Need your advice on the following system...

[tamirch1]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here.
I visit this forum occasionally and really like the posters here. I would be happy to get your advice.

I've been building my own PCs since 1995, but stopped researching on hardware about 3-4 years ago. I'm upgrading now from a P4 3.0 Ghz, Asus mobo (ob sound & lan), 3 GB 400 Mhz dual DDR, Geforce 5600 GS 256MB AGP, 250 GB SATA + 180 GB SATA + 160 GB IDE (all WD), LG 16x DVD-RW, LG x48 CD-RW, generic ATX case (3 fans), generic 700w ATX PSU (2 more fans). It has been running all games adequately right up until BioShock and Crysis.

My PC is in my living room, connected to a 37" HD ready LCD (Which will eventually be replaced with a 47" Full HD).
I use it for: HTPC, gaming, music (320K mp3s) Photoshop, occasional video encoding, heavy downloading/streaming, occasional Matlab/Visual Studio, office and multi-window search (up to 15 IE/FF sessions in parallel).
I do not expect to OC or CF/SLI.

I am on a budget, so after going through these forums and doing some research, I came up with the following setup:

Q6600
Asus P5Q-E
4 GB DC DDR2 1066MHz - OCZ Platinum (or Patriot Viper or Kingston HyperX)
Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic
250 GB SATA + 180 GB SATA
1 TB eSATA External (WD/Seagate)
LG 16x DVD-RW
HTPC case - ?
PSU - ?
Additional cooling?
Additional sound card?

*Italic=parts from previous pc

I would be happy to hear any thoughts on any of the following:
1. My Proc/Mobo/Memory/Video combination. Is it the best Price/Performance combination? Got other ideas (in the same total price range +/- $20)?
2. Which of memory would you recommend most?
3. How detrimental will it be to use my existing 180 GB SATA1 HD as boot?
4. What are your recommendations for Case/PSU? These are the parts I want to invest the absolute minimum amount of money in (but still use adequate, reliable parts).
5. Do I need additional cooling? If so, which?
6. Do I need an additional sound card? (How much of an improvement is it over the ob card?), if so, which?

Thanks to anybody taking the time to read this and post!

 

[dirtmountain]

Good site for additional info about silent/quiet systems. They have good recommendations about power supplies, cases etc. with a strong bias towards QUIET!
http://www.silentpcreview.com/
for cooling reviews www.frostytech.com has a great list of the 10 quietest coolers. I like your CPU/mobo/Video combination. For RAM i'd go with a quality DDR2 800 1.8v
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146731
Always use the onboard sound first, unless you're a dedicated audiophile it will probably be sufficient, you can always add a Asus Xonar or Auzentech if needed later. Hope the links help

 

[Onus]

^+1. I would add emphasis that the PSU is not the place to be cheap.

 

[bdollar]

+1 again to no skimping on psu

+1 drop down to ddr2 800 ram. will save you money and with no overclocking you are not going to get any benefit from the 1066. get the standard 1.8v (sometimes companies will temp you with lower cl but they got it lower by raising the voltage).

p5q-e mobo. i love the p5q. great choice. but is there something specific you need out of the one you chose? reason i ask is that is a place you can save some money. for example the p5q se is $55 less. main difference is crossfire support which you have no desire to do.

how much money is the 1tb external drive? what are the specific reasons you want it? again just trying to get an overall feel for your needs since cost is a concern.

there is a great case/psu combo for $79 (after mail in rebate) hard to beat. typically psus in cases suck and would advise against them. but this is a good antec psu so recommended. don't think you are going to find a quality psu and case for cheaper. also air filter in this case is removable and washable. (also check out the combo deal in case interested in light scribe)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

 

[bdollar]

oh also. you could save even more by going p35 instead of p45. again with no crossfire. still has 4 memory slots but max is 8gb instead of 16gb which is really a non-issue.

asus p5k se is $85 so that is $20 less than the p5q se. total savings would be $75 from your current choice.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16813131278

 

[Wanker79]

Is there a reason you want the Terabyte drive to be an external drive? Portability, perhaps? If there really isn't a specific reason you may want to consider a couple Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB internal HDDs. I don't know anything about external drives, but the WD6400AAKS is one of the fastest internal drives around (excluding the ridiculously prices VelociRaptors) and the GB/$ is very hard to beat. Two of them would give you 1.28TB of total storage and it'd (likely) be a noticable speed improvement over reusing your old drives.

