Afternoon all,

I'm in the process of speccing up a couple of new systems for home. I'd like some input/feedback if possible. I'll also explain why I've made certain choices.

Here are the specs:

Case: Antec P183 $ 222.00
CPU: Intel E8500 C2D $ 249.00
Mobo: ASUS P5Q-Pro $ 171.60
PSU: Antec CP850 PSU $ 192.00
RAM: GEiL DDR2-800 ULTRA Kit - 2x2GB - CAS 4-4-4-12 $ 90.20
HDD1: WESTERN DIGITAL 320GB KS HDD SATA II 16MB $ 63.80
HDD2: SEAGATE 1 TB AS SATAII 32MB HDD $ 116.60
ODD1: LG 22x SATA DVDRW DUAL LAYER $ 58.30
ODD2: LG 22x SATA DVDRW DUAL LAYER $ 58.30
AUDIO: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer - 7.1Ch $ 69.00
VIDEO: ASUS GTX260 896MB DDR3 $ 264.00

1. I haven't looked at prices TOO closely, these are just the first prices I saw for the components. I can probably source them a little more cheaply if I need to.

2. WRT the RAM, what I've read indicates that you'd actually get better performance out of DDR2-800 CAS4 RAM than you would out of DDR2-1066 CAS5. Can anyone confirm/deny this with a review/comparison?

3. GTX260 vs HD 4870 - Again, apparently the GTX260 will slightly outperform the 4870? Confirm/deny?

4. Higher clockspeed Core2Duo vs lower clock speed Core2Quad? For gaming, I understand that the higher clockspeed is of better use as most games don't support dual core particularly well, let alone quad core.

These are the assumptions that I've based this spec on. Any feedback/suggestions would be appreciated.

VIDEO: ASUS GTX260 896MB DDR3 $ 264.00

Get the ati4890 for the same price as this or the 4870 for 60 bucks less abouts. (MSY)

Can I ask why two DVD drives?

Also, I'm not sure that you need the sound card. Onboard sound is pretty good these days - unless you're hooking up a midi keyboard with synth software like Ableton Live.

Can I ask why two DVD drives?

Also, I'm not sure that you need the sound card. Onboard sound is pretty good these days - unless you're hooking up a midi keyboard with synth software like Ableton Live.

The two DVD drives are in case I need to do direct disc to disc transfer etc. For the price, I figured why not and it was only going to be a few dollars cheaper if I got a single burner and a single reader so I went for two burners.

I haven't used onboard audio in a very long time. My current system is running a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS or something silly (don't remember the exact name). You reckon that I should ditch the sound card all together?

Get the ati4890 for the same price as this or the 4870 for 60 bucks less abouts. (MSY)

Is this based on price or performance? I've not seen any reviews on the 4890 yet, so don't know what they're comparable to. :(

Thanks for the input both of you :)

On board audio is all you will need. Besides, good speakers have their own amps with digital connections and if you don't have good speakers a sound card isn't going to make crap speakers sound better.

If you can afford it, I'd move to the 275GTX. It's has the same performance as the 295GTX when running 1680x1050 or under. Google for a review at Anandtech or Tom's Hardware (I forget where I read it).

I'd go a Phenom II + AM3 setup personally, as this would allow for future upgrades. Socket 775 is on its way out.

Also, can anybody explain why DVD burners cost 3 times more than they did 4 months ago?

I looooooooooooove my Intel Core i7 920 CPU. They're under $400 now, if you're willing to spend that much. I've never even seen it at 50% capacity, so it'll probably have a lot of life in it.

Also, can anybody explain why DVD burners cost 3 times more than they did 4 months ago?

I was gunna make a thread on this. I've been looking to upgrade for a few months (waiting for games I actually want to play) and dvd drives are like 60-70 bucks now WTF. used to be 30ish.

Getting people to pay extra for bluray?

I've never even seen it at 50% capacity, so it'll probably have a lot of life in it.

I've seen mine at 100%. Fire up Handbrake and convert an avi to m4v. Dropped conversion time from over an hour on my old pc to 7 minutes.

Also, can anybody explain why DVD burners cost 3 times more than they did 4 months ago?

Oh yeah, I notcied this too, it's stupid. The one I just got with my new PC was like $27 when I first started looking for components, and went up to about $65 by the time I got the system. Everywhere seems to have done it, so freaking frustrating.

when would you ever need disc to disc transfer? you know you can do it with just one disc hey

and intel is still s***ting on amd, so dont bother with it (yet)

when would you ever need disc to disc transfer? you know you can do it with just one disc hey

I know I can, but it saves time being able to do it direct from disc to disc. I have to do it every now and then for work.

did they come out with a bios update that got better compatibility with 4 gig kits on the P5Q-Pro?

