I'm in the market for a new PC (my first one in yeaaaaaaaaaars that I'm buying myself) and I'm wondering what the hell I should be buying.

I'm leaning towards AMD64s because a) they've been around for a while and I suspect they'll be a little more solid than the brand new Core 2 duos and b) I feel like supporting AMD.

Has anyone had any hands-on with the new Intel chips yet? Is stability something I need to worry about at all?

Core Duo isn't really new, they're very very similar to the chips that have been in the Pentium M laptops for years.

Anyway, Core Duo for ultimate speed, but you will pay a fair premium compared with A64.

Given I assume it's a totally new system and you're free to choose everything, and you're not a rapid upgrader, I'd be recommending Core Duo :)

does this mean we can expect to see you around the traps in the online gaming world soon trog?

does this mean we can expect to see you around the traps in the online gaming world soon trog?

Unlikely; maybe some more ET and Zdaemon and ETQW when it comes out :)

Anyway, Core Duo for ultimate speed, but you will pay a fair premium compared with A64.

Given I assume it's a totally new system and you're free to choose everything, and you're not a rapid upgrader, I'd be recommending Core Duo :)

Ah ok, I looked at the prices and they seemed fairly comparable; maybe I was looking at the wrong chips. I'm happy to pay a little more I guess if it's going to give me that extra speed, but not a hell of a lot more!

There have been quite a few benchmarks and reviews done in the new Intel chips. From what I've read they're coming up trumps against the AM2 processors...though I think they were more about DDR more than speed :p

I've played games on both...I can't tell the difference :)

Well, if it counts for anything, I've had my AMD64 for about a year now and have had zero trouble with it.

The new Intel chips give far more bang for your buck than anything AMD has to offer at the moment, although AMD are in the process of drastically revising their pricing to keep up.

Check out http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/07/14/core2_duo_knocks_out_athlon_64/page12.html

The $500 E6600 easily accounts for the AMD FX60 which costs nearly $1500 :o AMD have a lot of catching up to do...

core 2 duos kick amd ass in every respect. just buy the tight arse e6300 and they happily overclock to outperform the much more expensive e6xxx processers.

couple it with a pair of 7300GTs($100 each), sli'd and you have a decent poor man rig thats quicker then spending more then twice as much on a similar performing rig.

Core 2 duo is about $25 more than its opponent and a lot more powerfull. I like to support AMD but if I was buying a new PC at the moment, I would be going intel.....

Serious question trog, but have you considered an iMac?
If you're not planning on doing any gaming, and just want it for work/casual use, it might be worth considering.

My three systems are currently a 30 month old Pentium 1.7, an X2-3800+ (2.0GHz) and a Intel Core Duo 2.0GHz 20" iMac.

As for stability, errr, that's usually down to the motherboard, not the CPU. If there were problems with CPUs being unstable, you'd hear about it pretty danm quick. But as chipsets go, when was the last time Intel made an unstable chipset?


Anyhow, you haven't really said what you plan on doing with the box. Wouldn't it make sense for us to know a bit more before really commenting there?

But for a quick comparison between my Athlon and my Mac, compiling our Java application, it takes 1 minute 11 on the Athlon. A G4 iBook will do that in around 4 minutes 30, while a dual G5 wants about 1 minute 45. This two year old notebook eats through 2 minutes twiddling your thumbs.
So what of the iMac? Well, it plows through it in just over 53 seconds. Guess that's our mind made up if you're a programmer... like me.

couple it with a pair of 7300GTs($100 each), sli'd and you have a decent poor man rig thats quicker then spending more then twice as much on a similar performing rig.

Why!? Why!? Why would you do that!?

As soon as you go doing that, you're going to end up needing to put an extra $50 in for a better power supply that can handle the two cards. Straight away you would end up being better off getting yourself a 7600GT, yet there's one significant difference: In two years time, when you want more grunt, you can buy *another* 7600GT, which by then will cost two fifths of f*** all and you've got a decent upgrade. I admit that at that point you'd similarly need a better power supply, but hell... why not just go a single card? Not to mention the few dollars a month you'll save on your power bill.

