Need Advice on Building a New PC

[Agent]

EDIT: nvm, read that post completely wrong

BTW how is the Coolermaster iGreen 600w PSU ? THinking of getting one myself as my Hiper is dragging my performance down (My PCMark 05 score is half of equivalent systems and my PSU is the only thing I can think of messing things up)

The PSU won't be effecting your score unless it can't supply enough power to the graphics card and its throttling it.

Yeah dual channel RAM doesn't mean its runs slower with just a single stick, just that when its paired up, it doubles the bandwidth available to the CPU, as far as I can tell.

Just ignore dual channel - It really doesn't matter.
People get so hooked on it, its shocking. The performance gain is so small.
It theoretically doubles the bandwidth, but as the CPU isn't bottlenecked by the memory the gain is minimal.

[Andaho]

If you mean the 74GB raptors as they are the only 10k RPM drives close to 80GB that I know off, but tbh, you'd get better performance from 2 drives in Raid 0, and it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much.

heheh, this is turning into more like a chat room conversation

That sounds like a good idea... I'm out of date with RAID, my last RAID system (the 1GHz I mentioned in the OP), I actually bought a seperate RAID controller because it was a considerable performance increase from on-board RAID back then, with the single controller on the mobo not being able to read or write at the full potential due to the limitations of the controller or something like that lol. How has on-board RAID come along now?

[aidanjt]

If you mean the 74GB raptors as they are the only 10k RPM drives close to 80GB that I know off, but tbh, you'd get better performance from 2 drives in Raid 0, and it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much.

Not as far as latency and sustained transfers are concerned. BIOSRAID is also pretty crapy.

[Andaho]

Just ignore dual channel - It really doesn't matter.
People get so hooked on it, its shocking. The performance gain is so small.
It theoretically doubles the bandwidth, but as the CPU isn't bottlenecked by the memory the gain is minimal.

Thats wrong too *sigh*. If you have a CPU with a FSB of 1333MHz, if the memory is running slower than 1333MHz, then the memory is being a bottleneck! If using 2 sticks of 667MHz in dual channel mode, that is 1333MHz. If you were to use 2x533MHz in dual channel mode, it would only be running at 1066MHz and therefore being a bottleneck to the CPU FSB - also if you were just using 1 stick of 1066MHz DDR, that would be a bottleneck for a 1333MHz FSB.

Before anyone else posts to tell me I'm wrong, do your research first please!

I've also heard from the best, that the best overclocks are done with syncronising the CPU FSB to the memory frequency - that's the only use for extreme memory = extreme overclocking.

[aidanjt]

Thats wrong too *sigh*. If you have a CPU with a FSB of 1333MHz, if the memory is running slower than 1333MHz, then the memory is being a bottleneck! If using 2 sticks of 667MHz in dual channel mode, that is 1333MHz. If you were to use 2x533MHz in dual channel mode, it would only be running at 1066MHz and therefore being a bottleneck to the CPU FSB - also if you were just using 1 stick of 1066MHz DDR, that would be a bottleneck for a 1333MHz FSB.

Before anyone else posts to tell me I'm wrong, do your research first please!

You're forgetting about the PCIe, PCI, ISA, and SM buses, they need to use the FSB to talk to the CPU as well. RAM is nowhere near the bottleneck in systems, it's the narrow FSB.

[Andaho]

You're forgetting about the PCIe, PCI, ISA, and SM buses, they need to use the FSB to talk to the CPU as well. RAM is nowhere near the bottleneck in systems, it's the narrow FSB.

The reason the Core 2 Duo is quad-pumped isn't because of a limitation of a small FSB, It's because of the limitation of RAM. The FSB is designed for the speed of the RAM to be able to avoid the bottleneck with the RAM. The FSB is a link to the Northbridge. PCI, IDE, SATA, etc... is dealt with by the SouthBridge. the I'm not going to argue about RAM anymore, because I'm not a die-hard expert, and I probably am missing out some things, but I know the basic principles. Someone else can correct any future RAM comments.

[GSte]

You obviously don't know jack about memory

Easy mate.

[aidanjt]

The reason the Core 2 Duo is quad-pumped isn't because of a limitation of a small FSB, It's because of the limitation of RAM. The FSB is designed for the speed of the RAM to be able to avoid the bottleneck with the RAM. The FSB is a link to the Northbridge. PCI, IDE, SATA, etc... is dealt with by the SouthBridge. the I'm not going to argue about RAM anymore, because I'm not a die-hard expert, and I probably am missing out some things, but I know the basic principles. Someone else can correct any future RAM comments.

