MOBO/CPU Upgrade Advice?

[MahrinSkel]

I'm planning on upgrading both my gaming rig and my wife's.  Both systems used to be really good game machines, but they're about 4 years old now and they've reached their upgradability limits (they have AGP video).  I plan on replacing the motherboard and CPU for both, and I'm wondering what's the best I can expect to get for a combined price of around $300 (mobo+CPU for one machine)?  I'm not interested in overclocking.  I do usually lean towards Intel CPU's, but I'm not religious about it.  PCI Express is a must, however.  Her hard drives are SATA, mine are EIDE, and I'm considering a 8-16gb Solid State Storage Device for some point in this cycle.

Basically, I want to get into the PCIe upgrade cycle without spending too much up front, and without closing off options.  Yes, I can do all the assembly work myself.

--Dave

[Trippy]

How many IDE drives do you want to move over from your machine including CD/DVD-ROM drives? Many of the newest MBs only have one IDE channel now (for 2 drives).

[MahrinSkel]

One of each (an 80gb hard drive that's less than half full, and a DVD/CD drive).  I have a second of each, but haven't used them and won't miss them (the HD has less than a gig of data on it, all backups for the working files on the main drive).

--Dave

[Trippy]

How do you feel about upgrading CPUs down the road? What does your wife use her computer for?

[MahrinSkel]

I usually plan on upgrading CPU's.  And the wife games on hers, mostly WoW but she could switch any time something comes out she likes more (she was conidering TR but decided not to).  My usual pattern is to get in towards the bottom of an upgrade cycle, then slowly replace a part or two a year to stay reasonablycurrent until something (like the video card format) makes it impossible.  It seems pretty clear that SATA SSD's are going to become required for gaming rigs in the next couple of years, and PCIe is already neccessary.

--Dave

[schild]

I would bake a cock pie for a SATA SSD. Assuming that means solid-state drive.

Edit: Yow. Yeesh. They're getting reasonable for us gadget types. Might have to pick up a 16 or 32GB around my birthday.

[MahrinSkel]

I would bake a cock pie for a SATA SSD. Assuming that means solid-state drive.

Best of breed right now.  You can get Flash based laptop drives a lot cheaper, but they don't have the performance profile of the true RAM-based versions (most aren't as good as a high-end HD).  At $450, too rich for my blood still, but a year ago the same level of drive would have cost $1200.  In 2 years at most, they'll be standard equipment.

--Dave

[Yoru]

I'm in the process of upgrading right now - the parts are in the mail (save for a rather elusive video card model, which I'm told is on order, but I won't believe it until I have a UPS number in-hand). If you get a socket 775 CPU (Intel) right now, you can get a lot of processor (dual core or quad core) for $150-300 and a good motherboard for $100-150.

Socket 775 is the only desktop CPU form factor Intel is putting out until 2009, so it's a safe bet for now. The next-gen 775 CPUs (codenamed Penryn) are due out this holiday season, although only in super-overpriced enthusiast variants. The reasonable Penryn model Intel CPUs are due out during the first half of next year.

I have no idea when PCIE will go extinct, but we're only just now entering the era of PCIE 2.0, which is JUST becoming available with Intel X38 chipset motherboards. PCIE 3.0 isn't expected until 2009 as well. If you wanted to ultra-futureproof yourself, you could look at an X38 motherboard. There's supposedly also an X48 coming out soon that supports the DDR3-1600 spec, but I don't even know if that grade of RAM is on the market yet.

Breaking it down:
P35: PCIE 1.1, DDR3-1066 or DDR2-800
X38: PCIE 2.0, DDR3-1333 or DDR2-800
X48: PCIE 2.0, DDR3-1600 (no DDR2)

What I picked out, specifically, was an Intel E6750 (presently the best midrange dualcore available, $200) and an Asus P5KC (Intel P35 chipset), because it has six RAM slots and I do love my RAMmage. Also, while you didn't mention a video card uograde, I have to say that the NVidia 8800GTs are cleaning up all over with their price/performance ratio... if you can find one. And the next-gen enthusiast-level cards are due out in the next month or so, if you're looking to throw more cash in.

