Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • How on earth to choose a CPU/Mobo/GPU?
  • molgrips
    Free Member

    Soon I will want to upgrade the innards of my venerable desktop PC (which is in spirit the same one as I bought in 1998 only none of the original bits are still in use, and has had a new CPU 3 times). But I have so lost track of what’s what.

    I think having lots of cores is cool but it may be quicker to have fewer faster cores… So I dunno.

    Its main jobs are (or will be):

    Development work (Java etc)
    Photo editing
    Movie editing
    Gaming

    None of which will be massively hardcore.

    Want to spend maybe £4-500 max. I seem to remember last time I bought a graphics card there was a good-but-sensible price point above which prices got rapidly very silly.

    anjs
    Free Member

    Depending on what you currently have you could be looking at replacing preety much everything due to the new architecture. I would guess

    CPU one of the I series form Intel
    New MB to support the new processor socket
    New DDR3 Ram

    GPU is down to a choice between Nvidia or ATI
    Possible you will need a new PSU
    Oh and a new OS

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    £80-£100 seemed to get good spec graphics cards when I was looking, someone said to look for the fastest passively cooled card you can find, then buy the fan cooled equivalent.

    The logic being that if it ‘needs’ fan cooling, then its newly developed (they haven’t made it particularly efficient yet) and hence costs more.

    MOBO: just go on features, no one could justifiably tell me why one was more than another.

    CPU: no idea, just spend all the money youve got left after everything elses has been bought, and don’t forget to budget for a nice aftermarket cooler with big 120mm fans to keep things quiet and provide ample overclocking oppertunities.

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    Jamie
    Free Member

    If you are going to be replacing the majority of the components then just buy a new base unit.

    TheBrick
    Free Member

    I’m out of it a bit too but nvidia for graphics was slightly better and had better linux support if that matters to you. I remember having problems with my ATI graphics card about 5 -6 years ago but it seems to “just work” now with most flavours that I’ve tried over the past two years.

    IA
    Full Member

    Very little is CPU bound, spend as little as you can on CPU. Spend the savings elsewhere (*cough* SSD)

    This illustrates my point:
    http://theragingpowerofdeaver.kicks-ass.net/

    Started as a joke, but that’s a purely CPU bound benchmark. My cpu in 2nd place cost under £50 6 months ago, the one in first place is a £260 cpu. (ok multithreaded stuff will be faster on it, and it could clock a bit faster still, but you get my point).

    I’d be looking at an i3 CPU, H55 based board, ati 5770 (or 5850, depending on budget/screen size you’re driving). 4gig ram at least. Spend any savings on an SSD for a boot drive (at least). Something sandforce based.

    IA
    Full Member

    Hang on, java work, using eclipse yeah? 8 gig of ram. I have 4 gig here and whilst it’s fine, when things are getting a bit out of hand I wish I had 8.

    funkynick
    Full Member

    It might be worthwhile looking at some of the motherboard deals that are about, where you get the mobo, processor and memory all pre-built and tested.

    And as said above, be aware of the power requirements, some things are very power hungry and if your PSU can’t handle it you will likely end up with instability and strange crashes…

    One other thing to be aware of… check how many IDE connectors you currently use. You don’t want to end up with a mobo which has only 1, or even no, IDE connectors when you needed 2. The same with floppy connectors, not all new mobo’s come with them and you need to get a USB floppy instead.

    SamB
    Free Member

    It would help to know what your current system specs are so we can work out whether you just need a few bits or, as Jamie suggests, buying a new base unit would be more economical.

    simon_g
    Full Member
    superfli
    Free Member

    I just updated my 5 year old system with these:
    AMD-P2955 AMD PHENOM II QUAD CORE 955 AM3 1 £102.16
    ASU-M4ATDV ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AMD 785G (SO 1 £62.11
    CSR-4GXMS3 CORSAIR XMS3 TWINX 4GB (2X2GB) D 1 £72.33
    TT-TR250S THERMALTAKE TR2 500W W0093 1 £38.28
    Total of order contents £274.88 ex vat
    Delivery charge £0
    VAT @ 17.5% £48.11
    TOTAL ORDER VALUE s £322.99

    I’m just using the built in GC as I dont play games. I do video editing and office/web browsing. At £323, you have money spare to get a GC if needed.
    I’m running Win7 x64 pro. I had BSOD issues, but suspected the ATi Catalyst stuff and removed, cleaned all Ati drivers (including the HDMI), and stuck only the latest GC driver on. Its now running lovely.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Current system is ummm…

    Some AMD 64 bit single core job at 2.2GHz
    Geforce 7600 AGP
    2Gb RAM
    Some mobo or other
    Vista 64 bit
    2x DVD writers
    1x 640Gb SATA HD, may install another for Photoshop scratch purposes.

