Wow, Price vs Perf right now in PC's is nice...

Albuquerque

Red-headed step child
Moderator
Veteran
One of my supervisors threw out a small "contest" of sorts to see who could spend the closest to $1000 without going under to build a brand new PC from NewEgg. (he wants to use the $1000-no-interest-for-six-months deal)

It basically goes like this:

$56 - Basic black steel mid-tower case
$59 - Fortron 450W ATX12 PSU
$95 - Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo (doesn't need overclocking stuff)
$190 - C2D E6750 (2.66Ghz 4mb) retail with cooler
$300 - Asus 8800GT 512mb (yes, it's in stock)
$80 - Western Digital Caviar SE 320Gb SATA-II drive
$32 - Samsung 20x DVD+/-/R/RW/RAM SATA-II drive
$115 - Patriot 2Gb x 2 DDR2-667 sticks
$112 - Vista64 Home Premium OEM (he's not going to be swapping parts)

Grand total was $1029 (actually a few cents lower) plus shipping. He's reusing his 19" LCD and wireless keyboard/mouse from the previous rig, so that helped a bit. Still, that is a LOT of computer for a grand -- with a Vista OS even.
 
I get about 420 watts on that config...going with 450 on the PSU might be pushing it.
But, yes, great value these days.
 
I get about 420 watts on that config...going with 450 on the PSU might be pushing it.
But, yes, great value these days.

No way, that system would be lucky to tip over 325 watts on a regular basis...

Also, just because the motherboard is $95 doesn't mean it won't overlock. Those who spend over $150~ on a motherboard to me are insane, my "cheapie" Gigabyte 965P-DS3 was about that price once on sale and has no issues with a E6300 at 3.15Ghz, stock is 1.86.
 
Sky, what psu calculator do you use?

I'm not using one, I'm using real world results. Take a look at some reviews of the 8800GT and the power numbers. Generally they'll use total system draw, and it hardly ever exceeds 325 watts on even a higher end system in the other components. For example HardOCP's (yeah I know, but it was easy to find, results bottom of the page) review shows a draw of 271 watts at load. Other results around the web are comparable.
 
Okay, so shaidar and sky tell me this power draw:
Q6600, 2 SATA drives (7200 rpm), 4 gigs, a 320 8800GTS and a DVD-RW...

Also, please elaborate on longevity of PSU's at 60/80/90% capacity and potential component damage upon failure :)
 
I'd say a bit more than a 8800GT, so I'd say 310 watts isn't to far off. As far for the other question, I'll leave that one for Shaidar.
 
It killed a 520 Watt OCZ PowerStream PSU in 3 months. It wasn't a bad PSU: drove a 4400+ x2/x1800-xt PE for over a year prior. (it's a quad core though)
 
Timing? I really don't think it was that the hardware was to much for it, if the power supply didn't have any other issues that just never came up before.
 
It killed a 520 Watt OCZ PowerStream PSU in 3 months. It wasn't a bad PSU: drove a 4400+ x2/x1800-xt PE for over a year prior. (it's a quad core though)

Something must have been faulty on that 520 Watt PSU, as here is some empirical evidence of what can be powered. This is using the older CPU stepping, the newer Q6600 G0 stepping uses significantly less. You could run an extremely overclocked Core 2 Quad and 8800 GTX SLI with a quality 500 Watt PSU!

Let me quote X-bit Labs' 1000 Watt PSU review once again:

Intel-based system:

* Quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 CPU (Kentsfield) overclocked to 3.5GHz
* Two Foxconn GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards in SLI mode
* ASUS Striker Extreme mainboard (LGA775, NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI)
* 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (Mushkin XP2-6400PRO, 4 x 512MB)
* Two Western Digital WD1500AHFD hard disk drives in a RAID0
* Various trifles like a DVD-ROM, fans, etc
p1.png
 
Indeed, I'm FAR from worried about the PSU in this thing. He will not be overclocking in any way,shape or form -- he's not an enthusiast at that level. he likes his video games, and for better than 50 years old, I think it's cool that he still plays Halo / COD / Crysis / et al.

There's obviously places we could trade off a bit, or hell, we could slap in another $50 (still wouldn't break $1100) and have an even bigger and still high quality powersupply if need-be.

