f13.net

Would yours look something like this:  http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200606.ars/3?

Or would you just go to Dell, slap on a 35% off coupon, and save yourself the hassle by getting the best Dimension they had available? 

Depends on what you want to use it for. I would not recommend a Dimension for gaming; I'd go for an Dell XPS if you're going to do that. However, you have to use a Pentium D to stay even remotely within the same price range as the above rig, and that's just sad.

Holy Fuck. 250GB HDD?!!? For $80!?!?

Zoinks.

Oh, yeah, I would definately build something like that if I was building a fresh system today.

Approximately. I'd go with an ASUS motherboard, NVIDIA GPU, and something like an Antec P150 case. I have both the non-bundled power supply version of the SLK 3800B and the P150 and while the SLK 3800B is a fine case the P150 is a better and quieter case design and it has a better (and quieter) power supply, though of course it's more expensive. I'd also get a heatpipe heatsink like a Zalman or a Ninja Scythe (though the Scythe can be a very tight fit in those Antec cases depending on the position of the CPU socket) which adds another $35 - $55 to the cost.

I've been building my own PCs since I got out of college so I definitely wouldn't go the Dell route.

I've only built one PC to date, but it was a sufficiently positive experience that I'll be doing it again.  It was only a few hours of work, and I ended up saving about a thousand dollars over buying a comparable Dell/Alienware machine.

Conroe hits in a few days.  You can either get one of those, or take advantage of the huge sales on the old chip machines they're going to be trying to unload.

building it insures quality parts across the board who knows where dell cuts corners on the parts it doesn't list. You can snag a 45% coupon every now and then which could change your mind though :o

Recently dropped $788 on a Dell Dimension E510 ($1187 before 35% off). This is my 'TV' machine so I skimped on the monitor because I have it plugged into an Infocus X2a. I've built systems for years but lately I can't beat Dell.

D Proc 930 Dual core 3Ghz 800FSB
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
17 inch E176FP Analog Flat Panel
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory
160GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache
Media Center Edition 2005
16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capability
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio+Keyboard+Mouse+Modem


That Ars page is messed up. It lists the ATI Radeon X1800XT 512MB and then gives a review and price for the hard drive? WTF.. where is the video price? I've seen Geforce 7800's on rebate for ~$219 so however much the X1800XT is, is probably too much.

An ABit board? What a fucking awful guide.

is an abit motherboard really that bad?  ars people usually seem to know what's up.

No it's not. They no longer have the "rep" they used to have when they were the overclocking pioneers (no jumpers? woohoo!) though they've been trying to regain some of that back with their Fatality line. ASUS and DFI are the top two "enthusiast's board" manufacturers right now, I would say, with others like ABIT, Gigabyte, and MSI just below them.

Edit: fixed typo

That's more or less how I'd go I think, without scouring the bleeding-edge to verify.  ASUS mobo, Crucial RAM, otherwise looks OK.  Personally I have had no probems with a Seagate after all these years, so I'll go with what I know and get a Seagate high-RPM SATA for a new boot disk (although WD has some sexy units).  I still have the same full tower case I have had for years, and I will keep my current PSU and media drives.  I have lately been thinking that I need to cowboy up and get away from the onboard sound, and $100 for a card seems reasonable.  The problem I have just now is that I will have to at least buy a mobo, CPU and GFX when I upgrade, which is even more unappealing since my 6800GT is still performing well in most situations.

I would not buy a Dell even with a coupon.  I might as well order a bride from Russia.  When other people ask me to build them a computer, though, I tell them that Dells are exactly what they need.

DFI sucks a lot too. Every one I know who has used a recent DFI board has had nothing but problems.

Asus is win, gg.

I love my ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (DD5.1 onboard hardware). I'm going to hate upgrading it, best mobo I've ever had.

A couple pcs back I was using ABIT and had lots of problems, but that was many years ago. My P2, 400 iirc, ran on a P2B board that died, then the replacement P2B died, and the P3B that was in it when I retired it was always buggy. I was going to use it as a server some years ago and it was never worth the hassle nor the cost of upgrading.

Crucial ftw, never had a problem with their RAM at home or work.

I have that exact board (the Abit KN8-Ultra) and have had 0 problems with it.  As a matter of fact, this is the first machine I've built that has actually exceeded my expectations.  I threw a AMD 4000+ San Diego, 1gb ram, 250gb sataII, and a eVga 7800gt in it.  I have never been happier with my computer.

I would not hesitate to build that machine.

Would look something like that for sure, I hate to say it though but I still can't bring myself to consider AMD.  If I bought one I would want to overclock it and that just isn't something I feel like dealing with.  So basically I'm waiting for there to be some hype about Intel making a chip that most people think doesn't suck for the price (if it ever happens again, if not AMD it is) before I build my next rig.  This one should last another 1-2 years though with a second gig of the top of the line memory it has now and possibly a video card upgrade (although I think I should be ok on that front).

I also have an A7N8X Deluxe, and I love it...I'm gonna miss it when I do an overhaul eventually, but hopefully the Asus board that takes its place will be even better.

Hoax, the Conroes look pretty nice. I'll probably jump into one of those next year if I can swing it. Not sure where the dislike for AMD comes from, my Barton has been a champ, and they've gotten much better since that.

Not dislike, just fear of the unknown.  I've watched some people do stupid things and fuck up cpu's/mobo's via overclocking but the first two times I built a rig not overclocking an AMD meant Intel was actually a better bang/buck ratio.  I'm not even sure if that is true anymore though.  I've heard that AMD has been gaining rapidly for some time now.

Well, it used to be the case that the mid-range AMDs were always better and cheaper than the Intel chips. Up until this new Conroe, the AMD top chip beat Intel's top chip, and for a lower price. Both are now stable chips. Back in the stone age, AMD was less stable and prone to splodin if you overclocked it, but that hasn't been true since the AMD 64s came out.

What's the best site that collects all the coupons and deals?  I had a sweet one bookmarked but I lost it.

I always buy from Newegg, coupon or not.

Fo' shilzzle.

 :thumbs_up:

I watch the TechBargains, Woot, and DealMeIn.net rss feeds.

edealinfo.com or something - there may a hyphen in there somewhere.

eDealinfo.com is a good one.

DealMeIn.net is good as well.

Slickdeals has gone to shit.

OK, here's my last question, would you rather have a 20 inch dell widescreen or a 20 inch dell reg monitor?  I'm going to pull the trigger tonight when I get back from work.  A 3.4 ghz/2gig ram/20 inch lcd monitor computer for a 1,000 bucks is too good a deal to pass up.  The vid card stinks, but I'll just buy a solid 150 dollar card and be done with it.

If you wait till the 27th for the new chips to hit you can get a faster machine for about the same money.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2/index.x?pg=18 (http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2/index.x?pg=18)

Go widescreen, you'll never go back.

I think that at the moment it is worth waiting for Core 2 Duo chips. Or you could just spend $1500 on a case and fill it with ice and beer.

I agree with the two previous posts. Of course, by widescreen I mean a big screen hdtv :P

That might push the PC past the $1500 mark.  Just maybe.

Well...there's a pc and then there are peripherals...

Yeah but is Dell gonna be selling these Core 2 Duos in Dimensions?

Sure, they'll replace the pentium Ds in there now.

Abit recalls. (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3443)

Doesn't surprise me really. I picked up a packaged Abit boxed motherboard at Fry's the other day and the thing was literally rattling in there.

That stupid Fatal1ty board has no fucking slots on it...Abit, lol.

Heh, just picked up a 4000+ 2gb 320gb sata with x800 shuttle for $550.

Yea, Shuttle is pretty awesome.

Which case did you get?