Serious question trog, but have you considered an iMac?

I have, but not really seriously. I want to keep it as cheap as possible because (to answer your next question) I really just want it for casual gaming, browsing, developing, etc. The vast majority of dev work I do would be scripting so compiling isn't a factor (any compiling I did do would be of teensy programs anyway).

The other thing against the Mac is that I've spent the last 10 years learning the ins and outs of Windows and don't really want to go through it all again. I do dig the idea of the unix base though and am very tempted. The ability to run Windows as well on the new Intel CPUs is a big attraction. And I assume I can run Linux (the other thing I'd want to play with) without any problems either.

So yeh, the biggest factor is price at the moment; I'm just not prepared to shell out the extra couple hundred on Mac hardware at this point.

As for stability, errr, that's usually down to the motherboard, not the CPU.

Yeh, that's why I was worried, I figured there was a whole new chipset for the duo, but from what orb was saying above it doesn't seem like that's the case?

I dont know about the new intel stuff trog, but as you know I was a die hard intel fanboi for years but having gone to the dual core AMD 4800 I have in my current setup I am extremely happy with the performance. Its awesome in fact being able to do so much simultaneously has actually proved to be of real benefit/value. It just eats anything I throw at it.

AMD have a lot of catching up to do...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_K8L

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-k8l.html

I've been an AMD fanboy for the last 7 years, but I highly recommend looking at Intel's Core 2 Duo as they seem to be doing very well in terms of price, performance and power consumption. In fact, if I weren't already stuck with DDR memory, I'd upgrade to Core 2 myself.

Its awesome in fact being able to do so much simultaneously has actually proved to be of real benefit/value. It just eats anything I throw at it.

Exactly. I can't find enough things to do now on my x2 4400, it's too fast. To be honest, no normal user needs anythign faster, so the x2 really is the best cpu out for the price you pay now.

It is true that with either AMD or Intel you can build an awesomely quick machine for not that much money. But the Core Duos are a bit better right now.

I have AMD at home, but if I was building a new machine right now, I'd be buying Core-2-Duo. Honestly people, bang for buck?! let's measure this in price point values.

Intel Core-2-Duo E6300 1.86ghz CPU $291.00

AMD X2 4200+ AM2 CPU - $271.00

Ok. Let's look logically. The Core-2-Duo (even the lowest end) beats every offering AMD currently has to offer in MOST applications. Why would you spend $20 less to get something inferior in speed?

I think of only two reasons why one would go for AMD processors right now.

1) You're a tarded fanboi who only buys on brand because "that's what I know". This is not to say appreciating a brand is bad, but to recommend it still because it's what you've always used, even when the competing product is far superior, is really dumb. I like AMD as much as the next guy, but I'd still go intel and recommend intel right now because the chip is just better!

2) You're a hardcore gamer (nothing wrong with that) that has money to spend on running 2 video cards in SLI. Currently intel removed their SLI capable mainboards, so if you're really desperate to run 2 VGA cards you can't go for Intel's Core2Duo chips yet.

what do you mean stuck with ddr memory parabol? is there special memory required for core2duo?

I don't care about SLI at all, I'm not that into FPS.

So what sort of motherboard should I be looking at? I'm hesitant to buy ASUS because the last one I had I ran into problems with, but if people are happy with them then I'm cool.

I've found Asus are top notch, never had any issues with 4 years of different Asus boards. Gigabyte are the devilspawn though :(

ASUS mainboards have issues with quite a few different brands of ram chips until the BIOS upgrade is done on them. The P5B and P5B Deluxe are a couple that I've heard have issues. Gigabyte is rather the same. I believe it's more-so the intel chipset rather than the PCB manufacturer. Basically, just go for standard ram if you can, unless you have the ability to update BIOS first. then you can go for OCZ, Corsair, whatever you wish! :)

Last 3 mobos I have had have all been Asus and never a hitch with any of them. I have the sli premium (A8N) at the moment and its rock solid. I also rememmber Koopz , I think, telling me that Asus were pretty cool to deal with as far as warranty and replacements ect...but you might want to check that is still the case.

