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Need your guidance to build new PC!

Z

ZedHash

Junior Member
I want to upgrade my very old XP 2000+ computer (seven years old I think) and I'm having a hard time choosing the right components for a system that's under $1000 without monitor.

I've done some research, but obviously not nearly enough to get a good picture of what to get and that's why I'm here. Actually I got even more confused while reading some sites and boards.

First of all I want a QUIET system. That's very important to me, but the system also needs to deliver! I'm a gamer, but that's not the main purpose of the PC. I'm using it more for everyday tasks and some multimedia applications.

I've had my eye on the following setup:

CPU: I've been using AMD CPUs in the past, but I have a feeling that right now there is no excuse not to buy an Intel CPU. I think I'll go for the Intel Core2 Quad Q6600, but I'm still wondering if I shouldn't buy a Intel Core 2 Duo. Also will I certainly get a G0 stepping Quad Core or should I make sure?

CPU cooling: Zalman CNPS7500-Cu LED seems to be quiet.

GPU: Asus EAH4850 512MB or Sapphire ATI HD4850 512MB. Is one of the brands more reliable? Also is the 4850 already running stable or should I avoid it right now?

GPU cooling: Zalman VF1000 LED Ultra Quiet VGA Cooler or is a Zalman VF700-CU sufficient?

Case: Antec Sonata III 500W is my current pick. It's cheap, looks great and has a PSU which seems good enough. Will this PSU be sufficient for the components I have or do I need some expensive model. The Antec P180 cases look great, but they are quite expensive and come without a PSU.

Motherboard: I have honestely no idea what I should pick. Asus, Intel and Gigabyte motherboards are very popular where I live, but I need more details on which I should choose.

Memory: Corsair, Kingston and A-DATA are the popular brands. Is the Corsair 4096MB,XMS2-8500,DDR2,1066MHz, 5-5-5-15, Dominator any good? Well this is if I buy a DDR2 motherboard.

Soundcard: I don't know if this is really necessary. I currently have an Audigy card, but I've read that onboard sound is quite good these days.

Well I'm not buying the PC for hardcore overclocking, but it'd be nice if I can overclock a little. Can I afford this with the 500W PSU included with the sonata? Also I have about 4 or 5 HDDs which I need to use in the new system.

I appreciate any help and I thank you in advance!


EDIT:

Just noticed an important sticky thread...

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

Everyday tasks, some gaming and multimedia applications.

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

System must be under $1000.

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

I'm from Belgium and if it's any help here are links to 2 of the cheapest shops in the country (or at least near where I live):

http://www.forcom.be
http://comtechnology.be

I have no experience with buying hardware online and quite honestly the shops over here have excellent service.

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.

I'm not fanboy of anything! I just want the best on the market for the money I have PERIOD! ^^

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

3 ATA HDD, 4 way PCI ATA controller, 2 SATA HDD, maybe Audigy card (first generation) if still useful.

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

Well I've read quit a bit over the weekend, but this is the first thread I created on a specialized site to ask for help and detailed information.

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

Well I want to overclock, but it's not that big a deal.

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?

As soon as possible. One of the coming weeks. Probably second week of July when I can get all parts.
 
CPU: If you do more multitasking than gaming, go with a quad. Otherwise, a dualie. No, you're not guaranteed a G0.

HSF: Look into Xigmatek HDT-S1283. Zalman can be loud when maxed out.

MOBO: If you do sli, go with 750i/780i. Otherwise, P45/X38/X48.

PSU & CASE: Yup, the 500W Earthwatts is more than enough & is of good quality.

System Requirements
http://ati.amd.com/products/ra...4800/requirements.html

 
IMHO the best bang for the buck is still AMD. (Intel leads in lower power consumption and heat output (45nm cpu) and processing power (about 20% better performance per GHz)

There's really no reason to get a quad core over a dual core unless you're planning on virtualizing.

 
Originally posted by: akhilles
CPU: If you do more multitasking than gaming, go with a quad. Otherwise, a dualie. No, you're not guaranteed a G0.

HSF: Look into Xigmatek HDT-S1283. Zalman can be loud when maxed out.

MOBO: If you do sli, go with 750i/780i. Otherwise, P45/X38/X48.

PSU & CASE: Yup, the 500W Earthwatts is more than enough & is of good quality.

