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Building first new PC in 10 years


gamehead200

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Coffefiend = Thanks for schooling me.

The reason why I said what I said was because I was a HUGE intel only guy for a really long time.

Then last year I got aghold of $500 ish bucks and built a AMD system:

CPU = 1100t Black Ed

Ram = 16 gigs ddr3 1333

Vid = AMD Radeon HD 6450

Mobo = ASUS M4N75TD

Its actually the Fastest system I have ever owned. Except for the video card (I have a older geforce in my sons pc thats quit abit better) I am EXTREMLY happy with it.

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I like ASRock, their support is fantastic. ASUS and Gigabyte don't have good support.

I also think that ASRock is underrated. They've got decent motherboards for very reasonable prices.

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Coffefiend = Thanks for schooling me.

That wasn't really the intent (not in a bad way at least) but just to point out that the current AMD offerings very much suck compared to Intel's (with some explanations to back it and perhaps help him make his choice too)

I was a HUGE intel only guy for a really long time.

At the beginning, Intel was clearly the best (the NEC v20 was alright though). Then many years later, AMD had some decently priced alternatives (Athlon era), and then they peaked with the Athlon64. That was a far better CPU than the P4 (architecture, speed, etc), but Intel basically surpassed it with the Core 2 Duo. AMD then released some quad cores that were cheaper and that were a good alternative to the Core 2 Quads but that only lasted for so long. Beyond that point AMD's offerings are extremely deceiving. Their current desktops CPUs seem to be all about having a very large number of useless cores (more cores sitting idle 100% of the time, not helping performance but just increasing your power bill) while having a deceivingly low single threaded perf (making everything run much slower) which is completely the inverse of what most people want or need. And they seem to be focusing on super slow APUs in the mobile world, like laptops with ghetto Fusion E-350 CPU (APU) that's actually slower than an old Intel Pentium D 3GHz from 2005 (there are i3's that are more than 6x faster!) Even on the server side, they're focusing on the same tons of slow cores approach, where their 16 core monster is barely faster than their previous 12 core beast (and even sometimes slower). That misguided strategy of just adding more which remind us of shavers (now with 17 blades!) will only last them so long. They desperately need to increase IPC, reduce cache latency, reduce the penalty of a branch misprediction, etc.

I like ASRock, their support is fantastic. ASUS and Gigabyte don't have good support.

That's anecdotal evidence at best. It comes across as baseless accusations out of asrock fanboy-ism or whatever. I've had great support from both ASUS and Gigabyte (even smaller players like Zotac recently), and I'm hardly the only one. Their products are very solid and reliable, and they are top rated on every site with reviews as well. There's nothing wrong with liking ASRock (I'm just not a big fan of their products myself) but to say the two biggest both suck is preposterous.

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That's anecdotal evidence at best. It comes across as baseless accusations out of asrock fanboy-ism or whatever. I've had great support from both ASUS and Gigabyte (even smaller players like Zotac), and I'm hardly the only one. Their products solid and reliable, and they are also top rated on every site with reviews as well.

With all due respect :), I completely fail to see how yours is NOT as well anecdotal evidence at best , or if you prefer, apart the divergence of opinions, your post contains the SAME *whatever* you are saying MagicAndre1981's post contains :ph34r:.

I also completely fail to see the BIG differences between Asus (Asustek), Asrock and Pegatron:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asustek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegatron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegatron_Corporation

To me they are just names/brands all revolving around the same "main group". :unsure:

jaclaz

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I completely fail to see how yours is NOT as well anecdotal evidence

Which part? Where I say I got good support from Gigabyte and ASUS? Yep, it is anecdotal evidence, just like his. I meant that he might have had a bad experience with them before, but there's millions of us on other other side of the fence who haven't. And that no company would get so big with bad support, or that they wouldn't care if they provided bad support thus damaging their reputation and ending up losing their large share of a lucrative market. And as you said, ASrock and ASUS are the same group, and it would be kind of funny if the "prestige" division (ASUS) offered lesser support than their "value" division (ASRock)

your post contains the SAME *whatever*

I'm not saying the same thing at all:

I said I don't like ASRock products as much (as in, not a real fan of their actual mobo designs -- call it nitpicking), not that they're a bad product, but it's rather a personal preference, so I'd pick another OEM first.

