Father Xmas's guide to picking computer components

Just wanted to take a moment to thank you for all you do around here, Xmas.

Good stuff as always.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

This is great! Thx for putting this together. I generally don't have time to keep up on the latest so I'll be using your build sheet soon!
Quick q? Will the higher end build run CoH at highest settings?

Just a quick note about Father Xmas's high end case suggestion, the Cooler Master CM690-II Advanced. What a great case! Super accessible, roomy, and the USB ports on top of the case are brilliant. It might sound silly singing the praises of a lowly case, but it's an item that can make a real difference in ease of assembly, cooling, and convenience.

Just wanted to say thanks for what you do here, and what you've put together....some really great bang for your buck in that budget build!

All the best,

Xor

FYI (and i don't think this is intended by Father Xmas in any way) the links to your Newegg lists are being redirected to dpbolvw.net which is a fishing/malware infested site.. any way we can get non-tinyurl links?

The redirect sounds like a problem at your end because they work fine for me. Here are the non-tiny URLs.

$725 $1350

Well it's time again to tweak the low end rig, this time to prepare for AMD's next generation CPU and to deal with AMD video driver roulette.

I'm keeping the case, memory, hard drive and DVD burner from the previous iteration.

First off, I sort of side stepped with the CPU, going from a 3.2GHz Athlon II X3 tri-core to a 3.3GHz Phenom II X2 dual core. The reason is simple, 6MB of Level 3 cache will help this game a lot more than a third core. It took some PMs from interested parties to pummel me about the head and shoulders before I investigated further but they were right and I was wrong.

Second, I swapped out the AMD HD 6850 for an nVidia 1GB GTX 460 with a minor OC (720MHz Vs stock 675MHz). It's getting a bit tiresome to figure out which AMD driver works well with which card in this game. I'm not saying that nVidia doesn't screw up on a driver release but monthly drivers, each with a hotfix or three from AMD is just to much work to debug.

Third, I swapped out the Antec NEO Eco 520C PSU for the XFX Core Edition PRO550. It's built by Seasonic and the cable harness is a bit better thought out than Antec's. It also spits out 48 more watts at 12 volts.

Lastly, I upgraded the motherboard to one that is a socket AM3+ model, which is backwards compatible to AM3 CPUs. The old AMD 970 based MSI 870A-G54 motherboard seems to be slipping in NewEgg reviews anyways so I picked the AMD 970 based Asus M5A97 Evo motherboard. It's a bit pricey but I had extra to spend due to savings from the video card change and the slow downward drift of prices over the last few months.

The video card performance should be a wash and for our game the Phenom II dual core should give us a nice boost over the Athlon II tri-core because of the 6MB of additional memory cache. We'll see if the new socket AM3+ CPUs in about a month closes the gap with Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs.

Since when I modify one rig I usually modify the other but this time it's only a tweak for the high end rig. This system is designed to handle a 2nd video card as well as overclocking the CPU.

The first change is the motherboard. I've moved from a P67 based to a Z68 based motherboard. The ability to use a small SSD to automatically cache the slower, vastly larger and cheaper conventional hard drive is an upgrade I don't want to deny to anybody. So I stuck with ASRock and simply went from a P67 Extreme 4 to the Z68 Extreme 4. An alternative is the slightly more expensive Asus P8Z68-V Pro.

The other change is moving from AMD to nVidia. I don't know about you but I tired playing musical driver roulette. It's not that nVidia doesn't mess up either but the shear number of drivers and hot fixes from AMD can make hunting for a good one for this game an all day affair. So I swapped out the AMD 1GB HD 6950 for an nVidia GTX 560Ti that is slightly overclocked.

All together, the unit price of this is as of this post, $1283.88 which is under my target price, with 5% hardware buffer, of $1287.50.

Okay, hold the phone, I've just decided to rip out the guts of the low end rig and convert it to a Intel Sandy Core setup.

First my low end build is suppose to be a setup that you can buy and assemble and play reasonably nicely at 1600x900/1680x1050 resolution. It is also suppose to be able to allow the owner to upgrade to a faster CPU and video card without needing to replace anything else.

Now the primary reason I went with AMD on the low end build was for a while now, Intel didn't really have a reasonable CPU in the sub $100 price range. Long ago I was using the Core 2 based Pentium Dual Core E6300 in a Socket 775 build but the upgrade path for that socket got ugly when cheaper quad core CPUs for Socket 1156 came out. The i5-750 was $90 cheaper but as fast or faster than the Q9550. But Socket 1156 didn't really have an inexpensive CPU for that Socket as the Pentium G6950 was too crippled when it came to games unless you overclocked it, which was why it was crippled. It also started over $100 and drifted down to under $100 today.

