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could use some advice

G

gljvd

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Messages
239
Hey guys.

I currently have an athlon x64 3800 + with 2 gigs of ram and an x1900xt 512 meg video card.

I'm thinking of upgrading . I want to get a high def camcorder and also be able to transfer vhs tapes to dvd using this pc .

I"m wondering what parts of the pc should I upgrade . I figure that new intel chips are most likely coming out in january so I should wait for the end of that month.

I was thinking mabye a low end quad core with 4 gigs of ram and another ati card.

I still play a few games and would like to play age of conan and cyriss .

Do you guys think its worth upgrading for this at the current time. Is my cpu enough for now and I just need a gpu upgrade ?

Please help out a bit. Me love you long time if you help
 
If you want our help, please list out all of the parts to your rig. Provide as much detail as possible as to each part you have (e.g., 2GB Kingston ValueRAM PC3200, 80GB Seagate 7200.9 SATA) and include what monitor you are using. We also need to know the total amount of money you want to spend on the upgrade.

I'm assuming, based off of what you've told us so far, that you're using a Socket 754/939 motherboard that supports DDR memory. (Am I right?) You'll probably have to upgrade the processor, motherboard, and memory, for starters.

Additionally, read some of the other "help me build" thread that have been floating around this forum for ideas on which parts you may want.
 
As stated, you need to let us know the budget you're working with, parts you have on hand that could be reused, whether you're open to overclocking (you should say yes to this, 25% or larger gains are common on Intel Core 2 chips). More info doesn't hurt, although try to avoid "wall of text" syndrome.

gljvd said:
I want to get a high def camcorder and also be able to transfer vhs tapes to dvd using this pc.
Click to expand...

As this graph shows, Intel is probably your best choice for media encoding tasks.

16051dh0.png


Further, it appears to benefit from more cores.

14391fu7.png


gljvd said:
I figure that new intel chips are most likely coming out in january so I should wait for the end of that month.
Click to expand...

I've been hearing more like February+, but this is all up in the air until it happens. If you don't want to wait, you won't be losing out terribly by going with a Q6600 today.

gljvd said:
I still play a few games and would like to play age of conan and cyriss.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't hurt to toss an 8800GT in there, in this case.

gljvd said:
and an x1900xt 512 meg video card
Click to expand...

These are AWESOME for folding (the distributed computing project by Stanford that works towards studying protein behavior to help in curing cancer and so forth). Do not under any circumstances just toss this in the bin (or leave it collecting dust on the shelf). If you have no other plans for it, you can probably find an interested buyer here. Keep in mind that these are old and not terribly valuable beyond this humanitarian application. So you can defray your costs, but don't expect too much for it.
 
okay

athlon x2 3800 + it sucks at overclocking so i keep it at default clocks.
Motherboard is an asus A8R-MVP
Ram . I have 2 x 1GB sticks of ram that are 200mhz 3-3-3-8 . Not sure who makes it but will look if I need too .
I have 2 18x dvd rw drives
p160 case
x1900xt 512 meg card.


Thats really all I have at the moment. No sound card in there. As for budget well I"m looking at $500 ish mabye a bit more. I wont be buying all at once. I'd most likely get the video card first followed by the cpu , mobo and ram.

As for nvidia . I'd rather stay with ati for the folding as my pc does that more than gaming . I dunno if the 3870s do folding though.

Overclocking. Well I don't care. I used to have a home made water cooler but i'm not affraid to to go high end air cooling. Right now I have a ninja cooling tower for my cpu and I'd go with something like that on my next pc.

I'd most likely sell the components that i'm upgrading to partialy finance the upgrade. I'm sure I wont get much but whatever helps.

THanks for the help
 
gljvd said:
As for nvidia . I'd rather stay with ati for the folding as my pc does that more than gaming . I dunno if the 3870s do folding though.
Click to expand...

Can't object to that.

Nothing newer than the X19?? cards can do GPU folding yet. Word is that they should be supported Any Time Now and that they were seeing very nice results. GPUs are a powerful tool for the folding team, but it takes a lot of development work in concert with the manufacturer.

Even more reason to go quad core, then. Might want to go GPU last, until the client supporting the ATI HD cards materializes.
 
yea. q6600 thats about $250 I guess. $50ish for some cooler. Then what am I looking at for ram and a motherboard ?
 
Roughly $100 for 4GB of DDR2 these days, and $80-150 for a motherboard. There are some cheap P35 models that are extremely solid. Lots of range with the cooler. The retail Intel cooler isn't too shabby.
 
for overclocking is there certian ram speed I should look for ? also a certian make ?
 
