Upgrade Time (yet another build thread)

[Salamok]

Just bought a SATA dvd burner and found out I am out of SATA ports (only have 2) when I went to install it.

Currently I have:
P4 2.8
1 gb of RAM
nVidia AGP 7800GS
75gig WD Raptor
750gig Barracuda
PC power and cooling 510 PSU.
Zenith 9CJS mainboard.
2 wide screen monitors (1920x1200 & 1680x1050)
an old creative read only PATA dvd drive and a newly purchased SATA dvd burner.
Windows XP 32bit.

anyhoo I am probably fine with a single cd/dvd drive if I end up having to go with a motherboard with no PATA ports.  My drives and PSU don't need any upgrading so I am pretty much looking at mb+cpu+ram and a vid card.

Here is my budget upgrade:

$69 - Motherboard ASUS P5Q SE PLUS LGA 775
$30 - RAM Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)
$60 - Vid Card ASUS EAH4550/DI/512MD3 Radeon HD 4550 512MB 64-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
$165 - CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W

Before tax and shipping that comes in at just under $325.  Its been awhile so i'm not real up on best bang for the buck cpu motherboard or vid card but I have always liked ASUS.

I was thinking of going core i7 but it more than doubles the build cost (an extra $300 worth of motherboard and ram)

[Trippy]

Is that your entire budget? Cause you need a better video card.

[Salamok]

I could go up a bit (want to stay under $150 though) but I don't game much anymore and shouldn't that card still spank the AGP 7800GS I am using now?  What would you recommend?

how about a ASUS EAH4830/HTDP/512MD3 Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

[Trippy]

I could go up a bit (want to stay under $150 though) but I don't game much anymore and shouldn't that card still spank the AGP 7800GS I am using now?  What would you recommend?

Well, no. The 4550 quite a bit gimpier on paper compared to the 7800 GS (slower fill rates and less memory bandwidth) but thanks to the gimpiness of the AGP slot and the added memory on the 4550 it'll be faster but not by much.

how about a ASUS EAH4830/HTDP/512MD3 Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

That's roughly equivalent to an 8800 GT.

[Salamok]

they had a 4850 card for $150 so i went with that and doubled the memory to 4gb which probably wont make much difference unless i switch to vista.

[MahrinSkel]

I'm currently doing a bargain-basement upgrade for my youngest.  His current computer is a 4-year old Dell, and the integrated Intel video is really starting to suck (it's roughly equivalent to a Voodo3 or original Geforce).  It's also a generic black box, when everyone else has a colorful one.

Current plan is for this:

Code:

APEVIA X-Gear ATXB5KLW-GN Green Computer Case With Side Panel Window
 

Item #:N82E16811144045
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
		$49.00
1	

OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2G8002GK

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Memory
 

Item #:N82E16820227124
Return Policy: Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy
	-$5.00 Instant
$10.00 Mail-in Rebate
 

	$27.99
$22.99
1	

AMD Sempron 64 3800+ Manila 2.2GHz Socket AM2 Single-Core Processor Model SDA3800CNBOX

AMD Sempron 64 3800+ 2.2GHz Socket AM2 Single-Core Processor
 

Item #:N82E16819104319
Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy
		$29.99
1	

GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 / nForce 430 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
 

Item #:N82E16813128333
Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
		$47.99
Grand Total:	$159.97

Everything else would get stripped out of the Dell box he's got now.  Green box might get swapped for the blue version of the same thing.  Still debating if I keep his HD as is, or buy an OEM for XP basic and reformat it (he's gotten a lot of cruft in it).  Thoughts?

--Dave

[Falwell]

I've been running an E8400 for some time now. I can say without a doubt that it is by far the best bang for the buck processor I've owned.... maybe ever.

[Trippy]

I'm currently doing a bargain-basement upgrade for my youngest.  His current computer is a 4-year old Dell, and the integrated Intel video is really starting to suck (it's roughly equivalent to a Voodo3 or original Geforce).  It's also a generic black box, when everyone else has a colorful one.

I would recommend getting a MB with an NVIDIA 8200 or Radeon 3200 (AMD 780G).

Edit: added quote

[MahrinSkel]

I would recommend getting a MB with an NVIDIA 8200 or Radeon 3200 (AMD 780G).

I can get this mobo for only $20 more, and it's a lot more future-proof (more ram slots, more SATA ports, DVI video port as well as D-Sub VGA), but I don't recognize the manufacturer, there's only 3 reviews and one is negative for bad video.  Or there's this 780G board for the same price and the same strengths, but the reviews indicate that the documentation is poor. I had planned on adding a better video card in a year or two, anyway, and integrated video is always inferior, so is it really worth worrying about the integrated video as long as it's better than the Intel 810 he's got?  There are quite a few less dodgy GeForce 8100 boards at or near the same price point with the extra expandability, I might go with one of those.

