Guidance required : Time to build a New PC !!

Ok my stuff is all finalised. Just one more question:

Will a 64 bit OS make any difference in performance(practically)?
coz I have heard that the drivers of 4850 have some trouble with 64 bit XP and Vista.If there's no practical performance gain, I would go for WinXP32 bit.
 
RenegadeRocks said:
Ok my stuff is all finalised. Just one more question:

Will a 64 bit OS make any difference in performance(practically)?
coz I have heard that the drivers of 4850 have some trouble with 64 bit XP and Vista.If there's no practical performance gain, I would go for WinXP32 bit.
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That beautifull DX10.1 GPU and your going with XP!!??

Bah! ;)
 
Skrying said:
Being a good motherboard has nothing to do with having overclocking related BIOS options.
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You're joking, right? It's common sense that boards designed for enthusiasts (i.e. those with serious overclocking options) will have higher quality components (usually in the form of solid caps or digital VRMs).

Case-in-point: I have a Geforce 7100-powered mobo in my closet that cost $30 less than my current Gigabyte EP35-D3SL board and there's a WORLD of difference between the two, specifically the tweakability of the BIOS of each (practically none for the GF7100 board, and plenty for the P35 board). Also the P35 board has solid caps whereas the GF7100 board does not.
 
RenegadeRocks said:
Ok my stuff is all finalised. Just one more question:

Will a 64 bit OS make any difference in performance(practically)?
coz I have heard that the drivers of 4850 have some trouble with 64 bit XP and Vista.If there's no practical performance gain, I would go for WinXP32 bit.
Click to expand...

You are unlikely to see performance gains across a wide variety of applications with a 64-bit OS in today's software environment. Who knows how long this will take to change? I imagine it would be sometime after MS transitions Windows to 64-bit-only (if that ever happens).

Oh, and on your mobo choice: get a P45 or X48 board instead, particularly if you like your graphics performance. PCIe 2.0 brings about some healthy gains with the 4 series chipsets over the 3 series, especially for multi-GPU rendering. Specifically look at Biostar's Tpower i45 series.
 
I do love my graphics performance ShaiderHaran but my budget has got maxed out with this CPU and mobo combo of Q9450, GIGABYTE GA-X38-DS4 and Sapphire HD 4850 512mb. If you think that maybe lessening the processor and making the mobo P45 will help, do suggest that. I don't know if 12mb cache will be more helpful or the P45 chipset.

As for the OS, I think I'll check out what exact problem do the 4850 drivers have in 64 bit before deciding, as Maya 64 bit, and fusion 64bit and others are available, and those are the softwares I work on. But if my GFX card can't perform in a 64-bit environment then its all waste.

One other thing, I am buying a Cooler Master 600W SMPS and I have a Sony Bravia KLV 32V300A LCD TV for my monitor. My question is:

Will a 500VA APC UPS suffice for it? or do I need to go for a 1000VA UPS?(those are very costly:cry:!)
 
ShaidarHaran said:
You're joking, right? It's common sense that boards designed for enthusiasts (i.e. those with serious overclocking options) will have higher quality components (usually in the form of solid caps or digital VRMs).

Case-in-point: I have a Geforce 7100-powered mobo in my closet that cost $30 less than my current Gigabyte EP35-D3SL board and there's a WORLD of difference between the two, specifically the tweakability of the BIOS of each (practically none for the GF7100 board, and plenty for the P35 board). Also the P35 board has solid caps whereas the GF7100 board does not.
Click to expand...

Your biggest difference between the two is entirely pointless for a non-overclocker. Who cares about BIOS options for tweaking when you'll be doing none? :rolleyes: It's entirely pointless. As for solid capacitors it really won't matter much on a system that's not going to be overclocked and therefore not going to be running out of spec in any way. You might be shocked to know I've seen $50 motherboards consistently last years and years... and so have millions of others.
 
Skrying, I love how every time you respond to one of my posts there's a :rolleyes: in it.

Really makes me interested in listening to what you have to say.

Things like digital vrms and solid caps add the longevity and stability of a system. Hardly "pointless for a non-overclocker".
 
ShaidarHaran said:
Skrying, I love how every time you respond to one of my posts there's a :rolleyes: in it.

Really makes me interested in listening to what you have to say.

Things like digital vrms and solid caps add the longevity and stability of a system. Hardly "pointless for a non-overclocker".
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Theoretically yes they do. But in practice it hardly matters on a system running within spec. It's not worth the extra cost in most cases as the motherboard will last the lifetime of the system in the vast majority of cases solid caps and digital VRMs or not.
 
RenegadeRocks said:
I do love my graphics performance ShaiderHaran but my budget has got maxed out with this CPU and mobo combo of Q9450, GIGABYTE GA-X38-DS4 and Sapphire HD 4850 512mb. If you think that maybe lessening the processor and making the mobo P45 will help, do suggest that. I don't know if 12mb cache will be more helpful or the P45 chipset.