However with Socket 1155, Intel just released the Pentium branded CPUs that are under $90 but pretty much trashes the entire AMD dual and triple core CPUs in gaming. Recent reviews in AnandTech and Xbit Labs show that the Pentium G8xx series are pretty damn good when it comes to gaming.

So I've swapped out the AM3+ motherboard for a basic Z68 one, because I still want to give whoever builds this the ability to upgrade to a i5 or i7 with an unlocked clock as well as give them the Intel SSD caching of conventional hard drives that the Z68 can provide. So once again I go to ASRock and this time select the Z68 PRO3. It comes with a lot fewer goodies than it's big brother in my high end rig and it's a single video card motherboard.

For the CPU I'm going with the new 2.8GHz Pentium G840. It's a dual core, no turbo boost, no hyper threading, no video transcoding, no AVX or AESNI instructions and is limited to DDR3-1333 memory. But besides all that it's still a 2nd Gen Core i3 at it's heart and one thing about Sandy Bridge CPUs, they like to play games.

Lastly I simply swapped one 4GB DDR-1333 Cas 8 for one with fancier heat spreaders. Same price and probably the same identical stick of RAM under both heat spreaders.

All of this added a whopping $7 to my build, which was just over my target price of $693.75. Current unit price as of this posting, $701.91.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883229267.

I know nothing of computers except how to play Coh on it. Can you tell me if this is worth the price? I'm in dire need of an upgrade as my Dell Inspiron is approaching 6 years old and the City looks like crap to me. Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can give.

I think I know the answer to this question, but I'll ask anyway just for giggles:

Would you recommend buying these parts piecemeal, or should I save up the bucks and order the entire computer at once? I've noticed you've changed your list several times lately for the bargain computer, so it looks like I'd be better off buying the whole wad at once, just so everything is compatible, if I'm going by your list, which I'd like to do.

Well you could buy them piecemeal but I would try to buy the pieces that either aren't still dropping in price month to month or are periodically replaced by newer better models frequently. Also I would be all over sales, something I don't consider when I put together my list. Drives, cases, CPU coolers and the OS don't fluctuate in price much once they've been out for a few months. Memory prices are currently on the way down but may shoot up again so you need to watch them. CPU prices tend to go down when AMD and Intel introduce new faster models, same is true with AMD and nVidia when it comes to video cards.

As to those parts lists, I will be the first to admit to favorites when it comes to manufacturers (eVGA) and I do turn my nose up to some probably unfairly (Zortac). You should look at the broad strokes when it comes to my parts lists. For instance what's important for the motherboard in my high price build is that it's a Z68 based ATX motherboard that supports either SLi or CrossfireX; that has USB 3.0 ports out the back; and comes bundle with the Lucid Virtu software and not necessarily that particular motherboard, especially if sales and rebates are involved.

The downside of course would be having the parts lying around the house waiting for the last one for assembly as well as RMA problems if it turns out that a part you bought two months ago turn out to be DOA when you finally assemble it.

I have a friend for instance who build his new system early this summer but bought his case and PSU for it over two years ago because of a sale and rebate. Now he and his wife did buy a new house between those two points of time so those unexpected expenses that crop up with a new home contributed to the delay.

Damn it AMD, what the hell were you thinking with Bulldozer? Slower IPC than Phenom II? Twice the power usage of a 2500K? Everyone involved in the Bulldozer project should be fired, unless this is AMD's attempt to enter the home furnace market.

AMD, I am disappoint. I was looking forward to finally upgrading my Q6600 and ditching the Evil Empire of Intel, but once again you have put on an embarrassing show. Anyone else a little disappointed by AMD cementing their position as an also-ran? Father Xmas, what's your take? Should I just bite the bullet and build a 2500K system, or is there something better on the horizon?

I *been* disappoint with AMD since the P4 era.

Then they went and got in bed with ATI, and it's been 'no thanks' ever since.

Yes, get the 2500K. You'll be happy you did, and it's overclockable if you decide to play that game.

/Rule number one of computers: Nothing you buy this minute will be good enough the next. You can live next door to a store, and you still can't drive home fast enough before it's been superseded. So buy whatever makes you happy *now*, as you will never ever find *THE* computer, it will never exist.

The Bulldozer was exactly what I expected to be if you look at the thought process behind AMD.

The Intel i7-2600K is an unlocked four core processor with each core capable of executing two threads simultaneously and can have it's clock speed dynamically changed upward as thermal/power limits allowed. The Windows task manager will show 8 "cores" on this 4 core CPU.

AMD looked at the whole package and said how can we one up Intel. We already have a turbo feature on our six core Phenoms and Fusion CPUs. We already ship unlocked CPUs. Now what if instead of adding a little logic two each core to better utilize the super scalar nature of modern CPUs (multiple pipelines can execute several instructions simultaneously) the way Intel has done with their Hyper Threading, we go one step farther and duplicate the integer portion of the CPU so there are two integer cores per Bulldozer "module". The "module" will still share the same L1 instruction cache and L2 unified cache, the instruction fetch/decoder circuitry and the floating point unit. Windows task manger will also see 8 "cores" on this 4 "module" CPU.