The one with the blue front.  Hell of a deal, just configuring it now for perma use on my tv.

Arg. Lightning hit the pole across the street, knocked out my cable modem and blew the phone lines to hell. Like I can unplug the power from the phone and the data line is pushing enough signal to play a dial tone through the speaker like it's possessed. Oddly, it somehow knocked out the LED on my subwoofer and something in my pc sound chain. Receiver seems to work fine, but no pc sound. I hope it didn't burn out my motherlovin' Dolby chip. It's not like they're around these days (RIP nForce2).

Might be new PC time, though I really need to wait out Conroe imo.

Get a UPS Sky. Its a combo clean power source (it charges a capacitor that then dispenses 'filtered' eletricity) and ironclad surge protector.

Oh, I know. I had a cheapo UPS on my tv. I'm putting a monster UPS (http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=SUA2200) on my gear (pc+tv) tonight.

Seems it entered via the subwoofer's power cable > receiver > mobo coax digital audio, only knocking out the pc audio and led on the sub. Very odd, but in my experience lightning strikes are very odd like that, they can pass right through a bunch of stuff without damaging it.

Good god man, that's a 50 kilo 2000 Watt UPS! You could power entire server banks with it!

The power supply is only clean if you get the double-conversion type.  Under normal powered conditions, a line-interactive UPS must use a separate surge protector.  Of course, the double-conversion units are damn expensive.

So you're saying that an 'ordinary' UPS neither provides a steady (or clean) power source nor protects against electrical surges? What the hell are they for then?

I'm only saying that it probably doesn't work the way you think it does.  The ones that have your machinery run from battery, totally isolated from input power all the time, are the double-conversion kind.  Those are the best ones, but they cost.  The line-interactive ones have the battery in parallel instead of series, and you run off of the power grid until it goes poof and you are switched to the battery.  So these UPS contain a surge protector as well.  I priced up some double-conversion units a while back... too rich for my blood.  Hard to find, too.

Well, you see, the thing is, I had dirty power over at my old home. Older building, old wireing, you get the picture. So I bought this UPS since I was tired of fried motherboards. They get expensive after a while. The UPS I bought, for something around 90 bucks, had this software meter that showed me an output of what was going in, and what was going out. And behold, crud was indeed coming in, with voltage fluctuations and wierd ass spikes whenever my upstairs neighbors decided it was bust-a-move time with Run DMC. The software also reported a nice steady and clean flow of electricity out of the UPS and indicated that it compensated for voltage fluctuations coming into the UPS.

It may have been a line-interactive connection, and as you say, the back-up power source only turned on when there was indeed a full on short of some sort, but I think that somewhere in the mix its a bit better than a simple back up and cheap ole surge protector. For one, normal surge protectors are only glorified fuses. They blow when a serious spike occurs. This UPS shut down if it detected voltage fluctuations over 110% for over 60 seconds and 130% for over 30 seconds and immediate shut down if in excess of that. That's something that a surge protector won't do, and its what kept me from frying more PSUs and Motherboards.

Stupid Question Time:

If I'm going to be cleaning the gunk off my cpu/heatsink, should I disconnect the power from the PSU? I've always recieved conflicting answers on this.

If I'm going to be cleaning it, should I remove it from its mobo slot? Will this do anything funky with my OS when I re-insert it? Should power be disconnected when I do this?


I haven't touched the CPU in about 4 years, since I first installed it.

:-D Almost killed me lugging it upstairs in the heat and humidity yesterday.

First of all, its advised that you buy a static protection wrists strap. This is basically a little strap around your wrist that you clapm onto a piece of metal (not the computer!) that grounds you and prevents micro static discharges that can harm delicate components in the computer.

As far as leaving the power cord plugged in and connected to the PSU, I have heard different stories, but in the end, I don't think it amounts to too much, since an ESD from you won't be affected by wether the thing is plugged into the wall or not; the charge is too small.

As long as the power is off on your PSU (no small light on your motherboard) then taking out the cpu while cleaning the cooling system shouldn't mess up your system at all. But I don't think you need to remove the CPU, just the fan. At least in most cases that's true. Also, remember, the 'gunk' on your CPU might also be thermal paste, so be damned sure you reapply it after you're done. Remember, spread the paste evenly on the cpu in a fine film, not butter on toast. But also be sure to have all parts of the cpu's contact with the fan covered with the paste or you get no heat transfer in spots, and that's just as bad.

Where can you get such a wristband....Radio Shack?

Pretty much anyplace that sells computer hardware should have them.

How is your TV treating you hat? You still love it as much as I love mine?

Oh yeah, Xbox 360 looks AMAZING on our TV.

So....does that mean Best Buy? There are surprisingly few places around here that sell hardware.

Yep (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6307463&type=product&productCategoryId=cat08042&id=1074787928256).

Ok..if I get that, then my next problem will be finding a grounded piece of metal to attach it to...I really cannot think of anything.

Most folks I know that use them just clip it to the inner frame of the PC case.

But but but Engels said not to!

You need to be clipped to a ground connection.  If the PC is plugged in, typically the case is 'pseudo' grounded through the case of the power supply.
UL requires that the outside of the power supply have a low impedance path to ground through its chassis (which means a wire from the power supply case to the
bottom lug of the three pin power cord as it enters the power supply), which means that so long as it is plugged in, and screwed into your case through the mounting flanges, then the case is likely grounded as well.  I say 'pseudo' because some frames are plastic, or are painted which means that you aren't guaranteed a ground connection.  For ESD purposes it's likely ok though.

ESD events happen because your body ends up with a huge charge from moving over surfaces, and if you touch a grounded component you form a path for
charge to ground from your body through the component.  If you ground yourself to a *known* ground connection, you cannot build up charge (and any charge
you happen to have will be shunted to ground when you connect the clip), and any grounded component and you are guaranteed to be at the same level.

This is an oversimplification of the process but I think it gets the point across.

I rebuilt my system from the ground up last month after my AGP card died:


Antec Sonata II Black ATX 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case                                                                                   $114.41 
BFG GeForce 7900 GT OC PCI-E 256MB 256BIT GDDR3 SLI Ready Video Card  1                                                $315.88 
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Processor Socket AM2 Orleans 2.2GHZ                                                                         $138.90 
ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe ATX AM2 Nforce 570 SLI 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 Sound GBLAN 1394 Motherboard   $172.78   
 
 SUBTOTAL: $741.97
  PST(7%): $51.94
  GST (7%): $51.94
  TOTAL: $845.85

Also added a 250 GB hdd for $100, 2 GB of Mushkin DDR2 (the cheaper OCZ Ram didn't work with the mobo) for about $220, and
a Viewsonic VX2025WM 20IN LCD Monitor BLACK/SILVER Widescreen 1680X1050 8MS 800:1 for about $410.

Was my first AMD, and I have to say, its the smoothest running, quietest system I've had yet.

Oh, and I'll add one to the list of people that will never willingly use a 4:3 monitor again.




ALL PRICES IN CANADIAN DOLLARS 

I'm going to try and hold off for a mid-level Conroe and o/c it to hell and back. Or I might just go for AM2 jobbies. It's a pretty good time to be considering a new system, at least.

As far as my immediate problem, I think a new sound card will hold me over for a while (until Conroe is a bit more available, anyway). My problem is that I have been totally spoiled by my Soundstorm chip! I need a digital coax or toslink that can do DD5.1.

The two options, as far as I can see in this narrow niche, are as follows:

The Auzentech X-Plosion (http://www.auzentech.com/products_xplosion.html). Does DD5.1 onboard, digital coax and toslink on the card. I've heard some reports of buggy game performance, but some are saying newer drivers have cleaned most of those up (like BF2). There also seem to be some odd issues with the DD stream not always being active, with odd workarounds. But this could be the spiritual successor to the almighty Soundstorm... About 120 bones.

