New PC in the works - Advice ?

[Zur]

Hi,

I'm just about decided to finally get a new PC. My heart is set on a sapphire HD4870 card but I'm undecided when it comes to either getting a q6600 quad core or E8500 dual (or maybe one of the new quads). I'm also not sure what to get for the mainboard and whether I should get crossfire support or not.

The machine will be for gaming but also video editing/encoding and maybe some 3d rendering if I decide to learn how to do things.

 

[Zur]

Thanks for the recommendation.

I would probably go for the E 8500/E8400 over the Q6600. I think they perform better, due to the lack of support for more than two cores in most games.

The E8500 is definitely the performance king of the two and it makes me hesitate a little.

However, I've read in a few places that the Q6600 has quite a lot of overclocking potential with simple air cooling. Plus the extra cores would come in useful when doing several tasks and should give a performance boost for any games using Unreal Engine 3.

The downside is that it's an old processor. I'm not sure the Q6700 is worth the price difference but there's now a Q9 series.

 

[Crowze]

If you're doing video editing and 3D rendering a quad-core is a no-brainer, as is at least 4GB of RAM. The Q9 series have less overclocking potential due to a higher fsb and lower multipliers, plus have a tendency to fry if you up the voltage too much, so unless you can find a crazy offer on a Q9 I'd stick with the Q6600.

Crossfire - well, it's down to you really if you think you'll need the extra graphics horsepower in the future. If you do decide to get a CF motherboard make sure it has dual 16X PCI-E slots and not dual 8 or a 16/4, as these will hamper crossfire performance significantly on high-end cards. To be honest though it's probably not worth the extra cost for the motherboard, let alone a second GPU, as even the single 4870 will be perfectly adequate for all current games.

 

[B]

However, I've read in a few places that the Q6600 has quite a lot of overclocking potential with simple air cooling. Plus the extra cores would come in useful when doing several tasks and should give a performance boost for any games using Unreal Engine 3.

The downside is that it's an old processor. I'm not sure the Q6700 is worth the price difference but there's now a Q9 series.

Damn! I bought a new pc in january and now my cpu is allready old? screw that!

 

[daloonie]

Overclocking wise the Q6600 is a wonderchild from Intel. But in all fairness you'd need to get the G0 stepping and I don't know how many is left. Some online retailers list the stepping some don't so it's quite a jungle to get through.

If you have normal gaming/office/movie/music needs like most of us the dual core is sufficient. It's not in the near future we will see the quad cores be fully used.

As crowze said if you have needs for performance in 3d modelling and editing, which I severely doubt, I'd go for a quad.

With the concern of crossfire I'd say leave it out. Eventually if you are in need of extraperformance the cards really fast and good now or in the near future will have dropped in prize probably easy outperform a crossfire sollution.
I don't know if it's required to have a crossfire mastercard anymore? And identical cards like with SLI isn't required either?

As for the motherboard I can recommend the ASUS P5K series. I have the Pro version and my it's splendid. With passive chipset cooling and 1333MHz FSB support.
It has the Intel P35 Express chipset which was the best when I bought mine.

 

[GG-Xtreme]

Order the Q6600 OEM from Newegg for G0 stepping. Leave the multiplier alone and up the FSB to 333MHz (QX6850 speed), and it should outperform a stock E8500. You should definitely go quad-core, otherwise you'll end up among the people complaining about requirements later on and the expense of PC upgrades. Nice choice of video card too, btw.

 

[daloonie]

I've found this motherboard that is better than what I said earlier. And it gets the bit-tech.net recommended seal.

ASUS P5Q Deluxe.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/05/28/asus-p5q-deluxe-intel-p45-has-arrived/1

 

[Zur]

Damn! I bought a new pc in january and now my cpu is allready old? screw that!

"Old" as in risking being replaced.

 

[Zur]

Okidoke, here's what I've ordered:

- Q6600 quad core stepping 0 (ordered one from a specialized shop for 10 euros extra)
- Scythe Mugen ''Infinity'' cooler.
- Asus P5Q Deluxe
- Sapphire HD4870 512MB DDR5
- 4x 1GB Kingston 1066 DDR2 RAM
- Acer P223W flat screen
- 2x 500 HDD GB 7200 RPM SATA 32MB cache
- Antec Sonata III case
- 16x DVDROM SATA
- 22x DVDRW Samsung Burner
- G15 keyboard
- G5 Logitech mouse
- 3"5 card reader

All for just under 1500 euros vat included. Not cheap but not too expensive either. I chopped out Windows XP since it's incapable of handling the full 4G of ram. This might be the perfect excuse to switch over to Linux.

