Comments on Proposed System, Please
Here's a proposed system I want to build for my daughter and her boyfriend. Usage will be general purpose; but the system must be capable of competent gaming, but not extreme or competitive gaming. This must be a budget system, not to exceed $700, including components shipping. $650 is target, but perhaps not possible.
All prices are Newegg, shipped:
CPU - AMD Barton 2500+ (retail with HSF) / $80
Motherboard - Asus A7N8X-X (NF2-400) (onboard sound and NIC)/ $76
Memory - 2 X 256MB Kingston Value Ram, PC3200 / $103
Video Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200, 128MB DDR, 8XAGP / $65.50
Monitor - Samsung Flat CRT 753DF, max res. 1280 X 1024 / $139
*Case - Antec Solution Series w/350w Smart Power PSU / $82
Hard Drive - Western Digital WD800JB (80GB/7200RPM/8MB) / $67.50
CD Burner/DVD ROM drive - need help with this please see
this thread
Total price without optical drive = $613.00
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind, there is not much, if any room to move up on total price.
All prices are Newegg, shipped:
CPU - AMD Barton 2500+ (retail with HSF) / $80
Motherboard - Asus A7N8X-X (NF2-400) (onboard sound and NIC)/ $76
Memory - 2 X 256MB Kingston Value Ram, PC3200 / $103
Video Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200, 128MB DDR, 8XAGP / $65.50
Monitor - Samsung Flat CRT 753DF, max res. 1280 X 1024 / $139
*Case - Antec Solution Series w/350w Smart Power PSU / $82
Hard Drive - Western Digital WD800JB (80GB/7200RPM/8MB) / $67.50
CD Burner/DVD ROM drive - need help with this please see
this thread
Total price without optical drive = $613.00
Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please keep in mind, there is not much, if any room to move up on total price.
0
Comments
Don't expect to crank the settings up very high, but that system should be fine for casual gaming.
I can't take complete credit for the budget gaming computer. Anandtech has periodic articles on best builds - budget, midrange, and high end. Their writeup seemed right on the money to me, so I merely lifted most of their recommendations.
And yes, The 8500 is a faster card than a 9200. I have an 8500 in one machine, it's run everything I've thrown at it so far, though it struggled a little with Halo, had to run that in low res.
RAM, fast and decent amounts to huge lots of it, both GRAM and SDRAM (DDR Dual Channel Low Latency). Very high-speed GRAM in large quantities is VERY expensive to mfr, test, and otherwise maintian even QC for-- so you pay through the nose for it-- aka pay an arm and a leg for it. Ditto real fast RAM on mainboard in large qty's.
CPU, faster in pure GHZ.
Efficient data piping to and from card.
Top notch drivers that are tuned as much for effectiveness and efficiency as they are for feature support.
Do NOT plan on a card ALONE giving you huge increases until software dev is further along adn the unique features are benched right and top-notch drivers are present with chipsets tuned to feed video media on mainboards.
The feedback we are seeing tells me two things-- first, apps are still tuned more for older ways of doing thigns than new things. Second, drivers are not fully tuned to translate between old and new. Third, lots of people have the perception that the card can make the difference, but to IT techs a different rule applies-- without the underlying groundwork, the effectiveness of the card as it was designed cannot be eval'ed right. For now cards tuned to the things in your box are best for your box, and right now the complete system sets out in the field for the most part do nto have all the needed pieces in place at once. Thus, the cards tuned for the things normally present on boxes are not this year's hyped up card and it is becasue in part folks are NOT seeing whole systems tuned throughout for hyper-fast video yet at reasonable prices.
IIRC, CSimon, QCH2002, Mudd, and Omega65 pointed out that modern cards want up to twice the size of the GRAM for best effectiveness. XP needs 128 MB to 256 MB to run things right, by itself, depending on how fast the box is overall. So, take a card that has 128 MB of GRAM. It needs, potentially, 256 MB of MAIN RAM also. That is half a GIG if we now do a subtotal, and we have not allowed for the RAM load of major games yet.
I've seen 256 MB cards offered, but do not have the money to give those cards 512 MB of main RAM also. Much less the best of chipsets instead of a mid-grade board. That is in part why folks are not getting advertised results-- they do not build from the get-go for video feeds and build in enough extra capacity for the other needs also. Think about what else is in your box before you buy, please.
John D.
I've been running almost that rig exactly for some time now and I'm still quite happy with it. Not really in to gaming, and the Raedon 9200 scores very lowly on the various benchmarks, but I watch full screen DVDs and they are perfect.
Your new Barton is probably locked so not much scope for OC. Folding is fine though.
Cheers
Crypto
I may need to find another one just in case.
Yes, the Anandtech machine guides are very nice. He explaines his choices and offeres alternates. A great way to understand the trade offs.
