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Yet Another "building a new PC" Post

R

rykyc

Junior Member
hi gurus,

ok, i went through all the posts about new PCs, and i'm even more undecided now.

- Apart from the normal browsing, VoIP chat, document editing, only heavy stuff I plan to use the new system for is some home video editing using Adobe Premiere Elements(got tons of 'to-be-completed' stuff), digital pics editing and audio ripping.
- No plans for any game playing(can't keep that darn car on track 🙂 ).
- Want to get a mobo that will give some room for upgrade expansion for the next 3-4 years (if PCIe, SATA etc become common)
- Price not an issue, but don't want to go overboard and get features/performance that i won't use



CPU - really want to try out AMD, but was told that it runs very hot, and hence can make system loud, 'cos of the fan? If not AMD, should i go for the LGA775 or 478 pin? (please dont' suggest a Celeron 🙂 )
Mobo - was told that Intelchip mobo is generally more stable(same person as above)? Also, ASUS, Abit or Gbyte?(limited choices, I live outside the US)

I guess its basically these two things which has me stuck. Which CPU, and which mobo?
Other items:
PSU - thinking enermax 380 or 400W
Disk - existing 80GB 7200rpm WD (will get a SATA drive when it becomes a little cheaper)
Case - any cheapo case, or does the rumored heating issue for the AMD require some more thought on this one? or if think something better is worth it(Coolermaster, Lian Li, etc?)
USB/Firewire - have cards for this, but would prefer on the mobo. and at least a couple of them in the front of the case.
Video Card - is a basic 128MB card enough? and ATI or Nvidia?(and which manufacturer)
Video Capture Card - Is this worth buying? have been transferring using DV from my camcorder so far.
Display - have a 2 year old 17" Dell flat panel. Do i need to move to the PCIe type display?
Mmy - DDR/DDR2 will depend on Mobo, any particular brand? will get 1GB
Have CDRW, DVD-RW drives, so not planning to buy anything new at this time.
Wireless - worth getting on the mobo, or better to just stick with a pluggable USB one?

ok, that is, unless you feel there's anything else to worry about. Apologies for the long post, wanted to get it all off my chest. hope you can help

thanks, ryk
 
man, i post this silly post and immediately find something that answersAlmost everything i've asked!
well, i still have one remaining question then: why do all the recommended systems use the 865 chipset? is the 915 not good enough? and will the 865 allow me to upgrade for a couple of years?

thanks,
ryk
 
Sounds like you're already determined to go the Intel way.

In that case, you may want to wait until Intel chipset for their dual core CPU is available in the market, in case you want to use their dual core later on.

 
I dunno, I could never read through that thread. I disagree with a lot of the reccomendations, and its poorly organized IMHO. But it is good for absolute beginners.
 
Promethply,
actually, i really want to try AMD...but the noise factor is important, since the system will be sitting in my bedroom, and my better half is not as excited about this as i am 🙂

Ribbon 13: would love to hear your recommendations then!
 
I think the AMD running hotter than Intel is over 🙂

The new intel Prescotts are very hot if I remember correctly... meanwhile my A64 3200+ 939 is running at a cool 31 degrees C with the retail HS/F.
Here's some power consumption numbers for various processors.

If you want to go AMD and keep it quiet, it's not a problem anymore.

The retail HS/F is very quiet if you ask me. Get a case with 120mm fans and get a Seasonic powersupply and you're in business.

If you want upgradability, a 939 is the way to go. If you can wait a little while, venice is right around the corner.

The 90nm parts that are out right now run quite cool. If you want to keep price/performance good, I don't think I'd go higher than
a 3800+
a 3500+ would get you even better price/performance.

To see how these stack up to the competition, check out these charts
Tom's CPU list
AT 4000+ vs FX article

Sorry a lot of those benchmarks concentrate on gaming and not what you're looking for, but you'll get the general idea of how they perform relative to one another from the other tests. I'm not sure exactly which benchmark you should be looking at for whether a P4 or A64 would suit you better.

For a motherboard, a nice socket 939 NF4 is probably a good bet for you. Stick to a good name brand and you shouldn't have any problems with stability. Even the cheaper boards should keep you stable if you're not doing any overclocking.

For the powersupply, if you're looking for silence you can't beat Seasonic. I can't even tell mine's on.
For with a system with one or two harddrives without a power hungry videocard, a 380 watt Seasonic should be more than enough.
There are higher up models too if you're interested 430 watt for example... but you're not going to need it with that system.

If you want a quiet case, get one with 120mm fans like I mentioned. Antec makes some very nice cases that are sturdy, have good airflow, are quiet, and have nice features (like drive rails and grommets for hard drive installation)
You could even kill 2 birds with 1 stone and get a Case/PSU combo like the Sonata.
With these Antec cases, add another quiet 120mm fan in the front and you're ready to go.
If you want to get something more expensive like a Lian Li, that could be a good option too. Again (I must sound like a broken record), try to get one with 120mm fans if you want quieter operation.

Don't be too worried about getting a SATA drive. The performance gain is basically nothing because it's the same drives with a different interface.

The Sonata has hookups for front firewire and USB.

If you're not doing any 3d work, just about any card should work just fine. I don't know if Adobe products use the videocard to do any of the processing though so I'm not sure on that.
Don't buy by the ram size or Mhz rating... go by specific cards cores.
An ATI vs Nvidia debate will get you no useful information 🙂.
I mainly do this for gaming recommendations... so I'm not sure what would be the best for 2d work.
Matrox is often mentioned when gaming isn't a concern due to very good 2d image quality.