 

[Crowze]

Well, there is a 64-bit version of XP and Vista, and Linux just isn't up to scratch for gaming with relatively poor driver and software support (albeit much better than it used to be). Othwerise, looks like a great rig .

 

[Zur]

Well, there is a 64-bit version of XP and Vista, and Linux just isn't up to scratch for gaming with relatively poor driver and software support (albeit much better than it used to be). Othwerise, looks like a great rig .

Well, I've heard that it adds its own set of incompatibility issues. I don't know if that's true but I don't really feel like putting up with problematic drivers or updating all the software I have.

I know about the poor driver support on Linux but I'm willing to give it a go after seeing Ubuntu run. Plus, I should really get some serious practise with Unix/Linux as it could come in handy in a future job.

That said, I might eventually install a 64-bit Windows one day but I'll need some more convincing.

P.S: I might also try giving windows 2003 server a try as a client. I'm guessing support for this OS is also poor though.

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Looks like a cool new rig. Congrats! I think it is extremely difficult finding a retail version of XP 64-bit anyway (and even finding OEM can be a little hard), so it's probably just as well you did what you did.

 

[Zur]

Yes, well 64-bit computing isn't mature yet. It's a shame because current hardware is being underexploited.

Anyway, I received the cpu and custom cooler via delivery. I've just unpacked the cooler and it's even bigger than the Thermaltake TT-102 I have now. It's 15 cm from top to bottom. I hope it'll fit in the Antec.

 

[GG-Xtreme]

What cooler did you get?

 

[SkaarjMaster]

Looks like he got this one:

Scythe Mugen ''Infinity'' cooler
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/024/scinf1000.html

Holy moly! Quad fan mounting! Are they insane? I have no idea how this compares to some of the Thermalright solutions though.

I'm not sure about all this talk about mounting fans on the side. I've always mounted one fan on top blowing down onto the CPU. I'll probably end up getting a Thermalright early next year when I build my new system finally (a year late), now I'll just have to decide which one.........although, Zalman has an outside chance at being my new heatsink.

 

[daloonie]

Thermalright and Noctua is according to several tests some of the best coolers you can get hold of these days.

But I've found a test here comparing the Infinity to a couple of other coolers:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/08/02/heatsink_group_test/1
And it does quite well actually.

I've used XP x64 and I didn't find any problems using AVG Free antivirus on it. Though other antivirus programs might act up, but I didn't have any problem.

 

[Zur]

The machine is finally up and running (the XP2500 is looking pretty glum next to it right now ). The shop I got the machine with lent me an 8600GT card while waiting for the HD4870 but I might change my mind and go for a 2x HD4850 crossfire after reading some reviews about performance vs price. If someone reading this is contemplating such an option it's a good idea to read articles comparing crossfire performance on P45 and x48 chipsets. If you like playing games at high resolutions you should be aware that the P45 drops down to 8x/8x when in crossfire mode while the x48 runs at full 16x/16x.

I gave up trying to integrate raid drivers with xp so I've installed Vista for now. It's not too bad looking actually and there's some new features to explore.

Thermalright and Noctua is according to several tests some of the best coolers you can get hold of these days.

But I've found a test here comparing the Infinity to a couple of other coolers:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/08/02/heatsink_group_test/1
And it does quite well actually.

For current processors a lot of people are recommending the Noctua NH-U12P . There's also the OCZ Vendetta 2.

Looks like he got this one:

Scythe Mugen ''Infinity'' cooler
http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/024/scinf1000.html

Holy moly! Quad fan mounting! Are they insane? I have no idea how this compares to some of the Thermalright solutions though.

I'm not sure about all this talk about mounting fans on the side. I've always mounted one fan on top blowing down onto the CPU. I'll probably end up getting a Thermalright early next year when I build my new system finally (a year late), now I'll just have to decide which one.........although, Zalman has an outside chance at being my new heatsink.

Yes, that's the one and it looks pretty impressive once mounted but there's only one fan on mine. I'm a bit worried about the weight though (900 g?) as the TT Tower102 on my old machine is already 500 g and uses a backplate whereas this is a clipon model.

The fans are mounted on the side because of the design of the heatsink. The base is in contact with the processor and heat is carried away via the heatpipes (they contain some sort of compressed gas) to the radiator fins on top. There's just enough room to close the case.

It's definitely a good cooler but I've read a few reviews saying it's slightly behind designs by some of the other manufacturers. The cpu is running at +10°C relative to motherboard temperature when idle.