AEon needs a new PC :)

[AEon]

Before I go into the details, would this be the correct forum to ask a whole slew of questions concerning state of the art PC hardware (CPU, MB, RAM, GFX card) and software (OS; compatibility)? I have been planning to finally buy a new PC after something like 8 years.

[Captain]

What kind of performance are you looking for?

[Foo]

Or even better: What are you aiming to do with it, and how much $$$ have you budgeted?

[SoM]

you need the latest n greatest GFX to watch goat pr0n

[AEon]

I seem to be at the right place then, I'll start off by describing my present hardware, just to give everyone a clear picture what level of *quality* hardware I am using (though outdated). It has been working almost flawlessly for a long time now. It is important that all the components are not only fast and affordable but also stable.

Periform Speccy (overview):

Code: Select all

Operating System
	MS Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
CPU
	Intel Pentium 4
	Northwood 0.13um Technology
RAM
	2.0GB DDR @ 167MHz  2.5-3-3-7
Motherboard
	ASUSTeK Computer INC. P4PE (PGA 478)
Graphics
	HP w2207 Wide LCD Monitor on RADEON X800 PRO/GTO Secondary
	256MB RADEON X800 PRO/GTO (ASUStek Computer Inc)
Hard Drives
	 80GB Seagate ST380023A (IDE)	32 °C
	 80GB Seagate ST380023A (IDE)	32 °C
	 SCSI Disk Device (SCSI)
Optical Drives
	PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-116D
	PLEXTOR CD-R   PX-W4824A
Audio
	SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio

Here in a bit more detail:

• Intel Pentium IV Prozessor 2533MHz, 512kB on die Cache, 533MHz FSB.
  MCX 4000 Silent Heatsink (for Intel 4 CPUs)
  Mainboard - ASUS P4PE - Intel i845PE, ATX, Sockel 478, 100-133 MHz (Quadpumped) (Serial ATA RAID, FW, LAN and Sound)
  GFX card - AGP ASUS 256MB ATI Radeon AX800Pro
  DDR-RAM 512MB PC333 CL2.5 Samsung x2
  Seagate Barracuda V ST380023A 80GB x2 (used separately)
  Power Source Enermax EG465AX-VE(G) FMA, ATX 433W Active PFC
  Monitor - HP w2207 (1680x1050 Desktop, flat screen)
  
  LiteOn CD-RW LTR-52327S-01C 52 - (Read)x32(CD-RW)x52(CD-R)x
  TEAC Diskdrive 1,44 MB Floppy 3,5"
  Cherry Comfort Line G80-3000, USB, 105 Keys
  Microsoft Windows XP Professional (SB, English)
  Chieftec DA-01SLD (CS-2001D silver)
  Fan Set Silent für Chieftec Big Tower
  Fan YS-Tech FD1281255B-2A Standard, 80x80x25 mm
  Soundproofing 'Be Quiet!' for Chieftec Bigtower (CS-2001/D)

Corner Stones:

