Quick Advice on New System

Author	Message
DJStarfox Send message Joined: 23 May 01 Posts: 1066 Credit: 1,226,053 RAC: 2	Message 859370 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 17:15:43 UTC Last modified: 29 Jan 2009, 17:15:59 UTC Once the AM3 CPUs are released next month, I'm going to have to make a choice to get one or an Intel. My budget is $700 or less. I only need CPU, memory, motherboard. I'm not planning to buy a video card for a while, unless you can include a 9600 GT in the price. :) I have case, power, drives, etc. I plan to keep this system for a few years. I will be doing the following, running Fedora linux: BOINC crunching (SETI & Climate) Video encoding Photoshop/GIMP CD Mastering/burning Virtual machines (SQL server, weather software) GPU crunching (maybe) moderate gaming (maybe, down the road) Idea 1: AMD Phenom II X4 940 ASUS M4A79 mb Kingston HyperX DDR2 8GB (4 x 2GB) Idea 2: wait for the AM3 Phenom The reason I chose the Phenom II is because it has the nested pages instruction on the CPU, which should help virtual machine performance. Intel doesn't do this until the Core i7 series. ID: 859370 ·

dnolan Send message Joined: 30 Aug 01 Posts: 1228 Credit: 47,779,411 RAC: 32	Message 859396 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 19:14:08 UTC - in response to Message 859370. Last modified: 29 Jan 2009, 19:14:40 UTC Well, if you live near a MicroCenter, you can easily do Core i7 920 + DDR3 memory + Asus P6T for under $700, if that's really all you need... They've been selling the i7 920 in-store only for 229.99, they have the P6T for 249.99 and Corsair XMS3 6Gb DDR3-1600 kit for 169.99, about $50 to spare... (depending on taxes where you are...) You might even be able to get just the i7 there and shop around for the rest for less (I haven't done this lately...). -Dave ID: 859396 ·

DJStarfox Send message Joined: 23 May 01 Posts: 1066 Credit: 1,226,053 RAC: 2	Message 859401 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 19:29:14 UTC - in response to Message 859396. Last modified: 29 Jan 2009, 19:29:43 UTC I'm in Florida. I don't know of any micro-centers nearby. I can put together an i7 on NewEgg, but it's about $800 shipped. Also, how are the stock heatsinks on the core i7? I've never owned a chip more than 66W TDP, and that chip is double the heat. ID: 859401 ·

dnolan Send message Joined: 30 Aug 01 Posts: 1228 Credit: 47,779,411 RAC: 32	Message 859415 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 20:04:19 UTC - in response to Message 859401. Last modified: 29 Jan 2009, 20:13:13 UTC I'm in Florida. I don't know of any micro-centers nearby. I can put together an i7 on NewEgg, but it's about $800 shipped. Also, how are the stock heatsinks on the core i7? I've never owned a chip more than 66W TDP, and that chip is double the heat. Looks like the nearest would be in GA, probably not worth the trip... Can't comment on the heat sink as I don't have an i7 yet... Sounds like you're back to the x4 940 option, then. -Dave [Edit] Actually, looking at Newegg, they have the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R for 199.99 w/ 15 MIR, i7 920 294.99, and you could get 6Gb of Gskill DDR3 -1333 for 134.99, all items have free shipping... Even cheaper than MicroCenter... ID: 859415 ·

Zebra3 Send message Joined: 22 Oct 01 Posts: 186 Credit: 13,658,148 RAC: 0	Message 859432 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 21:23:28 UTC - in response to Message 859415. I'm in Florida. I don't know of any micro-centers nearby. I can put together an i7 on NewEgg, but it's about $800 shipped. Also, how are the stock heatsinks on the core i7? I've never owned a chip more than 66W TDP, and that chip is double the heat. Looks like the nearest would be in GA, probably not worth the trip... Can't comment on the heat sink as I don't have an i7 yet... Sounds like you're back to the x4 940 option, then. -Dave [Edit] Actually, looking at Newegg, they have the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R for 199.99 w/ 15 MIR, i7 920 294.99, and you could get 6Gb of Gskill DDR3 -1333 for 134.99, all items have free shipping... Even cheaper than MicroCenter... How much I wish we could buy it for those prices up here in the snowy wastelands of Canada...lol http://www.novascotia.com ID: 859432 ·