[Trippy]

My recommendation is an Intel P35-based motherboard that supports a 1333 MHz FSB and 45 nm CPUs (possibly requiring a BIOS upgrade) so you have the widest possible future upgrade options. The X38 chipset is the latest and greatest but it's still pricey. For CPUs I'd pick out a couple of Core 2 Duos that fit into your price range. If you happen to be doing rendering on your computer you might want to consider spending a little extra and getting a Core 2 Quad.

The AMD future stuff is still unclear and the current stuff, while competitive at your current price range, is at its end-of-the-line so your future upgrade options will be limited if you have any options at all.

If you end up with a motherboard with a single IDE channel you'll need to make sure the IDE cable has the connectors far enough apart so that they can reach a DVD drive at the top and a hard drive in the lower drive bay unless you want to get a 3.5" to 5.25" adapter bracket so you can mount the hard drive up top as well.

Newegg P35 1333 FSB list

Intel Core 2 Duo list

[MahrinSkel]

Thanks guys.  Do you know anything about Biostar mobo's? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138075

I figured if I pair that with the Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor, it should give me some pretty good bang for the buck while leaving my upgrade options open.

--Dave

[Strazos]

Anyone wanna explain SSDs to me? I'm gonna have to build a new rig next year I think; this current one is from Dec. 2002.

[MahrinSkel]

Anyone wanna explain SSDs to me? I'm gonna have to build a new rig next year I think; this current one is from Dec. 2002.

SSD = Solid State (Storage) Device.  Instead of a physical disk spinning around inside a hard drive, you have banks of RAM or Flash memory.  In RAM-based units, your access times and transfer rates are always at absolute maximum for the interface.  In a SATA system, this is very fast, anywhere from 3 to 10 times as fast for transfer rates as a physical hard disk, and file access times measured in microseconds rather than milleseconds.

In games, this means that your textures load from disc *really* fast, if they're on an SSD.  Level loading times get cut by 60-90%, which is nice, but for MMO's it's got a particularly unfair advantage: All those times you ran into a crowd (or had a crowd run up to you) and you went into slide-show hell while your HD twittered away, you were loading all the textures for all those avatars.  If you had an SSD, you'd be back in control of your own avatar well ahead of anyone dependant on a spinning disk.  Ditto for any other piece of UI that requires a lot of texture loading, like the Auction screen.  In a PvP game, your chances of surviving and doing something useful in a mass battle go *way* up.

You can get additional performance increases by putting your OS on the SSD, and more if you have your swap file on it (of course, if you don't have 3 gig of system RAM, you've got better places to put $450 than an SSD).  But the texture loading is the real boost.  They make much cheaper models for hard drive replacements on laptops, they don't perform any better than physical disks for gaming, but they are comparatively immune to mechanical shock.

--Dave

[MahrinSkel]

BTW, this is what I eventually wound up going with (from NewEgg):

Order SummaryQty Product Description Price
Order #: 83964348
2 BIOSTAR TForce TP35D2-A7 LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813138075
Standard Return Policy  $209.98
($104.99 ea) 
2 XFX PVT86SYAFG GeForce 8400GS 512MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Item #: N82E16814150249
Standard Return Policy  $137.98
($68.99 ea) 
2 Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6550
Item #: N82E16819115030
Processors (CPUs) Return Policy  $349.98
($174.99 ea) 
2 Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804
Item #: N82E16820146565
Memory (Modules, USB) Return Policy  $189.98
$179.98
($89.99 ea) 
2 DISCOUNT FOR COMBO #64766 -$20.00
(-$10.00 ea)
Subtotal $857.92
Tax $0.00
UPS Ground $12.94
Rush Processing $2.99
Order Total $873.85
 
Yeah, the graphics cards are cheap as dirt, but they'll be a notable improvement over the AGP cards we've been using, and it leaves me upgrade room later while keeping the whole package under the $1K sticker shock level.  Thanks for the help.

--Dave

[Salamok]

Anyone wanna explain SSDs to me? I'm gonna have to build a new rig next year I think; this current one is from Dec. 2002.