System Requirements
http://ati.amd.com/products/ra...4800/requirements.html
Click to expand...
The HSF you mention doesn't seem to be available over here in Belgium, but if it's really quiet then I'll probably look into getting one online. The Zalman reviews I read were quite positive, but they are old so maybe the situation has changed.

It seems the 2 shops I mentioned above only have 06F7h stepping Q6600s which I suppose are not good. The E8400 they carry have the C0 stepping.

I'm planning on using a single gpu setup so I think I'll go with the recommendations made in the "Attention System Builders" sticky thread. So I'll probably get an ASUS P5Q or an equivalent Gigabyte model. Though they warn that the PQ5 may still have some problems... And I also noticed that the memory I mentioned above is actually for high end PCs. Is it better if I buy cheaper memory modules? Also XP Professional can only access about 3GB. Can this be overcome or will I need to to switch to a 64 bit OS?

I hope the Sonata III is quiet as I have read numerous times. Any comfirmation would be great.


Originally posted by: Chosonman
IMHO the best bang for the buck is still AMD. (Intel leads in lower power consumption and heat output (45nm cpu) and processing power (about 20% better performance per GHz)

There's really no reason to get a quad core over a dual core unless you're planning on virtualizing.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info! I didn't keep up with the hardware market for a while and I need to do a lot of reading to catch up again. 😛 The E8400 seems to be cheaper. Maybe I'll go with that if I don't find a Q6600 G0 stepping.

Again thanks for your replies and I'm sorry for all the questions.

EDIT:

I found a place with G0 stepping Q6600 so I'm still considering this or the E8400.
 
A couple things:

Quads own all when it comes to video encoding, rendering, virtualizing, and heavy multitasking (i.e. encoding video while playing WoW 🙂). For all other scenarios, dual is the way to go.

DDR2 for the win. Get 4 gigs of whatever is cheap. DDR2-800 is preferable, little to no difference otherwise. Don't be a schmuck and pay for "gaming" memory, or ultra low latency memory with giant prickly heatsinks. Those are for the rich and gullible - or the speed-freak overclocker who needs to squeeze the extra 10 MHz out of his system while maintaining a 1:1 FSB:CPU ratio.

4850 is a fantastic card. Best $200 deal ever, in my opinion.

500W Antec PSU is more than enough for your system, even with a quad. The Sonata III is quiet, attractive, understated, and affordable. Win.

Get a good, recent model hard drive. Samsung F1 is getting high marks, as are most of the 32MB cache, 320gb/platter hard drives. Don't skimp here, hard drives are a big performance bottleneck. You surely don't need a VelociRaptor, but there are many good options out there. Storage is insanely cheap these days - 1TB for under $175 yes pls thx.... 😀

~MiSfit
 
Go to www.silentpcreview.com for a list of recommended heatsinks and reviews of others to see why they didn't make the "best" list.

I'll probably be ordering a "Zerotherm Zen" since it uses bolts instead of the intel push pins that were not designed for large heatsinks. I'm also thinking of trying the stock HSF or a spare Zalman 7000-alcu I already have, using the $5 socket 775 adapter kit, since I'll be running my E8400 at stock speed and don't need super cooling.
 
@Denithor

Thank you for taking your time to check out the websites I mentioned! That is very much appreciated!!! Maybe you learned some Dutch too! 😛

Nice list you made there. But I have more money at my disposal and I will make use of it! I probably won't be upgrading for a few years again and I recently bought a Seagate 750GB HDD and Samsung DVDRW.


@themistfit610

Almost everyone seems to praise the Q6600 for its overclocking potential, but as I'm not really planning on overclocking or not really that much I might as well buy the E8400 which is cheaper and seems to run less hot and needs less power. I was quite interested in the multitasking performance of the Q6600, but I probably won't be doing anything a E8400 can't handle. And thanks for the HDD recommendation. I might need a new one sooner than expected.

@DaveSimmons

Excellent site!!! Just what I need! I'll try to read more tomorrow.


The parts I'm 100% certain of as of now:

  • Antec Sonata III case (won't do any crazy OC stuff anyway)
    ATI 4850 (any brand I guess will do) with a Zalman cooler
    CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (the one recommended in the sticky thread)
    Soundcard will probably not be necessary. Will the on-board sound be better than my old Audigy card?

