Puter DIED. Need opinions on 2 New Specs

[Vyndara]

Okay. I'm gonna wade in here to the techie discussion and get your opinions. Puter DIED a death and using my 4 year old daughter's sony laptop to surf the net now .... I'm game and music-less! noooooooooo!

On hardware I'm a total nube but I know the general components and what they do. I can follow some of the discussions on dual vs quad core processors and SLI graphics cards etc but I feel monumentally ignorant when faced with the huge numbers of choices I just encountered.

SO here are 2 dif specs and prices, one prebuilt box and one specialized but still built by someone other than me (Mysterybite up here in the North!). The second build is infinitely flexible and feel free to suggest other combos or even an AMD/ATI build, although I did not want to go that route.

Budget is $1800-$2100 plus tax.

Special question: Is getting a Physics Accelerator worth it??

I know Dells are evil but here is the box one that I like:

XPS 730:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Q9300 (6MB, 2.5 Ghz, 1333FSB)
Operating System: Vista Premium
Cooling: Copper base Heat Sink with aluminum fins
Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333Mhz
Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.00Gb/s, 16 MB cache
Sound Card: SB X-Fi
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 9800GX2 1024MB
Media Reader: 19 in 1 reader with Bluetooth
Physics Accelerator: AGEIA PhysX
Speakers: Reg 2.1 Dell system
Keyboard: Reg Dell multimedia one....

Choice 2 Special Build - Is this the right mobo??:

Processor: INTEL Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHz FSB1333 6MB LGA775
Mainboard: GIGABYTE GA-P35-S3G P35+ICH9 5PCI/1PCI-EX1 4DDR2 1PCI-E X16 1333MHZ FSB
Operating System: Vista Premium (32 or 64 bit?)
Memory: OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper Heatpipe Edition 4GB (2x2GB) 1066MHz
Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA-II 32MB (Should I be getting a 720GB instead of a 500??)
Sound Card: SB X-Fi
Video Card: BFG 9800 GX2 1GB PCIe 2.0 Dual DVI HDMI
Power Supply: Coolermaster eXTREME POWER 650W (RP-650-PCAR) SLI 2x6pin PCIe 24/20PIN
Speakers: Reg 2.1
Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse Gamer one....red backlight


Phew....done. Any comments??

[Bloodytrailz]

Originally Posted by Vyndara

Okay. I'm gonna wade in here to the techie discussion and get your opinions. Puter DIED a death and using my 4 year old daughter's sony laptop to surf the net now .... I'm game and music-less! noooooooooo!

On hardware I'm a total nube but I know the general components and what they do. I can follow some of the discussions on dual vs quad core processors and SLI graphics cards etc but I feel monumentally ignorant when faced with the huge numbers of choices I just encountered.

SO here are 2 dif specs and prices, one prebuilt box and one specialized but still built by someone other than me (Mysterybite up here in the North!). The second build is infinitely flexible and feel free to suggest other combos or even an AMD/ATI build, although I did not want to go that route.

Budget is $1800-$2100 plus tax.

Special question: Is getting a Physics Accelerator worth it??

I know Dells are evil but here is the box one that I like:

XPS 730:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Q9300 (6MB, 2.5 Ghz, 1333FSB)
Operating System: Vista Premium
Cooling: Copper base Heat Sink with aluminum fins
Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333Mhz
Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.00Gb/s, 16 MB cache
Sound Card: SB X-Fi
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 9800GX2 1024MB
Media Reader: 19 in 1 reader with Bluetooth
Physics Accelerator: AGEIA PhysX
Speakers: Reg 2.1 Dell system
Keyboard: Reg Dell multimedia one....

Choice 2 Special Build - Is this the right mobo??:

Processor: INTEL Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.50GHz FSB1333 6MB LGA775
Mainboard: GIGABYTE GA-P35-S3G P35+ICH9 5PCI/1PCI-EX1 4DDR2 1PCI-E X16 1333MHZ FSB
Operating System: Vista Premium (32 or 64 bit?)
Memory: OCZ PC2-8500 Reaper Heatpipe Edition 4GB (2x2GB) 1066MHz
Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA-II 32MB (Should I be getting a 720GB instead of a 500??)
Sound Card: SB X-Fi
Video Card: BFG 9800 GX2 1GB PCIe 2.0 Dual DVI HDMI
Power Supply: Coolermaster eXTREME POWER 650W (RP-650-PCAR) SLI 2x6pin PCIe 24/20PIN
Speakers: Reg 2.1
Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse Gamer one....red backlight


Phew....done. Any comments??

go for the custom built, beleive me, i will refer you to my fiance on the kind of service you will receive from dell.


for your custom built...
a) hard drive, only you know how much space, get however much you think you need, i only got a 250gb hard drive cuz ill never use that much.