If that were so setting a 1:1 RAM divider when overclocking should lead to a far slower system by that logic, when in reality dual channel memory can easily over saturate the FSB, remember RAM bandwidth = Ram bus * 2 * 2, or Ram bus * 4. Then you have the PCIe Graphics port and a heap of other buses chomping into the FSB as well. Quad-pumping the FSB is a technical necessity with NB design, as you can't keep just pumping up raw frequency over greater lengths. But to keep it simple, the FSB is slow.

[Andaho]

Easy mate.

It was a valid point from what he was saying

[Queelis]

Can anyone say anything about the Asus case, and about Asus cases generally? (whether good or bad)

[Lanky123]

Andaho, perhaps it would be a good idea to note in the OP when you have decided on something so everyone knows what is still up for discussion. From the gist of the posts i think an E6750 and a reliable PSU have been recommended with little argument...?

PS. lol at what your 'My System' says...and I have a quantum computer. If you really want to lol have a look at my system.

[Andaho]

If that were so setting a 1:1 RAM divider when overclocking should lead to a far slower system by that logic, when in reality dual channel memory can easily over saturate the FSB, remember RAM bandwidth = Ram bus * 2 * 2, or Ram bus * 4. Then you have the PCIe Graphics port and a heap of other buses chomping into the FSB as well. Quad-pumping the FSB is a technical necessity with NB design, as you can't keep just pumping up raw frequency over greater lengths. But to keep it simple, the FSB is slow.

AHH!!! Right, this is the last RAM thing I reply to

The Graphics card on the PCI-E doesn't have that kind of relationship to the CPU and RAM - A graphics card has it's own independent processor and guess what... it even has it's own independent memory too!!!

And I've already told you that the only reason the FSB is DESIGNED to be slow is to accommodate the slow speed of ram. It was designed this way because processor technology speeds developed far faster than RAM speeds, so they started double-pumping the FSB speed and now as used in the C2D, quad-pumping.

I'm not answering any more RAM queries unless you do your research first - I spent weeks researching RAM not too long ago. But, of course, I don't know everything there is to know about RAM, but I do know enough to know that you guys are posting mis-information, which I have been feeling obliged to correct - But I'm not in the mood for correcting any more posts, but I will warn any readers to do RAM research in another thread, possibly another forum, because so far, I'm the one asking for help, and the people trying to help, are feeding mis-information, and I know more than they do!

[GSte]

Valid perhaps but none too friendly. Extreme RAM does give performance increases when not in a 1:! ratio with the fsb. This discussion of ram bottlenecking a system isn't taking into account ram latency which does affect the CPUs performance as I understand it, but why is it important anyway? HDDs are a far bigger bottleneck

[Andaho]

Andaho, perhaps it would be a good idea to note in the OP when you have decided on something so everyone knows what is still up for discussion. From the gist of the posts i think an E6750 and a reliable PSU have been recommended with little argument...?

PS. lol at what your 'My System' says...and I have a quantum computer. If you really want to lol have a look at my system.

I put 'My System' in after posting on this thread, about a future gaming PC http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=113861

I think I will go for the E6750, because I'm doubting that any software will be written any-time soon to harness the power of a quad-core. I'll edit the OP to just leave the E6750... but as far as PSUs go, If the knowledge of the people talking about PSUs is as great as the knowledge of the people talking about RAM, then I'm still not sure I need a PSU as powerful as the corsair 520W.

[Andaho]

Valid perhaps but none too friendly. Extreme RAM does give performance increases when not in a 1:! ratio with the fsb. This discussion of ram bottlenecking a system isn't taking into account ram latency which does affect the CPUs performance as I understand it, but why is it important anyway? HDDs are a far bigger bottleneck

Ok, I said I wasn't going to correct any more posts about RAM, I don't need to, that is correct but the performance increase is minimal, as there is no longer a bottleneck with RAM frequency since intel pushed design of the dual channel mode memory. Nobody started talking about the ram latency, so I was just leaving that out. - I can tell you still haven't clicked that link yet

[Sprite]

Nope. You obviously don't know jack about memory - DDR means that it performs 2 operations per clock cycle, and the clock is 333MHz - so effectively 667MHz - I can't be arsed trying to get more technical than that, because I need to be be quoting stuff to make sure I'm getting it correct. I've already done my research here, including having the corsair RAM Guy help with my research... if you're interested you can read here:

http://sharethefiles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=74685

I swear thats what I said.

When its PAIRED it runs effectively at 667

Christ...