Hexus Gamer's Rig

[dangel]

See here: http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3.../index.x?pg=15


"In fact, now that the entry point for dual-core Athlon 64 processors has dropped to $354, I am almost ready to stop recommending single-core processors for anything but budget PCs. Unless you absolutely cannot afford it, I'd suggest picking a dual-core CPU for your next system. Even for gamers, there's little point in passing on a second CPU core just to get a somewhat higher clock speed, in my view. The X2 3800+ is more than passable for today's games, and multithreaded game engines and graphics drivers are already on the horizon. For anything but games, having a second CPU around, even if it's just to handle antivirus and antispyware chores, makes perfect sense."

And here: http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3.../index.x?pg=14
Running at 2.4ghz against a AMD 4000+ single core..

AMD Zone said "Bumping the core voltage up to 1.5V we were able to reach just hair under 2.7GHz. Yes, we have almost a 700MHz overclock with mere stock cooling! We certainly have not finished overclocking this CPU, and we are hoping improved cooling will get us 3GHz with stability."

Hot Hardware "The X2 3800+ was also a decent overclocker, hitting over 2.5GHz with a standard heatsink and fan, and it ran relatively cool throughout our entire battery of tests."

Just throwing this into the debate

[MatrixCy]

Overclockers.co.uk have Amd Athlon 64 4000 for 264.32 pounds where AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800 is 276. My opinion is that it worths the 11.68 to go to dual core, even if gaming at the moment can exist without it. As Dangel quotes, "...multithreaded game engines and graphics drivers are already on the horizon".

Kempez: Tagan 580w SLi is worth 88 pounds in Overclockers.co.uk and the multiple times award winner Hiper 580w module is only 64 and their spesifications are almost similar, not letting us know where those extra 22 pounds go. (15 awards in 2005)
(best on the planet, PC INpoat, Gold Award caseumbau.de, five stars Gigahz, group test winner Gigahz, pimprig, Xtreme award, Tetszett, modding top hardware award, gold award technic3d.com, super produkt,nokytech, empfehiung, teschke, planet 3dnow)

Geil 1GB x2 (68.74) = 137.48 English Pounds
Geil 2GB = 144.77 English Pounds

Any reason why we should go for the 1GB?

Of course even with the price of 68.74 the Geil 1GB DDR is cheaper than Corsair 1GB DDR PC3200 which costs 79.84. Are there any more reasons that you would recommend Geil?

[MatrixCy]

A good CPU cooler is very essential for keeping the PC stable and also to increase the headroom for overclocking.
There are 3 methods of cooling:
HSF cooling (Heatsink and Fan)
Water cooling
Phase change cooling

Phase change is the type overclockers would use since its the most extreme type of the three by cooling the CPU to sub-zero temperatures, giving space for some heavy overclocking. There is a disadvandage is that they are expensive and difficault to fit.

Water cooling are easier to fit, (more available) they also allow (give space) for overclocking and also they can make your pc more quiet, by using the 120mm-fan radiators.

And of course the easiest and most common method of all is th HSF cooling. Many of the latest HSF are capable of producing an impressive level of cooling with a higher noise level as a price, unless you dont really care about overclocking.



CPU Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 CPU Cooler(Socket 754/939/940) 13 pounds

[kempez]

Memory: Actualy meant GEIL Value Performance 2 x 1GB Kit - soz This is £145 as a 2gb Kit

[MatrixCy]

DFI Ultra-D: (£99.82 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Pros: More overclocking controls than ants in a anthill features galore!
Cons: Not really for the novice. Bios may be too difficult for some.

Well its a quite good option if the pc is going to be overclocked but lets see what others will have to say.

Still waiting on the Graphic cards debates

[kalniel]

recommendations:

MOUSE: Logitech MX518

Optical Mice work on pretty much any surface without the need for mouse mats. As they have no moving parts they are also maintanence free - you won't miss frags just because of a glob of dirt on your mouse ball. While wireless mice have become a success on desktops, the gamer should stick with wired at present - more information can be transmitted faster down a cable, which leads to a faster response from your movements. Also interference is a problem with wireless mice - especially if you're participating in a lan setup with several other gamers.