.clair. Send message Joined: 4 Nov 04 Posts: 1300 Credit: 55,390,408 RAC: 69	Message 859466 - Posted: 29 Jan 2009, 23:06:14 UTC Then dont buy one in the UK...!!! http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-0-0-0 i7 920 . Ã‚Â£245 with stock cooler Asus P6T . Ã‚Â£200 (the deluxe and others cost more) DDR3 1600 3Gb cheepest is Ã‚Â£95 and an i7 965 extreme edition is only Ã‚Â£873. :( ID: 859466 ·

woodenboatguy Send message Joined: 10 Nov 00 Posts: 368 Credit: 3,969,364 RAC: 0	Message 859561 - Posted: 30 Jan 2009, 2:59:28 UTC - in response to Message 859401. My son plunked down his Christmas money three weeks ago and set up an i7 (920) system. We went with the stock CPU fan and there's been no difficulty. Checked the temps with Speedfan and I think he was running in the high 50's / low 60's. Check out TigerDirect for prices. Just looking recently a CPU / Intel board / OCZ memory combination was less than $800. Make sure you have a healthy power supply with the 24 pin feed to the motherboard. Best of luck. ID: 859561 ·

Luke Volunteer developer Send message Joined: 31 Dec 06 Posts: 2546 Credit: 817,560 RAC: 0	Message 859621 - Posted: 30 Jan 2009, 5:39:53 UTC - in response to Message 859401. I'm in Florida. I don't know of any micro-centers nearby. I can put together an i7 on NewEgg, but it's about $800 shipped. Also, how are the stock heatsinks on the core i7? I've never owned a chip more than 66W TDP, and that chip is double the heat. If you plan on OC'ing, I wouldn't trust them. I have seen some reviews of OCing the 920 and the CPU crapped out under the Stock Fan. Mark has tempted me into going with the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme 1366RT (expensive!), plus you need to buy a seperate fan. If not OC'ing, they are probably good enough for the needs of the CPU, even under 100% load. - Luke. - Luke. ID: 859621 ·

Al Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 1682 Credit: 477,343,364 RAC: 482	Message 859716 - Posted: 30 Jan 2009, 12:47:20 UTC Here's a couple reviews of CPU coolers from Toms Hardware, Tom's latest review and one that rates higher performing ones Tom's HP recommendations both good reviews, as they test them all individually, putting them thru their paces, and it was suprising how many coolers actually failed the tests, were complete pieces of junk, etc. (and we're not talking about just $20 cheapies either..) I myself went for this one for my server farm setup. Thermalright IFX-14v Physical size didn't matter to me, and the install wasn't all that bad, took me about 10-15 mins with the boards out. My main goal was quiet, efficient cooling. Hope this helps ID: 859716 ·

