I'm wanting to build a new system for 2007, and I've been out of it for awhile. The last system I built was a AMD-XP2100 on a MSI K7N2Delta with 512mb DDR400 RAM back in Fall 2002.
It's been very reliable, seeing action for a year and a half on WoW before instance running got old. I know it's long in the tooth, but during the last year I haven't been doing much more than surfing the internet and listening to music. However, now that I'm back in school pursuing a mechanical engineering degree, and old reliable is hitting the wall.
I want my new rig to be able to do the following:
1. Not lock up and die when loading rather complex models in Autodesk Inventor Pro 11 and Mechanical 2007, and be able to multitask with a memory hungry Firefox and various media players and messaging programs.
2. Be able to play the latest single player shooters. I don't care about FSAA or multiplayer games where high framerates are necessary. I am more than willing to play on Medium or Low settings, I just want to be able to shoot things and see some carnage when my stress load gets high.
3. Encode DivX movies relatively quickly (compared to several hours for a 500mb file on my XP2100).
4. Have a an upgrade path for the next 2-3 years, at least to the extent that this is possible with the constant entry of new technology into the PCworld.
I have several other pre-requisites, but since my current rig is four years old and can almost meet them, I will assume that anything out in the last year or two will work.
I already have a large ATX Tower, keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor, 500W power supply, optical drives, and HD's to put in the new system. The HD's are 2 IDE's, but I may have to leave one of them behind now that most boards have only one channel.
So I'm looking for suggestions on the Motherboard, Processor, Memory, and Video Subsystem.
I know what is out there, but I don't know what exactly I will need to do what I want to do. I would just buy top of the line hardware, but as a full time student, I'm on a bit of a budget. Let's call it in the neighborhood of $650 initial investment for Mobo, Proc, Memory, and Video, with an assumption that I'll start with only a 1gb memory stick, and add another later.
At first I was thinking a budget AMD 939 system where I could keep my DDR1, but the upgrade path there from what I read seems a dead end.
So it looks like I'm down to a decision between AM2 based Athlon X2 64 4200, (I've been on an AMD system since I dropped my first 486), and jumping ship to Intel's budget Allendale Core 6300.
I've done some research on this forum, and if I go the Intel route, Foxconn's P9657AA-8KS2H board looks like it is a nice board for the price, but I've had problems in my search for a 1GB stick from a reputable vendor at 1.8 volts only.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Foxconn/C2D option, but I would like some outside opinions about whether the Intel or AMD route is best for what I need.
Either way, I'd like the flexibility to overclock the system if I feel like doing so at some point in the future, but big possible gains there isn't as much a priority as a good stable system that won't crash in the middle of a term paper or a complicated CAD design.
A big question I have is about the Video subsystem. Since the demand on the video will be more CAD than games, does this change what I will be looking for in a card?
Again, I'm apologize if any of these questions are really stupid, but most of the benchmarks and discussions I've read to try to educate myself focus on high end gaming, which I'm not really interested in.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
It's been very reliable, seeing action for a year and a half on WoW before instance running got old. I know it's long in the tooth, but during the last year I haven't been doing much more than surfing the internet and listening to music. However, now that I'm back in school pursuing a mechanical engineering degree, and old reliable is hitting the wall.
I want my new rig to be able to do the following:
1. Not lock up and die when loading rather complex models in Autodesk Inventor Pro 11 and Mechanical 2007, and be able to multitask with a memory hungry Firefox and various media players and messaging programs.
2. Be able to play the latest single player shooters. I don't care about FSAA or multiplayer games where high framerates are necessary. I am more than willing to play on Medium or Low settings, I just want to be able to shoot things and see some carnage when my stress load gets high.
3. Encode DivX movies relatively quickly (compared to several hours for a 500mb file on my XP2100).
4. Have a an upgrade path for the next 2-3 years, at least to the extent that this is possible with the constant entry of new technology into the PCworld.
I have several other pre-requisites, but since my current rig is four years old and can almost meet them, I will assume that anything out in the last year or two will work.
I already have a large ATX Tower, keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor, 500W power supply, optical drives, and HD's to put in the new system. The HD's are 2 IDE's, but I may have to leave one of them behind now that most boards have only one channel.
So I'm looking for suggestions on the Motherboard, Processor, Memory, and Video Subsystem.
I know what is out there, but I don't know what exactly I will need to do what I want to do. I would just buy top of the line hardware, but as a full time student, I'm on a bit of a budget. Let's call it in the neighborhood of $650 initial investment for Mobo, Proc, Memory, and Video, with an assumption that I'll start with only a 1gb memory stick, and add another later.
At first I was thinking a budget AMD 939 system where I could keep my DDR1, but the upgrade path there from what I read seems a dead end.
So it looks like I'm down to a decision between AM2 based Athlon X2 64 4200, (I've been on an AMD system since I dropped my first 486), and jumping ship to Intel's budget Allendale Core 6300.
I've done some research on this forum, and if I go the Intel route, Foxconn's P9657AA-8KS2H board looks like it is a nice board for the price, but I've had problems in my search for a 1GB stick from a reputable vendor at 1.8 volts only.
Right now I'm leaning toward the Foxconn/C2D option, but I would like some outside opinions about whether the Intel or AMD route is best for what I need.
Either way, I'd like the flexibility to overclock the system if I feel like doing so at some point in the future, but big possible gains there isn't as much a priority as a good stable system that won't crash in the middle of a term paper or a complicated CAD design.
A big question I have is about the Video subsystem. Since the demand on the video will be more CAD than games, does this change what I will be looking for in a card?
Again, I'm apologize if any of these questions are really stupid, but most of the benchmarks and discussions I've read to try to educate myself focus on high end gaming, which I'm not really interested in.
Thanks in advance for any advice.
