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Is this any good?


Junior2613

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In the end I decided not to buy the barebone as I noticed one crucial flaw... It's crap.

Good call for once.

It's not a whole lot better than the previous two.

It's got 4GB DDR2 with dedicated graphics from a GT220

That's not exactly selling points (more like the inverse IMO)

Dual core Phenom with maybe the prospect of unlocking the other 2 cores

Not a bad CPU, but you're unlikely to unlock 2 cores. Nevermind the motherboard in it has no such feature, so you'll unlock absolutely nothing.

Great price for me to survive till september where I will upgrade to DDR3 and AM3 with maybe a new Graphics setup which will depend on how the GT220 behaves.

Why would you buy that over something the 2 systems I quoted for example? It still gets mostly everything wrong!

For 10% more than both examples I had listed (above your max quoted budget by 30 euro), you are:

-Giving up the modern AM3 Socket, which means wasted money as you'll be buying a new motherboard in September (only 1.5 months away!)

-Give up DDR3, which means getting rid of the DDR2 soon (the board only has 2 DIMM slots too, and is limited to 4GB -- ouch), to spend just as much on DDR3 in a couple months

-You are getting a lesser chipset, which we've all advised against because it's crap (nvidia 6150 -- eww)

-You are getting a slower dual core CPU, that will also be replaced within 2 months (more wasted money)

-You are getting a very, very low end motherboard from a not exactly great manufacturer (BioStar) -- definitely nowhere near as good quality as Gigabyte or ASUS and several others, and in many ways; loads of electrolytic caps, crap chipset, limited TDP (95W), the layout sucks (floppy right besides a PCI slot? LOL, that's really awful for starters), again, only 2 DIMM slots, very few PCI-e & PCI slots, older audio codecs with only the basics, no Gibabit ethernet, no firewire, etc. The list goes on and on.

-You are not getting SATA 6Gb/s, nor any eSATA -- and there's only 2 SATA ports total (ouch!)

-You are not getting USB 3 ports of any flavor

-The only PCI-e slot isn't v2.0

-You are getting a junk power supply that you'll also replace real soon (you really won't want to buy junk here)

...

Except that you're now also getting it with a dedicated graphics card that's not a whole lot better than decent onboard video for gaming (and still costs 2/3rds of a card that's actually nice, which means now being over budget AND getting a even lower quality system), which you'll most likely also be getting rid of in 2 months if you're buying a system to play games.

Honestly, even the outdated Socket 775 junker you listed first was a bit nicer. You're still doing the "buy total junk now, get rid of everything in 2 months" thing, so this is the point where I stop wasting my time recommending anything as you're pretty much ignoring it all anyway.

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Sorry CoffeeFiend if it seems that I'm ignoring your recommendations but recently I noticed that I have two project meant to be in for September the 2nd and there is no time to build anything from scratch and I have to stop borrowing my brother's laptop at some point because he will be moving out within the week. Sorry if I seem rude but I just needed advice on a PC that will only last me a month or so to make sure I can pass my course. I apologize to you if I didn't mention that. The idea of me buying junk and improving later on isn't too bad in my view as in September I will be getting more money that I wouldn't need anywhere else. Your recommendations are just about a month ahead of time. On my next build all your advice WILL be taken into consideration.

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That beats the logic. Really, no time? No time to take 2 hours to put some part together? Hell, I do it even in 15 minutes but then, I'm building PCs for over 14 years for a living and some 8 years more before that as a hobby :P.

Now, anything you buy as a "junker kit" (like it's called now in this topic) will be trash by the time you "upgrade". You also will kick your friend, who has a computer shop, in the nuts (he could have helped you to build something nice for it's price). Hell, why not by the stuff at his shop and pay 30 or 40 quid, I'm sure he could match a price here and there.

Just my 0.02. :lol:

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Really, no time? No time to take 2 hours to put some part together?

