clearance right now and I saw an Optiplex with i5 for under $500 (albeit with 250GB and 4GB) but with the sale's 25% off and the fact they have a 3 year NBD, might be worth F5ing to find another. You can add RAM to it.

Or there's this if you want to go for tons of RAM and a SSD:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2yxW5

But with this combo for CPU/mobo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1519941

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Thank you for the information, monkeydelmagico. You've been very helpful!

ggadrian, that's why I said if I did any overclocking it would just be for fun (and temporary). The distributed computing projects run at night when the system is not being used for anything else.

Well a Dell prebuilt is absolutely NO fun I can tell you that! No OC or tinkering allowed.

Dominion is probably right that the PSU could be a weak link. Reviews seem mostly positive but there are some complaints about noise or compatibility. As for the CPU being "fail"dozer I would disagree and point back to many happy users posting alot of positive feedback. I have not used a bulldozer but have used many AMD CPU's and been very happy with the price/performance.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Well a Dell prebuilt is absolutely NO fun I can tell you that! No OC or tinkering allowed.

Dominion is probably right that the PSU could be a weak link. Reviews seem mostly positive but there are some complaints about noise or compatibility. As for the CPU being "fail"dozer I would disagree and point back to many happy users posting alot of positive feedback. I have not used a bulldozer but have used many AMD CPU's and been very happy with the price/performance.

Who cares if its no fun? Its cheap and performs better.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Who cares if its no fun? Its cheap and performs better.

Not cheaper and computer assembly/tweaking is a hobby some of us care about having "fun" with. Also, i3-4130 in Dominions build is fairly equal to fx-6300. OC the fx-6300 and it will outperform.

 

[mvbighead]

I honestly don't know if Logmein Rescue is multi-threaded or not. I suspect that it is not but I'm not sure how I could find out other than checking CPU usage in the Task Manager when I have a session running to see if it hits both CPU cores on my current computer.

Sometimes the multiple sessions use up all available RAM and start hitting the swap file, which is probably a big part of the reason why the current computer gets slow. But sometimes I get "Out of memory at line: xxxx" errors in the web apps in Internet Explorer even when the Task Manager says that there is RAM available to be used. This might be because I'm limited to IE8 in XP, or it might be related to the Logmein sessions using a lot of RAM. I'm really not sure since the error messages (and Microsoft's articles about them) are not very helpful.

Are the CPU and motherboard in that Tiger Direct bundle good quality (and decent speed) parts, or would I get better results using something else, even if it costs a bit more?

Memory and SSD should provide good improvements for you.

As for Multithreading, it sounds like each session should be in its own thread, so any multicored (4 or more) should provide some improvement. Obviously some cores are better than others, but the prices reflect that as well.

As for the Dell recommendation, meh. They're always coming up here but they are not custom built. Often times the PSUs are specific, the form factors odd, and other things. Want to add another disk? Better make sure their case has both the space and rails for it. If this was for your mom who just needs to get email and surf the web, great. But you sound like someone who may want to tinker, and a Dell is going to give you the fewest options for that.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I was looking into the LogMeIn Rescue documentation. It looks like they're most worried about connectivity speed and memory, because that's all the specifications they give for performance. You need 128 Kb/s per connection. If you're running ten connections, that's only 0.128 Mb/s, which is really, really slow. So it's not that. And it also claims that it only needs 20 + 20*(number of connections) MB of memory. In other words, 220MB. Looking at the LogMeIn Rescue architecture whitepaper, I see that the whole system relies on a central LogMeIn server, which means you probably aren't doing much CPU compute on your end.

Your computer should be fine as is!

But it's not. In other words, something is wrong. Either LogMeIn has bad documentation of their product (doubtful, but possible because of memory leaks?) or it's something else causing your computer to hit the swap file. You say it's more than adequate for your gaming, which suggests to me that you don't have a malevolent software problem. Then it comes down to your web-based management and tracking applications.

Run just those, and see what the memory usage is. Then run just a bunch of LogMeIn sessions and see how the memory usage scales up with each new session. Also look at the CPU usage per core. Because before we have that information, a recommendation is pretty much pointless.

 

[Fardringle]

I appreciate the discussion and input, and still want to get a new machine even though I actually discovered the problem and fixed it.

So as a follow-up to the original problem, if anyone is interested, I did some careful tracking and the problem appears to be that LogMeIn Rescue really doesn't use many resources for each connection/session, but it never lets go of those resources in Windows XP if it is running in a browser (the same thing happens in IE, Firefox, and Chrome). Running it from the stand-alone LMI console program releases the resources when a session is closed so I'm just using that instead for now.

I'm still going to get a new computer since I'd prefer to retire this old beast anyway.

