Help required on a new setup.

[phurbs]

Hey people.

I am currently looking into getting myself a new rig. I already have a case/DVD/HDD. I have a fair idea of what I want/need/can afford so I am just putting it out here so people can give me a heads up on any major errors, or if people can suggest a tweak here or there. I do have a couple of questions also, but more of that later.

I mainly use my PC for all the usual things, encoding mp3, watching films (Nb. I am getting a 24" HD monitor, so I hope this system can cope with running HD movies and such) and some gaming, although I don't really do much high-end FPS, so I am not overly concerned with the rig being able to run Cryis at 1000fps or anything. Mostly I play CIV4 and Football Manager! Mostly, I just want to be able to run Vista and everyday apps without any hassle!

My budget it kinda tight, but I can find some more cash if required.

Here is my plan:

PSU: 600W Zalman ZM600-HP
Board: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
RAM: 4GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 PC2-8500
GPU: 512MB Gainward HD 4850.

Now, my questions! I had a terrible time choosing the board. Is this a decent board for my needs? Am I best spending a bit more cash? This runs DDR2@1066, would I see any benefit upgrading to DDR3@1333? This obviously means more cash for RAM and a also better Board.

I am not planning on overclocking, although I am confident enough to try it if people think it will be worth the effort.

Finally, I am looking at the Dell S2409W for this PC. Has anyone got any opinions/reviews?

Thanks for the help!

[Powderhound]

I'd go for a Corsair PSU over a Zalman, and you can probably get away with 800MHz RAM (Yes, I know I look a hypocrite if you look at my system, but I probably made a mistake there...). The motherboard should be fine, and the CPU is easily good enough.

[phurbs]

Hmmm, I will take another look at the PSU. As for the RAM, the price difference is negligable so I am going to stick with the faster stuff.

Can anyone give some feedback on the GPU, will this run HD content on a 24" display?

Thanks

[staffsMike]

I'd save yourself some money and get the E5200 pentium dual core. It has less cache but at 2.5GHz and 800MHz it's an easy overclock to 3.5GHz+. At £55 it represents superior dual core value. It also means all you will need is PC6400 RAM. The PC8500 would only be worth it if you plan on overclocking that E8400.

If you want more cpu power than that and you could find use for the extra cores then a quad such as the Q6600 might be a better buy for you, also only requiring PC6400 for more than adequate overclocking.

No need for DDR3 what so ever until i7 cores/boards are released.

PSU wise, as has been said I would go with corsair. The 520W HX would be a nice one to go for but that system would be more than happy on something like the 450W VX

A £25 HD3450 will run HD content at full 1080p, the HD4850 is more than capable of that and gaming at such resolutions whether it be FPS games or football manager.

[phurbs]

Thanks for the info Mike, I have revised my system specs as per your advice and come up with this:

PSU: 520W Corsair HX Series - £68.14
Board: DFI Blood Iron P35-T2RL - £69.27
CPU: Intel Pentium E5200 - £55.70
RAM: 4GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 PC6400 - £64.50
GPU: 512MB Sapphire HD 4670 - £60.71

I would be planning to overclock this to 3.5Ghz, which is why I moved to the DFI board. Is this a better choice or should I stick to the original choice? Also, since I am clocking it I would appreciate some recommendations on decent cooling options. I would like this to be quiet as possible, so I dont mind paying for a quiet heatsink. On the PSU front, this one only has 4 SATA connectors, which is fine for now (3HDD and 1 Optical) but if I stick another SATA in, I am going to be stuck. Is there any way of converting say an extra IDE power line to SATA?

Also, since this setup up is almost half the price of the previous one I had, will this stand up to my requirements? I am mostly concerned about the HD viewing, I think it will handle my gaming needs.

Thanks again people!

[Powderhound]

Get one of the DFI P45 boards if you can. The 4670 can easily output HD content, and will be fairly decent in games too.

[staffsMike]

The blood iron is a pretty basic but very good overclocking board I believe.

But what you have to remember is with an 800MHz FSB chip.. overclocking the motherboard itself is almost unecessary. Now if you don't know much about overclocking this will all become apparent when you start.

But the actual FSB of an 800MHz is (200Mhz which is then multiplied by 4)

The native FSB of the 1333MHz motherboards is actually 333MHz, so you have all of that 133MHz of overclocking head room before the motherboard has to overclocked further than it's stock frequencies.

All this just means that an good overclocking board isn't necessarily that important but obviously it's nice to have. In you position if I wanted a cheapish motherboard, lets say under £80 I would go for the slightly spec higher DFI P35
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=787775

The differences are fairly small but with better chipset cooling and a better overall layout I think it's worth the £7.

The HD4670 is a great budget card, it's again more than enough for HD work but it will struggle to play newer games at your 24" montiors native res. That said.. for the light gaming you plan to do it's probably perfect and it will use a lot less power

So unless you actually want a modular PSU particularly badly I would get the 450W VX corsair. It's £45, it's such a good unit it'll power most current systems you could throw at it and it's cheap as chips with the same overall quality as the HX. I have both btw and they both work fantastically well in their given systems

My favourite cooler for quiet operation and great overall performance is this one http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=883417

It will do a good job of cooling the E5200 passive but with the fan it comes with (a scythe slipstream which is one of the best for noise out there) it will cool it very well when overclocking and I bet it is no louder than the PSU with the fan, meaning near silent.

I don't have one of these yet but I have 3 of the original ninja's and they are awesome.