--Dave

[Trippy]

I would recommend getting a MB with an NVIDIA 8200 or Radeon 3200 (AMD 780G).

I can get this mobo for only $20 more, and it's a lot more future-proof (more ram slots, more SATA ports, DVI video port as well as D-Sub VGA), but I don't recognize the manufacturer, there's only 3 reviews and one is negative for bad video.  Or there's this 780G board for the same price and the same strengths, but the reviews indicate that the documentation is poor. I had planned on adding a better video card in a year or two, anyway, and integrated video is always inferior, so is it really worth worrying about the integrated video as long as it's better than the Intel 810 he's got?  There are quite a few less dodgy GeForce 8100 boards at or near the same price point with the extra expandability, I might go with one of those.

--Dave

Sure you go down a notch or so, though you might want to get one that supports AM2+ so you have more future CPU upgrade choices.

[MahrinSkel]

I'm leaning towards that Sapphire 780G board, I can deal with the so-so documentation and the feature set seems just about ideal (including the AM2+ support).  Probably going to go with this case, the multi-color LED front fan is pretty enough to make him happy and the power supply is damned near worth the entire price by itself (I'll need to fit an exhaust fan on the back, but I have a few laying around).  A closer look at the first one showed they don't have proper front-panel audio jumpers, just extension cables you're supposed to run through the case, out the back, and plug into the sound ports in the rear.  With a little luck and some judicious upgrades, I won't have to worry about another computer for him until it's time to get him a laptop for college (he's just about to turn 12).

--Dave

[Salamok]

Well parts all in and decided to go with a reformat and fresh install of XP, this has been the easiest XP install I have ever done. ASUS's installer that loads up all the drivers and just tells you to reboot about 4 times + Win XP sp3 having most the updates all rolled into 1 nice package = painless.

[ezrast]

I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to hijack this thread or to start a "yet another yet another PC build thread" but it looks like you guys are done with this one so I'm gonna steal it. For reference, I'm currently using a laptop with a Radeon 9700 and an Athlon that overheats unless I underclock it to 1.4GhZ, so absolutely anything is a huge improvement. That also tells you about how often I upgrade, so I'd like this to be relatively future-proof. I don't mind running things at low settings as long as I get my 30 fps.

Important bits:
XFX MDA72P7509 AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail: $140 - $30 rebate
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail: $160 - $10 rebate
AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail: $158

Less important bits:
Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive: $50
COOLER MASTER 650W Power Supply: $80
OCZ £@+ä|1†¥!!!11!11 Edition 4GB (2x2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 800 SDRAM: $16 (combo deal with the processor)
LG 22X DVD±R Burner: $21
Generic looking case: $35

Total: about $636 after shipping and rebates.

Questions/notes:
1) I know Intel is supposed to be the way to go these days but it seems like AMD's quad-cores are significantly cheaper. I could be talked into buying a faster dual-core Intel; I just think that in the long run a quad-core will serve me better.
2) On the other hand, I'm doubtful that I can be talked into buying another Radeon.
3) I'm looking at an SLI-capable motherboard to make it easy to upgrade in the future (just drop another vid card in when the 9800 line is cheap), but I'm not sure I wouldn't be better off getting a cheap motherboard now and a single, better card later.
4) Is the 9800 GTX enough of an improvement over the GT to warrant a 33% price increase, from the perspective of a semi-poor college student?

Anyway, I haven't done this in a while, so a simple "yeah, those parts look okay and won't blow up when you turn it on" would be great. Thanks.

[Trippy]

Questions/notes:
1) I know Intel is supposed to be the way to go these days but it seems like AMD's quad-cores are significantly cheaper. I could be talked into buying a faster dual-core Intel; I just think that in the long run a quad-core will serve me better.

They are also slower on benchmark. E.g. the old Q6600 which is at 2.4GHz and still being sold is a faster than the one you picked. It's about $30 more expensive.

4) Is the 9800 GTX enough of an improvement over the GT to warrant a 33% price increase, from the perspective of a semi-poor college student?

The GTX is faster but not by much and the larger the resolution you run at the less the absolute difference is going to be. Go check out some benchmarks.

If you did want to go SLI in the future you might want a bigger power supply (like around 800 Watts) given the CPU you've choosen.