Your display is independent of what kind of interface your videocard uses with the motherboard. Maybe you're thinking of DVI vs. VGA? I'm not a flat panel fan, but know DVI is preferred and think it gives you sharper images and better color correctness. There are a ton of threads about this. Search for "DVI vs VGA" and you'll get plenty of opinions.

If you're not overclocking, get a gig of valueram in the form of two 512 sticks of pc3200 so you get dual channel. Corsair, Mushkin, Twinmos, and Patriot are good brands (several others too). Don't spend more than $120 on a gig of ram. The more expensive stuff isn't worth it unless you're overclocking or are insane about the small boost in performance faster timings get you.


Well... I didn't answer everything, but that's a start 🙂
 
Originally posted by: rykyc
man, i post this silly post and immediately find something that answersAlmost everything i've asked!
well, i still have one remaining question then: why do all the recommended systems use the 865 chipset? is the 915 not good enough? and will the 865 allow me to upgrade for a couple of years?

thanks,
ryk
Click to expand...

dammit (thinking you found a lot of answers)
 
Hi YOyoYOhowsDAjello, you're the second one to say that the link isn't that great. well, hope i can get some more input 🙂 btw, your 'bose is crap' link doesn't work?
 
Originally posted by: rykyc
Hi YOyoYOhowsDAjello, you're the second one to say that the link isn't that great. well, hope i can get some more input 🙂 btw, your 'bose is crap' link doesn't work?
Click to expand...

Heh... yeah.... ribbon13 actually sent me an updated working link yesterday but for some reason I can't update my profile.

EDIT: Seems to work on my girlfriend's computer... updating it now 🙂
 
I'm on it, I'm on it.

Your link is waaay too long. It's taking up like half my sig.

EDIT: Your link was so long I had to take out my link to cables for less... also I decided nobody an Anandtech is going to get anything from bluejeanscables so I changed it to partsexpress... that should make you happy 😉
 
oh... I know how to solve that...

remove the 'http://' from each link... it will add it back automatically, and might save enough characters so the sig isn't too long. Mine had to be done that way too.
 
hi,
as i mentioned, OC is not something i'm thinking of right now, so an AMD64...is it too much? Also, any comments on the 865 vs. 915 question?
 
Well... I'm not logging in on my girlfriend's computer just for that heh. I'm too lazy.

After writing a novel in this thread and spending a couple hours talking to ciproxr on AIM for like 2 hours I'm not doing anything that's not totally easy.

My nef count for tonight is laughable. (Meaning I hardly did any)
 
Originally posted by: rykyc
hi,
as i mentioned, OC is not something i'm thinking of right now, so an AMD64...is it too much? Also, any comments on the 865 vs. 915 question?
Click to expand...

I have no idea on the intel chipset question.

What do you mean "is it too much"?

Do you mean does it cost too much?

I'm quite confused 😕
 
sorry, i meant, for what i've stated as the proposed uses of the machine, is an AMD 64 necessary(ok, i'm assuming here 'Athlon 64' means its a 64-bit chip). or should i go for a cheaper AMD?
 
Originally posted by: rykyc
sorry, i meant, for what i've stated as the proposed uses of the machine, is an AMD 64 necessary(ok, i'm assuming here 'Athlon 64' means its a 64-bit chip). or should i go for a cheaper AMD?
Click to expand...

You can get an A64 3000+ for $146. That's pretty darn affordable for the level of performance it gives you.

When you said "Price not an issue" I assumed you wanted some high end stuff just before it starts getting to be a bad idea to go the extra step so that's why I mentioned the 3500+ and 3800+... and the other fairly expensive stuff.

So... "Price not an issue" meant you're on a budget?

EDIT: You can go cheaper if you want to (Athlon XP, Socket 754 A64 or Sempron) but you also said "Want to get a mobo that will give some room for upgrade" and to me that means 939 and PCI-e.
 
What I listed is still very good stuff. The fact that it can be overclocked, but you wont be doing that means it will be even more stable.
 
The AMD64 CPUs runs cooler than the current Intel CPUs (Prescott), and it is ready for the WindowsXP 64 bit, and there's been a price drop on the AMD lines
 
Originally posted by: rykyc
CPU - really want to try out AMD, but was told that it runs very hot, and hence can make system loud, 'cos of the fan? If not AMD, should i go for the LGA775 or 478 pin? (please dont' suggest a Celeron 🙂 )
Click to expand...


Whoever told you that is a moron.

The CPUs that puts out the most heat right now are the Intel P4 Prescotts. Which is why it's jokingly called the PresHott. 90+ watts of heat.

You want a cooler-running CPU with great performance, go Athlon64.

HTH.
 
hi, sorry for the delayed response, was putting the kid to bed. ok, on the price issue, i guess was a little stickershocked, that's all, as i'd been looking mostly at the P4 around the US$200 range(since everything costs about 10-15% more in my part of the world). but now i see that prices for a P4 are also up there in 280-350 USD range, so the AMD 64 are cheaper.

All this does bring up another interesting question tho: is it worth starting to prepare for a 64-bit world right now? or might it just be better to just get a new system in 2-3 years time? it seems to me that for most of the consumer world, 32 bit computing should be enough for the time being. or will the transition of general consumer applications to 64bit happen in less than 2 years?
 
Yeah, the software side of things seems a bit slower moving than the hardware side, but according to AMD, the NF4 based mobos can use their upcoming dual-core CPU with a BIOS flash.
 
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