The Creative Route. This will end up being a cobble. It would be an X-Fi (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14066&nav=technicalSpecifications) as the sound card. Then I'd need a DTS-610 (http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=14191) to redigitize the stream for my receiver, which doesn't have analog inputs. I'm not sure what that means for DD5.1 passthrough from movies, but sounds like a double conversion (DAC-ADC). I've also heard rumors of delay issues with this setup from the conversion process, which would be unacceptable. In fact, looking over ins/outs...the X-Fi has a single triax miniconnector out and the DTS-610 has the old 3xcoax miniconnector in. Blah. About 210 bones.

Right now I'm leaning toward the Auzentech, but I'm a bit leery of tech I've never heard of previously. Anyone got any info to share on either setup, or advice otherwise?

Not being an audiphile, I find it impossible to distinguish between onboard sound and X-fi.

So...leave the case plugged in, but PSU switched off, and clip on to the PSU bolts or something?

BTW, my case is full aluminum if that helps any. I really don't want to try something while doing the minor maintenance of re-applying heat compound and replacing fans.

The case should be good if its a metallic case. I just said not to before because then you have to be sure that the case is metallic, that it wasn't some homebrew nonsense, that the fellow remembers that he has to keep it plugged in. Its just easier to tell folks that they should ground it on something other than the computer. A lamp with a grounded cable, a fin on a wall heater, just about anything that'll wick static away from you. You can even do a test to see if its working: get a balloon, rub it on your head, and if your hair stands up from it, you're not grounded.

So, in summary, to change a CPU fan, you have to:

a) strap on a bracelet,
b) rub a ballon on your head,
c) connect the bracelet to a grounded piece of metal
d) ask your wife if your hair is standing up
e) prevent her from calling the men in the white coats
f) proceed with changing the cpu fan

Rubbing a balloon on your head to see if you have static electricity strikes me as being about as productive as shooting yourself in the foot to see if you're bleeding.  But the other steps are good, clarifying that by "bracelet" he means one of those anti-static bracelets, and change "hair" in step d to other favored body parts.

Something else I hear works is to simply touch the case with both hands.  The idea is that it drains your staticelectric charge into the case before you start handling the components.  Granted, this would be rather electrifying if the computer were plugged in and not grounded properly.

The ESD risk is over-blown, I've been working on these things since 1987 and never had any issues.  Just touch the power supply or chassis when you get started, or if you have leave the workarea and come back.  And don't be standing on a carpet or other static-creating material.

And unplug the computer before you work on it, ATX power supplies provide a constant low voltage.  You don't want those circuits powered when you are messing with them.

Uhm, aside from the fact that I was making a funny, the whole point of the exercise would be to see if the ESD bracelet, brought into the conversation 2 posts down from the first post, was working.

Not to mention that if the computer is not grounded properly, and you do have static, you've basically done exactly what you were trying to prevent!


ESD risk -is- overblown, except for that one time in 10 that you do fry something. As for not having the thing plugged in, I think you mean having the PSU turned off. Older models that didn't have an actual switch on the PSU would do that, yes, but keeping the PSU plugged in and turned off provides a safe ground, as mentioned previously by Miguel.

Well with over 30 years in electronics I gotta throw in my 2 cents.
!. ESD is an unlikely event, but it does happen and is worth avoiding. Dry air, working on carpet are things that help cause static.
2. If your PS is plugged into a 3 prong outlet and your ground spike hasn't been eaten by the lawn mower or whatever then yes an unpainted screw on your case will ground you. Plan B in this case is metal water pipe.
3. The ESD strap can go bad. If you have a ohmmeter or multimeter it should read 1 to 10 megaohm. Do not ever use a low impedance device to ground your self. Ive heard of  a budding genius that have used a wire to ground themselves. Please don't do this.
4. I would normally not worry about ESD when plugging in cards on a computer but for cleaning the thermal goo on CPU I'd advise it

Hal speaks the truth!  ESD is typically only seen on unmounted chips.  Once you mount a chip to a board the likelyhood of ESD is reduced dramatically, because ESD events rely on charging the very small capacitances of the pins very quickly in order to damage the chip inside the package.  Once the device is mounted, this becomes much more unlikely because the capacitance of the pin is added to that of the board, requiring a LOT more charge for the same thing to happen.  So you don't have to worry too much when dealing with cards like DIMM's, video cards, etc.  It's mainly the processor that is vulnerable.

When I was working at AMD it was quite common to see returned processors that were toasted by ESD events, and I've seen it done frequently on other chips in the lab.  However when viewed from the perspective of total number of returns, ESD damage was pretty low on the list.  The vast majority were heat damage. ;)

None of the handful of home theater guys we have here have any feedback on that sound card? It looks pretty cool. I'm going to sleep on the decision over the weekend, I guess I'll be giving feedback sometime next week :) I just wish I could hold out until they ship their newer card (xpurity), but apparently that might not be until december, and I don't think I could stand xbox gaming until then!

I'm thinking in a few months I'll be building a C2D E6600 (o/c to 3.6GHz) DDR2 800 system. Hopefully I can find a Tuniq Tower T-120 by then. Probably that nVidia card that has two cards on a single slot and an Antec P-180 case. Just my first thoughts on a system.

Kinda topical, since it shouldn't run much more than $1500.

I once bought an unknown brand soundcard.  It was fine for a couple of years but the company stopped supporting it about the same time alot of games looked for EAD support.  It was supposed to run EAD but it crashed practically everytime.  I was purely using it for gaming so my experience might not be indicative of a higher end no-name audio card manufacturer.

For home use, line-interactive UPSes are usually good enough. Line-interactive means that the UPS will switch to the battery if the voltage drops too low (aka a "brown out") and will clamp the voltage if it gets to high (like a "mini surge"). These sorts of UPSes are typically labeled with "AVR" as in "Automatic Voltage Regulation" as opposed to standby UPSes that only kick in if the power goes out. AVR UPSes aren't like a double-conversion UPS where you are always getting a constant voltage cause there's a threshold before it kicks in the battery or clamps down the voltage (though some allow you to adjust that threshold) and I think all the cheaper AVR UPSes use a square wave voltage output and not a pure sine wave one like the more expensive UPSes use.

Edit: fixed typos

Bleh, one last question regarding thermal paste application: what do you usually use to spread it into a nice, thin layer? Some people have said stuff like q-tips and such, but I would worry that the cottony bits that would come off would screw with stuff - what happens when that cotton really heats up, stuck between the heatsink and CPU?

Do not use a Q-tip -- that would be very bad.

If your tube of thermal paste didn't come with an "applicator" use a thin plastic card with a very smooth edge. A credit card will work but something a little more flexible (but not too flexible) like, say, a plastic library card, will work better. If the applicator is too stiff it tends to "scrap" the paste rather than spread it. In a pinch you can even use an edge from a piece of plastic packaging -- for example the plastic "holder" from an Athlon 64 CPU works (that's what I used for my last CPU install).

The main thing about thermal paste application is to use as little as possible. Put a very small drop at first and take the time to spread it out.

But how thin is too thin?

One angstrom is too thin.

It depends on how smooth and flat the base of the heat sink is -- the smoother and flatter it is, the less thermal paste you will need. Smoothness is easy to check since the smoother it is the more mirror-like the reflection coming off of the base will be. You can search on "lapping" and "heat sink" to learn more about this sort of stuff. Personally I don't lap my heat sinks (I can be fumble fingered at times and would probably make it worse rather than better) and instead spend some extra money to buy a heat sink I know will already come with a very smooth finish such as those made by Zalman.