SSD = Solid State (Storage) Device.  Instead of a physical disk spinning around inside a hard drive, you have banks of RAM or Flash memory.  In RAM-based units, your access times and transfer rates are always at absolute maximum for the interface.  In a SATA system, this is very fast, anywhere from 3 to 10 times as fast for transfer rates as a physical hard disk, and file access times measured in microseconds rather than milleseconds.

In games, this means that your textures load from disc *really* fast, if they're on an SSD.  Level loading times get cut by 60-90%, which is nice, but for MMO's it's got a particularly unfair advantage: All those times you ran into a crowd (or had a crowd run up to you) and you went into slide-show hell while your HD twittered away, you were loading all the textures for all those avatars.  If you had an SSD, you'd be back in control of your own avatar well ahead of anyone dependant on a spinning disk.  Ditto for any other piece of UI that requires a lot of texture loading, like the Auction screen.  In a PvP game, your chances of surviving and doing something useful in a mass battle go *way* up.

You can get additional performance increases by putting your OS on the SSD, and more if you have your swap file on it (of course, if you don't have 3 gig of system RAM, you've got better places to put $450 than an SSD).  But the texture loading is the real boost.  They make much cheaper models for hard drive replacements on laptops, they don't perform any better than physical disks for gaming, but they are comparatively immune to mechanical shock.

--Dave

Be a bit wary of Flash based SSD drives as well, write times aren't great and flash memory does degrade over time.  The advantage of laptop flash drives are pretty mcuh a bonus in the size/power consumption/weight catagories I doubt they perform any better than the slower end of 2.5 inch hard drives.  There are a few after market cards you can drop in and load up with DDR system memory, they have an on board battery for maintaining state but the largest I have seen is 8gb I think and it was a bit pricey.  

SSD would seem to be a great technology (especially since we have ditched the old PCI bus) but I have the feeling manufacturers have a hard time getting it past a certain point before the hard drive manufacturers start cockblocking em.  There are industrial SSD's available from seagate and such but they cost a friggen fortune.

[Yoru]

Screw SSDs. I'm gonna base my next computer on a 1 terabyte RAMSAN.

[schild]

Screw SSDs. I'm gonna base my next computer on a 1 terabyte RAMSAN.

Requires 2,500 jigawatts of power.

They mispelled jigawatts on their page. There's the fixed version.

[Yoru]

If you can drop a few mil on a RAMSAN, I'm gonna guess 2.5kW is the least of your worries. 

[schild]

If you can drop a few mil on a RAMSAN, I'm gonna guess 2.5kW is the least of your worries. 

Why don't they just make a box I can buy and stick like DDR3 in it and use it as storage? I'd be willing to spend $300 on a box and another 3-600 on sticks to fill it.

[Yoru]

Why don't they just make a box I can buy and stick like DDR3 in it and use it as storage? I'd be willing to spend $300 on a box and another 3-600 on sticks to fill it.

There are a few after market cards you can drop in and load up with DDR system memory, they have an on board battery for maintaining state but the largest I have seen is 8gb I think and it was a bit pricey.

Use that and just grab a RAMdisk program off the intertron for free. Normal system RAM isn't nonvolatile, so it would go away after you powered it down anyway - the cards mentioned use a battery to maintain their state.

[schild]

More info plz!

I don't even know what to search for.

[Salamok]

More info plz!

I don't even know what to search for.

flash SSD: http://www.samsungssd.com/

I-RAM and HyperOS were the 2 main providers of the build your own SSD using standard ram and their card, this article is 2 years old but I have seen more recent stuff in maximum PC and such:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/05/hyperos_dram_hard_drive_on_the_block/

This is exactly what I meant by being cockblocked by the HD manufacturers.  the entire SSD idea has been around forever (ala the old ramdisk command in DOS) but it didn't really become a mainstream threat until the prices of memory dropped.  Right around that time HD arrays were almost pushing the PCI limits so the only people interested were extreme hobbyists.  Enter PCI Express and you don't even need blazing fast DDR3 or anything to blow the pants off a HD. 

Anyway, it is rediculous to think that someone can't bring an 8 lane PCI Express card out that has slots for 10 or so sticks of DDR and a battery to back them up for under $400, throw $600 worth of RAM in that and you have an 8gig blazing fast SSD drive for a cool k.