So all I have to decide right now are:

  • CPU: Q6600 or E8400
    CPU cooler: Unfortunately the top fans on silentpcreview.com are nowhere to be found over here. But I found a shop whith Scythe coolers. Some of those things look huge! Will they even get in the Sonata case without obstructing the other parts? 😱 If you had to pick a Scythe cooler which one would it be?
    Motherboard: Well I had the Asus P5Q on my mind, but maybe I should buy something less recent to make sure I get a stable product...
 
CPU: That's the thing. In North America, Q6600 is about $200 & E8400 is $180ish. On sale, they're even cheaper. The prices in Europe are different. That will complicate the purchase decision.

HSF: Scythe Infinity or Ninja Rev B.

MOBO: P5Q is good, but if you do little or no overclocking, look into GA-EP45-DS3L.

RAM: XP 32 uses up to 3.5GB whereas Vista 32 sees the whole 4GB. 64bit can use more than 4GB. I'm sure you're aware that MS ended XP line and support will not be around for very long. Vista is inevitable. Unless you skip to Windows 7 which may be more expensive than Vista since it's modular.
 
In Europe, one thing separates the q6600 from the e8400: power consumption. The quad is going to eat a lot more juice and therefore your power bill is going to be higher, year after year. In Europe power isn't typically as cheap as it is here in the US so that is actually a factor to consider.

If you aren't going to OC much, stick with the stock cooler and see how your temps run. If acceptable don't worry about it. Another (cheap) option would be to find the stock Intel HSF from an older generation processor (e4x00/e6x00/e6x50/q6x00/etc) on eBay or somewhere and use it. That's what I have on my e8400 right now and it stays nice and cool. And you don't have to worry about it fitting in your case!

Stick with onboard sound, it has gotten quite good in the last couple of years.
 
Hey, if you're from belgium, you can order from MANY many Dutch websites as well. The website I have been using most of the time myself is cool-prices.nl They also ship to Belgium, for 16.95 euro.

At FORCOM the Sonata III costs 104 euro's, it's 94 euro's at cool-prices. The e8400 costs 159 euro's at FORCOM, and 143 euro's at cool-prices. Asus EAH4850 512MB costs 149 euro's at cool-prices, vs 159 euro's at FORCOM, for a saphire ( bad service ) That's 36 euro's saved, on just a few components. I think HDD's are also pretty cheap at cool-prices, 75 euro's for a Samsung f1 750gb.

I'd stick with the e8400 btw. And I know of a one guy with a Antec Sonata III and a Scythe Infinity, so it fits for sure. And this ram should be good: http://www.cool-prices.nl/Prod...(TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX)
 
Thank you everyone for your advice and recommendations! And thank you very much for the link MarcVenice! That site is awesome!!! Now I can buy almost all parts at one location at a lower price.

I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to get now.

Antec LifeStyle Sonata III
Asus P5Q-E
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Scythe Mugen Infinity SCINF-1000
Asus EAH4850 512MB
Zalman VF1000 LED VGA Cooler
Corsair 4GB DDR2 (2X2GB) PC6400 800Mhz CL5 (TWIN2X4096-6400C5DHX)

In the end I chose for the E8400 for its overall good performance and low power consumption. I figured that buying a Q6600 now is only useful if I OC which will make it consume even more. I may upgrade to a quad core later when the prices of the 45nm versions get down though.

As for the motherboard I'll just buy an Asus P5Q. I chose for the P5Q-E because it has the same layout as the Deluxe version and people seem to say that it is a lot more stable.

And I may upgrade to Vista later this summer.

Any ohter remarks are welcome!

I'll probably order the system at the end of the week and build it next week.
 
Thank you!

I've finally ordered everything yestereday afternoon.

I did make some changes though. These are the changes:

-Artic Cooling Accelero S Rev2 with the Turbo Module instead of the Zalman VF1000 mainly because it was reviewed very positively by silentpcreview and people recommended it in the forum over there. And it's cheaper than the Zalman too.

-People over here recommended the Xigmatek and I found it after looking for it for a while. It was quite cheap and I got a free bolt-thru kit too.

-The last change I made is the case. In the end I bought the Antec Sonata Plus because of a very positive review on silentpcreview. It seems the supplied PSU is from a higher quality and modular.

In the end I kept under the $1000 mark and that's all that counts.

Normally everything should be here during next week and I'll try to build the PC next weekend.
 
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