• Budget: 1500 to 2000 EUR.
• Fast stable Gamer PC that should last for at least 3-4 years.
  • Crysis should run well (Far Cry II, Shader 3.0 games, Two Worlds II, latest Need for Speed, Mass Effect, etc.)
  • But also (old) games (e.g. Drakensang The River of Time) that do not take advantage of multi-core CPUs.
  • Games should have at least 20FPS at 1680x1050 (AAx2).
  • Such PCs usually should be fine for programming, web-design, desktop work, browsing, movies (HD 1920x movies lag on my present system) etc.
• Intel CPU
  • As long as it is fast and stable its fine with me. I never had issues with Intel.
  • Are AMDs even an option?
  • I'd prefer the CPU to use less energy and not heat up too much, because of latent overheating problems.
  • Multi-core CPUs 2x vs. 4x?
• ASUS main board with on-board LAN (100-1000 Mbit), and 5.1/7.1 on-board sound.
  • I have always been using ASUS boards and never had problems with them.
  • I never liked external sound cards they only caused problems. Same with the LAN connect.
  • IMO, one should avoid having to mess around with IRQs due to "external" cards, especially for trivial things like sound/LAN.
• 3-4GB RAM
  • As long as it's fast from a quality manufacturer (i.e. Kingston?).
  • Should be at least 2GB, but you seem to be able to get 4 GB cheap these days.
• Graphics card ATi (preferred)
  • I never liked Nvidia cards. My old GeForce256, GeForce 3 / 4 were all crap.
  • On the other hand my ATi Radeon 9700 Pro and later X800 Pro were great, especially the desktop quality was superb.
  • But I am willing to learn, if the new Nvidia cards are better (faster, use less energy, less heat problems, cheaper, good desktop quality, stable, etc.) and cause less issues with modern games (drivers), I'm fine with that as well.
  • I am not sure about "SLI", a card that potentially lets you bundle two cards might be interesting for the future, i.e. by a 2nd one later on, but only if these actually work for "real world" games.
• 3-4GB RAM
  • As long as it's fast from a quality manufacturer (i.e. Kingston?).
  • Should be at least 2GB, but you seem to be able to get 4 GB cheap these days.
• Quality Powersource e.g. Enermax
  • The power source should be by a quality manufacturer, with quality cables.
  • I'd prefer it to be overpowered to avoid present and any future energy issues.
• Quality HDs e.g. Seagate Barracuda
  • 1TB HD seem to be all the rage, but I rather have two smaller HDs that are
    fast but stable and *quiet*.
  • 2x 500 GB would be fine.
  • I am used to IDE drives, would now be the time to run the system on SATA cables?
  • Would a RAID system be of any use? I.e. stability issues? E.g. a 2x500 RAID + 1 TB HD separate.
• Tower e.g. "Chieftec Bigtower"
  • The tower should have a good cooling "concept", to ensure that all components are well cooled.
  • I normally avoid overclocking, but a good system might allow for this, if well cooled.
  • 3-4 CD-Rom slots should be enough (so slightly less tall than the Bigtower).
  • Again, I would prefer the tower to have quality.
  • For a while I had been contemplating water cooling, but that is IMO too much of a pain to look after.

Other discussions:

• Important: Windows XP vs. Windows 7
  • Alas I have no idea what exactly is en vogue presently.
  • To avoid any slew of issues I would prefer to run the system on Windows XP, to ensure all the software / games I own still work exactly as they have been all these years.
  • Question is... is this possible? Can these modern multi-core CPUs run on windows XP (32bit)? Is Windows 7 even an option?
• Solid State Drives
  • My C:\ drive for windows XP only uses 14GB (all non-OS data like games, programming, etc. is *not* on C:\, so a relatively small Solid State drive, e.g. 30 GB should be fine (no idea how large C:\ is under Windows 7).
  • So are Solid State Drives an option as a C:\ boot partition, to boot up the system more quickly? Or are they still not stable enough?
• Long DVI-I Cables
  • With the modern monitors and GFX cards using DVI-I cables, is it possible - without noticeable quality issues - to connect via long 5m to 10m cables?
  • The idea would be to place my new PC into the next room to get some quiet (and avoid having to inhale the stick of the new MB etc).?
• Blueray / DVD / CD
  • IIRC modern Blueray drives also let you read DVDs and CDs, is that so?
  • Can Blueray burners be recommended to burn backups?
  • Are these also SATA?
• Quiet PC - Cleaned up PC
  • I prefer a quiet PCs, so good quite fans would be nice.
  • Also, I prefer a cleaned-up PC, i.e. the fewer cables the better (thus the on-board LAN/Sound preference).

Please note these are the things I am presently aware of, if something *better* has come up I am totally for it (if it works well).

The bottom line is probably.... what OS with what CPU / MB / RAM / GFX card is presently and in future the "best" solution.

Any tips / suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

[Foo]

My take.

Recommend keeping the following items with your new PC:
Seagate Barracuda V 80GB x2
Monitor - HP w2207
Cherry Comfort Line G80-3000, USB, 105 Keys
Chieftec DA-01SLD

[*] But also (old) games (e.g. Drakensang The River of Time) that do not take advantage of multi-core CPUs.

