VirtualLarry
No Lifer
Ok, this is going to be confusing. I've posted about this once before, perhaps last year. Originally, when I got this apt, I wanted to set it up as some sort of LAN gaming center for my other two good friends to come over and play.
I built two, at the time budget, gaming rigs. E2140 (OCed to 2.8 in once case, 3.2 in the other case.) P35-DS3R v1.0 motherboards, 2x2GB Patriot DDR2-800 ELK (for each), and a Radeon X1950Pro and Radeon X1950GT. Running XP on both.
About a half year later, or perhaps a year later, I decided that I should upgrade the machines to quad-cores. So I bought two Q6600s, two (expensive!) DFI X48 T2R LP LT mobos, and I bought four HD4850s (VisionTek reference design, $150+tax each, two when they first were released, and two more about a month or two later when BestBuy had the same 25% off sale again.) Bought two 4GB Gskill kits, and two 4GB Adata kits. Bought two Tuniq Tower 120s, two Antec 300s, some WD 6400AAKS HDs, etc.
Well, those video cards sat in their boxes for over a year or so. I finally built one of the Q6600s, last year, but I only finished it off, by putting two of the HD4850s into it last months. I also put both 4GB Gskill kits into it to give it 8GB.
Oh yeah, I bought two Q9550s at Microcenter when they went on sale some time ago (and they are still available, now for $180+tax in-store), two Gigabyte X48-DS5 mobos at Newegg, which came with two free 4GB Corsair XMS DDR2-800 ram kits (this was back when ram was still $40 for 4GB).
I ended up selling off one of the Q9550 + X48-DS5 + Adata 4GB DDR2-800 kits for $500.
At some point I picked up two GeForce 9800GTs for $70 ea from Dell.com, back when they cost like $120.
So, more recently, I took advantage of Microcenter's deals revolving around buying an AMD CPU for $100, and variously, getting $50 off of a motherboard or getting a free (MSI 785G, Biostar 760G) motherboard. I bought 6 combos. One Phenom II X2 555BE, One Phenom II X3 720BE (which was soon sold out), and four Athlon II X4 630s. One Gigabyte 785GM-US2H, one Asus 6150 board, two MSI 785GTM-E45, and two Biostar A760G M2+.
I built most of those rigs to sell. I gave an MSI 785G + Athlon II X4 630 to a friend of mine as payment for a debt, and I gave an MSI 785G + Phenom II X2 555BE to a different friend.
So I have two 760G + Athlon II X4 630 rigs, one 6150 + Athlon II X4 630 rig, and one Gigabyte 785G + Phenom II X3 720BE, which unlocked and overclocked to 3.2, so it's the equivalent of a Phenom II X4 955. In that rig I replaced the PSU (instead of the stock 400W that came with the cases I was using) with an Enhance ENP-5150 that I got from Computer Geeks (two PCI-E 6-pin power connectors), and I added one of my Galaxy GeForce 9800GTs. That was my Phenom gaming rig to sell.
Only problem, I had sort of intended to upgrade my original two dual-core E2140 machines, to E5200s, and OC to 3.6Ghz, and then add 9800GTs. (If you haven't noticed, I basically wanted the two machines to be identically matched, so neither of my friends would complain the computer was the reason they were loosing, etc.)
So far, none of my AMD computers have sold, not at a flea and not at a (small) computer show. I have one listed on CL.
...
So, what should my final plan be, for setting up a gaming center? I have three identical computer desks, each has a boxy cubby-hole for putting a computer into. Also, two out of the three have KDS 26" 1920x1200 LCDs. I actually bought three of those LCDs, but I sold one to a friend because he needed an upgrade too. I could try buying his back off of him, but I jokingly mentioned that to him once in the past and he told me nicely to F off. (He really likes the screen, as do I!) I have two spare LCDs, one Samsung 20" 1680x1050 205BW, and one Westinghouse 19" 1440x900 (with TV tuner and remote, and AV inputs).
So should I sell my Q6600 (@ 3.6!) with two HD4850s? (It's worth around 1200-1400.) And upgrade the dual-cores to E5200s, and take the 9800GT out of the for-sale gaming rig, and put them into those dual-cores?
Or should I build the other Q6600 (and hope it OCs the same, to 3.6), and take one of the HD4850s out of the dual-core that it's in, and take the other HD4850 that's still NIB, and then I would have two Q6600s OCed, each with HD4850 Crossfire?
And then build the Q9550, and get some high-powered video card for that computer, perhaps a 5770 Hawk, or maybe a 5850? (But if that was for the third computer, and I don't suceed in buying a monitor for my friend, to get his KDS 26" LCD, then the res would only be 1680x1050 and not 1920x1200).
