Critique This Computer Please

[Wardawg1001]

Hey fellas, I'm looking to buy a new computer and a co-worker of mine who runs a side business building PC's offered to build one for me. I told him what I was looking for and he put together a list of parts for me. I guess I'll answer the questions in the sticky before I go any further.

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1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Primarily gaming and other entertainment (movies, music, surfing, etc), but also some programming and likely some web development and database management.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

The PC build below comes in at about $2400 (prices are from about 2 months ago so they may be even lower now). Lower is better obviously but I'm not looking to compromise performance very much to save a few bucks.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

United States.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

None.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Monitor, keyboard, mouse.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

Some, but most of the terms are unfamiliar, I don't do any computer building myself and a lot of the terms and model numbers mean nothing to me if the specs are not specifically laid out (which they often arent).

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Yes. The person who offered to build this for me said he could overclock it to about 3.5GHz (is this possible by the way? how much can it really be overclocked to because that seems like a lot).

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Not set yet. I may wait a couple more months and have to come back and post a new system for you guys to critique, but I'm really just trying to get a feel for how well this guy knows his stuff and what you experts think about this system.
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So here is the system he proposed to me. This was about 2 months ago (I think, maybe less) so I don't know how that will affect things, what was or is available or the prices on those items or others.


Motherboard - ASUS P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard

RAM - 2x OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Duan Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR10664GK

Processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor

Hard Drive - Western Digital VelociRaptor WD3000GLFS 300GB 10000 RMS SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Graphics - 2x SAPPHIRE 100243L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

Cooling/Power - PC Power & Cooling PPCT860 860W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Blu-Ray - ASUS Blu-Ray Combo Black SATA Model BC-1205PT

DVD Drive - ASUS 20X DVD+-R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DRW-2014L1T

Casing - Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate


Mostly what I'm looking for is a critique of the individual parts and how well they will work together. Are they from reliable manufacturers? Are there close substitutes that outperform them? Are there any glaring mismatches such as a motherboard that wont support the other devices? Is there an obvious bottleneck somewhere? Is this system going to overheat? Any obvious changes that could be made to increase performance by just using comparable but different equipment?

The guy who offered to build it seems pretty trustworthy and seems to know his stuff, but then I know very little about this kind of thing so it probably wouldn't be too hard to suggest something that makes perfect sense to me but in reality wouldn't work out. Honestly the system looks great to me but it would be nice to get some additional opinions.

I'm not too concerned about the price but if theres anything obvious feel free to point it out. I know there is a lot of extra stuff in there that won't necessarily be of use (particularly the quad core processor and 8GB of RAM) for a while but I'm looking to future-proof somewhat because I don't do computer building myself and I don't know if this guy will be around to upgrade the various parts in a year or two.

 

[Boobs McGee]

Well man, did he give you a price to go with that $2400 budget? The parts you have listed look to be directly from newegg. I would look up each of those parts and add up all the prices. If it falls very short of your budget you may wanna think twice. I don't want to not give your buddy the benefit of the doubt, but he owns a business and the main goal would be profit. That is not to say he doesn't deserve some if he provides you with the service of building it, installing the OS and testing it for you.

The first couple of things that jump out to me. The velociraptor is an expensive part for the performance benefit you will get. He told you he will OC your quad core, yet there is nothing in this list showing an adequate cooler.

Anyways, there are some fairly high end parts in this list. Whether or not these are all the best parts for you is another question.

 

[octopus41092]

Originally posted by: Boobs McGee
Well man, did he give you a price to go with that $2400 budget? The parts you have listed look to be directly from newegg. I would look up each of those parts and add up all the prices. If it falls very short of your budget you may wanna think twice. I don't want to not give your buddy the benefit of the doubt, but he owns a business and the main goal would be profit. That is not to say he doesn't deserve some if he provides you with the service of building it, installing the OS and testing it for you.

The first couple of things that jump out to me. The velociraptor is an expensive part for the performance benefit you will get. He told you he will OC your quad core, yet there is nothing in this list showing an adequate cooler.

Anyways, there are some fairly high end parts in this list. Whether or not these are all the best parts for you is another question.

What he said. Also, the HD4870 you could probably just swap out for an HD4870X2.

 

[DSF]

Rather than suggest specific parts, I'm going to give you some background on the different components to help you make a decision. First though, a word about buying from this guy:

He may stand by his product, offer fair prices and good support, and be extremely ethical. Or he may not. I don't know him at all, and it sounds like you don't know him all that well. With that in mind, here are the things I'd want to know if he were building my computer.