Tricky. I suggest looking into dual-booting. If the copy of XP you have is Retail, you can dual boot. If it's OEM (sticker on case), you'll need to purchase another copy of XP for the new machine.

[*] Such PCs usually should be fine for programming, web-design, desktop work, browsing, movies (HD 1920x movies lag on my present system) etc.

Anything specced is going to be fine for that stuff.

[*] Multi-core CPUs 2x vs. 4x?

Quad-core is the baseline now, especially for a gaming PC. 6 and 12-core CPUs are starting to enter the market, but not practical yet. QC is the way to go, and has been for ~2 years.

[*]3-4GB RAM

4 is a baseline here. 8Gb would be a good idea if you still have some money left once you've specced everything out. If you go for 4, buy it in fewer, larger sticks so you can expand in future.

[*] As long as it's fast from a quality manufacturer (i.e. Kingston?).

Makes sense. Don't be lulled into buying the premium stuff (like Hyper-X). The cheapest stuff (like valueRAM) from the reputable brands is 100% fine unless you're overclocking.

[*] Should be at least 2GB, but you seem to be able to get 4 GB cheap these days.

2Gb is definitely too low, min 4Gb.

[*] Graphics card ATi (preferred)
[*] I never liked Nvidia cards. My old GeForce256, GeForce 3 / 4 were all crap.

There's not much in it. Nvidia definitely have the better drivers right now. ATI are ahead of the game on DX11. My preference is nvidia but whatever works out at your price point. If you're concerned about energy usage, look at the cards being made with the newer manufacturing processes that use smaller die sizes (40nm/35nm). They use less power than their equivalents on larger die.

[*] I am not sure about "SLI", a card that potentially lets you bundle two cards might be interesting for the future, i.e. by a 2nd one later on, but only if these actually work for "real world" games.

What always happens with this is you buy one card intending to buy another later, but when the time comes around you either can't find the identical card to pair up, or you don't bother and just buy another single, newer card. So personally I wouldn't fuss about SLI... just spec out the best single card that fits in your budget.

[*] Quality Powersource e.g. Enermax

• The power source should be by a quality manufacturer, with quality cables.
• I'd prefer it to be overpowered to avoid present and any future energy issues.

Yep, splurge some money here then and go for something between 600w and 1000w from a reputable brand. All modern PSUs are switching units anyway which means they won't use excess power when they're idling. If you're looking at a fast GPU, Quad-core, bluray and 2 or more hard drives, you would be pushing it at 500w. Also watch out for PSUs having sufficient connectors for your GPU and SATA power.

[*] Quality HDs e.g. Seagate Barracuda

• 1TB HD seem to be all the rage, but I rather have two smaller HDs that are
  fast but stable and *quiet*.
• 2x 500 GB would be fine.
• I am used to IDE drives, would now be the time to run the system on SATA cables?
• Would a RAID system be of any use? I.e. stability issues? E.g. a 2x500 RAID + 1 TB HD separate.

If you can stretch to an SSD, a solid setup right now is a small Intel X25-M (or E if you're loaded) drive for your OS boot, and a regular large SATA hard drive (1Tb?) for your other data. If you go for the SSD, don't sweat the RAID for the other disk. But if you don't go with SSD, then a pair of small drives in a RAID 0 stripe for your OS boot will yield a reasonable performance boost. Most motherboards come with SATA raid capabilities built in, so no extra cost here.

Don't trust desktop RAID for any kind of backup (mirroring). It's ineffective. More on backup further down.

Important: Windows XP vs. Windows 7
[*] Alas I have no idea what exactly is en vogue presently.
[*] To avoid any slew of issues I would prefer to run the system on Windows XP, to ensure all the software / games I own still work exactly as they have been all these years.
[*] Question is... is this possible? Can these modern multi-core CPUs run on windows XP (32bit)? Is Windows 7 even an option?

The new CPUs can run XP fine, but XP 32-bit isn't going to scale to over 4Gb RAM, or offer the latest DirectX features (Games like Just Cause 2 don't run on XP. This will increasingly be the case). Windows 7 is the best choice right now. If you buy an OEM copy while purchasing your hardware, the cost is much better than retail.

