Lost, Consider providing full build options

spcrClox · Post by **spcrClox** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:35 am

Hi every one, been reading over this site on and off for a few years now. Love it but at the same time it kind of puts me off buying stuff - i do not want to be stuck with loud stuff

I come from the uk and i am considering buying every thing from overclockers.co.uk, sadly alot of the advice i have had over there is from people who own a 1kw psu etc although good advice the guys here just seem to be a little more in line with what i want

I am in the martket for something which will be switched on 24/7 but with little load most of the time.

wattage, sound and heat are the main factors in what i want to buy, but there is so much choice i dont know what to do.

After about 2 weeks of reading all i can figure out is that the intel E5200 is the CPU for me!

Uses would include general webmaster realted things, alot of multitasking through low resource usage apps putty firefox etc. But it needs to be able to playback 1080p fine, and perhaps the odd game of something on low settings.

1. Does motherboard change the overall used wattage much?
Can you suggest a "decent" one?
2. RAM, again does this change wattage much?
Can you suggest anything "decent"?
3. What kind of graphics card is considered "the best deal" for powerusage + price + the odd game off something every now and then (eg not a gamer)
4. What are my real psu options?
5. I would like small case but does this go with being cool and silent?
Can that cpu be run fanless in a small case?
6. I think i will go for a SSD but again i am at a loss as to which

In an ideal world this thing would be small, silent and not pump out much heat on idle!

Buget, lets say upto Â£450 but does not mean i want to spend all that. Any input welcome really, i am going insane reading. You would think it would be easy to spend my money

Big Pimp Daddy · Post by **Big Pimp Daddy** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:01 pm

Howdy, I'll try to answer your questions in order, here goes;
1-Yes, but the boards that use lots of power are usually easy to spot as they are heavily marketed to gamers, eg, SLI, 8-phase power circuitry etc. I'm not sure about the definite lowest power chipset, generally the more features you want, the more power it will use. My recommendation would be a p35 chipset, maybe one of the low power gigabyte boards (EP35), or a mini-itx board. I'm sure other people will have more specific recommendations.

2-RAM changes the wattage a little, more sticks use more power and sticks with tighter CAS timings need higher voltages and hence use more power.

3-Depends on your budget I guess and what games you want to play and at what resolution, I seem to recall a lot of buzz about the lower end 4xxx-series AMD cards.

4-You're looking at a pretty low power system so you might even be able to get away with a pico-psu, but there are plenty of 300-350W PSUs on the recommended list.

5-It's possible, but smaller means more expensive, you need to find your own personal sweet-spot of size/cost/noise. Fanless or not depends on the airflow and dimensions of the case.

6-AFAIK SSD is out of your price range for one that is decent, but I may be wrong. A laptop drive will be quiet enough.

You will be able to do it for less than 450 easy.

Any more questions don't hesitate.
Toodles.

baconandeggs · Post by **baconandeggs** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:20 pm

for #5 have a look at the antec nsk3480, its very popular around this forum. it comes with a 80+ power supply which can be further silenced by swapping the fan.

wojtek · Post by **wojtek** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:40 pm

Some proposition:

E5200 - Â£64
Asus P5N7A-VM - Â£92
OCZ 4GB PC2-6400 Reaper HPC (2x2GB) - Â£32
Scythe Mini Ninja - Â£27
Corsair 400W CX - Â£37
---------- Â£257 delivered from aria

Case (Antec fan's swapped for something more... quiet):
desktop - Antec NSK2480 with 380W PSU Â£78 - out of stock ATM
mini-tower - Antec Sonata Solo - Â£67 - no PSU

or

I have Antec Mini P180 which was used by 2 weeks - Â£100 with most of the mods done

HDD'S

If you want to go for SSD than wait (and pray) for OCZ Vertex - Â£110-120 for 30GB.
If not, than some laptop HDD - about Â£50-60 for WD 320GB
----------------------------------
Tell me how small is 'small case' for you.
How much storage do you need? Only OS in the case + ext storage or evrything in the case?
This PSU is overkill a bit but price is right

spcrClox · Post by **spcrClox** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 12:59 pm

Firstly thanks all for the input it has helped me alot so far, as always its nice to get advice from the people who know it instead of me stabbing into the dark

Case wise, i am pretty hooked on the size of nsk3480 that is so much smaller than anything in our house! I do not overly like the silver + black front and would rather have it all one colour but its not a big deal. Combined with alot of other threads on here related to it and examples given on the parts they are using with success it sounds good.

Lower end 4xxx-series AMD cards also seem to be doing good for the money so i will probably just bite the bullet and pick it.

For now i got a few harddrives kicking about that i can use (laptop one for example) and wait it out for the SSD drives, and i guess in doing this i can see how well i do with stock cooling and then make changes that are needed.

So
CPU e5200
Graphics ATI 4670
Case + PSU nsk3480
RAM No idea!
Motherboard No idea!

Getting there though!

baconandeggs · Post by **baconandeggs** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 1:37 pm

for the motherboard i'd look at the Asus P5E-VM which is a great overclocker and has onboard gfx able to play 1080p so the 4670 wouldn't be necessary

or even the Asus P5Q-VM/EM, which also has onboard gfx (also 1080p capable).

a comparision p5e-vm vs p5q-vm vs p5q-em

wojtek · Post by **wojtek** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:23 pm

Asus P5N7A-VM has on-board GPU powerfull enough for you. Besides, ATI4670 means another fan in your PC - or you need to buy some passive cooler for it.

