Spec me an upgrade, bitches ... please

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 22nd, 2009, 10:52

I've got a lifetime subscription to Champions and it either looks like arse or runs like arse, so I'm biting the speeding bullet and upgrading. I need your help as I can't keep up with PC tech. I'm looking to spend from £500 - £1000 and I think these are all the parts I need to replace:

Current
Case: Antec p160
PSU: Nestaq NA 1602 620W (reusable?)
MB: MSI MS-7246
CPU: Intel 6600 @ 2.40GHz (2 CPUs)
RAM: 2GB something speed
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Sound card: SB Audigy 2
HD: Western Digital something

Next
Case: Antec 300
PSU: Nestaq NA 1602 620W?
MB: ?
CPU: ?
RAM: ?
GFX: ?
Sound card: ? (I'm thinking an Asus Xonar or some kind)
HD: ?

It's purely a games machine and only needs enough space to store game files, everything else it's handled by other machines. So would it be worth going for a small 10000rpm HD or even using RAID0 on a pair of 7200rpm, assuming there's an MB that supports hardware RAID or a cheap PCI controller? Solid still looks too expensive for the performance boost.

I'm thinking that I can reuse the PSU and it doesn't need to quiet like my previous builds.

GO! please

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 22nd, 2009, 11:11

Unless you're pretty sure of the PSU, I'd drop it for being an unknown.

The spec I've been thinking towards looks something like:

MB: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R (£145)
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 D0 2.66ghz (£205)
RAM: Corsair XMS3 6GB 1600MHz (£100)

Soundcard: I like creative based stuff, not used other stuff, so don't have much opinion, apart from that onboard sounds muddy.

HDD: Raid 0 is pretty cheap CPU wise (IIRC) so not a massive problem to run it on a standard mobo.

I'd probably look at short-stroking a couple of fast drives and sticking them in RAID 0 to get decent performance on a budget.

GPU wise, I dunno, but I'd probably think towards GTX 275 or 285 for decent bang/buck. I've not been keeping up recently, so do your own research. ATI cards are fine, but I'm not a fan of the drivers.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 22nd, 2009, 11:13

Actually I've just realised I can look at similar recent threads and not be so lazy. Thread review GO!

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 22nd, 2009, 11:26

Thanks Berk, that'll get me started.

I didn't realise Windowses had software RAID built in, I'll investigate.

Sound isn't really important as I only have stereo speakers/headphones, but yeah, I've found that a card of some sort sounds better than onboard. My current card is pretty old / basic and barely supported now.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » August 22nd, 2009, 11:34

ATI are releasing their 5 series at the beginning of next month so it might be worth waiting to see what they're like before you decide on a graphics card.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 22nd, 2009, 11:46

spoodie wrote:I didn't realise Windowses had software RAID built in, I'll investigate.

It does, but it's crap.

Every mobo I've seen in the last 4 years has supported onboard RAID, it's not technically hardware usually, but it's plenty fast enough for simple things like 0 and 1

Post by **HereComesPete** » August 22nd, 2009, 13:57

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Unless you're pretty sure of the PSU, I'd drop it for being an unknown.

This.

I'd go nice and beefy and get 700+, keep any monster card you fit truly juiced so it doesn't die for a few years.

The mobo/cpu/ram Berk said will see you right for a good long time and the prices may well drop on the i7 when the i5 stuff is released, but it'll be a few quid most likely so there's no real need imo to hold off buying them.

GPU- my personal choice right now would be this bfg 285 If you're after a little less spend but still plenty of power I'd go for the 275 - the 4890 is about the same in terms of performance, but it's less thirsty and the general purpose gpu thing is much better from Nvidia than ATI.

Of course (as ever) there's a new release very soon. But unless they offer a price/performance deal a good few points ahead of Nvidia, ATI just can't support their stuff as well with driver updates and optimization.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 22nd, 2009, 20:31

Single 10k drives produce decent enough performance for me - without the inherent risk of losing all data on both drives if only one fails. It seems better than the Intel motherboard-based RAID0 pair I have in a work machine, but I'm only assuming they are 7.2k drives.