    I’m sure I’ll need a new PSU, definitely need mobo, CPU, graphics card and RAM.

    So is a barebones system really going to be cheaper? Bear in mind I don’t want any cheapo unbranded stuff (apart from maybe RAM I suppose).

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Very little is CPU bound

    Yes, but surely movie editing is one of those things? Admittedly, it’s not going to be a full time occupation but it does take ages on my current system.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Also could do with either having a super-low standby current…. Want to use it as a server for either media or remote desktop access. Wake from standby might be better than wake from hibernate.

    IA
    Full Member

    Assuming you’re talking about transcoding (the time consuming part) unless you get a very powerful system it goes from taking bloody ages, to half of bloody ages – which is still a “leave it to it and do something else” job. A dual core i3 at a decent clock will still probably be 2-4 times faster than what you currently have at that.

    Basically it’s only the DVD writers and HD you’ll be keeping, by the looks of that.

    Have a look here:
    http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43

    You might be able to buy cheaper bundles/systems, but it’ll give you a rough ballpark idea.

    Oh, and what monitor are you driving? Makes a difference to what GPU is worthwhile/overkill. If anything less than a 24″ IMO i’d save money of the system and get a bigger monitor. Makes more day-to-day difference.

    anjs
    Free Member

    I have also used Novatech in the past and can recomend them

    http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html

    brassneck
    Full Member

    Bear in mind I don’t want any cheapo unbranded stuff (apart from maybe RAM I suppose).

    RAM isn’t something I’d skimp on – go Crucial or Kingston or Samsung (most of our IBM server RAM is in fact Samsung, even under official part numbers.. no idea how relatively cheap it is).

    Last time I added it up, it was cheaper to buy a basic Dell of the correct CPU level, and tweak it after delivery (new GPU, extra RAM). Must be 4 years or more though now, I bought a Mac in the end for a variety of reasons.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    Dont go Dell, everything is mad for them and wont fit anyone else case/mobo/psu/coolers so cant be upgraded apart from the RAM and GPU choice is limited (the cases are quite tight IME).

    HoratioHufnagel
    Free Member

    I just built a new PC, but purely for as a Media Center.

    I went for a ZOTAC ION F motherboard, which included Atom processor and nVida ION graphics chipset like you get in some netbooks. Very low power consumption, but it would be useless for your video processing. hmmm, i guess thats not very helpful.

    Lots of updated drivers now support graphics card hardware acceleration though, so i wouldn’t be suprised if video processing is now something that can be handled by graphics cards.

    rkk01
    Free Member

    I normally look up the best of the “current” generation of CPU / mobo, and then wait until the next gen chip / architecture comes out.

    I then but the still excellent mobo, and good qual, but not most mb of RAM that will fit, and the cheapest compatible cpu…

    … this then gives me headroom in the system to buy more RAM and the best of that generation’s CPUs as the prices drop over the rollout period for the current latest and greatest

    Used to use overclockers

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I have a 19″ monitor which is quite nice but not especially high res. I’ll probably get another at some point but that can wait, the rest has to be done all at once.

    brassneck
    Full Member

    Dont go Dell, everything is mad for them and wont fit anyone else case/mobo/psu/coolers so cant be upgraded apart from the RAM and GPU choice is limited (the cases are quite tight IME).

    You see, I used to think like this then I thought ‘Do I really give a toss?’ as all I ever updated was RAM, HDD and GPU (when they were known as ‘video cards’ ;-)) .. by the time you need to do any more, buy another. Just another option. The GPU might be an issue I suppose, some of the home models have restricted space for full size cards.

    I have an Optiplex under my desk running CentOS – seems pretty roomy inside to me but again I can’t think of much I’d be likely to change on it. Nice and quiet too, which has got more and more important to me.
    Maybe it’s just working on computers all days makes you want to do somewhat less of it when you get home.

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)

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