RAM: 4GB is a MUST. Even if you now do not use 64bit Vista than probably you will switch to Windows7 quickly (I'm using it since a week and it's great!). I don't know your modus operandi but when I'm working on my hobby web-project than 3 browsers (IE7, FF3, Opera) are constantly up - this mean after 2-3 hours a lot of RAM eaten just by them.

spcrClox · Post by **spcrClox** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:16 am

Here we go! Thanks for all the input so far!

I think the Asus P5Q-EM although a little pricey should do what i want.

HDMI 6 sata ports etc, onboard graphics.

Got the 4gb of ram, its funny my current workstation running windows 2003 has had 1gb of ram since 2002ish and i rarely run out (only when firefox leaks)

But at these prices 4gb is looking good

I have windows 7 on a laptop and its rather nice! playing with 2gb nicely but again at these prices i might as well get the 4gb.

Any comments for the above picture?

jobu · Post by **jobu** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 9:47 am

I'm fairly new to this as well, so I can't add too much. Just remember that anything over 3GB isn't used unless you have a 64-bit OS.

Also, are you using Firefox 2? All of my memory issues with Firefox went away when I upgraded to Firefox 3.

Monkeh16 · Post by **Monkeh16** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:42 am

I'd recommend dumping the Corsair RAM for something a little more reliable, not to mention cheaper.
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/partspe ... 25664AA800

spcrClox · Post by **spcrClox** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 12:45 pm

jobu wrote:I'm fairly new to this as well, so I can't add too much. Just remember that anything over 3GB isn't used unless you have a 64-bit OS.

Also, are you using Firefox 2? All of my memory issues with Firefox went away when I upgraded to Firefox 3.

Yes firefox 2 on that system, not practicle to upgrade it right now.

Monkeh16, cant say i have heard of that brand to be honest! Either way the order has been placed, needed to do so to get it delivered before the weekend

jobu · Post by **jobu** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 12:57 pm

Not sure if it still is, but Crucial used to be the retail name/store for Micron memory.

Monkeh16 · Post by **Monkeh16** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 1:16 pm

spcrClox wrote:Monkeh16, cant say i have heard of that brand to be honest! Either way the order has been placed, needed to do so to get it delivered before the weekend

You've never heard of Crucial? Oh, dear..

jobu wrote:Not sure if it still is, but Crucial used to be the retail name/store for Micron memory.

It is. And as usual it's good quality memory which is reliable at the specified timings, the same cannot be said of Corsair RAM.

baconandeggs · Post by **baconandeggs** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:31 pm

Any comments for the above picture?

looks good. no hard drive?

hillkitler · Post by **hillkitler** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:33 pm

Yes, and by going with Crucial, you'll be supporting the economy of my area and providing jobs for many friends of mine.

(Micron is based in my hometown.)

spcrClox · Post by **spcrClox** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:39 pm

Sorry somehow i missed crucial even though its in the domain, i scanned the page and found "Ballistix" and thought ....who?!

No new harddrive.. yet

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 6:21 pm

I like Mushkin ram as they don't inflate their ratings. Almost all others do and list their maximum over-clocked rating as their speed. Though, to be honest, I never do that. I run at stock memory speeds and so far, haven't noticed any difference in actual use. Memory, in fact, is so hampered at this point by the rest of the system that it's almost of no benefit to even bother with spending more than the absolute minimum here.

OTOH, a proper HD or video card *will* make a big impact.

As for hard drives - I favor the WD RE2 or RE3 in the smaller sizes as raid 1 for a boot drive. The WD GP for a big data drive. I know this adds heat and noise, but given the $60 or so price for the drives(newegg), it's silly not to be running Raid 1. Data recovery takes ages and sometimes doesn't even work. And a backup device is often way more money than just having a redundant drive. It won't keep you from needing backups of critical stuff, of course, but it will make it easy to do with a USB memory stick every week or so.

As for the video card, I recommend anything that will work with the Accelero S1. This is a massive beast of a cooler and is purely passive. 90% of the obnoxious noise in a computer typically comes from the GPU and the memory controller fan. If your board has a big passive heat sink with heat pipes for the controller chips, that leaves only the GPU. The other components are easy enough to quiet/there are multiple options available.

NOTE - I really like the Gigabyte solid state regulation motherboards for this reason. They run quieter and cooler than many of the other boards.

Also budget for a power conditioner/surge protector if you can. this will protect you from brownouts and EM noise for not a lot of money.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 7:43 pm

Here's a review on Anandtech comparing the Intel, AMD, and NVidia integrated graphics solutions.

I'd also lean toward Gigabyte for the mobo over ASUS. I'm impressed by the lower temps seen in Gigabyte's Ultra Durable boards (due to the 2oz. copper). If you do light gaming, the 9300/9400 Nvidia will do rings around the G45....at 1024 x 768 resolution. Anything above that will require a video card for gaming. Since you listed a 24" monitor....you will need much more than a 9670 to run any games at native resolution.