Or should I sell the dual-cores (with or without upgrading the CPUs to E5200s), and outfit the AMD quad-cores for gaming purposes? (I'm not sure how well the Athlon II X4 630 2.8Ghz quad-cores are for gaming, versus perhaps a 3.6Ghz E5200s). That would entail upgrading the PSUs, and dropping in some gaming cards. It would also mean that I would be limited to 4GB of RAM total in those machines, because those MATX mobos only have two slots, except for the Gigabyte 785G.
If I went with the dual-cores, I could upgrade them to 8GB of RAM (currently 4GB of Patriot DDR2-800 in each), or if I went with two Q6600s and a Q9550, each in X48 mobos, then I could put 8GB of RAM in each of those.
I recently purchased quite a few 2GB DDR2-800 sticks from the HP RAM deal. $30 and $35 each, times ten. I used three for the AMD systems to sell, and have 7 sticks on back-order that should be here any day now. I already recieved the other ten, which I used two for another system.
So I will have 15 free 2GB RAM sticks available. I need RAM for the other Q6600 and the Q9550, and another 4-8GB for my server. If I upgrade my dual-cores to 8GB, then I would take 4GB of Patriot from one machine and add it to the other, and then install 8GB of matching RAM in the PC that had no RAM.
...
Or should I buy another Q9550 or two (at $180+tax, I could get a hex-core AMD for around the same price), and upgrade the P35-DS3R v1.0 boards? That would basically max the mobo out, but it wouldn't max out the CPU because the P35 boards are limited to a little over 400FSB. You really need 450 or 460 FSB to max out a Q9550 OC.
That would be slightly risky, because I had to reduce the overclock on my E2140 from 3.2 (400FSB x 8) to 2.8 (350FSB x 8) because it would restart after about a week of running. Never could track down why, but downclocking the FSB seemed to have solved it. If I dropped in E5200s, they have such a high multi, that I could do 3.75Ghz with 300FSB.
Oh yeah, I also purchased 11 OCZ Vendetta heatsinks at MC when they were on sale for $10 ea. I think I have at least 8 left.
Edit: A little googling, reveals that the 4850 was released on June 19, 2008. So that's how long they have been in the box since, I guess. Must have been almost two years ago when I got the Q6600s too. I think I bought them in Jan.
Edit: I guess I'm trying to optimize things to fit with my 950VA UPSes as far as power consumption (each desk has one), along with the fact that I only have three desks in which to put computers. I still need to figure out where I'm going to put my server and my F@H quad-GPU rig in my apt, long-term. Short-term, I removed my second dual-core from service and I have my F@H box running now there.
I built two, at the time budget, gaming rigs. E2140 (OCed to 2.8 in once case, 3.2 in the other case.) P35-DS3R v1.0 motherboards, 2x2GB Patriot DDR2-800 ELK (for each), and a Radeon X1950Pro and Radeon X1950GT. Running XP on both.
About a half year later, or perhaps a year later, I decided that I should upgrade the machines to quad-cores. So I bought two Q6600s, two (expensive!) DFI X48 T2R LP LT mobos, and I bought four HD4850s (VisionTek reference design, $150+tax each, two when they first were released, and two more about a month or two later when BestBuy had the same 25% off sale again.) Bought two 4GB Gskill kits, and two 4GB Adata kits. Bought two Tuniq Tower 120s, two Antec 300s, some WD 6400AAKS HDs, etc.
Well, those video cards sat in their boxes for over a year or so. I finally built one of the Q6600s, last year, but I only finished it off, by putting two of the HD4850s into it last months. I also put both 4GB Gskill kits into it to give it 8GB.
Oh yeah, I bought two Q9550s at Microcenter when they went on sale some time ago (and they are still available, now for $180+tax in-store), two Gigabyte X48-DS5 mobos at Newegg, which came with two free 4GB Corsair XMS DDR2-800 ram kits (this was back when ram was still $40 for 4GB).
I ended up selling off one of the Q9550 + X48-DS5 + Adata 4GB DDR2-800 kits for $500.
At some point I picked up two GeForce 9800GTs for $70 ea from Dell.com, back when they cost like $120.
So, more recently, I took advantage of Microcenter's deals revolving around buying an AMD CPU for $100, and variously, getting $50 off of a motherboard or getting a free (MSI 785G, Biostar 760G) motherboard. I bought 6 combos. One Phenom II X2 555BE, One Phenom II X3 720BE (which was soon sold out), and four Athlon II X4 630s. One Gigabyte 785GM-US2H, one Asus 6150 board, two MSI 785GTM-E45, and two Biostar A760G M2+.
I built most of those rigs to sell. I gave an MSI 785G + Athlon II X4 630 to a friend of mine as payment for a debt, and I gave an MSI 785G + Phenom II X2 555BE to a different friend.