case:
Antec 900 series
i've suggested it before, and i'll suggest until antec brings out a new line.
EXCELLENT case, good price, looks nice too

keyboard:
logitech G15 keyboard = win, if you dont know what it is, check it out =-)

"mainboard" actually is "motherboard"
it seems fine, i personally would go for 2x PCI-Ex16, but other people can shed light on that, im not huge on following motherboards =)

[Bloodytrailz]

as for your special question

wait for pwnzilla

i personally think at nowadays level, not necessarily needed

it could be useful in the future however if you plan on keeping this rig for years and years and years to come

but im no expert on the subject, only minorly looked into it =p

[Pedro]

Originally Posted by Vyndara

Is this the right mobo??

Special question: Is getting a Physics Accelerator worth it??

Operating System: Vista Premium (32 or 64 bit?)

Hard Drive: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 SATA-II 32MB (Should I be getting a 720GB instead of a 500??)

1.- Yes it is.
2.- With current video cards and that one in particular, no.
3.- 64bit so you can use those 4gigs or RAM entirely and more in the future, 32bits caps at 3gigs no matter what.
4.- If you can get the 720GB one go for it, Vista itself takes a lot of space and most of the new graphic heavy games take 4-5gigs each.

Custom one looks better and since it's a local shop for you any tech support should be quick and you can easily upgrade it in the future.

[FluffyBunni]

Physics accelerator is more for old cards. In fact its pretty gimmick-ie in my opinion. You will notice no difference with or without one of those cards if you have a video card that came out within the last year.

Can't you get Dalamar to build it for you? =P I saw him milking a printer the other day so that tells me he is capable.

[Dissonance]

Physics Accelerators will probably be dead in two to three years. nVidia and ATI have bought two different Physics Accelerator companies out and are in development of integrating the technology into the graphics cards themselves. As Fluffy said, it was never a very substantial thing to begin with. I spare no expense on my PCs and those cards never crossed my mind once.

The computer looks awesome (custom built). I would not buy the dell on the simple fact it is a 32-bit OS. The 730 is actually very nice (and real tech support, US based for XPS) but is still bound by the OS, so go custom-ish,

Lastly, I would recommend a different motherboard, something by Asus or MSI personally. But Gigabyte is good and is honestly probably the top $ for performance/reliability in the industry currently.

[FluffyBunni]

Originally Posted by Dissonance

Lastly, I would recommend a different motherboard, something by Asus or MSI personally. But Gigabyte is good and is honestly probably the top $ for performance/reliability in the industry currently.

Agree. Gigabyte generally can provide a nice price, but i have always had some issues with their boards in the past.

[Pwnzilla]

Some thoughts/opinions

On the system choice...

1. Don't do Dell. If you can't build yourself with standard components, have someone else build it for you with standard components. You may not initially regret the decision to purchase the Dell, but eventually you will.

2. Don't need a physics card. From what I have read, nVidia has submitted their version 177 drivers that will bring PhysX technology to series 8xxx and higher GPUs for WHQL certification. If that is true, then they should be released in the very near future and you will have your PhysX for free. TBH it is not that important. With the exception of UT3 and a couple of other minor titles it has not really been implemented that much. Intel has bought Havoc, and is pushing their version of physics coding. Needless to say ATI (naturally) is leaning to supporting that standard. At this point in time, physics implementation is still spotty and with Havoc/PhysX there is no clear standard that programmers are using when they do choose to incorporate it.

On the component choices...

3. The power draw on that system spec is going to be pushing near the upper range of that PSU. In addition, that unit does not have active PFC (power factor correction). I would not use that unit for those components. I would recommend a unit from PC Power & Cooling, OCZ, Corsair, or FSP that features active PFC. Bare minimum of 600w and 40 amps combined 12v circuit. Any on this list will meet those requirements...
Newegg.com - Retail, 801 - 900W, 701 - 800W, 601 - 700W, Active, PC Power & Cooling, OCZ Technology, Inc., Corsair Memory, Inc., FSP Group (Fortron... My personal favorite brand is PC Power & Cooling although any on that list are acceptable.

4. OS - Vista Home Premium 64-bit (what minor additional features the Ultimate version offers are not worth the price premium). 64-bit version in order to gain the full use of your 4Gb of memory.

5. That motherboard does support your listed processor provided the BIOS is flashed to version F3b or later. Ensure that your builder covers that item or you will suffer performance issues. I have never owned or built with Gigabyte mobo so I can not speak to their quality/design, but I know Pedro thinks well of them. If you are set on Gigabyte you may want to consider the GA-EP35-DS3R (rev. 2.1) if it is available and not much more expensive. It appears to have a bit more flexibility and aligned more for the performance market.