I friggin hope they did eh - that'll be my next upgrade if it's so


I can't wait to ditch this Gigabyte mobo :/

last edited by koopz at 17:08:05 15/Aug/09

That's actually one of the points I'm most curious about. Is this the right mainboard choice? Is there anything better that people would recommend? Has anyone had any problems with one of these?

My last few mainboards have been Gigabyte and they've all sucked horrendously. To the extent that I had 3 of them f***ing CATCH FIRE (running at stock levels) due to poorly implemented cooling designs on the PCI-Express bus

I know I can, but it saves time being able to do it direct from disc to disc.

Pity it doesn't work like that.

Also, can anybody explain why DVD burners cost 3 times more than they did 4 months ago?

Suppliers are struggling to source them.

did they come out with a bios update that got better compatibility with 4 gig kits on the P5Q-Pro?

Never really had much trouble with the PRO board, but there have been numerous updates for memory compatibility.

Ditch the sound card. When it's faulty you will have to deal with Creative directly, and it's not even worth it.

Also can't justify the extra money for the P183, just go the Antec 300.

Also you will more than likely run into issues with 2 LG drives, I have come across it at work too much.

Go 2 different brands, easier to distinguish which is which too.

Another tip with the LG drives, update the firmware as they come with s***ty malware on them now.

That's actually one of the points I'm most curious about. Is this the right mainboard choice?

The board is good.

Your ram choice however is something I can never agree with, but I don't want to sound like a broken record so I'll stop there.

DVD drives are only $49 at CA, just a $10 increase. No idea why other stores have upped them so much and my shortage remark is only rumours.

last edited by step at 17:24:25 15/Aug/09

Pity it doesn't work like that.

Sorry? You're telling me it's faster to burn to an ISO on my drive, then burn that ISO back to another disc rather than just doing a direct burn to disc? Rubbish.

Also can't justify the extra money for the P183, just go the Antec 300.

In the interests of keeping my girlfriend happy, yes I can :P Besides which, we've both had fairly tricked out cases over the years, we now want something well built, simple and reasonably elegant.

Also you will more than likely run into issues with 2 LG drives, I have come across it at work too much.

Go 2 different brands, easier to distinguish which is which too.

Another tip with the LG drives, update the firmware as they come with s***ty malware on them now.

Good tip on the firmware, thanks. Might swap out one of the LG drives for a Pioneer or something. They're all the same price.

You're telling me it's faster to burn to an ISO on my drive, then burn that ISO back to another disc rather than just doing a direct burn to disc? Rubbish.

No, I was more commenting it doesn't go directly from disc to disc, but never mind that.

Ah, I get you now :) Yeah, not quite what I was getting at either. Crossed wires ftl.

just stay away from LG completely, pioneer still seem to be the king of low-priced drives

did they come out with a bios update that got better compatibility with 4 gig kits on the P5Q-Pro?

I friggin hope they did eh - that'll be my next upgrade if it's so

I'm using 2x 2g sticks on my p5q-pro, no issues yet.

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm190/pointyfork/computers/computer.gif

last edited by whoop at 16:13:17 16/Aug/09

Ditch the audio card, onboard sound is pretty top notch these days for everything but high end tasks (ie: if you're not a music producer or DJ mooby)

I'd also get a single drive if it was me, put the extra ~$50 towards the video card, next CPU up or a bigger HDD. Unless you're running a warez shop at work where you need to copy discs all the time it's probably not noticeable for the once off copy. And if you're doing lots of burns of the same disc, just make an ISO once and then burn it whenever you need a copy.

The PSU is also PRETTY f***ING HUGE at 850W for what it's powering. You could get a 500W and it'd have plenty of legs left if you added more components. When it comes to PSU's I find that the more generic a brand, the higher the wattage but the better the brand (Antec, Coolermaster, etc) then the less wattage you need to go.

In the interests of keeping my girlfriend happy, yes I can :P Besides which, we've both had fairly tricked out cases over the years, we now want something well built, simple and reasonably elegant.

I've got a p180 I think and, while it's nice & quiet with its tripple layer panels, the hinge on the front is flimsy as and it broke so now if you open it up all the way it just falls off. For the quality of the rest of the case I'd have liked to see the hinge made out of steel rather than s***ty plastic. Also the magnets that hold the door closed keep coming unstuck.