Whereas he claims that both of the most popular OEMs, which also happen to have fantastic reviews everywhere (and countless millions of happy customers) have poor support, without providing anything to back it up. That's something else entirely.

Then again, if someone has a spare ASRock X79 Extreme11 taking up space, I'm taking donations ;) Seven x16 slots (two PLX chips!), 8 DIMM slots, 14 SATA ports (8 actually being SAS ports on a fancy LSI logic controller), 8 USB3 ports,etc. It's quite a beast, but it'll be incredibly pricey too.

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I've had great support from both ASUS and Gigabyte (even smaller players like Zotac recently), and I'm hardly the only one. Their products are very solid and reliable, and they are top rated on every site with reviews as well. There's nothing wrong with liking ASRock (I'm just not a big fan of their products myself) but to say the two biggest both suck is preposterous.

They don't really offer anything special in the lower segment of the market though. If you compare two cheap motherboards (same price) - one from ASUS and one from ASRock then in most cases it'll be much better deal to choose the latter.

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AMD had some decently priced alternatives (Athlon era), and then they peaked with the Athlon64. That was a far better CPU than the P4 (architecture, speed, etc)
I really don't want to hijack this thread, but...

Can I assume you also refer to the x2-series? I plan on reloading this Dell E521 sitting in the corner and have changed the 3800+ for an x2 3800+, later ($ permitting) the "max" the AM2 will take. Accepts 4g RAM, has 2 PCI-e slots (the shortie and longie) for upgrades (a dual-head VID card when $ permits). SATA-only :( - bass-ackwards MoBo.

It does seem pretty snappy on boot-up/running with the "stock" XP-MCE.

[/hijack]

Edited by submix8c
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They don't really offer anything special in the lower segment of the market though. If you compare two cheap motherboards (same price) - one from ASUS and one from ASRock then in most cases it'll be much better deal to choose the latter.

I never claimed that ASUS was a "value" OEM either :) I'll typically buy the ASUS or Gigabyte boards if there's a good deal on them (which ends up being most of the time) but as you can see in my previous parts list (or my previously mentioned Zotac mini ITX mobo), I'm not married to a particular OEM. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and it changes with every generation of new products.

Can I assume you also refer to the x2-series? I plan on reloading this Dell E521 sitting in the corner and have changed the 3800+ for an x2 3800+, later ($ permitting) the "max" the AM2 will take.

As you can see in benches that were out at the time, you'd get a very modest boost from that upgrade (the main thing you'd get from it is not speed but extra responsiveness, being a dual core i.e. the PC not "locking up" when a core is pegged at 100%). Google easily finds some people who managed to get some faster CPUs working in that Dell but you might have to search pretty hard to find the perfect AM2 chip for an upgrade (it seemingly doesn't accept AM3 CPUs which is the "oldest" thing you can buy new today). If the upgrade is dirt cheap then sure, why not. But I wouldn't sink too much money in an old machine either as an i3 upgrade would provide a huge boost for not too much money (relatively speaking) either. DDR2 RAM is pretty expensive too these days (twice the price of DDR3)

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But I wouldn't sink too much money in an old machine either as an i3 upgrade would provide a huge boost for not too much money (relatively speaking) either.

Isn't Athlon II X4 631 a better choice if someone wants an inexpensive upgrade? It's slightly slower in general but costs half as much as the i3 and is better everywhere where all 4 cores are used.

Edited by tomasz86
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Isn't Athlon II X4 631 a better choice if someone wants an inexpensive upgrade?