- Does he have any referrals? This may sound over the top, but you'd ask the same thing about a mechanic or dentist. This guy is going to be building and potentially servicing a machine that's will be important for you in terms of both business and pleasure.
- What warranty/service plan is he offering? If he's not going to support the machine in any way after it's built you may as well save some money and build it yourself, or else buy one from a major PC building company that offers a warranty.
- If he does offer warranty service, what are the tech support hours? He obviously has a day job, is he willing to come over after work or on weekends? What kinds of things will he repair, and what kinds of things are you on your own for? In other words, you don't want to find out after you've downloaded a nasty virus that he only fixes hardware problems. Ask what his policy is on service of your parts that have been overclocked. Overclocking voids the manufacturer warranty. Will it void his?
-What price is he charging you for each item, how much for labor, and how much for the warranty. Again, this is standard practice for any service provider, whether PC builder, mechanic, dentist, etc. Compare the prices he gives you against Newegg and other online retailers (his probable sources) to see if he's being fair. Consider how much Dell charges for their warranty/service options (which are 24/7 I believe) to see if his price is fair.
- How does he test his machines for stability after he's overclocked them? Will the machine come with Windows installed or is that up to you to do?

Motherboard: The selling point of the X38 chipset is the fact that it allows you to run two graphics in Crossfire mode. However, P45 chipset boards will do the same thing and are generally less expensive. (And later I'll question whether you really even need two graphics cards.)

RAM - Unless your work applications need 8GB of RAM I wouldn't bother. A 4GB setup is more than capable of handling any game out there. Also, DDR2-1066 is an unnecessary expense. DDR2-1000 will perform just as well, even for your overclocking, and will cost less.

Processor - Do your work apps use more than two cores? Do you intend to do multiple processor-intensive things at once, like video encoding or folding@home while playing a game? If not, quad core may not be the best choice. A faster dual core will be the more cost-effective choice in the short term. If you're planning to keep the PC longer than two years I'd probably lean towards quad.

Hard Drive - This is the fastest conventional desktop hard drive you can buy. However, in everyday use it's not that much faster than less expensive 7200RPM drives. Some people swear it's noticeable, some people swear it's not. I can't say, as I've never used one. This drive is about $1/GB, where as 7200RPM drives that are nearly as fast, like the WD 640GB Caviar or Seagate 7200.11 500GB are more like $0.10/GB to $0.20/GB.

Graphics - He's building you a computer with two graphics cards running in tandem. That will generate a lot of heat inside the case, making it even more of a concern that he's planning such an aggressive overclock without listing a performance CPU cooler. Even inside a good case your computer isn't going to be particularly quiet with two 4870s cranking away. How large is your monitor? If it's 22" or smaller I'd say this is overkill. Even at 24" a single 4870 is probably perfectly capable of handling your needs, depending on how high you like to turn up the graphics settings.

PSU - I think he's making a poor choice here. First, if I'm paying $240 for a power supply I'm not expecting to see an 80mm fan like the PCP&C unit has. 80mm fans have to spin faster, and therefore are generally louder, than 120mm fans pushing the same amount of air. Second, there are other power supplies like the Corsair 750TX that are high quality and supply almost as much 12V amperage (which is what really counts) for less money. Also, the fact that he lists this as "Cooling/Power" strikes me as marketing BS. Yes, the PSU fan is designed to help exhaust hot air from the case. However, the P182 isn't really set up this way. It's designed to isolate the PSU from the rest of the system as much as possible. Besides which, treating the PSU fan as a major part of the PC exhaust system requires that it spin even faster, again increasing noise.

 

[betasub]

You asked about individual parts:

Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate

Do you really need Ultimate? Is there any feature exclusive to Ultimate that justifies the extra cost?

Casing - Antec P182 Gun Metal Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Popular with ATers: solid in build, quiet in operation and subdued in appearance.

Cooling/Power - PC Power & Cooling PPCT860 860W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

DSF recommends some good alternatives, but I don't see the 80mm fan being a problem with the P182 case layout. Make sure the build has adequate cooling from case fans and the CPU HSF (third-party if that quad is to be OCed).

Graphics - 2x SAPPHIRE 100243L Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

With the release of the HD 4870X2 2GB (i.e. 1GB per GPU), the two separate cards option is not as good any more: the X2 has double the vRAM and blocks fewer PCIe slots.

RAM - 2x OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Duan Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2RPR10664G

4GB should be more than enough. Is there any particular app (or combination) that you use that justfies more than 4GB?

 

[Wardawg1001]

Well man, did he give you a price to go with that $2400 budget? The parts you have listed look to be directly from newegg. I would look up each of those parts and add up all the prices. If it falls very short of your budget you may wanna think twice. I don't want to not give your buddy the benefit of the doubt, but he owns a business and the main goal would be profit. That is not to say he doesn't deserve some if he provides you with the service of building it, installing the OS and testing it for you.