Banish all thoughts of either XP x64 edition, or Win7 x32 edition. Both are crippled for drivers and support, and neither will meet your needs. XP 32-bit and Win7 64-bit are kosher.

If you're adamant that you have to get the old games and the latest games running, then the most elegant solution available to you is to dual-boot XP and 7. Really.... XP on its own will cripple your systems abilities, and 7 on its own just flat out won't play some older games. You could look into the business editions of Windows 7 which come with an XP virtualisation mode, but I'm not sure it'll run 3D graphics in XP mode properly.

[*] My C:\ drive for windows XP only uses 14GB (all non-OS data like games, programming, etc. is *not* on C:\, so a relatively small Solid State drive, e.g. 30 GB should be fine (no idea how large C:\ is under Windows 7).
[*] So are Solid State Drives an option as a C:\ boot partition, to boot up the system more quickly? Or are they still not stable enough?

There's good SSDs and bad SSDs. Intel's X25 E and M models are the best choice right now. Other SSDs do have some benefits over regular spinners, but longevity is in question, and the Intel drives are smashing everything in terms of performance.

Blueray / DVD / CD
[*] IIRC modern Blueray drives also let you read DVDs and CDs, is that so?
[*] Can Blueray burners be recommended to burn backups?
[*] Are these also SATA?[/list][/list][/size]

Yes, No and Yes, respectively. Bluray media is prohibitively expensive for backups, and there's no info about the media lifespan. Bluray drives are SATA.
I've had an all-round crap experience with Blu-Ray on PC so far. My recommendation here is to buy a standalone blu-ray player and avoid the PC ones for now. For example, PowerDVD that will probably ship with your drive, won't output to your 1920x1050 screen, because it doesn't like that resolution. I have to run a background DRM-disabling app to overcome the problem. Stupid, but true. Avoid.


Summary:
Buy quad-core, at least 4Gb RAM, 600W PSU.
Buy an Intel X25-M 40Gb and a big SATA drive.
Buy Windows 7 and XP, and dual-boot.

[Foo]

Almost forgot - If you're not keeping any disks from the old PC then look for a mobo that does *not* support IDE or PS2 connection types. They're legacy now. SATA and USB respectively take over those roles.

[AEon]

Foo,
thanks for the quick feedback... I should have mentioned that this will be a complete new PC build, so the "good" old components you recommended keeping will be bought again. This lets me ensure that I have a pretty good yet old system to fall back to while putting together the new PC. Plus I'll probably keep using my old PC for CD rips (the "PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W4824A" drive does an awesome job already).

Old games and XP
Since I bought the WinXP Pro (not much of a manual with it though), it should be retail... trouble is, it only came with two licences (my present and the PC before that are already using those), so I'll have to get another XP Pro. Dual-booting sounds interesting, I read a bit about it somewhere.

Multi-core
Good to know... Quad-Core it is. From Intel I take it? Or were the AMDs any good?

RAM 4GB min
Interesting... does anything actually use that much RAM? Maybe the new Shader 3.0 games are RAM hogs, since I have 2GB I really wonder what could want to use 8GB of RAM. Good tip about using less sticks.

SLI
Hehe... I had exactly the same impression. I.e. you never find the 2nd card later on, or it is outdated so badly it's not worth the bother. Good, scratch SLI.

SSD / HD / RAID
"Don't trust desktop RAID for any kind of backup (mirroring). It's ineffective. More on backup further down."
Hmm... I have to admit RAID always made me nervous. That's the reason I tried to keep things simple, especially for backups. I use the really old Northon Ghost... but it works, not sure that would ever work with a RAID system. Hopefully a backup of a SSD will work with norton ghost?

I think I'd want to have 3 drives... the SSD, then one HD split in two with one partion the same size a SSD to potentially let me unpack a SSD drive mirror and boot from the HD if all fails. And a 2nd HD for data.