8500: 275Mhz Core; 275Mhz Memory; 4 pipes
9200: 250Mhz Core; 200Mhz Memory; 4 pipes
9600SE: 325Mhz Core; 200Mhz Memory; 4 pipes
Overclocking? No how, no way. It's going to my daughter, not residing in my house.
Brief comments before I go to bed:
- highly, highly recommend the Antec Solution Series case "SLK3700AMB": front and back 120mm fan ports, 350watt SmartPower PSU included, excellent paint finish, well designed
- the Asus seems to be an excellent board for the price - almost like the computer built itself
- computer is running with only one case fan, which is the stock Antec 120mm exhaust that came with the case. it's very quiet, and highest indicated CPU core temp was 46*C, case temp 26*C. this case breaths very well
- video card testing will happen tomorrow. Xandermann will be gaming. Hey, nothing like real world testing.
I'm tired. Time to go to bed.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. For a low-to-medium-end Athlon/P4 system, the SLK-3700 is OK, as long as it hasn't got a hot video card or an overclocked CPU in it.
As far as an overclocker's/tweaker's case goes, it is a total, complete, absolute turd. It is a piece of crap. It is EASILY one of THE WORST cases I have EVER used from a cooling standpoint when it's asked to deal with any kind of significant heat load.
-2 120mm x 25mm fans cannot provide enough airflow for an overclocked athlon/p4 and high end video card.
-There is NO ram cooling. That entire area of the board is bathed in heat from the CPU fan that doesn't get taken out very fast.
-The hard drive cooling sucks a$$.
AND, the case requires EXTENSIVE modding to have decent cooling. 2 80mm blowholes on the top help, but are not enough. The only way to get decent cooling out of it is to put 2 120mm blowholes (cold air intake) on the side panel, and equip them with 90cfm+ fans. (in addition to the 2 80mm exhaust fans on the top) Then it has pretty good cooling.
But unmodified, overclocking and/or high-end systems are a BIG no-no in this case.
would have been my optical choice... I know it pushes slightly over the 650 mark but its a dvd burner and a decent one at that... From what I read with a beta firmware upgrade it will allow you to over burn media at faster than rated speeds. Like a 4x dvd burned at 6x.
Gobbles
120mm in front and 120mm in back sure beats all those cramped cases with assortments of pathetic, buzzy 80mm fans. Of course there are better cases for overclocking. But that was never an intention for this computer. So, are you saying that under stock case configuration there is scant airflow by the AGP slot? Can't argue with you on that one, as I've not built anything high-powered with this case. I've built two systems with this case model- the example above, and a Palomino XP2000+ system with an ATI 8500 in it. I don't know where the system/motherboard thermistor is on this Asus motherboard, but I've never had any system config that registered this low a system temp - 26*C. I admit though, that I've never built with Asus before.
Also, it would seem to me that simply upgrading the 120mm fans would give this case superb air regeneration.
The only way I've found to fix it is to put side and top fans on it. I tried removing the front and rear fan grills on mine, and putting in the highest airflow 120x25mm fans I could get ahold of (95cfm). I even ghetto-rigged my 120x38mm, 131cfm YSTech up to the back of the case. The cooling was still crap.
Like I said, for an un-overclocked system without the latest and greatest video card, cpu, etc., it's fine, but it is not an overclocker's/tweaker's case by any stretch of the imagination.
Although, I'll tell you what- I ended up setting a few heatsinks and a 120mm fan on top of one of my LiteOn 52/32/52 CD burners last summer- I was ripping every game CD I had (more or less) to a firewire drive to take with me to Las Vegas... 2 or 3hrs of continuous access and those drives get warm.
Geeky, thanks for the diagram of air temp/flow. I'll see what I can do. During an intense gaming session today with Painkiller (Quake III game engine, I think) with Folding running in the background, the game froze. I've added a small, but very quiet fan to the vid card's GPU heatsink, which seems to have fixed the problem. (Room temp at the time was about 77-78*F. What I'm thinking about doing is fabricating some type of air channeling device to mitigate the red zone you identified in your graphic. I don't think the red zone in the upper right will matter. The only device up there is the CD/DVD combo drive.
Oh, just a side note. The floppy drive that I pulled out of my parts bin for the new computer was no good. So I went to the store today and got an el-cheapo "Hi-Val" drive. Yeah, it was cheap, at least in price. I was happy to find that the drive was actually a Panasonic in "Hi-Val" wrappings.
But I still wouldn't diss this case completely, imo it still has a place out there for those who want a fine looking case that is easy to install stuff into, is reasonably priced and most of all, runs quiet.
Of all the Cases I've tried, best for cooling has been the Antec SX1030 where I added an 80mm fan to the side panel. Also currently have a couple of Lian Li PC61's that, after replacing the 4 x stock fans for something with a little more CFM air shift but just as quiet (read Vantec Stealth; Panaflow & Pabst) really cools quite respectfully.