Paul D Harris Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 1 Dec 99 Posts: 1122 Credit: 33,600,005 RAC: 0	Message 859945 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 1:51:39 UTC - in response to Message 859370. Once the AM3 CPUs are released next month, I'm going to have to make a choice to get one or an Intel. My budget is $700 or less. I only need CPU, memory, motherboard. I'm not planning to buy a video card for a while, unless you can include a 9600 GT in the price. :) I have case, power, drives, etc. I plan to keep this system for a few years. I will be doing the following, running Fedora linux: BOINC crunching (SETI & Climate) Video encoding Photoshop/GIMP CD Mastering/burning Virtual machines (SQL server, weather software) GPU crunching (maybe) moderate gaming (maybe, down the road) Idea 1: AMD Phenom II X4 940 ASUS M4A79 mb Kingston HyperX DDR2 8GB (4 x 2GB) Idea 2: wait for the AM3 Phenom The reason I chose the Phenom II is because it has the nested pages instruction on the CPU, which should help virtual machine performance. Intel doesn't do this until the Core i7 series. I just got this from newegg for $644 Item List: 1 x ($294.99) CPU INTEL\|CORE I7 920 2.66G 45N R - Retail $294.99 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 x ($84.99) MEM 1Gx3\|GSK F3-10666CL7T-3GBPK R - Retail $84.99 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 x ($249.99) MB ASUS P6T 1366 X58 RTL - Retail $249.99 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Payment Summary: Payment Term: VISAExtended Warranty: $0.00Subtotal: $629.97Tax: $0.00Shipping and Handling: $14.17Rush Order: $2.99Total Amount: $644.14 ID: 859945 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 860015 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 4:03:35 UTC - in response to Message 859370. Once the AM3 CPUs are released next month, I'm going to have to make a choice to get one or an Intel. My budget is $700 or less. I only need CPU, memory, motherboard. I'm not planning to buy a video card for a while, unless you can include a 9600 GT in the price. :) I have case, power, drives, etc. I plan to keep this system for a few years. I will be doing the following, running Fedora linux: BOINC crunching (SETI & Climate) Video encoding Photoshop/GIMP CD Mastering/burning Virtual machines (SQL server, weather software) GPU crunching (maybe) moderate gaming (maybe, down the road) Idea 1: AMD Phenom II X4 940 ASUS M4A79 mb Kingston HyperX DDR2 8GB (4 x 2GB) Idea 2: wait for the AM3 Phenom The reason I chose the Phenom II is because it has the nested pages instruction on the CPU, which should help virtual machine performance. Intel doesn't do this until the Core i7 series. Uhh....the first AMD in the top 20 shows up at about the #63 spot.......give you any clues? Sorry for telling it like it is, but AMD is not hot on Seti....... "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 860015 ·

DJStarfox Send message Joined: 23 May 01 Posts: 1066 Credit: 1,226,053 RAC: 2	Message 860033 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 4:38:31 UTC - in response to Message 860015. Yes, the Core i7 looks like a good choice. I'm just a bit concerned about the heat. I didn't want a loud system, nor a small heater. Living in Florida, most days of the year are above 80F, and A/C does not want to compete with computer. Paul specified a cheap Core i7 system for sale. I was looking at the Asus P6T WS Pro motherboard, so I can run dual video and use my PCI-X RAID card in the future. Right now, this board is $330, which I feel is outragious. Perhaps I should look again. ID: 860033 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 860040 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 4:47:20 UTC - in response to Message 860033. Last modified: 31 Jan 2009, 4:47:37 UTC Yes, the Core i7 looks like a good choice. I'm just a bit concerned about the heat. I didn't want a loud system, nor a small heater. Living in Florida, most days of the year are above 80F, and A/C does not want to compete with computer. Paul specified a cheap Core i7 system for sale. I was looking at the Asus P6T WS Pro motherboard, so I can run dual video and use my PCI-X RAID card in the future. Right now, this board is $330, which I feel is outragious. Perhaps I should look again. Even if you do not OC it, the i7 is still the best cruncher around.....bar none. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 860040 ·

Luke Volunteer developer Send message Joined: 31 Dec 06 Posts: 2546 Credit: 817,560 RAC: 0	Message 860043 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 4:51:36 UTC - in response to Message 860040. Yes, the Core i7 looks like a good choice. I'm just a bit concerned about the heat. I didn't want a loud system, nor a small heater. Living in Florida, most days of the year are above 80F, and A/C does not want to compete with computer. Paul specified a cheap Core i7 system for sale. I was looking at the Asus P6T WS Pro motherboard, so I can run dual video and use my PCI-X RAID card in the future. Right now, this board is $330, which I feel is outragious. Perhaps I should look again. Even if you do not OC it, the i7 is still the best cruncher around.....bar none. With 1600Mhz DDR3 Trip-Channel RAM, and an i7 920, what sort of performance increase would I see with a Asus Rampage II over the Intel Smackover? If any? - Luke. - Luke. ID: 860043 ·