[MahrinSkel]

I'd echo on the power supply, "saving" $20 vs. the 800 watt when you're going to need it if you want to SLI the video card is not a great plan.  And you can cough up an extra $10-15 bucks on the case and get either something with more personality, or more solid construction (the one you link has dings in the reviews for poor machining, sharp edges, and flimsy parts, and only a single 80mm fan mounted in front, which won't pack it for that level of CPU and card).  Newegg has about 160 cases at $50 or less, you can find something better (hell, I saw at least 10 for under $40 that were better than that one).  And if you need extra fans, unless you have them lying around go ahead and order them at the same time.  You don't need to go nuts with side windows, LED's, and light displays that would look at home in a rave club, but think about the placement of the front panel USB/Audio, if you're ever going to want eSATA devices, how exposed it is to getting kicked, and how you're going to dump the heat without sounding like you have a power saw running under your desk.

With newer computers running high-end CPU's and video cards, all that power eventually turns into heat.  You've basically got a space heater set on "Low", and if you don't move at least 5 CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) for each 100 watts, you're going to burn it up (and you really want to double that to allow for dust).  So you're looking at 3 80mm fans (two drawing from the front and side and one exhausting out the back or top) or a 120mm blowing out the back and an 80mm drawing in from the front or the side.  You can get fans with a sub-20 dBA noise level to do that for less than $10.  That's in *addition* to the PSU exhaust fan, used to be that was all you needed to vent the case, but these days if you try it, it will be a race between your CPU and PSU for which can burn out first (and if the PSU wins, it can literally set itself on fire).

I'm not really sure SLI is worth it, my current system I'm typing this on is SLI, which essentially lets two two-year-old cards that cost $700 bucks when new equal the performance of a single new card that would cost $150 (almost, they're still a shader revision behind).  You don't sound highly performance-conscious, so you're probably better off saving the money on the mobo (or getting a performance boost somewhere else, like better integrated audio) and just waiting a little longer for your next video upgrade.  And I'll echo Trippy on the video card, the high-performance version of a card is almost *never* worth the money, since it will generally underperform the budget version of the next generation 6 months later.  For roughly the same price point you could get a 9800 GT with 1GB, which would do a lot more to future-proof your system (and not generate as much heat and noise).

I really don't think there's much to pick between on AMD/Intel anymore, if you're not overclocking.  AMD gives slightly more bang for the buck, Intel is still the default standard everyone optimizes for, and in general it comes out a wash.

--Dave

[Salamok]

AMD gives slightly more bang for the buck, Intel is still the default standard everyone optimizes for, and in general it comes out a wash.

Is there a benchmark AMD processor vs. Intel processor where this is proven on a $ for $ basis?  Or is this a case where you make it up on the back end because someone is liquidating AMD capable motherboards for below cost as AMD has clearly lost this round?

On a side note my system is all set up and running great, decided to ditch symantec on this reinstall (went AVG free) and within 36 hours of fully patched my system was dorked by some some borderline malware/virus shit (Virtumonde), haven't had a problem on my personal computer that bad in over 4 years, so while I am still game for a non symantec future it isn't looking good for AVG.

[rattran]

I stopped putting AVG Free on machines a while ago, it kept missing things. (I build machines for people who aren't bright enough not to click random links in email) Plus the yearly "We're dropping support! Come get a new version (link to paid version)"
I'm pretty happy with Avira with the daily nag screen disabled on my game machine, though Avast worked just fine too. I've been putting Nod32 (~$30 Newegg for 3 users) on other people's machines.  BitDefender is bloated, but good for those people who just can't learn not to go to dodgy porn sites.

[Engels]

Seriously, what are people doing that they get infected within 36 hours of putting a machine online? I have a set of chinese grad students I do IT for and they get infected more than any other group I do IT for. They rely on chinese language converters for their XP box, but those seem to be legit apps. Just the other day one Chinese guy got infected by a virus who's .exe was QQ.exe. I kid you not.

[Salamok]

I've been putting Nod32 (~$30 Newegg for 3 users) on other people's machines.  BitDefender is bloated, but good for those people who just can't learn not to go to dodgy porn sites.

I was considering NOD32 but it seems many people are moving away from it, at least i never hear it discussed anymore.

Seriously, what are people doing that they get infected within 36 hours of putting a machine online? I have a set of chinese grad students I do IT for and they get infected more than any other group I do IT for. They rely on chinese language converters for their XP box, but those seem to be legit apps. Just the other day one Chinese guy got infected by a virus who's .exe was QQ.exe. I kid you not.

I get where you are coming from but it's getting so the end user isn't even part of the equation anymore:

http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/07/average_time_to_infection_4_minutes_1.html

I did have norton AV on for 3 years (not the suite just the AV) and didn't have any problems at all.  Not even real sure what happened the machine was fine one day then I left it on all night and the next morning when I jumped on it it was just getting pop ups like crazy and error messages to random dll files that did not exist.  Not sure if my parents or wife hopped on when I wasn't looking or what.