Well coupled with the fact that I also have other responsibilities for the next few months. Like I say I only needed as system for a month then after that my budget will be back at a reasonable £650 approximately. Besides where would be the fun in letting someone else build it when I'm perfectly able to carry out the task.

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there is no time to build anything from scratch

No way. It only takes 15 minutes or so for the entire thing from scratch. If you can't spare 15 minutes in a month and a half, you're in big trouble. The barebones hardly saves you any time anyway -- I'd say about 5 minutes or so (10 tops)

-a couple screws on the side of the case to remove (gotta do it either way)

-the PSU has 4 screws (a whole minute or so)

-there's the motherboard to install, let's say 8 screws total (2 or 3 mins total)

-there's the PSU to connect to the motherboard (2 cables total, 30 secs tops)

-the CPU to drop in its socket and clamping down the heat sink (all of 2 minutes if you take your time)

-2 sticks of RAM to clip in (under a minute)

-2 to 4 screws per drive (depending on your level of lazyness; gotta do it either way)

-a couple SATA & power cables to connect (gotta do it either way)

-you have to close the case again, 2 more screws (gotta do it either way)

-tidying the cables (somewhat optional, no time saved with a barebones there either)

-plugging the thing in (gotta do it either way)

-the OS, drivers and apps to install, update and configure/tweak (by FAR takes the most amount of time -- it's perhaps 90% of the job, and you still gotta do it either way)

Either way, you've opted to massively waste money by buying absolute junk for a month worth of use, just to save 5 minutes out of something that will take probably 2 to 3 hours including the software part (I only wish I had the luxury to waste hundreds of euros to save so little time) so good luck with it. All 3 systems suck, so flip a 3-sided coin and buy that one. It's a game where you lose no matter which one you pick.

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Ouch. There's no need to be so hard on the guy, CoffeeFiend.

Maybe it's due to OCD, but I take three times longer to assemble my own machines—up to an hour including a routine double-check of all connections. All cables are neatly tucked away and ty-wrapped where they're not visible to improve airflow. Ribbon cables are folded and the excess tucked between the drives or under the motherboard, where possible. I use all screws and standoffs. And connecting the front panel buttons and lights can easily take ten minutes if I need to change the pinout of the LEDs to get them to work—some connectors have three pins that need creative swapping or bridging.

Edited by 5eraph
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Maybe it's due to OCD, but I take three times longer to assemble my own machines—up to an hour including a routine double-check of all connections. All cables are neatly tucked away and ty-wrapped where they're not visible to improve airflow. Ribbon cables are folded and the excess tucked between the drives or under the motherboard, where possible. I use all screws and standoffs. And connecting the front panel buttons and lights can easily take ten minutes if I need to change the pinout of the LEDs to get them to work—some connectors have three pins that need creative swapping or bridging.

Yup, that's my 15 minutes build.:P

I do that with every build I sell.

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Just got the new system going. Overclocked the Phenom to 3.62Ghz from 3.1Ghz. I also tried the system in World in Conflict which automatically set everything to max after detecting hardware with 4x AA and Ax AF with DX10 running and it was smooth even on the most demanding map do_spaceneedle. Will have to install CoD4 for further tests. Hard drive also seems snappy and the 4GB DDR2 running like a beast loading maps in less than 10 seconds also booting windows 7 64-bit in less than 20 seconds from when it says Starting windows on the black screen :D

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It's unnatural :P Oh and PuntoMX what does the L3 cache unlocked in your sig mean? I thought Athlon's don't have L3.

Ow yes they do have L3 cache, you just need to unlock it. Phenom has it enabled just factory default and isn't much faster because of that compared to an Athlon II. :sneaky:

Kudos. It's simply not possible for me to move that fast. :(

You haven't seen Chinese women doing that, I'm sure they can do it even in half my time. :lol:

Hard drive also seems snappy and the 4GB DDR2 running like a beast loading maps in less than 10 seconds also booting windows 7 64-bit in less than 20 seconds from when it says Starting windows on the black screen :D

Yeah for now, or you must have a SSD in there, Windows will start to boot slower over time. ;)
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Well, I guess that the facts that I take pride in how my case looks inside and out, and that I don't mass produce systems should make me feel better about being so slow, puntoMX. I actually take the time to enjoy the work.