Heh.

And thanks Trippy. I'm using an older Thermaltake Volcano9-series heatsink+fan, so the heatsink's finish should be fairly good, especially after I clean it up.

When I built the thing 4 years ago, I probably just globbed some on and forced it flat...I'll be able to tell you how bad it was tomarrow.  :-D

How thin is to thin? You want some everywhere but not much anywhere. To actually try to do this work try to spread a thin layer everwhere and then rub the heatsink into the processor (you are trying to fill small gaps that you cant see). There is a metal plate for the processor and there may be some other stuff, you do not want paste on the other stuff. Its one of those easy to do but hard to describe kinda things.

But if I rub the heatsink in, won't that smear the paste, and psosibly leave gaps in the CPU/heatsink interface?

Any place where the heatsink would normally contact the heat spreader/die on the CPU you do *not* want any thermal paste there. That's because the paste does not conduct heat as well as a pure metal on metal contact. You do want the paste to fill in the "gaps" between the heatsink and the heat spreader/die because the paste is a better conductor of heat than air (assuming you have good quality thermal paste). If both surfaces are very smooth and flat then the gaps will mostly be of the nonvisible kind (i.e. at the microscopic level).

When you attach the heatsink to the CPU the force of the attachment will naturally "squeeze out" the paste so that the metal on the metal contact points should be devoid of paste assuming you didn't use too much to begin with so "rubbing" isn't necessary if you have a thin relatively even layer covering the entire heat spreader/die. You would need to rub it if you just plopped on a drop of paste and then didn't spread it out somehow first.

Hmm...I don't my CPU has a heat speader or anything...just a flat surface on top (XP 2700+).

So wouldn't I just cover the entire top of the CPU?

Yes, that's the die.

But you said Not to cover the die! durka

ok, this is getting a bit too anal. This shit just isn't that complicated.


------------------------------------- <- fan heat sink surface
------------------------------------- <- CPU shiny metallic surface, known as the die

Put a thin thin layer of goop on the CPU die so that you can be sure that there's virtually no purely metal-on-metal contact. As mentioned before, all metal-on-metal contact is not 'true' contact, due to air particles, and hence, bad heat condutivity. Do not put so much on that the heat has trouble traversing the goo to the heat sink. It should be near microscopic.

As long as you follow these basic guidelines you should not have a conductivity problem, even if you do not do it perfectly.

Sorry, I just really don't wanna fuck up, then have to get a new CPU, reinstall OS, etc etc etc. I've dealt with hardware plenty of times...just never really the CPUs themselves (my buddy delt with it when I built the system originally). That being said...

(http://users.rowan.edu/~astill71/pics/00033231.jpg)

I honestly don't even remember my CPU looking like that. I just remember a blank surface.

i r not 1337

In that particular picture, yes, that is the die. But not all CPUs don't look like that; some have a much wider die/ heat spreader area, covering the whole CPU surface. Here's an online guide I found from a compound manufacturer. If you scroll down, you will see various CPU types and their various die types.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

Edit: Here's an explanation about why thin is important: http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/5,62.html

BURN!
 (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xf0VuRG7MN4)

Didn't see this site mentioned but it's saved me some cash once in a while.

www.salescircular.com basically puts all the recent best buy, circuit city, etc. items together in one place. You just have to make sure you're good with following rebate instructions and documenting EVERYTHING twice before sending in a rebate so the cockmonkeys don't try to screw you over and deny the rebate.

Just a heads up:

Best Buy is having a back to school coupon sale thingy.  They're giving out coupons that can save up to 30% (if the best buy store is business segmented) on computer accessories.  These work in conjunction with instant rebates.

Example:  Last week BB had a sale on a 500GB external HDD from WD, it was $199.99 after an instant rebate.  Less 30%, you can see the goodness.

So you actually have to go in to the store to get the coupon?

Can you remind me why you are doing the OS install?  Otherwise you should listen to the advice already given.  The Important Thing is that your heatsink be flush with the die (shiny part of CPU) since that will give the best conduction.  The paste really saves you countless hours of polishing both surfaces to a perfectly-flat mirror finish and attaining perfect alignment.  Also, you don't want to get it on anything other than the die.  I spread with my finger and remove the excess, also with a finger.  I would not advise removing the CPU but I don't know what your case looks like.  If you can just get the HSF out without removing anything else, do that.  In my case, I have to take out the mobo in order to unbolt the HSF, which sucks a lot.  Next HW upgrade, I plan to empty the chassis and take a Dremel to it, making holes in convenient locations such as under the CPU.

As for ESD, I haven't had any detectable issues with it, simply by discharging into the chassis and not being a dumbass.  Being the same voltage as the machine should eliminate undesired transfer of electrons.  If you want to worry about ESD, I'd also be paranoid about curling a CPU pin.  Those things are really soft, so be careful.

No I did not.

Uhm, ya sorta did:


Which is sort of impossible advice to follow, since there's no way of telling what parts of the metal are making contact and what parts aren't. Even if somehow they were making contact, there's still a very small gap inbetween metal and metal that should be occupied by a thin film of thermal paste.

Well sure, if you don't read my entire post you might get confused. I said you do not want any paste where you would normally get metal on metal contact. I did not say you shouldn't apply thermal paste -- that would've contradicted my original answer to his question.

I'll requote everything here again.


The purpose of the first paragraph was to emphasize that less paste is better (which I talked about in the first two post). The second paragraph explains how the attachment of the heatsink to the CPU will "push out" the excess paste assuming you don't use too much to begin with leaving as much metal to metal contact as possible.

The problem is is that Strazos keeps asking follow up questions which is just confusing him more. If he just followed my original advice we wouldn't be continually talking about to how to apply thermal paste to a heat spreader/die -- it's really not all that difficult.

Edit: Requoted and edited.
 

This conversation looks like guys trying to tell a novice how to mud drywall, but only in text.  It's not something you really need to over-analyze or think a lot about.

Durr, well this did not go very well at all.

Got all the fans installed. Took off the HSF, and cleaned up the mating surfaces. Dropped on a tiny dolop of Arctic Silver, and reattached the HSF.

Apparently incorrectly.

It looked like it was on straight. The clip were engaged. Everything loked good, until I tried to boot up.

First I couldn't POST, then I could, but Windows would not load. After a lot of putzing around with BIOS, I eventually see that the system keeps shutting itself off because the poor CPU was crying out in agony from heat...the heat the HSF/grease was supposed to take care of.

After more screwing around with the HSF that I haven't really liked since the day I got it, I eventually just went got and a new, smaller HSF combo...one that works, and doesn't require 100lbs of force to attach to the board.

On the plus side, my PC no longer sounds akin to a jet engine. A few people here have probably inadvertantly heard my PC over teamspeak. It was loud, but now it's whisper quiet, and holds at about 50-some degrees C.

This shit just reminds me of working on a car...it's a pain in the balls sometimes.

Glad you got it sorted, Strazos. 50 C is a great temp for an Athschlong XP.

I totally agree. It's why I don't have a side business. It's why I'm not really much of an enthusiast any more, my idea of a fun pc build is one that works without problems. I used to be into the troubleshooting aspect (it's why I'm pretty good at it), but after working on them professionally for the last six years, I just want shit to work.

For me, it's not so much the volume as the pitch. I won't use a fan smaller than 8cm. My next pc is going to be all 12cm fans, case and cpu, though I'm probably going to stick with whatever gpu solution comes stock since I don't really want to dick with liquid cooling.

Got in the Auzentech card, it's a mixed bag. Both DD5.1 and DTS work great, though there's some oddity where you have to enable the kareoke feature to keep the DTS "live". Otherwise, short sounds like windows sounds get the first part cut off as DTS activates. Odd, but there's a workaround, so no bigge.