6. With regards to the memory the only item to be concerned with is the large heatpipe/sinks on the dimms. Those can create clearance issues/obstructions with some mobo layouts and/or CPU heatsinks. So long as your builder assumes responsibility if they don't fit, then no problem. From a brand perspective, OCZ is bullet-proof for performance/quality. Always my first choice in memory.

7. If you are going to the expense to purchase an X-Fi sound card I would recommend one of the versions with the 64mb of on-board RAM. The price difference between the version without (XtremeGamer) and the version(s) with (XtremeGamer Fatal1ty) is only about $45. There is a PCI and a PCIe version. I'm not certain about clearance issues with the single PCIe X1 slot on the mobo you list if you choose the PCIe model. The mobo model I listed has three PCIe X1 slots so it should not be an issue on it. If you choose the PCI model then the clearance issue is not a concern.

8. Hard drive size is your option. I am old school in that I don't believe in dumping every last piece of data on my hard drive. If it isn't something I use regularly I burn it to CD/DVD and save space on my drive in order to maximize seek/read/write performance. I don't believe a huge HDD is a necessity. It is a convenience, but when (not if, but when as all hard drives will eventually fail) my hard drive does die/crash/fail I don't lose ALL my data because it was in one place. The other advantage to having a hard drive only as large as reasonably necessary is that it minimizes the cost of the external drive that I use to back up the data that is on the hard drive. To me a 500Gb HDD is more than large enough for the average user if they practice reasonable data management. I have less than half that capacity in my system and I have never run out of space. Vista is considerably more of a storage resource hog than XP but not unreasonable. I run Vista Home Premium 64-bit and my OS partition is only 50Gb in size and the OS takes about 25Gb of that with installation and SP1. That leaves me with 25Gb of space for drivers, registry files, etc..... Most of them are small and not going to need much space. My programs, pictures, music, etc... I store on separate partitions of the drive(s).

9. You won't be able to appreciate all the abilities/features of the X-Fi series of sound cards with just a 2.1 speaker set-up but you will still reap the system performance benefits of the on board DSP and RAM (if you choose a model with on board memory).

To summarize my long-winded ramblings in regard to your questions:
Go with the custom build, Vista Home Premium 64-bit OS, no PhysX card required, but consider a different power supply (one that features active PFC). Sounds like you will have a very nice system when completed.

[Vyndara]

Holy crap, thanks a bunch for all the info. I'll go with the custom build.

BloodyT: It is the Antec Gamer 900 with window case.

I'm not set on the Gigabyte board but just picked one from another build I saw and liked what Pedro said about them on another thread I came across. There are many more Asus options on their list to choose but I'll have a look to see if the Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R (rev. 2.1) you mention, Pwnzilla. EDIT: I didn't see that available.
What Asus motherboard would you use with this build, if you were to recommend one? This building outfit seems to prefer Asus looking at the choices.
Fluffy, what issues have you had with Gigabyte boards?

I also know the 2.1 is not going to fully reap all bens of that sound card (it's the XFi Gamer version offered, they do have the Fata1ity but it's running at $115 more up here for some reason) but I HATE wires and loads of little speakers everywhere of the 5.1 set up. I like headsets a lot so I'll be okay. EDIT: I went back and looked and there is a Fatal1ty Pro and Fatal1ty Champion series...I was quoting the Champion series.....the Pro series is only $55 more).

Thanks all for the Physics Accelerator opinions...looks like a gimmick now to me.

Thanks also for clarifying that Dell system is only 32 bit OS and why that is not so good.

Pwnzilla, I'll look into the PSU choice as well and see if I can upgrade. I'll also specifically mention the "large heatpipe/sinks on the dimms. Those can create clearance issues/obstructions with some mobo layouts and/or CPU heatsinks" issue when I order and let them confirm if the clearance is there. EDIT: Just selected the PC P&Cooling 750W, 60A, 12V Rail, Quad PCIe, Crossfire Certified...

I'm not pleased to have to buy a system right now but if I'm going to do it and slap a wad on my plastic, then it had better be good and somewhat future proofed. I want to get 5 years out of it.

FLUFF, Dal could do it (so could I with instructions) but I want a warranty! I want someone to blame and cry and point at if it all goes to hell.

Thanks again guys. Very much appreciated.

[Zinmasterb]

Originally Posted by Bloodytrailz

keyboard:
logitech G15 keyboard = win, if you dont know what it is, check it out =-)

I'll leave the actual tech discussion to those more knowledgeable but I will say this, if you decide to get a G15 make sur you get a first generation model.
The second one only has like, 8 macro keys. The first has 18, with 3 settings, so ultimately 54 macro buttons total.