Building a gaming pc help

[cleverlymadeup]

would there be any downsides to getting the Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L mobo because that will safe quite a bit of money.

yeah the downside to them unless they've drastically improved is they are all crap

i've had a couple boards and other ppl that have had them all had issues with the gigabyte boards

 

[jezz8me]

The boards available to me are basically Gigabyte and Asus and Gigabyte seem better. There are a few xfx boards in my price as well as some one off's. I can probably afford one with the P35 chipset. This would help if i overclock right?

I have changed my setup to get 3gb of ram and a non-generic gfx card but sacrificed as good a motherboard and some HDD space do you think this setup is better?


MSY
Gigabyte 512MB 9600GT $199
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L $89
2GB A-data $45 + 1GB Kingston $25
19? 5ms DVI WS Asus VW193T $223
Maxtor 250gb $72
Intel E6550 2.33GHz $190
SATA 215BK DL DVD-RW $35
Total $867

CPL
Coolermaster Elite 330 noPSU $49
Coolermaster Extreme 500W PSU $65
Total $114

Total $987

 

[Geoffrey42]

2GB A-data $45 + 1GB Kingston $25

I don't know if there's solid reasoning behind it, but I've always gone for 2 sticks or 4 sticks, of matching RAM. As I understand it, you're not going to be getting a whole lot of bang for your 25 bucks by tacking on a single gig of un-matched, single-channeled-RAM.

 

[jezz8me]

well i can afford 4gb i did not realise that.

and strangely enough buying the two sticks sepertely is $5 cheaper than a 2x2gb pack

so my rig now looks like

MSY
Gigabyte 512MB 9600GT $199
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L $89
2x(2GB A-data) $90
19? 5ms DVI WS Asus VW193T $223
Maxtor 250gb $72
Intel E6550 2.33GHz $190
SATA 215BK DL DVD-RW $35
Total $892

CPL
Coolermaster Elite 330 noPSU $49
Coolermaster Extreme 500W PSU $65
Total $114

Total $1006

 

[ingsoc]

Geoffrey42,

you are right, pairing the 1GB stick with a 2GB stick on that board would actually run at about the same speed as 2x 1GB sticks. If you are going to be running an odd number of sticks, you need the first two to be of the same capacity (and speed ideally) with the same voltage (1.8V for almost all Intel chipsets). For example, you would populate DIMMs one and two with two 1 GB sticks. In DIMM 3 you would need to stick in a 2GB stick to run all memory at the max bandwidth (e.g. dual-channel).

 

[Geoffrey42]

and strangely enough buying the two sticks sepertely is $5 cheaper than a 2x2gb pack

That's become common, no clue why... Kingston, OCZ, and Corsair are that way locally.

Not strange. When running memory in dual-channel mode, its only kinda-sorta-really important. They need to be almost identical performance wise, or the board won't be happy, and may spit them out. When they sell the 2xStick packs, they've actually tested them to ensure that they're a compatible matched pair. The 5 dollars is worth it, compared to the potential for endlessly RMA'ing sticks until you get a matched pair.

 

[werepossum]

well i can afford 4gb i did not realise that.

and strangely enough buying the two sticks sepertely is $5 cheaper than a 2x2gb pack

so my rig now looks like

MSY
Gigabyte 512MB 9600GT $199
Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L $89
2x(2GB A-data) $90
19" 5ms DVI WS Asus VW193T $223
Maxtor 250gb $72
Intel E6550 2.33GHz $190
SATA 215BK DL DVD-RW $35
Total $892

CPL
Coolermaster Elite 330 noPSU $49
Coolermaster Extreme 500W PSU $65
Total $114

Total $1006

That looks like a pretty good budget build, actually. You'll be pleased with the 9600GT for gaming. You didn't mention your OS, but keep in mind that a 32-bit OS will only directly access 3GB of that 4 GB of RAM, while a 64-bit OS is, well, driver hell. I'd prefer two 2GB sticks if the price works, but look very closely at the motherboard's support page. Some motherboards get really picky about 2GB sticks, other about four sticks, and often the memory speed has to shift down a notch. Definitely stick with even numbers of sticks, as an odd number throws you into single-channel operation and drops your performance 5% to 10%.