The original spirit of this thread was much less about the state of PSU affairs, and much more about the huge bang I think you can get for what seems like a very modest amount of cash.
 
One thing I'd definitely replace is RAM. 800MHz is not much more expensive as 667MHz. Also adding ~$90-100 for quadcore isn't all that bad, though combined with PSU upgrade it would cost more than $1100 in total.
 
One thing I'd definitely replace is RAM. 800MHz is not much more expensive as 667MHz. Also adding ~$90-100 for quadcore isn't all that bad, though combined with PSU upgrade it would cost more than $1100 in total.

I want to know when and where everyone started thinking that running the memory faster than the front side bus speed results in some notable speed increase. It's not just you, there's a slew of people who always make similar comments all over hardware sites, and every time I'm forced to make this same basic post and nobody really comes back with ANYTHING to back their position

Here's some math:
A 1333FSB Core 2 Duo uses a 333mhz front side bus. Yes, I said that right, a 333mhz front side bus. It sends four data signals per clock cycle, for an "effective" rate of 1333 million data cycles per second. The clock is still 333mhz.

DDR2-667 memory operates at 333mhz. Yes, I said that right too... Same concept as above, except the memory sends and receives data twice per clock cycle, for an "effective" rate of 667 million data cycles per second. The clock is still 333mhz.

A dual channel memory interface will effectively "double" the memory bandwidth by allowing data to send and receive to both chips near-simultaneously, meaning that a pair of DDR2-667 modules will have essentially the same data cycle rate as the 1333FSB it's attached to.

End result? A pair of DDR-800 modules accomplishes exactly jack squat on a system that doesn't operate at 1600FSB.

So, can someone please point me to a benchmark where running memory faster than the bus makes any impact AT ALL on actual performance of the machine? And by impact, I'm talking something greater than the general standard deviation / acceptable error limits of the testing platform.
 
I think from an enthusiast's point of view DDR2-800 is preferrable even if you don't overclock, simply because it might allow you to upgrade to future FSB1600 CPUs.

Anyway, I think the best time to buy a new PC would be late January... when the new 45mn C2Ds become available. A 3 GHz Penry dual core will cost the same as the E6750 does now.
 
I think from an enthusiast's point of view DDR2-800 is preferrable even if you don't overclock, simply because it might allow you to upgrade to future FSB1600 CPUs.

Anyway, I think the best time to buy a new PC would be late January... when the new 45mn C2Ds become available. A 3 GHz Penry dual core will cost the same as the E6750 does now.

QFT, on both counts.
 
I think from an enthusiast's point of view DDR2-800 is preferrable even if you don't overclock, simply because it might allow you to upgrade to future FSB1600 CPUs.

Anyway, I think the best time to buy a new PC would be late January... when the new 45mn C2Ds become available. A 3 GHz Penry dual core will cost the same as the E6750 does now.

Maybe, but then why limit yourself to DDR2-800 when DDR2-1066 is just that tiny bit much more? Here's a reason why not: because DRAM prices are going nowhere but down. Why buy something today that you're NOT going to use due to the notion of "future proof"; versus buying an equivalent or better product when you're actually going to use it and it will actually be cheaper?

What logic does that really fall into?

As for 3Ghz Penryns dual-cores going for $180 in January? I'll believe it when I see it.
 
I think from an enthusiast's point of view DDR2-800 is preferrable even if you don't overclock, simply because it might allow you to upgrade to future FSB1600 CPUs.

Anyway, I think the best time to buy a new PC would be late January... when the new 45mn C2Ds become available. A 3 GHz Penry dual core will cost the same as the E6750 does now.

Hehehe, guess you guys were thinking the same as me. I am also waiting for those 45nm intels in late january/ealy fefruary.

The Vista seems like a waste, why not XP Pro, or if you have an existing license why not use it? I won't touch vista for now, not even sure later. I am happy with linux and xp using virtualization for now(kernel virtualization modules).
 
Why would you build a brand new rig, with high performance parts, and use a five-year old operating system on it? :???:

Let's take a tally: we have people who don't understand the reality of power draw, who don't understand the reality and economics of "future proofing" a piece of PC hardware, and who can't really comprehend why a five year old OS isn't the perfect choice for a brand new PC?

Anyone want to chime in and ask me why I didn't spec out an ISA network card too?
 
Back
Top