arkayn Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 14 May 99 Posts: 4438 Credit: 55,006,323 RAC: 0	Message 860047 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 4:58:36 UTC - in response to Message 860040. Even if you do not OC it, the i7 is still the best cruncher around.....bar none. At least until next month... Intel to Unveil Octo-Core Xeon Next Month Sitting tight on the desktop and server performance thrones with the Core i7 and Xeon Dunnington series procesors, Intel is looking to carry on with its product launch-cycle with the introduction of octo-core (8 cores) enterprise processors later this year. The company is expected to detail the industry about this upcoming processor series as early as next month at the Solid State Circuits conference in San Fransisco between February 8 and 12. The processor in question will be based on the Intel Nehalem architecture and will consist of eight x86 processing cores, a massive transistor-count of 2.3 billion, and will be built on the company's current 45nm manufacturing process. It will hold 24 MB of L3 cache, a quad-channel memory interface and QuickPath Interconnect system interface. Furthermore, it is aimed at quad-socket server platforms. Intel will keep this only upto a presentation level at the conference and not a launch. It is expected to start off with quad-core Xeon processors based on the new architecture later in this quarter. Good possibility that these will be going into a Mac Pro. ID: 860047 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 860054 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 5:04:17 UTC - in response to Message 860047. Last modified: 31 Jan 2009, 5:08:10 UTC Even if you do not OC it, the i7 is still the best cruncher around.....bar none. At least until next month... Intel to Unveil Octo-Core Xeon Next Month Sitting tight on the desktop and server performance thrones with the Core i7 and Xeon Dunnington series procesors, Intel is looking to carry on with its product launch-cycle with the introduction of octo-core (8 cores) enterprise processors later this year. The company is expected to detail the industry about this upcoming processor series as early as next month at the Solid State Circuits conference in San Fransisco between February 8 and 12. The processor in question will be based on the Intel Nehalem architecture and will consist of eight x86 processing cores, a massive transistor-count of 2.3 billion, and will be built on the company's current 45nm manufacturing process. It will hold 24 MB of L3 cache, a quad-channel memory interface and QuickPath Interconnect system interface. Furthermore, it is aimed at quad-socket server platforms. Intel will keep this only upto a presentation level at the conference and not a launch. It is expected to start off with quad-core Xeon processors based on the new architecture later in this quarter. Good possibility that these will be going into a Mac Pro. At least if they have their smarts on......... Mac going Intel was the best thing they ever did for their platform......just check the top 20 computers...... I have never owned one, or will. I have built every one of my rigs from scratch since day one......I love the challenge.....most of the time... But for a canned system, you cannot beat the Macs.......... "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 860054 ·

OzzFan Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28	Message 860256 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 15:45:48 UTC - in response to Message 860054. I have never owned one, or will. I have built every one of my rigs from scratch since day one......I love the challenge.....most of the time... But for a canned system, you cannot beat the Macs.......... Agreed! ID: 860256 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 860261 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 15:57:23 UTC - in response to Message 860256. I have never owned one, or will. I have built every one of my rigs from scratch since day one......I love the challenge.....most of the time... But for a canned system, you cannot beat the Macs.......... Agreed! OMG.........call the press........somebody agrees with the kittyman.......LOL.... It's OK Ozzy.......God will forgive you.....LOL. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 860261 ·

OzzFan Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Apr 02 Posts: 15691 Credit: 84,761,841 RAC: 28	Message 860267 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 16:12:20 UTC - in response to Message 860261. I have never owned one, or will. I have built every one of my rigs from scratch since day one......I love the challenge.....most of the time... But for a canned system, you cannot beat the Macs.......... Agreed! OMG.........call the press........somebody agrees with the kittyman.......LOL.... It's OK Ozzy.......God will forgive you.....LOL. Thank Dog for that! :) ID: 860267 ·

kittyman Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004	Message 860269 - Posted: 31 Jan 2009, 16:13:16 UTC - in response to Message 860267. I have never owned one, or will. I have built every one of my rigs from scratch since day one......I love the challenge.....most of the time... But for a canned system, you cannot beat the Macs.......... Agreed! OMG.........call the press........somebody agrees with the kittyman.......LOL.... It's OK Ozzy.......God will forgive you.....LOL. Thank Dog for that! :) I am not sure how the kitties would react to a doggins.......they have never met one....... "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster ID: 860269 ·

©2024 University of California

SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.