The problem comes from the fact they choose to go with two less advance/complex integer core design than what they had with the Phenom II to save space. It's true that with Intel's design the performance enhancement you get with HT is variable, including worse performance than running the two threads one after the other rather than co-mingling them. This is due to sharing the L1 and L2 caches between two threads running at the same time. But conversely as you add active threads, Intel's design will first use all available cores before doubling up threads in a single core. The Bulldozer is designed to double up threads first allowing the CPU shut down unused cores to save power/reduce heat so the turbo mode can max out.

With the price they set for the FX-8150, basically between the i5-2500 that doesn't have HT and the i7-2600K that does, if you look at the Cinebench 11.5 multi-threaded results fall right in between. However single thread results show that the older Phenom II cores, even the ones that don't turbo, are faster than the Bulldozer which does turbo. We are talking in the realm of 30-40% slower per clock than the Phenom II design. Ouch.

It's like the old joke that you lose a little money on each sale but you'll make it up in volume.

One tack that AMD marketing-drones are spouting off to the gamers is that the money you save by going Bulldozer over an i7-2600K you can spend on getting a better video card. It does make some sense. Most big name titles are GPU limited so a faster GPU will help with your overall performance but God help you if you play a game that's CPU limited.

So between the higher clock speed, more integer cores and better turbo modes, the FX-8150 can outperform the slower six core Phenom II by about 10-20% on heavily threaded applications. So outside of gaming this is the fastest AMD CPU. But not by much. And for gaming they are hoping you look at the total system cost of CPU + video card than compare CPUs with the same video card.

The Bulldozer design may be a real good idea for servers, just not the best design for a desktop.

The three things AMD has done for the industry:

1: Multi-core x86
2: x86-64
3: Provided a barely-there alternative so Intel doesn't get broken up as a monopoly.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

And I agree with you 100% Hyper. At the very least the performance advantage in gaming that the Athlon 64 had over the Pentium 4 saved the world from a few more years of CPUs designed around the horrible Pentium 4 design.

Then again you could also say that AMD's success with the original Athlon caused Intel to disregard actual performance and concentrate on improving clock speed (the Athlon could be overclocked beyond 1GHz where the Pentium III had significant troubles and since both processors has similar performance at the same clock, the key marketing point was who had the faster clock speed).

While it's true that when two threads are running on one of Intel's Sandy Bridge Cores that each is running at 55-60% the performance it would have if it ran alone, AMD missed the part about if it ran ALONE! There is no way in the Bulldozer module to use the resources of the second thread core if it's running a single thread. They were paying attention to the forest (all 8 threads cores running) but ignored the tree (a single thread running). Great for servers, great for massively threaded applications, not so great for everything else.

The next is a general issue with AMD cores, their memory cache performance pales in comparison to Intel's (AMD's L3 cache is less than half as fast as Intel's). This is important because a CPU waiting for an instruction is a CPU that is idling. Doing nothing. Twiddling it's little doped silicon thumbs. Doesn't matter how fast the CPU is clocked if it's waiting on memory. It's just doing nothing for more clocks.

As an aside, something that Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU has going for it is the PCIe controller to the video card is now coupled tighter to the CPU compared toe Socket 1156 and 1366 CPUs. AMD still needs to transmit graphics data off CPU to an external PCIe controller and then to the video card. This may be one of the reasons Sandy Bridge is so good with games.

There are some applications that the Bulldozer is very competitive with the i5-2500K and i5-2600K. Other applications it barely beats the slower Phenom II X6 1100 and falls behind the i5-2400. Unlike the Phenom II the Bulldozer also includes Intel's new AES encryption instructions and their new AVX math instructions found in the Sandy Bridge i5/i7 CPUs. However for games, it performs about the same as less expensive four or six core Phenom II.

Father Xmas, do you have a preference for liquid cooling over fans? And, You have great (currently) $700 build and a (currently) $1,275 build...

How would you split the difference and make the best possible gaming desktop for an even thousand dollars?

If we assume (as I do) that this does not include the gaming keyboard, mouse or monitor, and is JUST the machine itself, what would you do? Would you pare down your 1350 or beef up your 750?

I was also wondering, what is the "cool" monitor(s) to run on nowadays? 24"? Do you have preferences? I saw a buddy of mine who runs a 15" off to the side and a 24" centered. The 15 is in windows mode and has all his trays and chat and even (I think if I recalled it correctly) either a Skype video feed and/or the controls for Vent. Then the 24" in the center was just the game.

As I recall, his was a self-built rig too, with dual graphics cards I think.