Ok. Let's look logically.

sigh, once again someone only compares the cost of the processor. Being fair to AMD, the motherboards available for AM2 are generally far cheaper.

I'm not arguing that the Intel is the better platform to buy for the moment... just that your argument f***ing sucks :)


I wouldn't tough an ASUS with a 50 foot pole. Just because they're popular doesn't make them 'good'. ASUS are like Dell - yeah, they sell absolultely s***loads... but their products are typically poor and/or unstable.

No, I'd disagree with that. I've bought and built maybe a dozen PCs with ASUS everything (because the wholesaler was huge on ASUS) and have had zero or close to zero issues. Personally, My last three PCS were a Pentium pro 200, (back in qtest days), an Athlon 1.2 and a Intel 2.4, and they all ran ASUS mainboards. P4P800 reprezent!

also, achieva technology in newmarket for the win!

haha I remember you having that ppro, you dirty hardware skank =]

ASUS are great mobos imo

Oh yeh, what sort of video card should I get ? I've got some nvidia thing at work which is fine. The last ATIs we had all f***ed up and the fans died and had heaps of heating problems.

what's the budget for the video card.

Nvidia 7900GT is a top notch card for the bux (~$400).

I'd probably go with an Asus P5B (standard), Intel 6600 Conroe, and a couple of 1gig sticks of generic ram at the moment if I was in the market for a new box. Pretty much any NVidia 7600 or better videocard should be good enough for most games these days - you may reconsider that once Vista comes to town later this year

You'd do well to lookup what Dell's offering these days

last edited by koopz at 14:21:38 29/Aug/06

I think the AM2 & RAM comment before was supposed to mean they've switched to DDR2 memory so if you planned on reusing your DDR memory from your existing machine thats a no go.


Core2 is definately leading the performance but again it all comes down to how much you wanna spend on a system. If its super elbudgetto then a single core AM2 a64 chip would probably be the way to go.

Videocardwise Nvidia is on top at the moment imo, best bang for buck would be the 7600GT - 7900GT again depending on how much you have in the budget.


At work we do a lot of Asus and I have found the low end boards can be plauged with problems just as most other brands are. Mid to high end Asus boards have seemed pretty solid so if you put a bit more money into the board and get a mid to high end board you should be alright.
I personally use Asus with my 939 system and its been great.


One last thing to finish, please please please do not throw wads of cash at the guts of your system and then skimp out on the housing/PSU. That is one of the biggest problems in machines crapping out - poor ventilation and cheap nasty PSU's. If you want your system to last spend the extra on quality parts.

haha I remember you having that ppro, you dirty hardware skank =]

pfft, it was all talent mate.
Any advantage gained was evened out by the ph33r awesomeness of 14.4k connects with 250+ms pings to voyager!

mmmm, 14.4k

aaargh the sludge of coming home from a lucious lan and then getting back on dialup :(

You'd do well to lookup what Dell's offering these days

They have Pentium D's, which are dual core, but they're not the new core duo things, are they?

edit: just found this one which is core duo, looking @ it now

edit#2: tricked out the way I want it's AUD 2,659.80 which is prolly more than I wanted to spend :/

last edited by trog at 15:20:36 29/Aug/06

I'm actually getting a new PC atm, this is what I'm looking at,

Intel S775 Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz CPU - about 500$
ASUS S775 P5W DH Deluxe Core 2 Motherboard - about 500$
DDR2 2GB Geil 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 Kit - about 350$
Albatron 7900GT 256M PCIe Super High! Video Card - about 400$

Just those bits comes out to about 1700$ aud, but you could easily spend less on a mobo + video + ram card to bring that down anywhere between 200-400$ (ie 1gb over 2gb ram, 7600 over 7900 etc).

exemplar, that sounds sorta like what I want; where are you looking?

exemplar, that sounds sorta like what I want

I hope you're not serious.

Most people wouldn't need such a highend $500 motherboard! A $150-200 one would suffice unless you really want dual gigabit networking, ATI Crossfire support, and high-end memory speed support and are keen to overclock immediately.