The latest Velociraptors are markedly better than the original Raptors too, but they are rather expensive at £160 for 300G.

For that price you could have 5 £32 320G drives in a RAID5 array giving you 1.2TB of space with a decent performance level, redundacy, upgradability and a low drive-replacement-cost. Obviously things like case size, power, noise, cooling and SATA connections would be a factor too, though.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 23rd, 2009, 2:30

FatherJack wrote:Single 10k drives produce decent enough performance for me - without the inherent risk of losing all data on both drives if only one fails. It seems better than the Intel motherboard-based RAID0 pair I have in a work machine, but I'm only assuming they are 7.2k drives.

The thing with Raid0 is that you're going to lose all data on the drive anyway if you're only using one HDD for everything. It's just you're (potentially) doubling your chance of failure with raid0, as there's 2 drives involved.

Course, that's still not a massive risk, a modern HDD will mostly be fine, usually the bad ones are DOA (yes, HDDs do also die after time, but it's less common)

Mostly dealing with HDDs and raid is guesswork and informed risk vs. reward.

I personally take the view that my OS and games etc are replaceable, even if it is a shitty job, whereas my personal datas, and media aren't replaceable.

As such, my OS and games go on a something fast and risky (currently two 150gb raptors in raid0) for my next upgrade, possibly 2x 300gb raptors, or 2x fast 7.2k drives short stroked.

Everything else lives on RAID5, totally irreplaceable stuff is on dvds and usb sticks for extra safety.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 23rd, 2009, 10:43

FatherJack wrote:The latest Velociraptors are markedly better than the original Raptors too, but they are rather expensive at £160 for 300G.

I was going to ask about these drives as I've been looking at them as an option. I like the simplicity of a single drive and it's more than enough space for just game files.

With everyone's help I've got this in my basket at the moment:

<img src="http://spoodie.com/gallery/main.php?g2_ ... alNumber=1">

It's a little over budget, but that was an arbitrary figure anyway. It's been nearly two years since my last major upgrade and I'm not being made redundant so let's celebrate! Also I'm helping the economy. Have I talked myself into it yet?

Any comments or further advice on the spec? I think I just need a CPU cooler, which will be a Zalman from Quiet PC.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » August 23rd, 2009, 11:16

If you really can't wait a month for a graphic card then I'd get the GTX 275. It costs about £120 less and is maybe 5-10 fps slower than the GTX 285. It's not worth spending loads on one now when DirectX 11 cards are out in a month.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 23rd, 2009, 11:27

Lee wrote:If you really can't wait a month for a graphic card then I'd get the GTX 275. It costs about £120 less and is maybe 5-10 fps slower than the GTX 285. It's not worth spending loads on one now when DirectX 11 cards are out in a month.

Also, when DX11 cards drop, DX10 ones will lose a fair bit of price.

Wouldn't actually worry too much about getting a DX11 card though, there'll be a fair wait until it's in widespread use (look at DX10)

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 23rd, 2009, 11:28

Lee wrote:If you really can't wait a month for a graphic card then I'd get the GTX 275. It costs about £120 less and is maybe 5-10 fps slower than the GTX 285. It's not worth spending loads on one now when DirectX 11 cards are out in a month.

I think I'll do that then. ~£150 for a graphics card is a easier to swallow, especially if I'm going to be thinking of swapping it out in the not too distant future when W7 and more supported games come along.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 31st, 2009, 9:23

The operation was a success! Thanks for the help.

The new machine is actually running quieter than my old one which was supposed to be built for quietness. For now anyway, until the dust builds up. And it looks a lot better.

Chimps runs great on the highest quality. Far Cry 2 looks a lot more appealing. But STALKER: Clear Sky still kills it.

/edit
Oh and I seem to be successfully using Windows 7 64bit as well.