"Intel's X25 E and M models" / "longevity is in question"... so I would want to find a way to "backup" the SSD drive so that if things go all-out bad that I can boot from HD.


Windows XP vs. Windows 7
Great tips here... the only down-side with a dual boot is that I'll have to reboot every time I need the "other" OS, but this would let me set up a working (now much faster) XP installation that gets me going, to then build a Window 7 version in parallel. The other downside... things you set up on one side, are not set up on the other... learning how Win7 works will be weird as is I fear.

Also good to know that WinXP (32bit) works with these Quad-Cores.

BTW how does this "dual booting work"? Create two partitions on a HD? Or do both OSes use the same C:\ drive? The latter might be slightly ugly if XP starts messing into Win7 folders and the like.

I might look into the Win7 Business version... since I have been using XP Pro all the while, the more "professional" version for Win7 might be better (if I can afford it).

Blueray / DVD / CD
Interesting point about backups on Bluerays... I seem to have a similar instinct, because I suspected the issues you mention. My really old 2x DVD writer quit on me (7 years old, back then top notch and *really* expensive), so I got new one *much* faster for 30 EUR (that made me weep). To the point: This burner also works with dual-layer DVDs... and for the same reasons one should be suspicious of Blueray disks for backups. Media is too expensive, and how safe the data actually is on this media is in question.

So I'll skip the Blueray thing for now, and get a "competent" DVD/CD burner (pretty much like "PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-116D"), and should be on the safe side. Hmm... are these also DVD/CD burners also available as SATA?

"Buy quad-core, at least 4Gb RAM, 600W PSU.
Buy an Intel X25-M 40Gb and a big SATA drive.
Buy Windows 7 and XP, and dual-boot."
Would you say 1500 EU to 2000 EU is enough?

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Quick check on Amazon.de (not the cheapest site) :
EUR 196,85 - Intel SSD X25-M Postville 80 GB 2.5" SATA II von Intel
EUR 336,89 - Intel X25-E 32GB internal SSD HD (2.5")

The X25-E might be pushing it a bit... but depends on how much money is left over, and how the dual-boot actually works. Seems like I would love to install some of those games that load/save a lot of data on such a SSD as well.

I take it these modern mainboards all have SATA II? And are compatible with the older SATA?

The 2,5" SSD would be placed in the disk drive "metal box" in the tower (seems not, since the disk drive about 4.1" wide)?

Thank you very much for those tips... this *really* narrows things down so that I can start checking up on each component. To get a feel for how much all this will cost.

[U4EA]

Old games and XP
Since I bought the WinXP Pro (not much of a manual with it though), it should be retail... trouble is, it only came with two licences (my present and the PC before that are already using those), so I'll have to get another XP Pro. Dual-booting sounds interesting, I read a bit about it somewhere.

I thought you could use retail keys for 3 machines in total? As well, you could potentially scrap/sell the oldest PC and have Microsoft "de-activate" that activation. If you ring them up and explain what you're trying to do, they should be able to help you out.

BTW how does this "dual booting work"? Create two partitions on a HD? Or do both OSes use the same C:\ drive? The latter might be slightly ugly if XP starts messing into Win7 folders and the like.

I'd go with separate partitions for sure. Even though you can install the two OS instances in different folders and they both use different folder names to store user profiles, there will still be overlap in folders like x:\Program Files\Common Files and the like.

[obsidian]

My previous system is almost the exact same as your system, P4 Northwood 3.0Ghz, Asus P4C-800-E mobo, 2GB RAM, nVidia 6800 GTX Ultra.

Here's my build from about a year ago. Surprisingly, not that much has changed (except prices - gah, but what can you do?).

RAM: I agree with Foo, get lots of RAM, it's cheap. Some processor/mobo combos are dual channel, some are triple channel, so depending on the system, it may be a good idea to get your memory in pairs or triples. My i7 above is triple channel, so I bought a 3x2GB set.