Socket Type: FM1

Nope. His motherboard is AM2 (not AM2+), so no AM3, AM3+ or FM1 CPUs supported. At least if he had a AM2+ socket then he could still buy a new AM3 CPU from a store. That wouldn't be a bad option for a cheap yet meaningful upgrade.His only option right now is the used market (and sellers seem to want $60 for a X2 6000+ with no HSF which is more than it's worth)

Then again, I wouldn't necessarily pick the Athlon X4 631 as a clear cut winner over an i3 after seeing most benches (the i3 is definitely more expensive though)

In fact, I'm considering buying a pair of AMD Athlon II X4 645's ($80/ea) to upgrade a pair of older PCs with Athlon X2's that are mostly used for light tasks like web browsing. $80 for a new CPU (keeping existing mobo and DDR2) vs an i3 + mobo + DDR3 (over $200 per PC) makes it a pretty simple choice to make considering the performance will be adequate either ways. By the time the Athlon II X4 645 won't cut it anymore for light-ish usage the i3 will be very outdated too.

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Of course I was thinking about buying Athlon II X4 631 + FM1 board + DDR3. It would still be a lot (60-70$) cheaper than the slowest i3 2100.

PS Athlon 631 is very different from the older X4 630/640 ones. Its performance is similar to A6-3650 but without integrated graphics.

Edited by tomasz86
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Of course I was thinking about buying Athlon II X4 631 + FM1 board + DDR3.

You'll have to add a case to that list, thanks to the proprietary Dell cable for the stuff in front of the case...

PS Athlon 631 is very different from the older X4 630/640 ones. Its performance is similar to A6-3650 but without integrated graphics.

I'll have to look again.

Edit: I can't seemingly find any decent benchmarks. There's this one but that's only games. In 100% of them it's slower than the i3, and in all but one case it's slower than the X4 645, even though you said it should be faster than it... Honestly, I'd rather have 2 super fast cores (which is always fast) then twice as many cores that are half as fast (only performs on par with the dual core when the load uses all 4 cores which unfortunately isn't all that often)

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the "max" the AM2 will take.

Sorry, no. The max is the ADX6400IAA6CZ Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition, it's a Windsor, so 90nm, and it's hot as hell, but is probably the last great processor from AMD. Now, if you must have 65nm, then the Brisbane ADO5400IAA5DS Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition is the way to go, although not as fast as the ADX6400IAA6CZ. And all Black Editions have unlocked multipliers, so you can go beyond the specs, although not as much as you can read over the net. But 10-15% is possible while still stable. They're findable through eBay and the like, but you'll sure need a huge fan & powersink to cope with their heat, particularly the Windsor.

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@CoffeFiend & @dencorso -

I was aware of all of that. I've done extensive research on it (several days' worth). The initial "hijack" was about the comparisons (based on comment by da-Coffee-Nut). I am, after all, running a "Celery 3.3" single-core as we speak! And I already have 3gb in the E521 already - swapped some old computer parts for two 1g's from the local PC Recyclers. ;) Need 3 more to round out this one and...

I suppose my better bet would be the "eMachine W3650 ECS 945GCT-M3 PCB3.1" sitting here in pieces. :w00t: It'll take up to E7300 or X6800. Sadly, it only takes 2gb RAM 2x1gb (according to specs). :( It does, however, have 2-PCI+4-SATAII+1-PATA+1-PCIe-x16 (and the other useless x1).

Both have Floppy (a must for me).

[/hijack]

Back to the OP (that has $ to burn)...

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@submix8c:

DDR2? Just two slots? In my reckoning that makes 8GiB!

Ever heard of the KVR800D2N6/4G? They're rare birds (and out-of-production, of course), but can be found with an extra effort.

On the easier side, KVR800D2N6/2G are still in production and can be bought new. Still they'd give you 4 GiB, which is not so bad.

Later edit: Kingston pulled out the spec sheet for the 4 GiB modules. Although they still provide that for the 2 GiB modules, there's no telling for how long, so both are now attached to this post, for easy reference.

KVR800D2N6_4G.pdf

KVR800D2N6_2G.pdf

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