[Tale]

I've been trying various antivirus packages and found them all annoying, lacking and/or bloated compared with my old standard F-Prot, which was the world's first heuristic scanner and remains the quiet achiever. Five-PC licence for US$29, no nagging, no failures, it works. http://www.f-prot.com/

[rattran]

Av Comparatives is a good source for how the av products are stacking up month to month.

[Engels]

That's quite an interesting site. Interesting how well Kaspersky does. In some tests it beats out the top brands by a large margin.

[ezrast]

On a whim I just replaced Avast with Avira. The interface feels a lot cleaner, although it doesn't seem to have as many bells and/or whistles that might be important to someone who pays more attention to their security than I do.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback about my parts - I am now looking at this motherboard and this graphics card and this case, which brings my total to something like $606, which is closer to my target than I actually expected to be.

[MahrinSkel]

Avira Free just managed to clean up my 11-year-old's system.  That thing had so many bits of nastiness on it I had just about given up on it, even paid versions of AV products were getting outmaneuvered and jamming up, usually before they even installed.  It's performing about 3000% better in general, and I was finally able to get the IE to reset to defaults (and get rid of the remnants of the ninety million toolbars he loaded on it, he literally tried to see if he could load enough toolbars that he couldn't see the pages anymore).  It was taking literally 30-60 seconds just to load a webpage (even simple ones like Google), because everything he'd loaded in there was fighting over what got to parse/edit/snoop it first.  Ran Avira after booting in Safe Mode, and it seems to be all cleaned up.

I'm going to get the paid version for all of my computers (counting laptops, 10 of them).

--Dave

[Engels]

Sounds to me like you need to run Avira Free ...on your 11 year old 

[Murgos]

It's not that hard to stay virus free.

The first commandment is, "Get thee behind a firewall."
The second is, "Thou shall not click links in spam, or download attachments from friends who are idiots."
The third is, "Thou shall alt+f4 any unrequested popups."
The fourth is, "Thou shall remain fully patched."

[ezrast]

Don't forget "Thou shalt scan all downloaded executables, even the ones that look totally legit."

[Reg]

I'm finally ready to upgrade my ancient system. Is this a good time of year to do it? If Intel or ATI usually do major releases of new stuff that causes huge price decreases of their old stuff in February then I can wait a month.

[Morfiend]

I'm finally ready to upgrade my ancient system. Is this a good time of year to do it? If Intel or ATI usually do major releases of new stuff that causes huge price decreases of their old stuff in February then I can wait a month.

The Core 7i should be releasing any time now. Thats the new Intel chip. Anandtech Link

[Prospero]

If nothing else, stuff is cheap right now. I picked up a $350 dollar graphics card up on NewEgg today for $200.

[Numtini]

I have a 8800GTS 320mb. Have things evolved enough for a plausable upgrade for the 8800 that would give significantly better performance for 200ish? I think the rest of the system (dual core E6750, P35 mobo 1333fsb, 4gig) is fine.

This is an illogical reaction to no longer being able to run WoW at max settings with the new engine. (I had to turn the draw distance down to 75% and shadows to medium. Tragedy!)

[Prospero]

Looking at their  comparison site the 260(which I just picked up for 200) looks like an improvement over the 8800 GTS, but not a drastic one. I'm actually pretty shocked the new WoW engine is that punishing, even at the high settings.

[Trippy]

I have a 8800GTS 320mb. Have things evolved enough for a plausable upgrade for the 8800 that would give significantly better performance for 200ish? I think the rest of the system (dual core E6750, P35 mobo 1333fsb, 4gig) is fine.

This is an illogical reaction to no longer being able to run WoW at max settings with the new engine. (I had to turn the draw distance down to 75% and shadows to medium. Tragedy!)

Hard to say if it'll be significant or not -- WoW performance isn't typically used as a benchmark. It's also highly dependent on your graphics setting (resolution, whether or not AA/AF is turned and with what settings, and so on and so forth). In some games like Call of Duty going from a 8800 GTS to a 260 will literally double your frame rate in some situations. In other games/settings the speed up is more like 20 - 30%.

[fuser]

The Core 7i should be releasing any time now. Thats the new Intel chip. Anandtech Link

Just a FYI its been out for about a month now a i7 920 for ~$300

[Prospero]

I'm moving from a 7600 to the 260. Oh, plus 3 more gigs of RAM. I think I may end up seeing Jesus after the upgrade.  I may need to be sick Friday.