Just ordered my new pc...

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Andy
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Just ordered my new pc...

Post by Andy »

I've just ordered my new pc today. Here are the specs:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB Socket 775 4MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
- ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard
- OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC with LIFETIME WARRANTY
- Maxtor STM380815AS 80GB Hard Drive 7200rpm SATAII 8MB Cache - OEM
- MSI Radeon HD 3870 XT 512MB GDDR4 2250MHz Memory Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card
- Casecom Black Mid Tower Case - Front Blue LED 120mm Fan - With Side Window
- Hiper 580W Type-M Black PSU - SLI Certified with APFC
Price: £542.04 ( $1084.08 )

This rig should do me for a few years

Note the 2x80GB HD's. They are only 80GB because my storage will be on my servers. I am going to RAID0 them for a higher transfer speed needed for loading games etc.

I have 4GB of RAM but will be using 32bit Windows XP. You think I'm made, yes? No. I am planning to try Vista 64bit as advised by DanielC. He says I will love it, so why not try it

Comments?

hounsell

Post by hounsell »

You need 64Bit Windows for that amount of RAM, Addressing issues in 32Bit will probably only give you around 3Gb in XP

64Bit Vista is quite good supposedly, though Ive only used the 32Bit version. Either way, with that sort of processor and RAM, Vista is a good performer too.

Your motherboard is excellent as well I wish I had the money to get a PC like that...

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Post by Andy »

hounsell wrote:You need 64Bit Windows for that amount of RAM, Addressing issues in 32Bit will probably only give you around 3Gb in XP
I know, which is why I said you may think I'm mad.

The motherboard was suggested by DanielC (infact, every part of the pc was bar the HD's, case and PSU, lol).

The money is actually from the selling of my MacBook. I will be using some of my wages from this month to buy a new laptop soon.

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Post by DanielC »

That's it, blame me for everything ... lol ...

Dual core, 4 Gb, Raid 0 and DX10.1 graphics, all you need to to take full advantage of Vista.
Putting XP on such hardware is just stupid in my opinion, as it can't use the graphics or the ram to it's full potential.
I've been running Vista Utilmate 64 Bit for around a year now, and I've never had any problem at all!
With this level of hardware, it's very fast and very stable, more so than the 32 Bit version ...
Having the latest bios and drivers helps alot too, don't use the ones from the CD ...
Oh, and turn the [censored] UAC off as well, that gets really annoying, lol ...

Anyway, the difference between you old system and that is massive, you can only be happy with it!
~ Dan

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Post by Andy »

Yep, I am happy with the specs. I just hope I'm as happy when I get the bits tomorrow morning (I paid extra to get it early ).

Like I say, I will try Vista 64bit out when I get it, but I'll stick with XP 32bit for now until I aquire a copy.

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Post by DanielC »

Well, I suppose there's nothing to stop you doing a dual boot, installing both XP 32 Bit and Vista 64 Bit ... ?
That way you can choose whichever one suits whatever you're doing at that moment ...
Put SP1 on Vista though, it can make a huge difference with transfer speeds ...
~ Dan

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Post by Andy »

DanielC wrote:Well, I suppose there's nothing to stop you doing a dual boot, installing both XP 32 Bit and Vista 64 Bit ... ?
That way you can choose whichever one suits whatever you're doing at that moment ...
Put SP1 on Vista though, it can make a huge difference with transfer speeds ...
Yeah that's not a bad idea.

Stupid question, can you do partitions on RAID0?

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Post by DanielC »

Yup ... once it's configured in the raid bios at boot, the OS sees it as one big hard drive.
In your case, it'll see 160 GB, and you can partition it as you like after, the same as any other hard drive.

I have my 2 raptors in raid 0, partitioned in 2 ...
~ Dan

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Post by empireum »

Let me guess, the GPU was the most expensive component?

Anyway, a very nice machine & a good idea to only use the RAID (which can be partitioned just as Daniel said) for the OS and store the data somewhere else/safe.

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Post by Andy »

empireum wrote:Let me guess, the GPU was the most expensive component?

Anyway, a very nice machine & a good idea to only use the RAID (which can be partitioned just as Daniel said) for the OS and store the data somewhere else/safe.
The GPU was £20 more than the Motherboard.