The E6600 processor on the other hand is very reasonable. Probably the sweet spot.

trog: www.computeralliance.com.au

pass

parabol: yeh, I prolly don't need that uber a motherboard, I guess I'll look around. Damn all this hardware frippery!

Aw, but the mobo is the most important part :P

Well, I just got that system last night with a 7600gt instead of a 7900gt and must say, f*** I am impressed. Being able to play oblivion on max is great.

If I didn't want (or have the extra dosh) to spend so much though, I'd probably still get that motherboard or more likely the chipset below. As I've done in the past, spend as much on my mobo as moneys would allow and then upgrade the rest later. Last motherboard (p4p800 deluxe) is still going hella strong, being gradually upgraded from a gf4 -> 6, more ram and a better cpu. I'm hoping this current mobo will last at least as long as the p4p yet still remain viable for a decent upgrade.

exemplar, if you don't mind, could you list out all the components you got (including like RAM and stuff) so I have some idea what I should be looking for? Thanks!

Also, what's a good case? I assume I need to get one with a 1.21 gigawatt power supply so to help destroy the environment.

I've been buying Antec Sonata cases for the last four years or so. Great build, reasonable price, and they come with a quality PSU.

So what if I got something like this:

Asus P5B-Deluxe-WIFI 775, CORE2EE, P965, 1066FSB, PCIEI6, AUDIO, GbLAN, ATX $329
Intel ATX E6400 CORE 2 DUO /2.13GHz/2MB CACHE/1066FSB/LGA775 $360
Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache) $259
Antec Top Quality Sonata II Quiet Black Case $175

Do I need DDR or DDR2 RAM? The motherboard review on Umart says I need to make sure I get ram from the "Qualified Vendor List" because it's quite twitchy about the RAM it uses (this was the problem I had with my last ASUS motherboard and why I was reluctant at the start of the thread; I had Kingmax (or some other good brand) RAM and still had problems).

last edited by trog at 17:32:08 30/Aug/06

Also, what's a good case?

Antec has good ones as mentioned, but I'll give a more generic reply.

Chances are the case won't have a good power supply (needs to be purchased separately), so you'd want the cheapest possible that allows good airflow.

Basically look for one that has a 120mm exhaust fan (or room for one) at the back, with either a 120mm intake fan at the front or smaller fan on the side (above CPU). Try to avoid cases that take only 80mm fans if possible.

Oh and Antec for power supplies!

Also, if you want to be on the lookout for any issues or 'gotchas' for the motherboard, asus has a pretty helpful [but slow] forum for this mobo:

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&board_id=1&model=P5B+Deluxe%2fWiFi-AP

Vic here just back up raven's recommendation of the Sonata so that sounds good to me. 450W, strewth.

Also, monitor-wise, I'm looking at the samsung 204b (I have one at work and it rocks). I can't find the dead pixel warranty info on the Samsung.com.au site though, anyone know what it is?

dead pixel waranty is , if you get dead pixels, you swap it with the one at work :p

exemplar, if you don't mind, could you list out all the components you got (including like RAM and stuff) so I have some idea what I should be looking for? Thanks!

I did, page 2 this thread (except down a video card, 7900-7600). IMO, if in doubt trawl the manual on the mobo maker's site.

We just got a new intel box to compare to our current workstations, preliminary benchmarks show it to be considerably better than the amd64 3800+ machines with same basic specs.

Intel E6600 2.4Ghz
Asus P5B
4Gb (4x1) 800Mhz DDR2
74Gb 10k Sata
160Gb Sata
256Mb 7900GT
Antec Lansing Lanboy case
Enermax 485W Power supply

Antec Lansing Lanboy case

Errr... Antec make cases and power supplies, *Altec* Lansing make speakers.

Yes.... I am also looking at buying a computer... I know what i want as i am making a computer for games.... but my problem is the case. as i am looking for nice which will fit everything in it without being so squashed... As i would like it to be able to fit at least 3 hard drives!!

stinky, cool that sounds like what I want, though scaled down a little bit - what brand RAM did you end up getting? Is it a stable configuruation?

dead pixel waranty is , if you get dead pixels, you swap it with the one at work :p

Yes, I meant specifically whether or not samsung have a zero dead pixel warranty for monitors :)

Antec aint so crash hot no more from what I've seen with their PSU's... could just be a bad batch but I've seen too many 500w smart power modular PSU's that are DOA recently.