GPU: pick a brand and a flavour. Both companies have their latest out now, so you should see drops in prices on the next-best-but-still-very-good cards. Like Foo said, these are the ones with the die-shrink so they'll run cooler with a bit less energy. I agree with Foo on SLI/Crossfire. More trouble than it's worth. The main performance benefits seem to be mainly on running super high resolutions or those new-fangled "Eyefinity" setups (multiple monitor gaming).

PSU: I highly recommend the Corsair PSUs. Energy efficient, quiet, stable. I disagree with Foo with the 1000W PSU, but his 600W sounds about right. When you hear about someone using a 1000W PSU, it's almost certainly overkill unless you are running 4 GPUs or something.

HDD: I kept my 2x120GB SATA Seagate RAID 0 from my previous build and added a 1TB drive for files. Seeing as how you still have IDE, I'd probably use them for archiving (stick them into a USB enclosure) and buy a new hard drive. Larger drives aren't any louder or slower than smaller drives, quite the opposite actually. RAID 0 might help a (small) bit with performance, or like Foo said, pick up an SSD for the OS and main programs and have a separate large SATA drive for other files and programs. My Windows 7 Windows folder is currently sitting under 16GB, so a 30GB SSD will work if it's just the OS and a few programs.

Tower: I just recycled my old one. Cooling seems to be fine on my setup for most games and applications, the only thing that was heating it up was when I was running Crysis on ultra settings last summer, but that game heats up my entire room.

OS: I'm running Windows 7 x64. I think it's silly running anything else, especially with the amount of RAM on today's systems. XP is a 32-bit OS (I know, you could get it in x64 as well, but it's a little wonky) so you have a limit on the amount of RAM you could stick in (~3.5GB). I don't have anything that doesn't run on Win7. I have a few really old games that don't work well, but that's an issue with video drivers, not the OS. Win7 Pro and Ultimate (but NOT Home Premium) has a Windows XP compatibility mode if you are running legacy applications. It works quite well so you should feel comfortable with upgrading to Win7 and go 64-bit while you're at it. Skip dual-booting. Win 7 should work fine with 99% of your software and compatibility mode will work for 75% of that 1%.

DVI Cables:
http://www.datapro.net/techinfo/dvi_info.html#Page04

Bluray: Most new optical drives are SATA. I just recycled my old PATA optical drives and have little need for Bluray. Burners and discs are prohibitively expensive, so archive to DVD or HDD. Read this to get a good idea of what Bluray is like on a computer.

SATA: SATA II is backward compatible with SATA. It's more of a theoretical max transfer rate difference.


Oh... the only issue with Windows 7 is if you are running anything like really old printers or scanners. The manufacturers may not have updated drivers for such hardware. You may be able to hack those drivers to work, but you are likely to buy new peripherals in such a case. Check with the manufacturers beforehand so you don't get any surprises (if they have drivers for either Win7 or Vista). My 4 year old HP laser printer works fine with Vista drivers. I assume my 10 year old Windows 98 scanner does not (my new computer doesn't even have a parallel port, so I couldn't test it - I'm much happier with my new scanner, anyway).

[AEon]

obsidian,
thanks for all those details... will do some reading on the links you provided. And take a very close look at your current PC... real-world examples are always the best, especially in your case since I can ask about anything I may think may cause issues.

I hope to get all the hardware "looked up" and present a list of what should be a "good" setup that could then be further optimized for pricing/quality/stability etc. Since I am her in Germany, obviously I'll be using PC shops here, from my last PC I know were to get the hardware for a fair price.

Overclocking
Have any of you been overclocking your systems? obsidian? With my old hardware I had the CPU running at 2.8 GHz (from 2.54, even hat it at 3.0 GHz for a short while) relatively stably, but then working on PS7 it crashed the system so I reverted to the stable v2.54 GHz.

This is kinda exiting

[obsidian]

Most modern day Intel processors will overclock reasonably well when pared up with a decent mobo, memory and cooling. I'm running at the default 2.67GHz, but it should hit 3.0 or more quite easily. I'm just too lazy to twiddle with the settings. The i7's are a little sensitive to high memory voltages, so read the warning labels.