I seem to recall a HW hack from 6 or 7 years ago that even showed someone creating home made nonvolatile memory by wiring a watch battery to the last pin on the stick.  Nonvalatile or not though I think I would even accept a nonvolatile 10minute boot time as my entire OS was copied into memory as long as it was blazing fast after the boot process finished (this may even be preferable for a multi OS scenario).

[schild]

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4043

Why is my timing so odd perfect & unfortunate? PCI-E 16GB SSD coming from Sandisk next year. Announced.... two days ago.

[Salamok]

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4043

Why is my timing so odd perfect & unfortunate? PCI-E 16GB SSD coming from Sandisk next year. Announced.... two days ago.

flash based.  mram would be perfect for a SSD too bad it isn't being produced yet..

[MahrinSkel]

Did nobody actually click on my link up there?  http://www.unistorage.com/unistorage/index.cfm?fuseaction=shop.dspSpecs&part=2190597

IBM SSD, 15.8 gig, SATA 150, $452.  Available now.

--Dave

[Strazos]

So basically, if you are getting a SSSD, it's not worth it unless it's, I would think, at least 6GB in capacity. Even larer if you plan to house the OS on there.

I assume for gaming, you'd have to install whatever game to the SSSD to reap the benefits, yes? How do they work, as far as power goes; even when you power down, these units stay on, or are they a different kind of RAM which is not wiped when the power goes out?

Would certainly suck to have you OS on there and get hit by a blackout. 

[Yoru]

So basically, if you are getting a SSSD, it's not worth it unless it's, I would think, at least 6GB in capacity. Even larer if you plan to house the OS on there.

I assume for gaming, you'd have to install whatever game to the SSSD to reap the benefits, yes? How do they work, as far as power goes; even when you power down, these units stay on, or are they a different kind of RAM which is not wiped when the power goes out?

Would certainly suck to have you OS on there and get hit by a blackout. 

The one Dave linked is based on Flash memory, I think, so it's basically an oversized USB pen drive, but it goes inside your computer and has a SATA connection. It will persist across power loss.

[Strazos]

Persist across shutdown you mean, or actual power loss?

[MahrinSkel]

The one Dave linked is based on Flash memory, I think, so it's basically an oversized USB pen drive, but it goes inside your computer and has a SATA connection. It will persist across power loss.

I thought it was RAM based, but I did some more research and it's actually a rebranded SanDisk flash-based drive.  So yeah, not so great.  Most of the RAM based models have backup batteries good for a couple of days without external power.

--Dave

[Yoru]

Persist across shutdown you mean, or actual power loss?

Provided they're not retarded, each write (or each batch of writes) will get flashed in, so it'd persist across actual power loss. Now, if you had a power loss RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the flashing-in process, which is pretty quick, you might not get all your data written in, but the same thing can happen if you lose power while writing stuff to a regular HDD.

I used to live in an area where power flickering was common (once every two weeks or so?), which is why I've always had an uninterruptible battery-backup power brick on my main box for the last several years. I recommend picking one up if you're not already using one.

[angry.bob]

I used to live in an area where power flickering was common (once every two weeks or so?), which is why I've always had an uninterruptible battery-backup power brick on my main box for the last several years. I recommend picking one up if you're not already using one.

Yeah, they're nice for power conditioning too. Our house's old wiring was murder on my power supplies. I couldn't get one to last more than 4 or 5 months. Since I got a quality UPS I haven't had one fail at all, and I've got any sort of electrical device that I care about hooked up through one now. I think poor quality electricity ruins more stuff than it's given credit for.

[MahrinSkel]

Just a followup, if anyone still cares: The parts came in, I upgraded the wife's first (it was borked from something the kids did a couple of months ago), and for the first time I had a system boot up on the first try after a total rebuild.  Runs great, she's getting more than acceptable framerates in WoW at 1680x1050.  I am going to have to look around for the right IDE cable for my system, or maybe a coupling to tack two together.  Big tower case, and the IDE jack on the mobo is way at the bottom.  Thanks for everyone's help, but especially Trippy for the NewEgg links.

--Dave

EDIT: Gave the wrong person credit for the links