Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Demophobe]

First was a second system for Yesterday.

CPU: Intel E6850 (3.0GHz, 1333FSB, 4MB cache)
Mainboard: Asus P5KC (DDR2/3, 1333 FSB capable, Penryn ready)
HDD: WD 400GB SATA2
RAM: 4GB Samsung (Generic, but is stable and seems to o/c fairly well)
Graphics: Nvidia 8800GTS
ODD: Samsung SATA Multi somethingorother DVD thingamabob
PSU: 600W (Can't recall the name, but it's a good one)
Case, other odds and ends...

All told 1,100,000.

Now mine.

Background: My old beast died. The mainboard fried...dunno how. Forced upgrade, very limited, tight budget of 600,000.

CPU: Intel E6550 (2.33GHz, o/c like a champ, 1333 FSB, 4MB cache)
Mainboard: Asus P5KC (as above)
RAM: 4GB Samsung (as above)
HDD: WD 250GB SATA2
Graphics: Radeon 3850
ODD: LG SATA multithing DVD whatever....

All told: 630,000. (Card, so higher than cash would have been)

Not bad. Yesterday got a good system that is totally upgradeable to Penryn and DDR3 RAM.

I got a good mainstream system, ok for gaming at modest resolutions that is as the above, very upgradeable.

So, for 600,000 you can put together a decent machine. Not top end by any means, but we are talking pretty low budget. Potential buyers, I hope this helps. I have a good monitor, loads of alternate external storage (don't need more SATA HDDs right now) keyboard/mouse, case, power, etc, so adding that will obviously add to a budget.

To Yesterday, thanks for what you picked up for me. That was really kind of you and very, very useful indeed. Thanks again!

I should also say that this is the first time in my life I have ever shopped on a budget. In some ways, of course, it was frustrating, but ultimately, I really feel like I was more focused on getting the best deal, and thus feel as though I got what I paid for. Looking at the middle to low/high-end made me see how much value there is out there.

[hanguker]

Funny thing is...they'll work exactly the same as a machine that would have cost you 2-3X as much.

I'm glad this experience humbled you a bit and made you realize how much of a marketing rip-off the "premium brands" can be.

[SuperHero]

[Demophobe]

[spliff]

Basically, you (a puter savvy geek) got what you paid for...undoubtedly, for the money, better specs than buying off the shelf .

[Demophobe]

[eamo]

I'd be interested to know how the HD3850 performs. It's becoming my 1st choice as the 8800GT and HD3870 are simply not available and may not be for a few weeks yet.

My new rig is built and only needs a graphics card to finish it off (I'm using my old one as a stand-in until I decide which card to get/wait for)..................

CPU: E6750 (2.6ghz but will go to 3ghz easily)
Cooler: Zalman 9700 HSF
Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (DDR2/3, 1333FSB, Penryn ready)
RAM: 2X1GB OCZ Vista Upgrade matched pair
PSU: Zalman 600watt
HDD: Western Digital 500GB 16MB buffer (very, very quiet)
ODD: LG DVD-writer (18X)
Gigabyte case complete with 2 fans.

So far, great. The CPU with Zalman cooler runs extremely cool (18C idle!! Cooler than room temperature! Never over 34 on full load so lots of OC'ing potential).

I'm especially impressed with the WD hard drive. Barely audible but fast. Huge improvemnet over the old Seagate 250GB which made a racket.

It's a distinctly mid-range rig but the Zalman ZM600-HP power supply is probably the highest spec thing in there. A bargain too at 110,000. It's usually 160usd.

Let me know about the HD3850, Demo. I have faith in your judgement. I don't realyl want to spend more than 200,000 on a GPU. I think I'm playing less games than I used to.



As a side issue, I'm getting ready to abandon Vista. And nVidia. Might go back to XP this weekend. Vista is great but the much dreaded Vista/nVidia bug, NVLDDMKM: driver has stopped working and has recovered has been driving me nuts on and off for months now. I'm going to go XP and ATI for awhile.

[chevro1et]

[SuperHero]

Only 3 more weeks until I get a new computer! this celeron 2.4 ancient beast is driving me nuts. I can hardly wait.

[Demophobe]

Eamo: It's cool that you picked up that Gigabyte mainboard. I was caught betwen the Asus and that one; being a long-time Asus user, I decided to go with them again.

The Gigabyte has some great features, most notably the construction (capacitors/resistors) of the board is very high quality. The Asus however had more robust overclocking features, so I went with that. Keep me posted how the Gigabyte boards works out for you.

As for the HD3850, I loaded up Stalker and Gears of war so far. As I said before, for high resolutions, it just doesn't have the memory. At 256MB, it is limited, but it does have a 256-bit memory bus, so that is a big, big bonus for a sub-$200 card. Power consumption is also quite low.

Stalker plays smooth as butter at 1280x1024, everything maxed, save sun shadows, which the game won't let a 256MB card enable. Gears is the same res, full-on and smooth.

There really isn't any competition in the +/- $200 range right now; the 3850 owns. The 3870 will be faster and sport 512MB of RAM, but it is already listed on Danawa at near $300. Not expensive, but it wasn't in my budget sweet spot either. I will see how it overclocks when I get my case cooling finalized.

Anyhow, I will see how the card plays out over the next few weeks and post back, as I hope you do with the Gigabyte board.

For the record: Last night my lowly 6550 was @3.2GHz without a hitch and running in the low to mid 30s for temps.

[kprrok]

I've got about 3 months until I build mine.

I'm going back and forth between Vista and XP. I just can't decide.

If I don't get Vista, I'm not shelling out for an 8800GT like I really want to! I'll probably go with something much cheaper, like an x1950 at about $120 or maybe even an x1650 for about $75.

If I were buying today, the build would look something like this:

MB: ASUS M2N32 Deluxe - $170
CPU: AMD Athlon 6000+ (3.00 Ghz) - $150
RAM: 4GB OCZ Platinum edition (PC6400) - $150 (or less depending on rebates)
HDD: 150GB Raptor - $160
HDD: 500GB WD - $105
ODD: Phillips DVD Multi (x2) - $70
Case: Ultra Aluminus Full Tower - $40
PSU: Ultra X3 800W Modular - $200
VGA: see above.
TOTAL: around $1200 depding on the VGA

Scary thing is that the PSU could end up being the most expensive part of the whole rig!

KPRROK

[kprrok]

[Demophobe]

Any particular reason you want to go with AMD right now? The E6750 wipes the floor with the 6000+ at almost the same price.

To each their own, but Intel has stronger offerings right now, both in terms of price and performance.

[Demophobe]

[eamo]