Author Topic: Help me choose! (Read 894 times)

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #15 on:** January 27, 2007, 03:48:43 AM »

If you're looking for a low-end gaming, general use system dump half of that ram immediately. 2 gigs is a definate overkill for anything but high-end gamers.

You'll save an immediate $100 with no hit in system performance.

DREDIOCK · « **Reply #16 on:** January 27, 2007, 10:24:47 AM »

In recent years I have exprience in two brands of motherboards.
Asus, and Gigabyte.

Both good but if I had to choose between the two I'd have to give ASUS the nod

eagl · « **Reply #17 on:** January 27, 2007, 11:57:48 AM »

I consider 2 gig my practical min for even general use. I experienced HD thrashing doing even amature photo editing with 1 gig of memory, and so did my wife even though she doesn't game at all. You can get 2 gigs of decent memory for right around $200. Dropping to 1 gig will save you maybe $100 at the cost of thrashing if you actually USE your computer for anything tougher than email.

Brenjen · « **Reply #18 on:** January 27, 2007, 12:20:46 PM »

Two gigs is the minimum & I'm getting it for under $200. The cost of the ram is not a major concern, the entire build is only running me $776 minus shipping.

Thanks for the help guys, I'm mainly concerned about the motherboard stability; it seems all the 680i boards are flaky & I can't find one with the features I want that has less than a 25% failure rate among reviewers. Stability is my main concern.

Yeah Lerch; I know raid arrays are common & the mobo's are set up for it already...I've just never done one & reading about how to do it, they seem like a hassle. Striped you get the performance gain & mirrored you get the reliability gain...unless you go for a set of striped with a mirror back up. What do they call that a raid 2? Anyway, three discs would be pushing up the price for no real gain for the wife & kids; they are upgrading from an old (nearly 7 years old) Dell 4300 desktop with a 6800LE vga & a 2.8 gig P-4 1 gig of sdram....so this build will be significantly faster as it is. That Seagate barracuda HD is still going strong after all these years too.

Brenjen · « **Reply #19 on:** January 29, 2007, 09:56:46 AM »

Well I went with this set-up after much agonizing over which mobo to choose;

ASUS P5N-E SLI mobo
Core 2 Duo E6300
2 Gigs of G skill DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)

And other assorted tidbits like a case, power supply, video card, keyboard & mouse etc.; the entire build minus the OS ran me $750 Hopefully it will be stable & reliable! To everyone who tried to help a big Thank You & ~~to everyone who has a core2 duo that didn't bother trying, thanks for nothing~~

Brenjen · « **Reply #20 on:** February 01, 2007, 11:32:16 PM »

Got the parts from Newegg & they all arrived today. It all went together without a hitch & posted fine. All the diagnostic progs I need to stress test it tomorrow have been installed along with the AV & AS.

That board boots nice & fast; this has been my most straightforward & hassle free build yet. That Core2 Duo is a nice CPU, the lack of pins freaked me out a little & the way you install the stock HSF left me thinking I was going to break the mobo but all things considered it's pretty sweet. It's about time Intel got one right.

eagl · « **Reply #21 on:** February 02, 2007, 07:46:15 AM »

Awesome! That's the way it's supposed to be.

A lot of magazine reviewers thought the exact same thing about the cpu socket design, but apparently it hasn't been as much of a problem as they thought it might.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #22 on:** February 02, 2007, 12:44:26 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by eagl
I consider 2 gig my practical min for even general use. I experienced HD thrashing doing even amature photo editing with 1 gig of memory, and so did my wife even though she doesn't game at all. You can get 2 gigs of decent memory for right around $200. Dropping to 1 gig will save you maybe $100 at the cost of thrashing if you actually USE your computer for anything tougher than email.

Interesting, my machine uses about 200Mb or ram on average on most apps available. On photoshop it wont get past 512mb.

2gigs for a budget system is just a waste. You might aswell invest to high-end rest of the system.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #23 on:** February 02, 2007, 02:17:50 PM »

Actually, some of the art files I have will easily chew up 2GB of RAM, but those are not your typical files (24x48" 600DPI 32 bit color).

I have a ton of 3D models which will eat up over 1GB of RAM.

While video and/or audio editing, I can easily eat that 2GB of RAM up as well.

For me, 2GB is a minimum.
--
Brenjen, yeah, you just have to be a little more careful with the pins being on the motherboard. The socket is suppossed to be good for about 10 insertions.

Glad to hear your comp is up and running.

Balsy · « **Reply #24 on:** February 02, 2007, 03:29:16 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Brenjen
Got the parts from Newegg & they all arrived today. It all went together without a hitch & posted fine. All the diagnostic progs I need to stress test it tomorrow have been installed along with the AV & AS.

That board boots nice & fast; this has been my most straightforward & hassle free build yet. That Core2 Duo is a nice CPU, the lack of pins freaked me out a little & the way you install the stock HSF left me thinking I was going to break the mobo but all things considered it's pretty sweet. It's about time Intel got one right.

Dont feel bad .... my father left the plastic cover on the E6600 and mounted the whole thing with HSF... didnt boot so well until I visited him, and showed him the intricate "oreo" cookie removal technique.

I think that says alot.. about pins etc.. if you can mount it with plastic cover.. and it still worked fine after.

Balsy

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #25 on:** February 03, 2007, 03:44:59 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Actually, some of the art files I have will easily chew up 2GB of RAM, but those are not your typical files (24x48" 600DPI 32 bit color).

I have a ton of 3D models which will eat up over 1GB of RAM.

While video and/or audio editing, I can easily eat that 2GB of RAM up as well.

For me, 2GB is a minimum.
--
Brenjen, yeah, you just have to be a little more careful with the pins being on the motherboard. The socket is suppossed to be good for about 10 insertions.

Glad to hear your comp is up and running.

To me 2 gigs of ram and a budget system doesn't match. If you do memory intensive professional work, it's no job for a budget system.

He said he was getting the box for light usage.

Brenjen · « **Reply #26 on:** February 03, 2007, 08:51:30 AM »

Depends on your definition of a budget system. My definition is, capable yet under $1,000. I only paid $790 shipped for the entire thing. It's not going to shred high end games but it will allow the wife & kids to do all the stuff they need it to do right now. If they decide they like a particular game that needs more graphics power & they just won't rest until they get to play it; I'll take out the 7300GS vga & get a better one; the rest of the system will already be ready to take on the challenge.

The memory I bought was under $200 for that 2 ghz, there wasn't a big price difference between 1 ghz & 2 ghz. You are right that they probably will not use the 2 ghz at the moment, but one of my daughters wants to play around with some video editing this year & I figured better to have a matched set now for a decent price than have to buy it later. Plus, who knows what they may want to do with this PC in the next two or three years.

It's just my opinion that 2ghz of system memory is a no brainer (especially when it's cheap). If all you are ever going to do is surf web sites & read email 512mb is more than enough; but that would give you ZERO over-head if you turn out not to be a 75 year old grand mother.

Brenjen · « **Reply #27 on:** February 12, 2007, 08:46:01 AM »

HA-ha-ha....mobo dead I suspect.

The P/C didn't shut down through windows for the wife a couple of times & now it won't post, beep or anything...just dead.

Joy