Not really for Intel Core 2. It's not particularly memory sensitive. DDR2-800 or better, because there just isn't an economic reason to settle for less. No major brand preference so long as it comes from a major brand that you can easily take to task if you get a dud stick. With these, it's all about running the CPU speed as high as it will go, with high-FSB configs being popular.
 
On this search page, the Geil, Mushkin, OCZ, and G.SKILL are well known brands. Patriot is okay, in a "sometimes great, sometimes mediocre" sort of way. I wouldn't use ADATA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1052315794+1052416064&name=DDR2+800+(PC2+6400

Of the ones listed, my first impulse is to go with these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227267

And yes, that's the CPU in question. The retail version comes with a respectable heatsink and a longer warranty (which I have invoked probably less than 10 times since the early 90's, counting working in a small tech shop).
 
Lower is better (although of the four timings numbers usually given, only two really mean crap for performance, the rest are largely stability tweaks...).

The one I linked has 4s, or 5s if you overclock it much. Really good for DDR2. It's also only $90.

gljvd said:
okay ocz reaper it is .

Will order it tommorow most likely.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that. Simulpost = win.

I kinda wish I had call to get some memory now...I'm running some Crucial Tracers from before the market dropped out from under DDR2. Maybe I upgrade my wife's computer or something. ^_^

This may be a better option for the motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059

Or if you want Abit for some reason, ABIT IP35-E
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127031

I'm relatively sure you can find the motherboard for cheaper elsewhere, I'm just looking for exemplars on Newegg. Always shop around when you're making large purchases like this, $10 here and $5 there adds up across all the parts. For example, ClubIT has that Gigabyte board for $95 shipped vs. $105 shipped from the Egg.
 
anything you recommend with crossfire capability.

Might want to keep that open in the future if they enable folding on the new ati cards or whatever comes down the pipe.

I've noticed i normaly go 2 video card upgrades for every motherboard upgrade.

I bought the x800xt when I got the x2 3800 and then I got the x1900 .

So at some point esp if I get into age of conan or another new mmorpg out there I might want to upgrade to a second card or upgrade to 2 new cards .
 
Good point. That may up the mobo cost a little, I'll look again. I think there are some that handle 3 cards at full 16x PCI-E now, but most of those are probably in the $200+ bracket.

There are a few boards that support PCI-E 2.0, but I don't know of anything that needs it yet. It may or may not become a forward compatibility issue. These likewise will probably not come cheap.

Asus P5K looks like the way to go to get Crossfire. $134 shipped at Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131180

It appears to come in a multitude of flavors. Here is a chart.
http://event.asus.com/mb/p5k/spec.html
 
I figure I pick up the ram tommorow.

Next check I get the mobo and the following one I get the cpu.

So its not a problem if i spend an extra 20-30 on a mobo.


I think I should be able to get $200 ish for my athlon and mobo and ram
 
X2 3800, new, $54
Random 939 mobo, $43 + shipping
2GB DDR, $100 (really)

So more likely under $200, but thereabouts.
 
sounds good to me. Gotta figure a place to sell it now haha.

And figure out a crossfire mobo.

Thank you for the help. I'm going to bed
 
Simple, straightforward options:

FS/FT forum
eBay

If you explicitly want it to be used for folding, and don't mind getting a somewhat lower price for it:

DC FS/FT forum
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Wow, that A-Data kit jumped in price. It was only $85 yesterday. A-Data is ok. They're one of the largest memory manufacturers in the world, so their stuff usually works -- they're just new to branding their own RAM. I have no clue how well their support is, though, since I've never had to use it. The OCZ kit is fine, too. The G.Skills used to be $90, too. You won't notice the difference between CL4 and CL5, unless you're running benchmarks (and even then, its negligible), so don't pay a huge price premium for lower latency.

The DS3L and IP35-E used to be in the mid $80's as well. It looks like everything is a bit overpriced right now. Go figure.

PCI-E2.0 cards will be backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.1 slots. The only PCI-E2.0 boards right now are the X38 and 780i boards. Since you want Crossfire, that rules out the 780i boards. The P35 boards do Crossfire in a 16x + 4x config, while the X38 boards do Crossfire in a dual 16x config. If you want the best Crossfire performance, go for an X38 board.

As for OC'ing the Q6600, all you need is DDR2-800.