I first loaded up BF2, got some stuttering in the voice-over stuff, and a couple graphic anomalies (slow, lag), but I'm not sure if that's due to the sound, the network connection or server (most likely) or my older cpu/gpu. I won't have a good feel for it until I play on several more servers.

Next up was Oblivion. Motherfuck. Short popping as it loaded a save game didn't bode well, but didn't prepare us (my girl was reading a book right next to a speaker) for the high pitched screeching unleashed once in the game. There's some bad bug in there, and I couldn't figure it out in the half-hour I spent on it. I was steaming a bit by then, and not just from the heat.

GTA:SA worked great, though the music tracks would only play in stereo. The rest of the game was fine. Threw in HoMaMV, worked flawlessly. Installed Freedom Force vs 3rd Reich, worked flawlessly.

Too early to call, but the bugs with Oblivion aren't making me real happy. I'll have to see if I can figure that shit out. I already miss my Soundstorm chip, who'd ever have thought I'd miss onboard sound? But with everything else working pretty good, I can't knock the card too hard, because it does sound good. I'll have to test music and dvd at some point, too. I'll update for the home theater gamers here.

Dumb and Obvious question, but did you patch Oblivion?

It is?  I start pulling on my collar at 40C.  But I'm a freak.

For an Athlon XP its great; the whole reason Straz hadda do this is because those chips run too hot to start with. 50 isn't too bad period, tho, even for later chips.

I still gets hotter under load, but at least now it doesn't spike to 90c before the mobo emergency circuit kicks in and shuts the whole thing off.

Unfortunately, Guild wars still gets a hair up its ass about my CPU temp, and likes to jump in every now and then and tell me so.

Guildwars tells you about your cpu temp? Or running guildwars overheats your cpu and your system tells you so?

The lesson, as always, is that Guild Wars sucks balls.

Nope, Guild Wars closes itself down, brings up a dialog box AND a website telling me I have a problem. Pretty annoying.

Woops. Problem wasn't patched, though. Still completely unplayable.

BF2 seems to be having issues that seem like they are IRQ-related. Problem is, the PCI slots on my mobo are either 11 or 5, and 11 is the onboard networking, 5 is the AGP. Winders reallocates them to place nicely (nothing is shared), but I can't seperate them in the BIOS (that I could see, it's been a while since I dicked with IRQs).

I'm not sure if it's a driver issue, or if I'm missing something. I did a proper install (remove drivers, disable onboard sound in BIOS, install hardware, install drivers from web). Not being able to play Oblivion or BF2 has me seriously considering an RMA. Fuck.

That is very odd, in this day and age. Have you tried resetting the Bios to factory defaults? If that doesn't work, try doing a 'repair' on your OS. Not the one that asks you for floppy disks. Its the second step, once you have told the install disk that you want to install, it will detect the OS, and ask if you want to try to repair it. Do that. It essentially whipes the entire driver base and reinstalls it all, without erasing existing installed programs. It doesn't always work, but I've reinstalled images from one computer onto another computer with entirely different hardware using this method.

I got BF2 running a bit better by dialing back the sound to Medium ingame. I'm not happy about that, but at least it's playable. Oblivion is a lost cause as of now. I don't really want to do a reinstall/repair, it always seems to be a hassle with my old XP key and I don't feel like shelling out another hundred+ for another key. OSX ftw, fucking activation motherfucking MS. Oops, I ranted.

Anyway, I don't really have any other option that I can see with my current setup. I'd have to go buy a new receiver with analog inputs to use Creative's stuff, and that's not really going to happen imo. Hopefully whatever the incompatibility/issue is will be solved when I build a new pc next year, since I haven't really found these problems listed on the web and people have been using the card with BF2 and Oblivion.

Can I borrow your copy of Oblivion then?

(http://www.f13.net/images/necropost.gif)

An Corp!

Bored this morning, I jotted down my initial idea for a new pc. It'll change before I build it next Februaryish, but I'll throw it out here anyway:

Core 2 Duo E6600 cpu
Zalman CNPS9500 hs/fan
ASUS P5WDH Deluxe mobo
2GB OCZ 2P10002GK DDR2 1000 ram
eVGA 7950GX2 gpu
Antec P180 case
FSP Group FX700-SCN 700W psu
WD Raptor 150GB OEM hd
Creative X-Fi + DTS-610 sound
XP MCE os

About $2300. I wish RAM prices would depress a bit.

OCZ is garbage, use something else.

I was going to just use crucial like I always do, but they are only listing their Ballistix (or whatever it is) at $550 vs $375 for the OCZ stuff. RAM is ridiculous right now, and will probably be one of the things changing before I buy. Thanks for the input, I was wondering about that. I got the idea for the OCZ stuff from anadtech.

You get what you pay for.  Especially from Taiwan.

Good point. I had hoped to build it for $2000, now it's looking like $2500. It will be a pretty nice rig, though. We'll see what happens with kentsfield and dx10 parts, but right now I don't think I'll be doing Vista for a while. I really wanted to slap 4GB RAM in, but not with current prices. I also want a fat data drive or a striped array, but again, trying to keep costs down. I can't believe how expensive RAM is right now.

Looking at that price, I thought about getting a pre-built machine. A similar Dell would run me $3100 and I'd be getting slower RAM and HD, and still have to buy the Creative DTS-610 home theater hookup.

Make sure that thing has long enough cables.

That's my concern with the p180. Slick looking case, but odd layout. I might swap in another case choice, too. I was looking at a nice htpc case but it's over $100 more.

It's an ATX version of the Intel BTX layout which Intel developed to try and combat the high temperatures the Prescott CPUs were generating.

I have the p-180, and an antec PSU and the cables are long enough. The only cable that presents a problem is the 4 socket power cable that has to extend from the bottom of your case to the very top of your case; its impossible to tuck it in anywhere, since it just isn't long enough to do that; it just sort of drapes over the top of your video card and over your cpu. It doesn't cause an air flow issue, just doesn't look great. But who cares, since the case isn't transparent.

I personally love the case because it has the ability to fit in five 12 cm fans, six if you're insane. It makes for a loud machine, but my GPU, a 7950 like your own, stays very cool on account of two in-line 12 cm fans blowing on it. This confituration is noisy, I must add, despite the machine having good sound insulation.

A nice thing I have found that I do like about the p-180 is that it has filters for the front two fan slots. This really has kept my interior cleaner than ever before.

I am looking at getting a very simaler system. You could cut your price down a tad by going to a different hard drive. You could get a 74 raptor, and then get a large second drive for storage.

I tried OCZ on my latest build which was a new Asus MB - whatever the latest socket type is for AMD. Would not work at all. Kept getting bad RAM warning beeps. After some swapping and playing around with the techs at the store, turns out the OCZ wouldn't read on that MB at all.

Gave up and paid the extra $80 for some Mushkin.

This thread shall be my legacy that endures long after I am gone.

When you put it like that, I'll start a new thread.

I was planning to build a Conroe/PCI-E/DDR2 system to replace my P4/AGP/DDR machine. But I found this crazy Conroe mobo (http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm) that has AGP and PCI-E slots, DDR and DDR2 slots, etc. So I've just rebuilt my existing PC on that and now it's a Conroe with DDR333 RAM and an AGP 6800GS :) Sounds wrong, but it works well.

So far I've only played BF2 and (NDA) on it. Big boost to both and BF2 now runs mostly above 100fps, bottoming out at 70fps in a massive firefight. Obviously it doesn't perform like a totally new Conroe machine, but it's not a dead end like most cheap upgrade paths. I'll wait for a DX10 card and 2Gb of DDR2 at the right price next year to bring the machine up to scratch.