The MX518 has a high resolution sensor - meaning even small movements are detected and you go precisely where you want to go. It has very fast image processing which improves responsiveness and speed. You can also adjust the resolution of the sensor on the fly so that where slower, more deliberate actions are required you can get it at the press of a button.

[MatrixCy]

Still waiting for monitor advices and of course the debates on everything that's written down. I am sure not everyone is satisfied with a rig like that are we? There must be someone that has an opinion on another processor, Graphic card, etc etc

[kalniel]

Discussion:

CPU: While some reviewers are willing to drop the recommendation for single core CPUs for gaming, I think the majority would still tell you the best CPU for gaming is single core. It's a clear fact that current generation games do not take advantage of dual core. It also seems clear that it will take some significant time before they are going to do so, with some key developers warning that taking advantage of such systems is 10 times harder than before.

As our rig has the stated aim of being a gamers rig, I think it's reasonable to assume that the user will not be running other tasks in the background - disk cleanup and other operations are likely to be performed in dedicated maintenance sessions, as even with dual core they compete for system memory and hard disk acess.

As AMD's price premium for the second core is nearly as much as the cost of a single core processor (and in sometimes, is more), it is a better use of money to buy a faster single core processor and spend the saved cash on either an improvement in gfx card, or put into savings to upgrade the gfx card and/or processor in the future.

My recommendation would be to go with either a 3200+ venice, or a 3700+ san diego.

[kalniel]

Recommendation:

MONITOR 19": Iiyama VM Pro 454 (CRT, diamondtron 2048x1536) - £218.55 inc vat from scan

While there are an increasing number of good 19" TFT displays out there, the brightness, colour and responsiveness still does not match that of a CRT display. The average user won't notice, but the gamer wants nothing but the best for sharp fragging.

CRTs have the advantage that they don't have a fixed optimum resolution - why stick at 1280x1024 when for cheaper you can utilise the power of the 7800 series cards with resolutions smoothly all the way up to 2048x1536.

[dangel]

CPU: throw this into the ring - all next gen consoles (first on due nov) are multi core.. What will this mean for game engines/porting? My CPU cost me 7quid more than the single core equiv btw

[kalniel]

CPU: throw this into the ring - all next gen consoles (first on due nov) are multi core.. What will this mean for game engines/porting? My CPU cost me 7quid more than the single core equiv btw

It means that games will still be developed on a mostly in-order fashion, with limited out-of-order handling. The market penetration of dual cores is so low at present that this generation of games for the PC (this is a PC rig we're building right? ) will be written with single core in mind. Any ports worth while usually take a couple of years to appear on the PC by which time upgrading could well happen.

Where did you find an x2 3800 for 140 quid?

[pengellyd]

Recommendation

CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500 (£30-40?)

Ok its not officially released yet, but according to Gibbo at OcUK it will be with in 1-3 weeks. And if you take a look at this review at bit-tech.com . It cools a AMD FX55 from 54 C load on the X2 stock cooler to 40 C load!!

Surely this warrants a place in the Hexus Gamer's Rig as its quiet and performs well??

[dangel]

It means that games will still be developed on a mostly in-order fashion, with limited out-of-order handling. The market penetration of dual cores is so low at present that this generation of games for the PC (this is a PC rig we're building right? ) will be written with single core in mind. Any ports worth while usually take a couple of years to appear on the PC by which time upgrading could well happen.

Where did you find an x2 3800 for 140 quid?