I went with a Tagan 580w modular for my machine, can't say it was inexpensive but its silent and rock solid. Haven't ever seen one come back faulty either.


On pixels AFAIK Samsung offer a 3 year 0 dead pixel warranty, only company that does I believe. That was last time I checked so there is a chance it may have changed.

Hey trog...

If u wanna play some casual clan ET when u get your puter, I'm playing again this season with our clan that played seasons 1 2 and 3...

we want a few more peeps to fill the roster. gimme a yell if you're interested.
=)

I'm hearing bad things about the sanctity of the Antec Power supplies right now too rubba.

Might I make a suggestion? Try and find somewhere that sells "ACBel" power supplies. I will personally guarantee you will not be dissapointed with these power supplies. I previously worked for the Distie of these power supplies, and they had THE lowest failure rate on their ACBel Power supplies, and I would bet $100 that 1 in 100 power supplies would be the highest failure rate you will find on them.

Out of a batch of 2000 pieces, we had 19 power supplies sent back overseas faulty. The quality of these units is as such. These power supplies are load tested in the factory for NO LESS than 11 hours. All their power units are true-power. I'm currently running my AMD 3200+ with socket-939 board, and GF 6800GT on a 20-pin 300w ACBel True-power unit.

I swear to god, if you buy one, you'll never buy another brand again.


last edited by Moo at 00:23:40 31/Aug/06

trog I reckon you should get the 7900GT over the 7600GT, it's well worth the bux. You know you're gonna want the eye candy for ET Quake Wars ;)

orb, I was planning on getting a cheaper card at the moment (all I'm planning on playing is ET, Zdaemon and C&C Generals plus some other older RTS games) and upgrading video card for ETQW.

SLI another card later on if you want

fair enough trog, as long as you get something hot for ETQW, otherwise I will own you ;) Probably not that bad idea as you will probably be able to wait for a DX10 part cause that'll become increasingly important.

turn it up!

All I need to do now is figure out what RAM I need. STINKY REPLY DAMN YOU!

Trog, the asus site has a QVL or DV download link, qualified vendor list, look through that.

Oh sorry we got Geil RAM ... been getting it for well over a year and never had a problem with it! Corsair is great too. we get them in the 2Gb Twin packs to make sure the pairs match as well as possible. I've never been 100% sure if there's a real difference between getting the twin packs or getting single sticks.

benchmarks we did.. Intel E6600 vs AMD64 3800+ AM2

3dMark
intel: 5132
amd: 4848

Pi Calc ( 32Mb )
intel: 21m 27s
amd: 36m 34s

Any reason you benched those 2 in particular? the 3800+ is worth roughly half what the 6600 is.

A more comparable am2 chip woulda been the 5000+ imo - where both CPU's retail for around the same price $450-500 mark.



Seeing the 3800+ wasn't that far off in the gaming side bench I would really be interested to see how the 5000+ would stack up against the 6600.

for the monitor I would go a dell, I got hyped into them and got one and pretty impressed with it, one of the better ones out there on the par of samsung and the better brands

I need DDR2 RAM, yeh ? (or at least, I want it?)

Want to try and order this thingy tomorrow so I stop putting it off.

yeah you definately should get 800mhz DDR2.

The reason I benched the AMD 3800+ was because that's what we happened to have to bench. :)

lol thingy

Is a 10000 RPM SATA drive better than a 7200rpm SATA2 drive?

are you talking about the Western Digital Raptor series drives trog? If so, then yeah they're awesomely quick for a Windows drive. They excel in random access rather than sequential access, so are great for a swap drive / windows drive. Couple one of those with a high capacity 7200rpm drive for your large file storage and you'll have one quick machine.

orb, yeh, that's my plan. Here's what I have in my cart so far:

Microsoft Windows XP PRO (OEM)
DDR2 2048MB PC2-5300 667Mhz DDR2 Dual Channel(2x1024MB) GeiL
Western Digital 74G SATA Raptor 10000 rpm HDD(16Mb Cache)
Samsung 931BF 19 inch LCD Monitor 2ms
Intel ATX E6300 CORE 2 DUO /1.86GHz/2MB CACHE/1066FSB/LGA775
Asus P5B 775, CORE2EE, P965, 1066FSB, PCIEI6, AUDIO, GbLAN, ATX

Not 100% sure about the monitor; they don't have the one I want in stock so I don't know whether to suck down a different one or just wait until they have the one I want. Also just need to add in another HDD, still deciding how much space I want/need.