/*------------- <cut n paste> -------------*/
Formulas for Intel platform @ 1:1 settings: (base FSB speed is SDR, or single data rate)
c x [Base FSB speed] = CPU speed (c = CPU Multiplier)
2 x [Base FSB speed] = RAM speed (DDR: double data rate)
4 x [Base FSB speed] = FSB speed (QDR: quad data rate; Effective FSB speed)

On Intel platforms, running the RAM higher than a 1:1 ratio with the CPU is, for the most part, useless, so don't bother trying to do so. If the BIOS does it for you, just let it. All you need is a 1:1 config, though. Here's some possible clock speeds (as always with OC'ing, your results will vary):

Q6600: 9 × 266 = 2.4Ghz, DDR2-533 << STOCK speeds
Q6600: 9 × 333 = 3.0Ghz, DDR2-667 << Nice OC
Q6600: 9 × 378 = 3.4Ghz, DDR2-756 << Good OC, near max for B3 stepping
Q6600: 9 × 400 = 3.6Ghz, DDR2-800 << Great OC, near max for G0 stepping
/*------------- </cut n paste> -------------*/

Some cooler suggestions:
$35 - Scythe SCNJ-1100P Ninja Plus Rev.B CPU HSF (optional $7 Thermalright LGA775 Bolt-Thru-Kit; recommended esp. for quadcore usage)
$45 - Tuniq Tower 120 CPU HSF
$46 - Thermalright Ultima 90 CPU HS + Panaflo Hydrowave Fan, FBA09A12M - Z ($3)
$55 - Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme CPU HS + Scythe S-Flex Fan SFF21E ($15)

If you can, get the Q6600 from clubit since they guarantee the G0 stepping. The G0 stepping requires less voltage and therefore runs cooler. Less heat is a good thing regardless of whether you OC or not.
 
If that "ninja cooling tower" you mentioned is one of the Scythe Ninja heatsinks, keep that; it's one of the preferred CPU coolers here for Core 2 Duos/Quads.

What monitor, case, and power supply are you using? Are you planning on reusing any (or all) of them?
 
I have the antec p160b i believe .

As for the monitors . I have a 19inch 4:3 sony and a 22 inch westinghouse that does 1680x 1050

i'm going to resue it all


also thanks for that chart. I was going to be happy with 3ghz. If i get 3.6 ghz damn is all I gotta say. Don't see a need to upgrade for a very long time
 
What PSU do you plan on using? The P160 didn't come with a PSU, IIRC, but if it did, its most likely a shitty TP2.
 
gljvd said:
Does cross fire work on non ati boards ?
Click to expand...

Yes. Crossfire works on Intel boards. Some P35 boards can do 16x + 4x Crossfire, while the X38 boards all do dual 16x Crossfire. Why do you want Crossfire?
 
like I had said earlier .

I tend to keep my cpus and motherboards longer than my video cards .


For example. I had an x800xt on my a64 x2 and later an x1900xt . I also like to do folding. So I feel that in the future I might see a need for two cards . If I get into Age of Conan or a future mmorpg i will most likely need to move on to a dual card set up to get the most of it. Also if in the future I go for a bigger monitor I might also want crossfire. If I can get 3.6 ghz out of this chip I don't see why I'd need to upgrade it anytime in the next 3 years. The only way I can see that happening is 8 core chips come into style or there are some huge clock speed gains also
 
Sorry, I didn't realize I was in this thread, lol. I remember reading your post about that earlier last night.

Ahh, but I mentioned that same tidbit of info about Crossfire earlier, as well, lol.

enginurd said:
PCI-E2.0 cards will be backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.1 slots. The only PCI-E2.0 boards right now are the X38 and 780i boards. Since you want Crossfire, that rules out the 780i boards. The P35 boards do Crossfire in a 16x + 4x config, while the X38 boards do Crossfire in a dual 16x config. If you want the best Crossfire performance, go for an X38 board.
Click to expand...

enginurd said:
Yes. Crossfire works on Intel boards. Some P35 boards can do 16x + 4x Crossfire, while the X38 boards all do dual 16x Crossfire.
Click to expand...
 
yea lol. This is what i get for reading about this at 4:30am

I see they said the p5k boards from asus . Looks like its a go for me. hopefully it clocks well
 
It's a good deal and the price difference is only $10 more. I say go for it. You might be lucky and end up with a Q6600 that can OC past 3.6ghz.
 
well seems like that ocz ram i was going to buy might land me in trouble. Doesn't seem like they are good at honoring rebates
 
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