Sorry for all the questions, but my main machine is a Dell 1720 with the 8400M GS in it, and with a 32 bit Windows 7, I can't expand beyond 3 Gb of RAM (I run the 2 the factory installed). It was a great machine in early 2008, but Running Ultra on this rig is like watching a fast slideshow. I want to build a machine for running Ultra Mode, but to do so as quietly and coolly as possible within the budget of around 1000.

Thank you in advance for your knowledge and assistance in this!

Beorn

Sorry for the delay, something came up and I couldn't really spend the proper amount of time to think about a $1000 configuration.

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I'm not a big fan of liquid cooling. Not really big about plumbing and liquids mixing with electronics. Yes you can get non-conductive cooling fluid and you can go really crazy and go with a total immersion liquid cooling but the last thing I need to worry about is coming home and finding out my computer piddled all over the office carpet.

But that's my bias. Self contained CPU liquid cooling systems seem to be all the rage at the moment with places like CyberPowerPC and iBUYPOWER having them as the default coolers in their configurators. Also there is talk that Intel's Socket 2011 CPUs that are replacing the Socket 1366 i7s may also include a liquid cooler with the higher end models. AMD's new Bulldozer core FX-8150 is being sold in Japan with a liquid cooler instead of the air cooler bundled here. It's also a more expensive bundle with the liquid cooler.

It's probably a me thing, being a bit old fashion and set in my ways mixed with a bit of old trauma from the time I had a burst water pipe in the basement that I shy away from liquid cooling.

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Not sure how many heard about this but due to heavy flooding in Thailand, hard drive prices are spiking, up to 50% in some cases as factories are affected. The drive I had originally specified in the $725 rig has gone from $40 to 60 in the last month. Western Digital drives are the most affected right now but all hard drive prices are going up.

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One point I would like to point out about my $1350 system, several choices for parts were made with the assumption that a 2nd video card will be added to the system as well as the CPU having the snot overclocked out of it. That's the reason there is an 850 watt power supply in that box and that PSU is a tad pricey. However if you only ever plan to use a single video card you can save a quite a bit of money between a smaller PSU and a motherboard with only one true PCIe x16 slot.

Now due to the hard drive price spike, the $725 setup is actually $725.91 (ignoring "savings" and rebates) so we have around $274 to spend.

So first swap in the i5-2500K for the G840 (+$135) and 8GB of DDR3-1600, Cas 8 memory for the 4GB of DDR3-1333, Cas 8 memory (+$38).

Now what's the point of having a K model CPU if you aren't going to at least try to overclock it so a 3rd party head sink is in order. Again borrowing from the $1350 setup we'll use the XIGAMATEK Gaia for $30. Or you can try the new Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for $35 which I'm thinking about changing over to. Now both already come with their own thermal compound so you don't really need to by a tube of Arctic Silver 5 for $13. AS-5 will lower temps only by a couple more degrees and I'll rather save that and spend it elsewhere.

As for the video card I suggest upgrading to a GTX 560. Yes you can think of it as an extremely overclocked GTX 460 but it is using an improved version of that GPU that is more power efficient. This one is $40 more than the GTX 460 in the $725 setup. The GTX 560 is actually rated 10 watts lower than the original 1GB GTX 460.

Now after all that we have $26-31 left.

Now you could take $20 of that and upgrade the 500GB drive to a 1TB Samsung F3 which at the time of writing this is only $80. The fact that it's only a 3Gb/s SATA II Vs a 6Gb/s SATA III hurts it very little as conventional hard drivers are only close to 1.5Gb/s in transfer rates.

Lastly if you are concerned about case temperatures, I would add a 120mm case fan to either one of the two top fan mounts or the second front mount of the case. Depends if you prefer positive (more fan intakes than exhaust) or negative (more fan exhaust than intakes) air flow.

So to summarize:

Start with the $725 rig, currently ~$726

G840 to i5-2500K - $135
4GB to faster 8GB - $38
CPU Cooler - $30-35
GTX 460 to GTX 560 - $40
500GB to 1TB hard drive - $20* prices are spiking on hard drives
120mm Case Fan - $9

Total cost - $998-1003

Alternative ideas can be found at Tech Report and bit-tech.net.

You sir, are a friggin genius! Thank you so very much for your advice and guidance!

Well if you all haven't noticed yet, my prices have gone way out of whack due to the current supply crisis with hard drives. Over the last three to four weeks OEM drive prices at NewEgg, TigerDirect and other online parts dealers have doubled to almost tripled pre-disaster prices due to the flooding in Thailand where it seems nearly all hard drives are manufactured. It's not just Western Digital and Seagate in trouble but their suppliers of drive motors and heads assemblies are also in the region.

The bad news is that it may take up to two years for the supply chain to return to normal operations.