I compared the single core i was going to go for - the 4000+ - and saw that the larger cache made little difference in game benchmarks. Reading round saw the 3800X2 doing 2.4ghz easily, with some getting 2.7ghz. No brainer really and i'm really glad i did it having sat and used the machine for a couple of days At the very least you can allocate one whole cpu for a game and the other for everything else (virus checkers, tray apps, services etc etc).
I'm still getting used to the fact that just because i'm doing something intensive (like playing a game) my whole system isn't just dedicated to the job - so now i find myself setting odd things off whilst i play games..
I see it much like my 6800 ultra - that had SM 3.0 support and nothing else did and everyone said "by the time games support that.. ati will have a part that does" and.. well we still don't have an ATI part that does and we do have SM3.0 support in games. So, it was a better long term investment for me than the equiv. radeon at the time (barring me upgrading anyway recently but thats a different story - you get the idea anyway). So i see my cpu being just that bit more future proof with an extra core on board and SSE3 extensions to boot.
You're right, of course, that penetration is tiny atm (ignoring hyper threading I guess) and that it won't make an impact for a while - but if you're building a system now the 3800X2 makes an attractive proposition for gaming - if you're prepared to overclock it - and for multitasking it's a definitive improvement over a single core. Since i run a multitasking OS that seems like a plus I suppose another weird use might be running a dedicated server for a game on one cpu and a client to play it on the other

[kalniel]

Hehe ok - bit unfair to say it's the equivalent of a 4000+ in gaming though We could come back and say a venice 3000+ overclocked to 2.4ghz (at a cost of 85 quid or so) is actually the equivalent of your X2 3800@2.4ghz in games

Of course, dual cores make the difference when you run several things, but as this isn't a general purpose rig, it's a gaming rig, it doesn't As you said here:

I'm still getting used to the fact that just because i'm doing something intensive (like playing a game) my whole system isn't just dedicated to the job - so now i find myself setting odd things off whilst i play games..

Performance going spare is basically a sign the system is overspecced for the task. You're having to artifically do extra stuff to make use of the potential. Our gamer is interested in playing games first and foremost (I would expect ) and wasted potential is wasted money.

Agree with you on the future proofing - the X2 3800 is most certainly future proof. But again that's a little off target for this computer isn't it? In the future we can just change the spec, and given the difference between a venice 3000+@2.4ghz OEM and an x2 3800 is about 200 quid.. that's a lot of money for putting on the gfx card which will have a bigger difference (or to buy a dual core chip in the future when games will actually use it )

(Don't get me wrong, for my own use I would LOVE an X2 of any sort)

[dangel]

Perhaps your right but this was my decision when going for my new *gaming* rig and that's the choice i made. The 4000+ was benchmarked along side it and they're much the same price (in fact, the 3800 is slighty cheaper) so it's a pretty fair comparison really (considering one has more cache but the other has a whole extra core..). And to say a gaming rig 'doesn't' run more than one program at once is quite wrong - all those background tasks have to run on _something_ Certainly, a gaming rig is nothing more than a general purpose rig that _in addition_ is great for gaming - perhaps that's not true for yourself but i've got only one rig for exclusive personal use..
Since this is a slighty more hardcore site than most then overclocked comparisons are well worth doing - i'd say we should pick a cpu that's great value and goes for maximum overclockabilty. My last system was an AthlonXP Mobile-based box and that was incredible value for money (and ran at 2.5ghz solid - 65quid) so yes, let's hear about it I'd rather have 'spare' power than be on the edge anyday btw - a gaming rig should last you more than six months if at all possible!

I think the key here is to say that there's nothing wrong with X2 systems now there's an intro chip in the offing - compared like for like they're not slower than single core processors at the same clock - so buying either isn't actually a terrible thing to do. What's special about the 3800x2 is the smaller cache (and smaller price) which hasn't resulted in a dramatic drop in gaming performance (surprisingly).
Whichever you choose, you'll be happy.

Oh, and if you want a machine _just_ for gaming i suggest you go for a really specialised box - the XBox 360 which is out in november

[krazy_olie]

IMO the argument for an X2 3800 is that although no games really take advantage of the second core is that it is powerful enough to handle today's games especially if there is a powerful GPU in there, whilst being able to handle games of the future. Multi threaded games will exist, partly due to the multi core nature of the xbox 360 and ps3.

Then again I would personally say go for something like a 3000+ venice then wait for the price to come down, probably when the knew intel stuff comes out.