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Post by DanielC »

empireum wrote:Let me guess, the GPU was the most expensive component?
It would have been a whole lot worse if I hadn't made him see sense ...
~ Dan

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Post by Vista Ultimate R2 »

It looks pretty similar to the PC I built about 6 months ago - I've got the same CPU, 4 GB Ram, ATI Radeon 2600 XT 512 MB, Apevia X-Discovery case with transparent side/blue lights/temperature gauge, power supply with lights, 500 GB SATA drive, DVD-RW drive - it cost about £570 all-in. It sounds like you've got a better motherboard though - I didn't realise that only certain ones have 64-bit chipsets and so I'm running Vista Business x64 (it's great, go for it! - or at least use XP x64, you'd be mad to use 32-bit XP) but still only able to access about 3.3 GB of the memory installed. Also the motherboard is supposed to support the 1333 MHz FSB of this processor but I've never managed to get that to work, there is a BIOS setting to enable it but if I do that it just restarts itself and the setting is disabled again, so the CPU is underclocked as the clock speed is a multiplier of the FSB. Annoying - I would just buy a different board, but I'm not at all confident about spraying liquid ie thermal paste all over my processor - new CPUs come with a pad of it applied for you but to replace the board I would need to apply some myself I suppose I will have to buy a new board and a new quad-core CPU at some point...
Image

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Post by Jeff »

Vista Ultimate R2 wrote:...Annoying - I would just buy a different board, but I'm not at all confident about spraying liquid ie thermal paste all over my processor - new CPUs come with a pad of it applied for you but to replace the board I would need to apply some myself I suppose I will have to buy a new board and a new quad-core CPU at some point...
It really is easy... look at this. (Warning: PDF)

And that looks like a nice computer, Andy.
-Jeff

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Post by Shrimp »

Congrats on the new PC!

I'm not too sure about price but I still would have gotten an 8800 GT.

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Post by Andy »

Shrimp wrote:Congrats on the new PC!

I'm not too sure about price but I still would have gotten an 8800 GT.
The 8800GT is not all what people say you know. I got the 3870XT because it beats the 8800GT in real life performance.

Anyhow, the PC should have been here 2 hours ago. I paid extra for a morning delivery and its now 2pm...

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Post by Gnome »

Sound nice

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Post by RentedMule »

Actually, 32bit windows has 4GB of address space... 2GB for userspace applications, and 2GB for kernel space. You can use the /3GB switch to give your userspace applications 3GB of address space, leaving only 1GB for kernel space. This has nothing to do with the amount of physical ram that windows 32bit will use, but it gets confused, because the limit there is also 4GB (2 ^ 32).

This also becomes less of an issue if you have a PAE enabled processor. Both window and linux support 64 bit address space (with some setting changes), as long as paging is available. This still doesn't get you more than 4GB of usable ram though.

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Post by Beta Freak »

Nice, I think I need a new one before long as well, its very slow.

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Post by Gnome »

Still got the one i've seen?

___
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Post by ___ »

im running vista ultimate x64 and it is great, provided you have the hardware

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Post by theSpam »

I'd be wary of those Maxtor HDs -- does anyone know if their quality has improved since being bought by Seagate?

hounsell

Post by hounsell »

theSpam wrote:I'd be wary of those Maxtor HDs -- does anyone know if their quality has improved since being bought by Seagate?
I believe they have been OK for a while now. I have 3 in my computer, and none have had any problems, as long as you stick to ones from the last 2 years, they're OK in terms of quality.

As it happens, new DiamondMax drives are almost carbon copies of the related Seagate drive now anyway, so Id assume the quality is similar.

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Post by expert01 »

Once my projector is built (or at least all the parts bought - still need the box, screen, and fresnels), and after I get a sound system (another $500), I'll build a new PC. Planning on $300 for a Q6600 and motherboard, $150 for an 8800GS, ~$150 for 8GB of RAM (http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=T8UB2GC5&show=p DAMN!!!), and ~$150 for case/drives/PS/etc.

Then I might just have to build a second system (just a server) with the same specs. 8GB of RAM and a couple TB of RAID storage... sounds lovely.

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Post by Andy »

Maxtor drives are awesome, never had any problems yet.

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Post by empireum »

Never had any problems with Maxtor drives either, but I remember that a first-gen SATA drive (bought 2003 IIRC) ran very hot compared to other drives I had, even hotter than a 10k WD Raptor.

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