The lower power supply/hard drive chamber do keep my hard drives nice and cool but it makes routing cables really annoying. Probably not quite so bad in the 183 because I think they moved the fan up the front, mine's in the middle but all the other cables still need to go up through that hole if you've got drives up the top of the computer and that extra 12v motherboard power cable. Not to mention the 2 power cables for the video card.

http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm190/pointyfork/computers/P1000492.jpg

p183 has the fan up front so you can route the power cables straight to the hard drives but on mine I've got to route them up through the hole, then back down again through another hole. I don't know what idiot thought of that but ignore that part and just look at where all the other power cables go. It's an air flow nightmare. Also having no room between the bottom of the board and the bottom partition makes tidying up those front/rear extra USB ports impossible (yes I use them all).


last edited by whoop at 17:18:12 16/Aug/09

Go for more ram. 4 gig is silly with the prices they are.
Go an LG or Liteon Burner over the f***ing pos Pioneer (it's personal) - ps LG do really make good Burners believe it or not. Nice mobo, works well. Onboard sound will be fine if you are too hardcore with your sound setup, don;t need the creative. The rest, well, it's personal choice.

Ok, how's this for an updated configuration? I know the PSU is much beefier than what I will need, but I'd prefer the extra head room, just in case.

Additionally, I will probably upgrade the RAM in the future, but for right now, 4GB is sufficient. Until I switch to a 64-bit OS, I won't be able to use it anyway.

I'm also happy retaining one LG burner. I've got a couple of them running around the place atm and I haven't had a single problem with them. Just about anything else LG though, I wouldn't touch without a hazmat suit :P

Case: Antec P183 $ 222.00
CPU: Intel E8500 Core 2 Duo - 3.16GHz/6MB/1333FSB $ 249.00
Mobo: ASUS P5Q-Pro (2xPCI-E, 1600FSB, RAID) $ 159.00
PSU: Antec CP850 CPX PSU $ 192.00
RAM: GEiL DDR2-800 ULTRA Kit - 2x2GB - CAS 4-4-4-12 $ 90.20
HDD1: SEAGATE 320GB AS SATAII 16MB HDD $ 61.00
HDD2: Western Digital 1TB SATAII HDD 32M Cache $ 109.00
ODD1: LG 22x SATA DVDRW DUAL LAYER (RETAIL) $ 49.00
ODD2: SAMSUNG SHS223B-BEBF 22x SATA DVDRW (OEM) $ 49.00
AUDIO: Onboard $ -
VIDEO: XFX HD4890 PCI-E 2.0 1G Extreme $ 269.00
$1449.20

My personal picks would be Change your PSU to something that isnt Antec, maybe a thermaltake or enermax, doesnt matter, same PSU

Switch the drives to be Pioneer and Lite-on.
I dont know if its still the case but we had issues with samsung and more often LG drives at my old work.

and yeah, jam 8 gig of ram in it :D

You guys actually still use DVDs?

I actually took my drive out and just have it floating around if any of the PCs need a reOS from DVD... which is rare.
Even then most of the time its just a load from a stored image on the network.

You are seriously going to do that much on the fly type burning?
I'm genuinely curious to what are you planning on burning so often to require 2 drives? I could understand if they were 10 bux a pop but 50 each is pretty steep.

I have a lot of media but honestly changing discs all the time would s*** me to tears. Having everything sitting digitally seems like a far quicker and easier method imo.

Having everything sitting digitally

you know what the D in DVD stands for, right?

Disc?

On board audio is all you will need. Besides, good speakers have their own amps with digital connections and if you don't have good speakers a sound card isn't going to make crap speakers sound better.

This was all i was going to say so instead i'm going to second it. Most boards have spdif if you have real speakers which essentially bypasses any kind of audio card rendering anyway.

edit: just saw your revised version on your other post, i think it looks pretty neat. Would make a good OCing machine too.

My personal picks would be Change your PSU to something that isnt Antec, maybe a thermaltake or enermax, doesnt matter, same PSU

Can you explain this a bit better? I have a "650 watt enermax" (from 2004) but i was still under the impression that the antec earthwatt series was rather very good.

last edited by skythra at 14:08:09 17/Aug/09

I guess thats true... Meh you know what I mean, sitting on instantly accessible HDD storage not a plastic coaster.

Skythra, my experiance with Antec have always been them dying just after the warrenty period and when you have a power flux or brownout, they will reboot your machine, I guess not holding enough in the capictors?

Whereas, Enermax, Thermaltake, Toppower and Tagan (because they are all pretty much the same PSU except for rebadging) seem to handle a lot better and have lasted longer for me.

get rid of the 320gb, and get a WD 500gb 32mb for $65.

Whereas, Enermax, Thermaltake, Toppower and Tagan (because they are all pretty much the same PSU except for rebadging) seem to handle a lot better and have lasted longer for me.

I've got a 600W Tagen in my PC's, when the power goes off & back on really quickly my modem, router, the tv, amp & foxtel will all reboot. My monitor turns itself off then back on but my PC just sits there like nothing has happened. Tagen use some f***ing beefy capacitors.