 

[tamirch1]

Hey Thanks for the advice.

I wanted the 1TB HD for mobility, but I guess an internal one is a better choice for overall performance. I think I'll get the 0.5 TB WD now, and another later (I can get it cheap). A little more heat power and noise, but cost effective...

Can someone please explain why I won't benefit from 1066 Mhz memory? If the mobo and CPU run at 1066, won't the whole system (instead of running at 800)?

After some more thought I came up with a minimum and optimum systems for my budget:

Minimum:
Intel E8400
Asus P5Q Pro
4 GB DC DDR2 800 MHz OCZ Vista Upgrade Copper
Sapphire HD 4850 (custom board)
WD 500GB SATA2
WD 180 GB SATA
WD 250 GB SATA
LG 16x DVD-RW
Thermaltake TR2 Power W0101 550W Silent

Optimum:
Intel Q6600
Asus P5Q-E
4 GB DC DDR2 1066MHz - OCZ Platinum
Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic
WD 250 GB SATA
WD 180 GB SATA
1 TB eSATA External (WD/Seagate)
LG 16x DVD-RW‏
Enermax MODU82+ 525W

Italic = parts from old pc

Whats your opinion? what must I keep from the optimum setup?

 

[bdollar]

both psus need to go. corsair, pc power and cooling, antec. look at those. psu is somewhere that it is very important you get a good highly rated brand.

ddr2 800 is all you need. unless big over clock you are getting no benefit and paying more

have you considered the p35 to save money? what features on those p45 choices are you after? there is even p45 options that are cheaper. don't get me wrong those are great boards but on a budget there is no sense in paying for features you aren't going to use.

how cheap can you get the 500gb wd? the 640gb is typically only a little more and has ncq which is nice. probably best price per gb drive out there and fast.

stick with quadcore. for your usage that will be advantageous. q6600 is a good one and not too much more than the e8400.

did you see the case/psu combo i recommended above? was there something you didn't like about it? don't know your budget on case/psu but have other recommendations if you are willing to spend more. but for the price no way you are going to beat it unless you get a crap PSU.

from what you would save on your optimum setting by gettnig one 640wd hdd, ddr2 800, and cheaper mobo you could probably upgrade to a 4870 which will do awesome at your resolution, it exhausts the heat out the back of the case so keeps cooler than 4850 and will have you more prepared for what games/apps may come in the future.

 

[tamirch1]

Your PSU/Case Combo is VERY attractive, but... I live in Israel. Although I occasionally can get someone to bring me parts from the states, a case is a bit too big/heavy to ask for... So I think I'll get an HTPC case here.

Do you know something I don't about Enermax? From what I know they're quite reliable, and this model got the top spot for noise rating at silentpcr:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article699-page1.html.

PCP&C are hard to get here. Do you know of (affordable) recommended models for Corsair or Antec (for HTPC)?

I wanna get the p45 to support future upgrades (16 GB/s PCIe vs 8 GB/s), and for the 10% chance of crossfire / 20% chance of overclocking (added tuning support). It's, true most likely I won't, but for the extra $20 - I'll be happy to know I can...

I'd really be happy if you could explain why there's no gain with the 1066mhz over the 800mhz unless I OC. I will gladly drop it if I understand...

I realize the benefits of investing the extra $70-90 in a 4870, but it is a large difference and I'll probably want to save that money regardless of which other parts I choose.