Regarding the comments about not being able to tweak the system, while that IS fun, reliability and the best speed for the cost are the most important to me right now since this computer is mostly for work, not for playing, which is why a pre-built system like Dell is still a possibility. The biggest problem there is that I really don't want Windows 8 and it seems to be increasingly difficult to find a good deal - even through the outlet - with Windows 7.

 

[mfenn]

I appreciate the discussion and input, and still want to get a new machine even though I actually discovered the problem and fixed it.

So as a follow-up to the original problem, if anyone is interested, I did some careful tracking and the problem appears to be that LogMeIn Rescue really doesn't use many resources for each connection/session, but it never lets go of those resources in Windows XP if it is running in a browser (the same thing happens in IE, Firefox, and Chrome). Running it from the stand-alone LMI console program releases the resources when a session is closed so I'm just using that instead for now.

I'm still going to get a new computer since I'd prefer to retire this old beast anyway.

Regarding the comments about not being able to tweak the system, while that IS fun, reliability and the best speed for the cost are the most important to me right now since this computer is mostly for work, not for playing, which is why a pre-built system like Dell is still a possibility. The biggest problem there is that I really don't want Windows 8 and it seems to be increasingly difficult to find a good deal - even through the outlet - with Windows 7.

If you own your own copy of Windows 7, you can always install that on a prebuilt machine. It'll also have the nice side effect of cleaning off the crapware.

 

[Fardringle]

If you own your own copy of Windows 7, you can always install that on a prebuilt machine. It'll also have the nice side effect of cleaning off the crapware.

If I already had one I'd just put it on this machine, but buying a new system with Windows 8 and then adding the cost of a Windows 7 license on top of that would put me out of my budget range, unfortunately.

 

[DominionSeraph]

PM sent, because this is sitting in my cart right now:

 

[Fardringle]

That's a fantastic deal, DominionSeraph! Not only is it a lot better than the TigerDirect kit, but with the coupon it's also cheaper than the kit plus a Win7 license. Thank you!

One question before I order it: Can the Optiplex 3010 handle my Radeon 5670 if I get the mini tower instead of the small form factor (the card won't fit in the SFF box)? I don't do a lot of gaming, but the Intel 2500 graphics in that system leave a lot to be desired...

 

[Steltek]

That's a fantastic deal, DominionSeraph! Not only is it a lot better than the TigerDirect kit, but with the coupon it's also cheaper than the kit plus a Win7 license. Thank you!

One question before I order it: Can the Optiplex 3010 handle my Radeon 5670 if I get the mini tower instead of the small form factor (the card won't fit in the SFF box)? I don't do a lot of gaming, but the Intel 2500 graphics in that system leave a lot to be desired...

No reason why it shouldn't. Dell advertises the HD7470/7570 cards as compatible add-ins for the Optiplex 3010MT. I don't remember about the 7570, but I think that the HD7470 was an OEM rebranded AMD HD6950 card with the same power requirements as your Radeon 5670.

Dell tends to use decent quality power supplies, so even the 300 watt PS in the 3010 should be sufficient. You are right in needing the minitower version for your card, though. Another advantage is that Optiplex machines normally have a 3 year NBD warranty and build quality is very decent. They are ugly, but if you can get past that would probably be perfect for what you want.

I picked up a similarly configured and priced Optiplex 9010 from the outlet just before Christmas as a gift for my mother and she really seems to like it (should have got the 3010, though, as the 9010 doesn't have an HDMI output - just VGA and Displayport).

EDIT: The 3010 actually only has a 265 watt power supply, so I don't know about the card on second thought. However, you would still come out ahead even if you had to upgrade the power supply.

 

[Fardringle]

Sounds good, thanks.

 

[DominionSeraph]

EDIT: The 3010 actually only has a 265 watt power supply, so I don't know about the card on second thought.

Should work. I had a 9600GT on a Dell 305W with an 89W Athlon 64 X2. The 5670 is a 61W part, the i5 3470 is 77W, and mobos have gotten more efficient since the NForce4. Anand has an i5 3470 system at under 100W, so a 5670 should put it at 160W:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5871/intel-core-i5-3470-review-hd-2500-graphics-tested/5

Only issue might be if it takes a 6-pin, since I doubt it comes with that.

 

[mfenn]

No reason why it shouldn't. Dell advertises the HD7470/7570 cards as compatible add-ins for the Optiplex 3010MT. I don't remember about the 7570, but I think that the HD7470 was an OEM rebranded AMD HD6950 card with the same power requirements as your Radeon 5670.

A 7470 is the same thing as a 6450, much less powerful than the 6950. The 7570 is the same as a 6570. Anyway, I agree that as a sub-75W card, the 5670 should work without issue.