Personally I avoid micro-ATX motherboards like the plague. You guarantee that your video card will be crossing some port or other, and I have a hard enough time getting my hands in there anyway. I have to second the ASUS bit - I've known too many people who've had trouble with them (I've never used one.) I've used ASRock boards without any problem, and I've used several Gigabyte mobos without any problems I remember. But then, I can't remember ever having a problem with a new motherboard, and only a few old ones.

I can't agree that changing CPUs is difficult; it's dead easy, provided your motherboard handles the new model (or will with a BIOS upgrade.) The only down side is that now you have a CPU that nobody wants unless they've seen it running. If you change CPU and mobo together and have some old RAM, video card, and case laying around, it's easily demo'd to a prospective buyer.

Remember to exercise static caution (a wrist strap is cheap protection), and remember cables. And kudos for your wise selections.

 

[jezz8me]

I will be using XP and it is to my knowledge 4gb but there is graphics that take up some or something like that so you get about 3.7.

If the only problem is that my mobo will be covering a port i can deal with that as i am only planning to ever upgrade parts i have not add an extra part into the equation.

 

[jezz8me]

I am going to use the p35 chipset version of my mobo so the cost of my computer is $33 is there a way i can shave of a few dollars if not this is a reasonable amount over i can make it back in three hours or so.

 

[Geoffrey42]

I will be using XP and it is to my knowledge 4gb but there is graphics that take up some or something like that so you get about 3.7.

http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html

That's the best write-up I could find on short notice, that covered the points I'd heard previously. As you say here, "graphics" and "something like that" refers to all of the devices in your machine, as well as their RAM, needing to be addressed as well. So, take that 512MB from your 9600GT, and subtract if from your 4GB of system RAM, and then subtract a little more for all the other things that need addressing. You'll have just under 3.5 gigs of system RAM for usage by the OS. The other stuff won't really get touched. Is this a bad thing? No. Does it mean you should only put in 3GB, because thats 4th only really gets you another .5GB? No. The performance gains from the .5GB of usable space, and the Dual-Channel happiness of the motherboard should more than make up for the "lost" memory.

The situation gets even better when you start doing SLI or put in cards like <a href=http://bfgtech.com/bfgr981024gx2e.aspx>this, because then you can say goodbye to that whole 1GB of system RAM (but I'd still think you're better off with the performance games of the balanced dual channel setup, though someone can correct me on that).

In the end, they need to follow through on 64-bit, and start making the driver environment whole. Death to 32-bit. Long live 64!

EDIT: P.S. I've only ever used ASUS boards, and I've never had any issues. Then again, I don't overclock things, so it may just be me.

 

[werepossum]

a 32-bit OS will only directly access 3GB of that 4 GB of RAM

Nope. 4GB is the 32-Bit cap, many motherboards only work up to 3GB, but that's the board not the OS. I'm running 4GB in XP just fine.

Yes, but part of that 4GB you are seeing is not system RAM, but ROM and video RAM. 4GB is the addressable limit, but not all is available for programs and data because all your devices have to have addressable space as well. This explains it pretty well.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

It's possible with utilities to hack the addressing and pick up some of the missing 1 GB or so, I just don't prefer it myself. I mean, your video card itself takes up probably 512MB buffer space plus maybe 32MB of BIOS space, plus your system BIOS, PCI and chipset addressing - that 1 GB is actually probably 3/4 full. I think you can also use the extra but unseen RAM as a virtual disk, but be prepared; some copy protection schemes hate virtual disks. And of course data loss is marginally easier, depending on what the virtual disk's usage is. Also, if your program can use offset addressing (think back when the 8-bit 8088 and 8086 chips had to address the 16-bit address space of the 80186 CPU for which PC BIOS was originally designed), you can use memory over the 4GB addressing limit even with a 32-bit OS. I haven't found anything that really needs more than 3GB RAM; when that happens we'll all have to transition to 64-bit OS's. (It's a complete mystery to me why all Vista versions aren't 64-bit. You have to write completely new drivers anyway, but why not cut the number in half?)