As for the OS, I think I'll check out what exact problem do the 4850 drivers have in 64 bit before deciding, as Maya 64 bit, and fusion 64bit and others are available, and those are the softwares I work on. But if my GFX card can't perform in a 64-bit environment then its all waste.

One other thing, I am buying a Cooler Master 600W SMPS and I have a Sony Bravia KLV 32V300A LCD TV for my monitor. My question is:

Will a 500VA APC UPS suffice for it? or do I need to go for a 1000VA UPS?(those are very costly:cry:!)
Click to expand...


Guys Guys! please don't fight. The point in question is this now^^
You guys have been really helpful in my decisions. please guide me out in this final phase.
 
RenegadeRocks said:
Guys Guys! please don't fight. The point in question is this now^^
You guys have been really helpful in my decisions. please guide me out in this final phase.
Click to expand...

Sorry I overlooked your questions. That's really tough to answer though. Will you go Crossfire in the future? If so, get the lesser CPU and the better chipset. Otherwise, stick with your current plans.

You will need to step up your UPS requirements as well. I run my E8400/8800 GT o/c rig & my 42" plasma on my 750VA UPS (APC).
 
I am not going for crossfire as I would prefer a new card later on rather than two outdated cards. At the rate cards are falling below minimum requirements, it won't be long.

As for UPS, the guy I am buying from says I need 1000VA UPS to run my rig, but you running it on 750VA is interesting as I was worried my TV would draw a lot of power.It says 165W on the back of the TV, add to that my rig would be drawing 500W max ,( I guess, It won't reach 600W).

500W+165W=665W
665/0.7=950VA

according to theory I require a 1000VA UPS, bt I have been reading around that one doesn't really need that and it runs fine on lower specs too, just like yours running on 750VA.Have you ever had problems with backup? Or can it take the combined load.
 
Your math is sound, IFF you properly calculate the power draw of the system. For what you have specified, it will draw nowhere near 500 Watts at the outlet (assuming any 80% or higher efficiency PSU).
 
RenegadeRocks said:
I am not going for crossfire as I would prefer a new card later on rather than two outdated cards. At the rate cards are falling below minimum requirements, it won't be long.

As for UPS, the guy I am buying from says I need 1000VA UPS to run my rig, but you running it on 750VA is interesting as I was worried my TV would draw a lot of power.It says 165W on the back of the TV, add to that my rig would be drawing 500W max ,( I guess, It won't reach 600W).

500W+165W=665W
665/0.7=950VA

according to theory I require a 1000VA UPS, bt I have been reading around that one doesn't really need that and it runs fine on lower specs too, just like yours running on 750VA.Have you ever had problems with backup? Or can it take the combined load.
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I have yet to experience a brownout/blackout situation my UPS couldn't handle with the existing hardware set.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that includes my PS3 which also folds 24x7 (as does my PC both SMP and GPU clients 24x7) :D
 
ShaidarHaran said:
You're joking, right? It's common sense that boards designed for enthusiasts (i.e. those with serious overclocking options) will have higher quality components (usually in the form of solid caps or digital VRMs).

Case-in-point: I have a Geforce 7100-powered mobo in my closet that cost $30 less than my current Gigabyte EP35-D3SL board and there's a WORLD of difference between the two, specifically the tweakability of the BIOS of each (practically none for the GF7100 board, and plenty for the P35 board). Also the P35 board has solid caps whereas the GF7100 board does not.
Click to expand...

I have a lower end version of an already cheap motherboard (gigabyte AM2, nforce 520 ; nforce 560 mobo was 10€ more but I went cheap on all components including a good PSU and run of the mill RAM).

I can tell you I've never seen so many BIOS options (voltage for everything : chipset, HTT, etc.) and the mobo o/c's like crap (did a +25% on that 1.9GHz sempron but that went not that stable a bit later).
I've yet to try a bit of voltage on the chipset but my CPU power is o/k for now (would need a new GPU to make sense).

that said, without overclocking I always found out that a sucky mobo with branded ram and a good PSU gives you a rock stable PC. (and it's quiet)

if budget is a concern here you can go with a P31 gigabyte mobo, I doubt there are noticeable perf differences with the P35, it's allegedly a decent overclocker and costs 50€ over here.
 
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not if I can't get anything while staying 100% stable.
but, I did something wrong. ram was set to DDR 533 (so it runs at its stock 667 with the +25%) but settings were set to automatic.. and the BIOS outsmarted me and the SPD by setting lower latencies!
so now I have it at 2.4GHz 100% stable, with a bit of undervoltage on the CPU.

so my conclusion is, 50€ gigabyte motherboards are quite good already.
 
In the past an ATI hasnt been the best gpu to buy if you're using 3D modelling packages. I have no clue what their current state is wrt maya etc. Hopefully someone can shed some light on that for you before you buy.
 
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