Total cost was A$333 (US$255) for CPU and motherboard. Seems more than enough bang for buck, even if it is Frankenstein's monster:

Core2Duo E6300 (to be overclocked in future)
1Gb DDR 333
6800GS 512Mb AGP 8x
Sound Blaster X-Fi
120Gb SATA master, 160Gb ATA/133 slave, 300Gb ATA/133 slave
DVD-RW drive
420W Antec PSU
Lian Li PC60+ case

Let us know how that mobo goes. If it works well, its a great deal for those peeps that aren't ready to upgrade their GPU to a PCI-E card just yet.

Yeah, that does sound like a good deal, I'm surprised there haven't been a slew of them given the hard upgrade path. I mean, when we had VESA local you could buy a machine with that and PCI. When we had PCI, you could buy a machine with that and AGP. I think this is the first time since I got into modular pcs (486 era) that you couldn't bridge generations (well, until now).

I'm still planning to build a new pc, though. Reading some Valve stuff, I'm really leaning toward kentsfield. Reading some dx10 stuff, I'm leaning toward a dx10 part (though not at vista for a while). Feb/Mar, my original timeline, is looking pretty dern good.

Que es kentsfield?

2xCore 2 Duo cores in a single package = Core 2 Quad (Kentsfield is the codename).

The Valve article:
http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2868

Nvidia's new chipset:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2869

Nvidia's G80 with some dx10 stuff:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870

Yeah, spent some time on anand's site today, heh. Good reads, though.

Re the Asrock 775Dual-VSTA motherboard.


Two days' solid gaming so far, left it on overnight doing torrents. Played FEAR on it yesterday, liquid smooth. A guildie and his housemate both also got this motherboard earlier in the week. All of us are happy and Conroe-ing away with our DDR and AGP.

There's a 28-page thread (http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1896616&frmKeyword=&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear) in the Anandtech forums, also with mostly positive reports. The crazies who install every new BIOS update as soon as it comes out are reporting some bugs with the most recent downloadable BIOS, but if you apply the "ain't broke, don't fix it" rule and don't upgrade the BIOS unless absolutely necessary, that shouldn't bother anyone.

Anandtech also used the board to test DDR vs DDR2 for Conroe (http://=http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810) and concluded: "the choice of components like the CPU, motherboard, or graphics card is far more important to the overall performance of the system than our memory selection on this platform. While this is not surprising and certainly not unexpected, it just reinforces the fact that at this price point you can certainly extend the life of your existing DDR memory." They also recommended it in an overall Conroe motherboard review (http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797&p=1) as follows: "The ASRock is not the system to grow to top video with, but if screaming value is what you want the ASRock can deliver."

I've always been a fan of stepping up to the low end of a new generation of technology, rather than the high end of the previous generation. Ever since people bought expensive high-clock 486 DX2s instead of low-end Pentiums, then had to buy a new PC for Quake (no floating point). My Pentium 75 pwned them. And I ran a Celeron 300A at 466MHz for three years, which benched higher than a far more expensive 450MHz Pentium II which had double the cache, so I'd rather overclock an E6300 than buy any faster Core2Duo. Due to video cards doing so much of the work, the difference between an E6300 and E6700 will look negligible in six months anyway, even without an overclock.

I've always been about building a relatively high-end machine with the most mature product possible. That puts some flies into the ointment if I want to build early next year since there's a slew of great new, but not mature, tech on the market. I was the guy with the 486 DX2. Then a Pentium 200, a PII 400, etc. My main reasoning for kentsfield is that it looks like Valve is going to push their tech in a really good direction and the multicore console generation means that multicore is it, and Valve's stuff is going to scale to more than two cores. And the dx10-era video cards look to be real beautiful cards.

I've known a lot of people that have done well by tweaking lower end hardware, C300a is obviously the best scenario there's ever been, until e6300, anyway. But I've never done wrong building monster machines, so I'll stick with that. In fact, I remember one guy who was in the C300a camp mocking me for loading up my PII machine with (128MB, iirc) RAM. "You won't need more than 64MB!" I've never been disappointed by loading my pc with more RAM than anyone thinks I'll ever need. If it wasn't so expensive right now, I'd have 4GB specced as minimum.

Downside is, this will be the most expensive pc I've built since I bought my first one (I didn't build my 486), because it's 100% new parts, rather than carrying over the gpu/drives. Damned tech hump.

See, the problem is you have too many cooks in the kitchen. It will probably be a year from now when a chipset for a quadcore is mature. Nvidia is just now making a chipset that will work dynamically with the Core2Duo. Lets assume that its on the shelves by January, it'll take another four months before all the serious BIOS patches are in. Then it'll be mature-ish. Of course, in the mean time, AMD will have pulled another rabbit out of its hat and the race will take a new turn.

A thing to bear in mind, from reading that great Valve article, is that programming to take advantage of 2 CPUs, much less 4, takes an entirely new approach to programming. Valve can do it, I have no doubt, but will that knowledge be proliferated enough amongst other gaming programmers for upcoming games in the next couple of years? My instinct is that it won't be. Valve is head and shoulders above 90% of game companies this way.

I'll concede that it will be a couple years before multicore computing with the Source engine is mainstream. Valve is the new id, imo, they're going to be the ones utilizing and driving hardware like id used to, with a big impact because of engine licensing. But my concession comes from the fact that it'll take a while for those licensed engine games to be developed.

But...we also have both of the new consoles being multicore, and the 360 being rather pc-like. Since there's a lot of cross-platform titles already, I can't help but think that enabling pc multithreading is far away. Of course, balancing that is the fact that pc market penetration is slow.

I dunno, I guess I'll see what the next kentsfield announcement holds, not sure I want to buy the bleeding top edge, anyway. I'm sure a C2D e6600 would be a great cpu, so it's really all-win.

I agree completely.

Unreal Engine 3 supports multi-cores/multi-CPUs and they have the most licensees by far compared to the Source and Doom 3 engines and id has supported them (though not very well) since, ah, Quake III Arena? Heck if Cryptic can do it for CoH/CoV (and it does give a huge boost in framerates) I would expect most competent programmers will figure it out. Yes it is a different style of programming but they teach that stuff to undergraduate CS students -- it's not rocket science -- and as Sky said both the PS3 and Xbox 360 are multi-core which means there's a large group of developers that are learning how to do that stuff right now.

The PS3 is more of a RISC, though. Reading up a little on that, some crazy people are taking them apart already :) Once again Sony has made a processor developers will hate, I remember the teeth-gnashing of the Metal Gear guy (not Snake, the lead)....and that was by far teh best looking game on the PS2 at the time.

UT/DOOM use a pretty flawed implementation, though. They split the server and client processes between the two cores, so it doesn't scale at all beyond two cores and is very unoptimized. Better than nothing, though.

The Cell, the Xbox 360's triple-core CPU and the Wii's CPU are all based on the PowerPC architecture.

I thought the 360 was more parallel, though that's a total assumption as I haven't read up on the details. I was suprised by the linearity of the PS3's cores. That's a long damned chain.

What do you mean by "more parallel"? The 360 has 3 identical cores while the Cell has one main CPU and 7 "Synergistic Processing Elements".

The 360 can do out-of-order processing and the Cell can't, right? I meant that the 360 can process threads in parallel where the Cell is a bit more linear in execution. Again, I haven't read much about the 360.

Anyway, I don't care either way :)

No. That was one of the simplifications they made to the design. The Cell is in-order as well -- in fact, the Cell's PPE is very similar to the 360 cores -- they all share the same simplified in-order dual-independent threading design (the dual threading partially making up for not supporting OOE).