And it's still worth buying 4GB when you can afford it. Windows (especially Vista) takes a lot of RAM, so that extra 1GB is actually more than a 50% increase in RAM available to your games and other programs.

 

[werepossum]

Think hard drives - it's dead easy to add a hard drive, but a massive amount of work to replace one unless you get lucky and Ghost works on everything. Also, there are some minor performance benefits to running two drives, one with the OS and one with your apps, since with buffers and pre-fetch they can be writing or reading data simultaneously.

If it were me I'd definitely just work a bit longer and get the system as you have it spec'd.

Geoffrey42 made most of my last post redundant - I must have had a senior moment and didn't read it, since by the date stamp it was waay before mine.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

I'm sitting here at work and this thread just helped me talk to a sales rep about the advantages and disadvantages of AMD processors. I'd already read up on it a bit, but I picked up a couple more pieces from you all, so thank you!

 

[Geoffrey42]

Geoffrey42 made most of my last post redundant - I must have had a senior moment and didn't read it, since by the date stamp it was waay before mine.

Not a problem, since you found a MUCH better article than I did. Not to mention, I don't mind consensus that I'm not wrong.

But (at least such is my understanding), the loss of RAM capacity from running a video card ONLY exists while the card is using its ram (IE when gaming).

Not that I'm going to try and find evidence to disprove you (since proving a negative is always more difficult), but can you provide a reference for this tidbit? Just through my own deduction (navel-staring), it seems that so long as your display is running, your Graphics card is in use, including its memory banks. Maybe in the case of some of the hybrid setups that everyone is developing recently, but EVEN then, it doesn't seem trivial to allocate and unallocate memory addressing mid-stride. I think the OS addresses it at boot, and leaves it alone.

 

[defcon 1]

I'm running an 8 series card and the drivers are only taking up 5MB (nvsvc32.exe)

for $200 you can get a CPU with a C2D E8400 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037] Wolfdale core and I beg of you, please throw in the extra $60 for a good heat sink. My friend used a Zalman Heatsink [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019] to overclock his C2D E6550's clock speed to 3GHz(from 2.4GHz) and 1800MHz(from 1066MHz) while my friend with a C2E Q6600 [http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2000340343+1051707842+1302825342+1050925341+1051107412&name=1066MHz] can get 2.8GHz(from 2.4) and 1200MHz(from 1066MHz) with a Thermaltake Heatsink [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106102]. They're both 65nm while the Wolfdale one I offer you is 45nm which is allot better for overclocking. If you don't want to overclock, it's still a nice CPU.

If you're new to over clocking and want to try it, then consult someone you know who has done it before, or read allot of online articles. Be conservative about over-volting if you're new.

 

[werepossum]

But (at least such is my understanding), the loss of RAM capacity from running a video card ONLY exists while the card is using its ram (IE when gaming).

Not that I'm going to try and find evidence to disprove you (since proving a negative is always more difficult), but can you provide a reference for this tidbit? Just through my own deduction (navel-staring), it seems that so long as your display is running, your Graphics card is in use, including its memory banks. Maybe in the case of some of the hybrid setups that everyone is developing recently, but EVEN then, it doesn't seem trivial to allocate and unallocate memory addressing mid-stride. I think the OS addresses it at boot, and leaves it alone.

That was my understanding as well. I can't claim to have studied this since the days of DOS and C/PM, but at that time the sizes of all frame buffers were set during start-up. I remember it was highly aggravating because some BIOS's used, say, 32kb during start-up, but perhaps only 4kb whilst running, yet that extra 28kb was unrecoverable. At that time there were no advanced graphics standards, so many graphics programs required manually configuring the frame buffer size and even address range. Memory allocation was quite important when dealing with 512kb and 640kb machines, and many games required clean boot-up disks when used on machines with hard drives - otherwise you just couldn't get enough free RAM!

If I remember correctly this memory mapping originated all the way back with the 80186 and is still set the same. Yeah, I linked to an article without actually reading it, but it demonstrated my point. At least, I think it did; it had a graphic.

EDIT: Khell, my understanding is that although not all the video RAM is being used, its frame buffer is completely mapped during start-up. But I could be wrong.