[phurbs]

Thanks for the input staffsMike, it's been a real help!

I can't find any major difference with the two boards, and since I have never overclocked before I will take your word for it! I think I understand your point about the FSB speeds. If I only overclock the FSB on the CPU to 333MHz (ie. 1333MHz) to match the stock on the board, then bump the voltage on CPU to make it run at 3.5GHz (ish) then I don't need to push the board above the rated speeds. I think that will give sufficient extra performance?

I am happy with the GPU, it will let me play occasional FSP games with reduced settings, but will handle the games I play more regularly. I am not too bothered with the modular PSU, I don't do enough system swapping to make non-modular a big pain, and the one you suggest has 6 SATA lines, which I much prefer. The only issue is with these two bits is that they are not in stock at scan atm lol!

Just to be clear on the heatsink; since I will be overclocking, will it ever run passive, or will the fan just run constantly? Not that I care, just that there might be a better non-passive choice?

Thanks again Mike, I will let you know how it all goes when I buy it! I have ordered my monitor (the new Dell 24") as it is on offer right now, and will be getting most of the other parts this week!

[staffsMike]

It won't run passive with the fan attached but you could happily control the fan with the bios or software in wondows. If you have a decent case air flow you can simply take the fan off of it if you like. A lot of people over at SPCR do this with antec solo's. It may even overclock like this.

The fan though is such an awesome one I doubt you will hear it on or off and if you undervolt it slightly from 12v to 7 - 9v I'm sure it will be inaudiable.

One thing I will say about overclocking is you might find that you don't actually want or need to overclock. 2.5Ghz is plenty for games, windows etc.. It's only with very CPU intesive tasks like video encoding that you will see a major benefit from the higher clock speed.

[phurbs]

Thanks again Mike.

I am going to stick with the HS you recommended, and just run the fan. If it is too loud, I will just undervolt it as you say.

Just one last thing, is overclocking the FSB independent of overclocking the CPU? Could I change one more than the other? I would want to clock the FSB to 1333, and either leave the CPU as you suggest, or maybe bump it a little to 3GHz. It may not make much difference, but if I have the required cooling, I may as well. Also, would I need to do anything with the RAM or will this be better left alone, as it is running at 800Mhz as it is?

I am going to get myself down to scan this week!

Thanks all

[staffsMike]

Well remember how I said the CPU at 800MHz is reall 4 x 200MHz. Well the RAM is actually 2 x 400MHz when it is 800MHz..

So.. the RAM at PC6400 is running much faster than you will probably be able to overclock to

If you want independent control of RAM and CPU FSB's you need an nvidia based motherboard but I wouldn't advise it. Intel based boards are far more stable when overclocking.

[phurbs]

Ah OK. I think I understand!

I don't need to control the RAM and CPU independently, just the CPU FSB and the CPU clock cycle. ie. can I increase one of these more than the other, or does it all get increased together. I just read my previous post back, and I didn't really make this clear.

To clarify, I would hope to up the FSB on the CPU to 1333Mhz and bump the CPU clock cycle to 3 or 3.5GHz. I would leave the RAM alone. Is all this possible with this setup?

This is the last question, I promise!

Thanks!

[staffsMike]

Well the easist way is to have a 1:1 RAM divider set up. That way the FSB's between the RAM and CPU will always match.

You can then raise the single FSB to whatever you like. You have two ways to adjust the clock of the CPU, the multiplier and the FSB.

Your overall frequency is governed by FSBx Multiplier so you can adjust either to suit your needs. That said, most chips (this one included) have locked multipliers (on their upper limits and probably lower too) so the bulk of the control you have is the FSB.

So with your multiplier being 12.5 I believe, to get to 3.5GHz (3500MHz) you need an FSB of 280MHz.

At this point you might want the RAM to run faster in which case you will need to start playing with RAM dividers so the RAM runs quicker while the CPU stays the same.

If you actually want the CPU at 1333MHz (333MHz) but the chip at 3500MHz then you will need to lower the multiplier to 10.5, which might be possible, not sure.

best to read this tbh but that was the jist of it lol
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...beginners.html

[Webby]

So with your multiplier being 12.5 I believe, to get to 3.5GHz (3500MHz) you need an FSB of 280GHz.

Wow that's one hell of a FSB

With a FSB of 280GHz and a 12.5 multi your CPU speed would be 3500GHz I say again WOW!

On a more serious note I think you can lower the multi from 12.5 down to 6 in 0.5 increments.

[staffsMike]

Hehe whoops You get the point though

[phurbs]

Wow that's one hell of a FSB

With a FSB of 280GHz and a 12.5 multi your CPU speed would be 3500GHz I say again WOW!

On a more serious note I think you can lower the multi from 12.5 down to 6 in 0.5 increments.

Well, I didn't even notice this! As Mike said, I did get the idea!

I have read the guide, and I think I understand it all. I am hopefully going to get all the kit this week and get overclocking. You guys seem pretty confident that I can get a bit of extra juice out of this CPU, so for a £55 saving I think it is a better buy than the C2D, despite the lower L2 cache. If I get it to run at similar speeds the the stock speeds of the one I was going to buy I am happy.

What kind of temperature am I looking at for this to be stable? 65 ish? And if this is the case with the multi at 12.5, is there any need to reduce it to knock down the temp?

I read up on RAM timings etc, and I am getting some decent RAM so I should be able to bump this up if required.

Thanks again!