So I have two 760G + Athlon II X4 630 rigs, one 6150 + Athlon II X4 630 rig, and one Gigabyte 785G + Phenom II X3 720BE, which unlocked and overclocked to 3.2, so it's the equivalent of a Phenom II X4 955. In that rig I replaced the PSU (instead of the stock 400W that came with the cases I was using) with an Enhance ENP-5150 that I got from Computer Geeks (two PCI-E 6-pin power connectors), and I added one of my Galaxy GeForce 9800GTs. That was my Phenom gaming rig to sell.
Only problem, I had sort of intended to upgrade my original two dual-core E2140 machines, to E5200s, and OC to 3.6Ghz, and then add 9800GTs. (If you haven't noticed, I basically wanted the two machines to be identically matched, so neither of my friends would complain the computer was the reason they were loosing, etc.)
So far, none of my AMD computers have sold, not at a flea and not at a (small) computer show. I have one listed on CL.
...
So, what should my final plan be, for setting up a gaming center? I have three identical computer desks, each has a boxy cubby-hole for putting a computer into. Also, two out of the three have KDS 26" 1920x1200 LCDs. I actually bought three of those LCDs, but I sold one to a friend because he needed an upgrade too. I could try buying his back off of him, but I jokingly mentioned that to him once in the past and he told me nicely to F off. (He really likes the screen, as do I!) I have two spare LCDs, one Samsung 20" 1680x1050 205BW, and one Westinghouse 19" 1440x900 (with TV tuner and remote, and AV inputs).
So should I sell my Q6600 (@ 3.6!) with two HD4850s? (It's worth around 1200-1400.) And upgrade the dual-cores to E5200s, and take the 9800GT out of the for-sale gaming rig, and put them into those dual-cores?
Or should I build the other Q6600 (and hope it OCs the same, to 3.6), and take one of the HD4850s out of the dual-core that it's in, and take the other HD4850 that's still NIB, and then I would have two Q6600s OCed, each with HD4850 Crossfire?
And then build the Q9550, and get some high-powered video card for that computer, perhaps a 5770 Hawk, or maybe a 5850? (But if that was for the third computer, and I don't suceed in buying a monitor for my friend, to get his KDS 26" LCD, then the res would only be 1680x1050 and not 1920x1200).
Or should I sell the dual-cores (with or without upgrading the CPUs to E5200s), and outfit the AMD quad-cores for gaming purposes? (I'm not sure how well the Athlon II X4 630 2.8Ghz quad-cores are for gaming, versus perhaps a 3.6Ghz E5200s). That would entail upgrading the PSUs, and dropping in some gaming cards. It would also mean that I would be limited to 4GB of RAM total in those machines, because those MATX mobos only have two slots, except for the Gigabyte 785G.
If I went with the dual-cores, I could upgrade them to 8GB of RAM (currently 4GB of Patriot DDR2-800 in each), or if I went with two Q6600s and a Q9550, each in X48 mobos, then I could put 8GB of RAM in each of those.
I recently purchased quite a few 2GB DDR2-800 sticks from the HP RAM deal. $30 and $35 each, times ten. I used three for the AMD systems to sell, and have 7 sticks on back-order that should be here any day now. I already recieved the other ten, which I used two for another system.
So I will have 15 free 2GB RAM sticks available. I need RAM for the other Q6600 and the Q9550, and another 4-8GB for my server. If I upgrade my dual-cores to 8GB, then I would take 4GB of Patriot from one machine and add it to the other, and then install 8GB of matching RAM in the PC that had no RAM.
...
Or should I buy another Q9550 or two (at $180+tax, I could get a hex-core AMD for around the same price), and upgrade the P35-DS3R v1.0 boards? That would basically max the mobo out, but it wouldn't max out the CPU because the P35 boards are limited to a little over 400FSB. You really need 450 or 460 FSB to max out a Q9550 OC.
That would be slightly risky, because I had to reduce the overclock on my E2140 from 3.2 (400FSB x 8) to 2.8 (350FSB x 8) because it would restart after about a week of running. Never could track down why, but downclocking the FSB seemed to have solved it. If I dropped in E5200s, they have such a high multi, that I could do 3.75Ghz with 300FSB.
Oh yeah, I also purchased 11 OCZ Vendetta heatsinks at MC when they were on sale for $10 ea. I think I have at least 8 left.
Edit: A little googling, reveals that the 4850 was released on June 19, 2008. So that's how long they have been in the box since, I guess. Must have been almost two years ago when I got the Q6600s too. I think I bought them in Jan.
Edit: I guess I'm trying to optimize things to fit with my 950VA UPSes as far as power consumption (each desk has one), along with the fact that I only have three desks in which to put computers. I still need to figure out where I'm going to put my server and my F@H quad-GPU rig in my apt, long-term. Short-term, I removed my second dual-core from service and I have my F@H box running now there.
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