The 360 can in theory have 6 threads running in parallel, two for each core. The PPE is like a single 360 core so it can have 2 parallel threads. Then there are the 7 SPEs which individually are single-threaded but can operate independently (i.e. in parallel) or setup for "stream" processing where they are chained together to handle some complicated task. For general purpose CPU stuff the 360 is arguably more parallel but for floating point/vector processing the Cell probably is (the 360 cores and the PPE include vector processing units as well but they aren't as powerful as the SPEs).

So at the very least, it's getting people into a multi-core, multithreaded programming space.

/bump

I was thinking about getting this Shuttle SD37P2 (http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/SD37P2-Spec.asp). $429 at Newegg.

Core2 Duo, Extreme, and Crossfire capable. Up to 8 gigs of RAM and 3 internal sata hdd's (plus 1 external). Pretty much what a Mac Mini should be.

I'm new to small form factor though. Is there something better available? Should I wait (I believe this was released in August)?

The only downside I can see is the two PCI-e slots and no built in wireless. You have to choose between either Crossfire or wireless.

[edit] Ah wait, Shuttle sells their own wireless kit. My bad.
 

I'm still suspicious of Crossfire even though ATI has been making improvements to it. And now that AMD has bought out ATI it's uncertain what the future of ATI technologies on the Intel platform is going to be.

The Mac Mini is a completely different form factor. This (http://sys.us.shuttle.com/X100.aspx) is closer to the Mac Mini and even that thing is quite a bit bigger in size.

My comparison with the mini's is their general lack of upgradability. I'd definitely sacrifice size for that. That Shuttle is only 9 inchs tall anyways.  :-)

[edit]

Or in other words, I'd be happy if Apple released a "big" Mini in the same spirit as some of these Shuttles (and not jack it up $1000 over the PC equivalents either). Something that's a little more workstation/gaming quality.

Gah. Is it me, or has PC purchasing become a lot more complex? I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

Help me build a PC please. Sub $2000, preferably sub $1500.

1) I want a motherboard with a good future upgrade path, but isn't necessarily made for pros and oc'ing. I don't want to overclock, but I don't want to fuck myself by not doing so either.

2) I don't want to be haunted by choices like Trippy pointed out (Crossfire on Intel).

3) Is nForce still a good chipset to go with? I was happy with nForce2, but I don't know what the advantages are anymore (I know they canned Soundstorm. That's about it).

4) I don't want to make the wrong choice with onboard network or audio. I'm not picky, but I don't want shit that's going to bog down my CPU. And I don't want to pay for separate cards either.

5) If possible, I want a board without parallel and serial ports. Anything to save money.

6) Apparently, each model and make motherboard is terribly picky about certain kinds of memory. How am I supposed to know what to go with?

7) Power supplies. Cooling. It's all a freaking headache (Also, I have a suspicion that cooling is overrated. Do I need anything more than the basics....Seeing that I don't want to overclock)?

8 ) I have no idea about AMD anymore. Intel seems to be all the rage these days. Correct me if I'm wrong.

9) Just about every PC case looks like it came out of a Korean clown shop.

Looks like a black NES. I think I want one.

The x100 is pretty goddamn awesome.

Err...Let me rephrase that post above (sorry for spamming).

I want a decent gaming machine, but I don't want to go all out "enthusiast". That means I want a good SLI capable board, but don't want to deal with a shitton of FSB and voltage options (among other things). Just something that works pretty good right out of the box, and that I don't have to pay much attention to afterwards.

Intel has always been dumbed down enough, but now that Trippy mentions Crossfire and AMD, I can see that as a possible future problem. ATI driver support is already a pain in the ass to begin with.

So...What are my other options?

What is the "Performance Configuration for Lazy Idiots"?

[edit] Do not suggest Alienware kthx.

Stray, Hang out in Anandtech general hardware forums. Just cruse by every day. You will get a feel for your options. As well as what is working good for peeps. There really is not one answer to your question. I am in much the same position although I would like DX10 to settle out a little more. I don't like paying a premium on tech just because it is new and shiny.

The mini is exactly what it is supposed to be. There wouldn't be a mini if it threatened enthusiast and workstation applications. Folks like me who need low end macs, but hate integrated monitors danced a massive happy dance when minis came out. I'm dreading the day they cut off the product line :( Just had a monitor go on an old imac, if it had been a mini, no big deal. Now it's in the garbage pile.

I'm no help, I can't keep my budget at $2k, it's hovering over $2500 right now :( I blame RAM prices and my wish for dx10 parts.

1) I want a motherboard with a good future upgrade path, but isn't necessarily made for pros and oc'ing. I don't want to overclock, but I don't want to fuck myself by not doing so either.

Yes, you do. The C2Ds are a great value and overclock great. I plan on getting an e6600 to 3.6GHz (around $320). You can do great with a lower end chip, too.

2) I don't want to be haunted by choices like Trippy pointed out (Crossfire on Intel).

My personal preference is to avoid SLI/Crossfire. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd rather just have a solid single gpu solution. I'm probably wrong.

3) Is nForce still a good chipset to go with? I was happy with nForce2, but I don't know what the advantages are anymore (I know they canned Soundstorm. That's about it).

No Soundstorm :( Bah, I forget what I was going to type. There was one audio chipset that advertised EAX 2 (the highest goddamned Creative will license out), but didn't actually do it. Realtek? C-Media? I forget. Sorry, but you can google it, I guess.

4) I don't want to make the wrong choice with onboard network or audio. I'm not picky, but I don't want shit that's going to bog down my CPU. And I don't want to pay for separate cards either.

These are mutually exclusive goals. You will have two cores to balance the load, at least.

5) If possible, I want a board without parallel and serial ports. Anything to save money.

Me, too. It's going that way, but it's really up to the mobo makers.

6) Apparently, each model and make motherboard is terribly picky about certain kinds of memory. How am I supposed to know what to go with?

Crucial.com is your friend. Configurator tool, even if you don't buy through them.

7) Power supplies. Cooling. It's all a freaking headache (Also, I have a suspicion that cooling is overrated. Do I need anything more than the basics....Seeing that I don't want to overclock)?

Cooling is not a big deal with the C2D. The aforementioned 3.6GHz o/c I want to do is accomplished with modest hs/f cooling, in some cases stock. PSU...you want to spend the money on a good one. Look at the problems folks have had here with cheap PSUs.

8 ) I have no idea about AMD anymore. Intel seems to be all the rage these days. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You are correct. There is only one thing to be thinking about: Core2Duo.

9) Just about every PC case looks like it came out of a Korean clown shop.

I agree. Reading case roundups is hilarious. "We really liked the sleek stylings of this case" and it's some gaudy fake chrome and red anime wet dream. But hey, style is very subjective and these folks spend a lot of time in Asia. The Antec P-180 is pretty nice. There are nice cases, you just have to dig around.

Ok, I don't get it. What is this fascination with minis? I know they look cool and compact, but in gaming, that's a problem. You want circulation and cooling. That sleek black mini Trippy pointed out? It probably has a slim line hard drive. I have a crate full of broken slim line hard drives at work ready for RMA. They were not knock offs, either. They were western digital hard drives. They were all in slim line boxes of the type Trippy pointed out. I also have a box full of video cards that blew as well, from the same boxes. These were not 'cheap' video cards. All of them were ATI/Nvidia chipsets.

These were work stations, running nothing fancier than MS Word. Why did they blow? Because of overheating. My boss purchased them in a frenzy over 'desk real estate' and we're now having problems with storage space in our attempts to cannibalise as many of these 'cute' boxes as we can to keep the remaining ones running.