I've heard it said that you can only ever have two of the following three things to say about any single piece of work. It's always a trade-off between the three.

  • It was done quickly.
  • It was done correctly.
  • It was done inexpensively.

Edited by 5eraph
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  • It was done quickly.
  • It was done correctly.
  • It was done inexpensively.

Brilliant point.

Yeah for now, or you must have a SSD in there, Windows will start to boot slower over time. ;)

Yeah I realize that as the HDD ages it will get weaker and lose performance. SSD's are on my list for future upgrade but that's some time away. I got a nice looking xigmatek case with the PC everything inside is cool. GT220 running idle at 32 Celsius, the clock speeds seem strange though in game it's running 625MHz core, 1414MHz shader core and 486MHz (986MHz effective). Is it normal for the memory clock to be that low? I did also overclock the Phenom from 3.1Ghz to 3.52Ghz without any voltage changes and it's nice and stable at 227MHz x 15.5. So far so good its performing above my expectations.

Edited by Junior2613
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Yeah I realize that as the HDD ages it will get weaker and lose performance. SSD's are on my list for future upgrade but that's some time away. I got a nice looking xigmatek case with the PC everything inside is cool. GT220 running idle at 32 Celsius, the clock speeds seem strange though in game it's running 625MHz core, 1414MHz shader core and 486MHz (986MHz effective). Is it normal for the memory clock to be that low? I did also overclock the Phenom from 3.1Ghz to 3.52Ghz without any voltage changes and it's nice and stable at 227MHz x 15.5. So far so good its performing above my expectations.

HDD's don't really loose performance, it's just the fragmentation and the accumulated junk on the PC. Reformats usually fix this ;)

CoffeeFiend was mostly right but was pretty harsh in saying it, calling all of them utter junk and basically made them sound worthless. Big deal there is some older gen stuff, looks like you got what you wanted when you really needed it. In the end parts are only going to come down more so when want something truly decent it will not have ended up costing much less just to buy it right now.

Those cheapo Xigmatek cases are not as bad as Coffee thought you were getting, nothing wrong with them at all. GT220 is actually not a bad budget card either, at least over here it costs only as much as a 5450 yet is double the performance. Uses more power but it's still pretty low (I have one of both cards!).

Good OC from an budget PC, no changes to voltage and I'm guessing it's on a stock cooler so good work!

As for building times, you guys don't know what taking your time is. It took me about 2.5hrs to build the top PC in my sig, then another hour to get the OC working stable. But it is one of the neatest PC's around as it has a large window so needs to be! Always get complemented on its looks and tidiness which makes me feel like I have done a solid job. Keeping cables neat is important when you have 12 fans in a PC without any grilles protecting them from stray cables. It's also far easier to remove parts for cleaning, try getting a 28.5CM long triple slot GPU outta a case when it has a mass of cables on top of it :lol:

EDIT: The CPU in that PC you got is not bad at all actually! I'm typing this on an AMD box with a budget Athlon II x2 240 which is absolutely brilliant for general use so since yours is higher up then you should be getting even better performance.

Outta interest, I noticed it only came with a cheapo CoolerMaster case so which Xigmatek case did you get with it instead?

Edited by Zenskas
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According to the packaging it is a Xigmatek Pure Black (Classic Chassis) it looks quite nice and well built to say the least. I just checked my Overclock and I just noticed my RAM speed increased too from 400MHz (DDR2 800) to 454MHz. I also forgot to mention I actually got an Asus motherboard not the Biostar nonsense they listed :P

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