I read a bit about the 320 GB plates of the wd6400aaks and it does sound like a better drive, but for some reason it's hard to find here (probably because you guys buy every one that they manufacture ) so the 500 and even the 750 offer better GB/$ here (and the only store that has the 640 is on the other side of the country. On the other hand, the toxic is easy to get here, but I couldn't find it on tiger or newegg).
I prefer getting the HD close to home because of warranty issues...

So we're now at:

Intel Q6600
Asus P5Q-Pro (save the $ and forgo the optical out)
2x2 GB DC DDR2 - OCZ/Kingston - Mhz=?
Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic (will stay due to super low noise)
WD 750 GB SATA (with some reservations)
PSU ?
Case?

 

[Wanker79]

Hey Thanks for the advice.

I wanted the 1TB HD for mobility, but I guess an internal one is a better choice for overall performance. I think I'll get the 0.5 TB WD now, and another later (I can get it cheap). A little more heat power and noise, but cost effective...

Can someone please explain why I won't benefit from 1066 Mhz memory? If the mobo and CPU run at 1066, won't the whole system (instead of running at 800)?

The 640GB is recommended because of it's dual 320GB platter design (which is mathmatically impossible to get in a 500GB drive). If there's a significant difference in the price of the 500GB and the 640GB, go for it. But you'll get a bit better performance from the 640GB so it'll be worth a few extra dollars. BTW, Seagate came out with a 640GB drive (here), that's priced equal to the WD 640GB, and has a longer manufacturer's warrenty (5 years compared to WD's 3 years). I don't know how it's performance compares, but it's probably safe to say it's close.

And no, your system won't benefit from 1066MHz RAM because of the Q6600's 1066MHz FSB. I won't bore you with all the details, but as a rule of thumb you divide the FSB by 2 to get the RAM frequency that'll run 1:1 with it. So all you really need is 533MHz RAM. Any faster and the FSB will be a bottleneck. Any slower and it'll bottleneck the FSB. But since DDR2 800 is so cheap, and it’ll leave the door open for a fairly heavy OC (and even a decent OC for a CPU with a stock 1333 FSB), nobody ever recommends anything less.

 

[bdollar]

sorry. i get in newegg mode. i should have asked but in the future you may want to put where you are buying from in your initial post. helps with recommendations and sometime people have good ideas of where to get stuff in your country. the antec earthwatts 500w is usually pretty cheap. unfortunately i have no idea prices overthere. but with limited availability you have to go with what you can. if you are finding good stuff on enermax then maybe that is what you do.

this is kind of a simple explanation someone else can probably explain better:

ok you are comparing ram wrong. your ram is ddr2 800. divide by 2 (because ddr2 is double data rate). that is your speed per data rate - 400mz. Your FSB your clock x 4. So 1600 fsb is 1:1 with ddr2 800.

edit: posted same time as wanker.

 

[Wanker79]

Just in case it wasn't clear from either of our posts, the reason the FSB of the processor matters is because data has to go through both the RAM and the FSB. So having one capable of delivering data much faster than the other has no benefit since it'll only travel as fast as the slowest pathway.

But since DDR2 800 is so cheap, it doesn't really matter from a price prospective that the RAM is running 50% faster than the stock FSB can handle. Since there really isn't any cost benefit to dropping down to slower RAM, all that happens is that you're left with a really big cushion when/if you OC.

 

[tamirch1]

Thanks a lot you guys,
I'll go for the 800 (1.8v OCZ or kingston, whatever's cheaper)

Good news, I found and ordered the wd6400aaks.

so I'm at:
Intel q6600
Asus P5Q Pro
4 GB DC DDR2 800 MHz (OCZ/Kingston)
Sapphire HD 4850 Toxic
WD 6400AAKS
Enermax MODU82+ 525W
Thermaltake Mozart Media Lab or Silverstone LC17b (which is actually quite cheaper here - $94 instead of $119 at newegg). Also liked the Sunbeam UV Blue Clear Acrylic HTPC case, but it looks a bit too fragile and toyish

 

[bdollar]

enjoy. think you'll like it.