CPU temps on both, for example, Crunching UD in the height of summer, never go above 48C. Typically they run at 45C. Have used other measures to keep Vid Card temps down, the VGA Arctic Cooler on one, does a good job.
Edit: Oops, had a little misunderstanding here, from the description, I thought this was a Sonata Case, that's the one I was thinking of buying, but it's not. But it's similar, so, comments still stand, really.
Oh, and did I mention that this level of cooling has a tolerable noise level, when compared to the 5 80MM fans that were sucking a hole in my bedroom with the Chieftec Dragon?
*just a few days more and my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe will arrive...*
I've also got 4 more of them at Habitat For Humanity, and they're stock. They've just got 1800 tbreds in k7s5as with gf2mx400s in them, and they work great. They fold 24/7, or as close to it as I can get them to leave them on, and the cpu temperatures hover around 110*F with Coolermaster HAC-V81 heatsinks on the lowest fan speed setting and 2 50-60cfm fans.
For systems like that, they're great.
Oh, I also specified Vantec slot blowers for the pci slot directly under the video cards in each system. They work(ed) fine, but they're sleeve bearings, and by now, 3 of the 4 have failed.
What were you going to do for the video card cooling? I've got some ideas, but it depends on what you have sitting around, how much effort you want to put into it, and/or how much you're willing to spend.
Personally, I would not use a 40mm fan on the stock heatsink unless you're going to be there to service the systems on a regular basis. (if you don't feel like reading the entire post, what I'd do is in the last paragraph
Begin long-winded explanation
Smaller fans (even quiet ones) generally spin at higher RPMs than larger ones do. I would guess that that 40mm fan is probably doing about 5000rpms.
The faster a fan spins, the sooner it wears out. Also, a small 40mm fan on the stock heatsink may be fine now, when the computer is brand new and nice and clean, but these people aren't going to take care of their computers properly
What happens 6 months or a year from now when that dinky little stock heatsink is full of dust? Even worse, what happens when the heatsink is so full of dust that the fan can't spin (which I've seen happen to small, low-torque fans before)? You're going to be right back to square one. Games will be crashing for no apparent reason.
When I build or recommend a system for someone, and I KNOW that they're not going to be in it working on it all the time, my primary concern is the capacity of the cooling system to handle dust buildup, and the reliability of the moving parts in it.
Sure, the stock AMD thin-fin heatsink that they're boxing with the bartons is fine when it's new. In fact, with a 7,000RPM delta on it, it's a damn good heatsink. But, it's very, very small (60x60x30mm or so), and the fins are very densely spaced. Dense fins are excellent air filters, if you catch my drift. They trap dust far more quickly than the broadly spaced fins of extruded heatsinks do.
Also, the stock 60mm fan spins much faster than an 80mm fan would to move the same amount of air. As I mentioned earlier (and I know you know this already
So, I don't use the stock heatsink. Ever. It's just asking for trouble down the road. I always go for something with an 80mm fan, and broadly spaced fins. Speeze makes a couple of heatsinks that fit the bill and have OUTSTANDING performance to boot.
Anyhow, my concern extends not to just the CPU, but also to the video card. I try to use cards that are passively cooled, wherever possible, to eliminate the chances of the fan on the card failing. I then use some kind of slot fan to keep air moving over the card.
I don't use sleeve bearing fans (unless they're Papst fans). I use ball bearing, or when possible, Panaflos.
You've got to remember that these people expect the computer to just work. They're never going to open it up, they're never going to clean it, they'll plug it in and never move it again. When building systems for people like that, you've got to use the most reliable components possible, even if it means sacrificing some speed to stay within the budget.
End long-winded explanation
Getting back to your situation, what I would do is get a big heatsink from a surplus place, or a cheap CPU heatsink (www.nexfan.com is great for stuff like this- their prices are insane), or one of Zalman's heatpipe coolers. I would certainly put a fan on it if not using the Zalman heatsink, and even then, I might put one of their fan brackets on it. If you go this route, I'd consider modding the fan to run off 5 or 7v (use a resistor if you do a 7v mod- do NOT just hook it up to the +12v and +5v lines. If that fan fails and shorts closed, you'll fry the PSU and possibly everything else in the computer, because it'll dump 12v into the 5v line). It should still provide more than enough airflow, and it should last longer at the lower voltage, since it'll be spinning slower.
Update: ambient room temperature same as before. I installed the 120/25 stock Antec fan as intake; installed Panaflow 120/38 L-series as exhaust. Folding is running. CPU core is 45*C, case temp 24*.
Need for Speed 4 (Porsche Unleashed with detail set to high runs very nicely. Painkiller was lagging a little. I'll test some tomorrow and see if case ventilation improvement(?) has improved performance.
I've already let my daughter and her boyfriend know that if they get into heavy duty, latest release gaming, that they'll want to upgrade the video card.