The first couple of things that jump out to me. The velociraptor is an expensive part for the performance benefit you will get. He told you he will OC your quad core, yet there is nothing in this list showing an adequate cooler.

Anyways, there are some fairly high end parts in this list. Whether or not these are all the best parts for you is another question.

$2400 is the actual price of the components listed, all straight from newegg. This is within my budget but I wouldn't mind paying less. He charges $150 to build the computer but is knocking $50 off because we work together (or so he says, I don't really care either way).

- What warranty/service plan is he offering? If he's not going to support the machine in any way after it's built you may as well save some money and build it yourself, or else buy one from a major PC building company that offers a warranty.
- If he does offer warranty service, what are the tech support hours? He obviously has a day job, is he willing to come over after work or on weekends? What kinds of things will he repair, and what kinds of things are you on your own for? In other words, you don't want to find out after you've downloaded a nasty virus that he only fixes hardware problems. Ask what his policy is on service of your parts that have been overclocked. Overclocking voids the manufacturer warranty. Will it void his?
-What price is he charging you for each item, how much for labor, and how much for the warranty. Again, this is standard practice for any service provider, whether PC builder, mechanic, dentist, etc. Compare the prices he gives you against Newegg and other online retailers (his probable sources) to see if he's being fair. Consider how much Dell charges for their warranty/service options (which are 24/7 I believe) to see if his price is fair.
- How does he test his machines for stability after he's overclocked them? Will the machine come with Windows installed or is that up to you to do?

I know he supports the machines after they are built but don't know for how long or how extensive that support is or how much he charges. Good questions that I hadn't thought to ask him. I can probably handle most of the problems that come up myself (software issues, viruses, etc), the only thing I would really worry about is the overclocking stuff which I am unfamiliar with, and hardware breakdowns because I wouldn't even know where to begin.

I'm not interested whatsoever in purchasing from a manufacturer despite the quality warranty plans simply because to build a comparable machine with any major vendor is anywhere between $4500-6000 and I don't have that kind of money. If anyone can find a place that will build a similar machine for under $3000 I'd love to know about it. As noted above the prices he quoted me were straight from newegg with a small charge for his services of building the machine.

I assume he will test the machine to make sure it actually works when everything is put together but then maybe I shouldn't. He does install Windows and will install other software if I wish.

RAM - Unless your work applications need 8GB of RAM I wouldn't bother. A 4GB setup is more than capable of handling any game out there. Also, DDR2-1066 is an unnecessary expense. DDR2-1000 will perform just as well, even for your overclocking, and will cost less.

What exactly is the difference between DDR2-1066 and DDR2-1000 and why don't I need DDR2-1066?

Processor - Do your work apps use more than two cores? Do you intend to do multiple processor-intensive things at once, like video encoding or folding@home while playing a game? If not, quad core may not be the best choice. A faster dual core will be the more cost-effective choice in the short term. If you're planning to keep the PC longer than two years I'd probably lean towards quad.

I plan on keeping the PC for over 2 years and would prefer not to have to upgrade it. At the moment there probably isn't any real use for the quad cores but some of the newer games that are coming out are starting to be able to take advantage of them and I expect that trend to continue over the next few years since that is the way processors are trending.

Do you really need Ultimate? Is there any feature exclusive to Ultimate that justifies the extra cost?

No I don't believe so. I will likely go with Home Premium.


I'd like some more feedback on the graphics card and cooling system options in particular. Overheating is one of my main concerns with this machine since it will be overclocked and I am unsure about how much support or warranty options he provides so I really don't want to have anything overheat (and then also get a better cooling system to boot). I'm interested in this 4870X2 graphics card since two people have mentioned it. It seems to me I could go with a cheaper motherboard if I did this since I won't need one that can support dual graphics cards, but generally the newest technology is incredibly expensive so would I really be saving any money?

Thanks for the replies guys, keep em coming.

 

[Roguestar]

I'd personally get the G.Skill DDR2-1000 and not the overpriced OCZ Reaper DDR2-1066. The difference between them is a tiny amount of overhead if you're overclocking, and I bet there's no way you'll be limited by DDR2-1000 when overclocking the Q9450.

Also, if he said he'll be overclocking it for you, get him to get an aftermarket CPU cooler.

As to the 4870X2, it's probably cheaper to buy a single PCI-E slot motherboard like the Gigabyte P45 DS3L and a single 4870X2 than a more expensive X38 motherboard and two graphics cards.