Unless you have a good practical reason you really need your computer to be small, its just a bad idea to stuff electronics together like that, especially if you are aiming to get good graphics/gaming performance out of it.

Get a regular case, with some nice fans on it. 12 cm fans are nice. I have the p-180 myself, and its good, but you don't have to go overboard either. I still have a perfectly serviceable Antec LanBoy that's more than adequate.

As for Stray's questions, I agree with just about everything that Sky suggested. I might also suggest waiting a few to see some maturation in the Dx10/Vista department before purchasing an expensive video card.

I'm talking about the mac mini. It's the first low-cost mac that doesn't have an integrated monitor. They totally rock for office work. We also used ultra-small-form-factor Dells, but they're bigger than the minis and can't run OSX. We've budgeted for intel mac minis for most pc applications right now. As long as they have enough airflow, it's great for desk space. You shouldn't be having overheating problems from running simple office apps. The only thing I've found is that our primary reference computer can't be a mini, because it runs a shitload of apps in OSX, plus Virtual PC (XP Pro) and XP apps. Just too much for the lil guy. Everyone else using one has been happy, and they mostly have the G4 version (I have the intel version + 20" dell widescreen = great office setup).

Gaming doesn't enter into that decisionmaking process. I game on a homebuilt windows machine, it's still the best way to do it.

Thanks for the advice guys. I suppose I'll just wait a bit then.

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Mini's are cool, small form factor is cool. Saving space is cool. I think it's ridiculous to have a monolith PC sitting under my desk just for gaming. The PS3 or 360 aren't that big.....

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As far towers go, that P180 does look much better than the usual stuff. I don't like the door though. Also, I don't like that big vent on top of it.

It's Realtek btw.

But yeah, it's a damn lie (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34681).

Disclaimer: I've been an AMD user for a while now so I haven't done much research on Intel systems in a long while but if somebody put a gun to my head and said "HERE'S $2K BUY ME A GAME SYSTEM NOW!" here's what I would get:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6600 - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003) $309.00
The Core 2 Duo is where it's at right now. This is the cheapest of the 1066 MHz FSB CPUs so you'll have room to grow without having to worry about changing your memory (at least for a while).

EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813188009) $249.99
Looks like a good motherboard :-D

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-8500C5 - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145033) $369.00 (current out of stock)
Though I actually like Patriot now, Corsair is still the most reputable of the "enthusiasts" brands.

eVGA 512-P2-N637-AR GeForce 7950GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP KO Superclocked Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130066) $279.99 (currently also has $10 rebate)
8800s are still way too expensive so I would just go with something mainstream now and plan on upgrading to a real DX10 card in a year or two.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102188) $92.99 (currently also has $20 rebate)
Accelerated sound support is a bit wonky in Vista -- you'll need a card that properly supports OpenAL and this is one of them.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136014) $179.99
I prefer extra storage over the speed of the Raptors but I use my machine as a PVR device so YMMV.

Antec Solo Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129018) $89.99
I like Antec cases. This one has very nice hard drive mounting options. The P180 isn't that much more expensive if you wanted to go that route.

SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT ATX12V/ EPS12V 650W Power Supply - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817151028) $159.99
SeaSonic are known for their quiet efficiency. This one is also rated to run dual 7950GTXs if you wanted to go wild.

ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm 2 Ball Blue LED Light - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118223) $58.99
I love this CPU cooler. The Ninja Scythe is actually a bit better cause it can fit a 120mm fan but I had a painful time trying to install one on my most recent A64 system and I swapped it out for another one of these things (I have one in an older A64 box as well).

HP 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With LightScribe, 12X DVD-RAM Write IDE Model DVD940I - OEM (http://HP 18X DVD±R DVD Burner With LightScribe, 12X DVD-RAM Write IDE Model DVD940I - OEM) $54.99
There are any number of decent burner makers. I had some issue with getting a Lite-On to work properly with Linux so I swapped it out for the above equivalent (can't quite remember the model). I went with the Lite-On originally cause I needed something that was short depth wise and the HP has the same dimensions.

Antec 761345-75092-9 92mm Case Fan - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835209003) $5.99 x 2
Case fans for the front to cool the hard drive and bring in cool air. Has a three-way switch to control the speed of the fan.

TOTAL: $1856.90 (not including tax and shipping)

Yeah, I had my eye on that last night. It looks better than the Asus 680i offerings (slightly better audio chipset, for one...plus it's $50 cheaper). I've been using an Asus board for awhile though, don't have any experience with eVGA outside vid cards. So there's some brand loyalty that comes into play here.

What I'd really like to see is a 680i equivalent of this: ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP Socket (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131071). It's a 500 series with wifi, but isn't made for "enthusiasts" and overclockers. Still has a crap audio chipset though (either give me decent audio, or drop it from the board entirely).


Hmm, maybe I'm on the right page here....Was looking at that too (and it's Asus equivalent).


Fortunately I can save cash on SATA, since I already have 'em.

Getting to $1500.

If you wanted to bring closer it $1500, personally I would skimp on the video card rather than the CPU since 1) it's much much easier to replace a video card and 2) the DX10 cards will be cheaper next year and so there's not much point now spending a lot on the video card, so something like this is an option:

eVGA 256-P2-N624-AR GeForce 7900GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO Video Card - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130056) $179.99 (not inc. $20 rebate)

If you do go with a lower end video you could switch to the P150 which is the same case design as the Solo above but has a decent enough power supply to support a single mainstream card. I have a P150 and I like it other than the fact that the spring on one of the "stealth doors" broke almost immediately. You would need to take out the PS and put in something else if you wanted to go the SLI route in the future:

Antec Performance One P150 White Steel ATX Mini Tower Computer Case 430-Watt ATX12V v2.2 Power Supply - Retail (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129166) $149.99

Since you already have SATA hard drives taking out the WD drive and going with the changes above would take you down to:

TOTAL: $1476.92

Edit: fixed last sentence

Hmm, when I consider everything, it seems like getting a new comp just isn't a good idea for me right now. DX10 cards need to get cheaper and more widely implemented, Vista needs maturation time, nForce 600 series boards need to be more varied and cut down in price a bit (I think there's a cheaper/less "enthusiast" based 650 chipset in the works), and whatever else....

The computer I have now is crap, but I could hold off up to a year probably. It still runs most things. I'm just getting that itch though.

We all are Stray. But in particular DX10 needs more options and more availability. One can foolishly hope for cheaper memory prices after the first of the year as well. My AGP card has me in middle to lower middle ranking.. And that just ain't me!! But being premature on new platforms has cost me in the past.

Fyi, I read an article on the 7950 on either Toms or Anandtech, I forget which, which stated that unless you're going to run your game at 1600x1200 (widescreen) or something otherwise outrageous, the 7950 doesn't perform particulary better than the cheaper 7900 series card. In otherwords, if you already have an lcd monitor that won't support high high resolutions, you might save some money and get the 7900, since it performs as well, and allegedly better at lower resolutions than the 7950. Of course, I'm stuck with 1280x1024 resolution on my 7950 and to be honest, although its more than adequate for 90% of what I do with games, its not wtfpwnz or anything. I'm debating getting myself a 24" widescreen to 'remedy' the situation.

The 7950 is appealing because it's the only 7000 series (I think) that has HD features.

Don't think so man. The one listed by Trippy claims to have HDTV/S-Video/Composite Out. Or do you mean something else?

Eh, thought that was another 7950.

...

Oops you're right.

Well, /foot in mouth (twice today!)

I wonder how it varies...

...

Quick Googling says the 7600GT is capable and 7800GTX are capable as well.

/total foot in mouth

[edit] The 7950 is, however, the only one that's HDCP compliant. It's not clear if that's important as of yet though.