I guess I also need a DVD, so I'll chuck one of those in. Got a keyboard and mouse. Don't need a floppy. Anything else I've missed?

Not 100% sure about the monitor

Checked out the widescreen Viewsonic VX2025WM? ($549 @ Umart)

VX2025WM Specs
Umart link

It has very good specs, most importantly a very high viewing angle and good contrast ratio. Though the response time is a little higher than the LCD you were looking at. They come with a 30-day 0-dead-pixel warranty, but generally you should be able to swap it over at the store if there are any problems.

Viewsonic dead-pixel warranty
Samsung dead-pixel warranty

(For some reason the Samsung one seems out of date, as it's meant to be 3 years replacement)

Though there is some concern over how Samsung replaces their monitors (new or used), so you may wish to read this thread:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=581416

I've seen many an LCD over the years, but have been impressed by the high-end Viewsonics the most. I paid $700 for another model (VP930B) and just love the image quality. This is in contrast to a few low to mid-range BenQs I or my parents have purchased, where we got sick of the low specs after a week and wanted a better LCD.

last edited by parabol at 12:25:55 02/Sep/06

cool, ta for the info. I'm still leaning towards samsung cuz we've had a good run w/ them at work.

Thanks for all the advice everyone; prolly going to go ahead with the system I've described above. Wanted to try and order it today, but I dont want to assemble it myself so I assume it takes longer for umart to build it, so I'll prolly leave til monday.

Just bear in mind with the 10k rpm raptor drives, for obvious reasons they are going to run louder and hotter than a regular 7200rpm HDD.

They aren't that bad really but if you are one of those people that must have an ultra-mega-silent machine that makes no noise you probably will notice it :)

Cool, I hadn't thought of that. Not really too fussed on the noise factor. Will the case I'm getting be OK for the heat aspect?

yeah the sonata II is good at isolating drive noise and as long as you don't cram cables and s*** all around the drive you shoudn't have any heat issues.

I loathe the Sonata II from a building POV, that bigass vent that sits across everything is a big pain in the ass :)

Other than that its very nice and has plenty of room. Comes stock with a 120mm at the rear and has a spot to attach another 120mm just behind the HDD cage area. If you are getting a raptor slap a low speed 120mm there and it'll be sweet.

Is a 10000 RPM SATA drive better than a 7200rpm SATA2 drive

what the f***?


ya know, I just kinda took it for granted that at every MS/Intel/Amd shin-dig you were always in there somewhere getting your learn-on. I dunno what the hell Jim has been teaching you all these years duder but I've a good mind to put him over the the bosses our head-tech's knee. Or maybe Psycho!s

I've never been to an MS/Intel/AMD shindig, ever! I've been ignoring hardware except occasional passing interest in servers since my last PC purchase - P3 1ghz.

ya know this is kinda funny... little bro is one of those uber-100k a year it pro's who works for the fed govt. he runs around with an old pos p1 133 lappy that runs win98 (nah - he doesn't want se for some reason).


you guys should talk...

^ liar

Haven't read the whole thread, got as far as buy an iMac and decided it was all down hill from there :)

Intel have the lead in the $500+ CPU market, so if you need to play the latest games at 1000+ FPS you'll also need to spend close to $1000 on a vid card or 2.

If however you are like most sane people and find bleeding edge technology an expensive excess then there are good bargins to be had with P4 and AM2 single core processors or X2 and 1st gen intel Dual core 805D (if you can find one), and with the extra 100's of dollars you save can help buy a high end vid card or 30" monitor... :)