[Captain]

My current rig:

Case: CoolerMaster Centurion 5
PSU: Corsair TX650W
Mobo: BFG nForce 680i LT SLI
CPU: Core2Quad Q6600 @3.2Ghz + Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Memory: 4GB (2x2GB) OCZ Platinum XTC Rev-2 PC8500 1066MHz (5-5-5-15)
Video: EVGA GTX 275 (720/1585/1275)
Sound: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer 7.1
HDD1: Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM 16MB cache SATA-II
HDD2: Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM 16MB cache SATA-II
HDD3: Western Digital 500GB SATA-II external setup
Displays: 22" LG 2242TQ-BF & 19" LG L1970HR
DVD: Lite-On SATA-II
Speakers: Logitech X-530 5.1
Mouse: Logitech G5 2nd Revision

Runs Crysis at highest quality flawlessly at 1680x1050 with AA enabled even. Performance in BF2:BC is also fantastic.

[obsidian]

You have those specs memorized or do you have a text file on your desktop for quick access?

I don't even remember what my processor's clock speed is without checking in Windows.

[Captain]

...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42572&p=803733&hilit=nforce#p803733

[AEon]

I checked some of your hardware obsidian, and also pricing.

Looking at Tom's Hardware Compare, I checked the current gfx cards to see what could be affordable presently.

Far Cry 2 (1680x1050, 4AA, 8AF, Very High Quality):

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Nvidia Geforce GTX 285 (1024 MB)    64.6  FPS   360 EU
Nvidia Geforce GTX 280 (1024 MB)    56.80 FPS   300 EU

ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1024 MB)        86   FPS    400 EU
ATI Radeon HD 5850 (1024 MB)        73.1 FPS    290 EU

345 EU - 1024MB ASUS GeForce ENGTX285 GDDR3 PCIe
400 EU - 1024MB Asus EAH5870 Radeon HD5870 HDMI DP DVI
420 EU - 1024MB HIS Radeon HD5870 iCooler Turbo GDDR5 PCIe
290 EU - 1024MB Powercolor Radeon HD5850 PCS+ GDDR5 PCIe

My previous cards:
[429 EU - 128MB HIS Excalibur Radeon 9700 Pro]
[282 EU - AGP ASUS 256MB ATI Radeon AX800PRO]

Seems like the GTX 280 is not doing too well with Far Cry 2, and it is relatively clear that I should not really spend much more than 300 EU on a GFX card. Presently the older ATI Radeon HD 5850 (1024 MB) seems to be a good deal (high FPS). It seems the ATi cards are using more modern GDDR5 memory too (no idea, at least it looks that way).

Question is from what maker the HD 5850 should be bought? Both my older HIS and Asus cards worked very well... so I may just go with HIS (IIRC their cards cost a bit more but used slightly better components).

I looked into the other hardware obsidian has:

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105 + 7 EU  - Corsair HX620W (PSU)
66  + X EU  - CPU-Cooler Noctua NH-U12P SE1366
258 + X EU  - Intel Core i7 920 2.67GHz 4800MT/s S1366 8MB 130W BOX
                i7 930 2.89 GHz (286 EU)
220 + X EU - ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58 S1366 ATX
(294       - ASUS Rampage II Extreme X58 S1366 ATX (for over-clockers)

113 + X EU - Tower(Coolermaster HAF 932)

I am not so sure what mainboard would be a good choice, the P6T seems to be out in a new version (V2)... though a few folks seem to think the ASUS Rampage II Extreme is quite good. Hmm... again no idea.

Price-wise a i7 930 with 2.89 GHz may well be affordable, though I have the feeling it might be better to simply stick with the i7 920 (mainstream). I also have no idea what sort of tower I should be getting. The Coolermaster HAF 932 looks nice... sorta.

Endless choice is a nerve-racking thing it seems.

[obsidian]

I think shaft bought an i7 940 but no one told him that it's the exact same thing as the 920 only with a faster factory set clock speed.

The 930 is the new revision of the 920, it has a slightly faster clock and one extra CPU multiplier. The difference is pretty small.

I'm not sure about the ATI card manufacturers, but most of the nVidia ones are pretty much stock designs. Just buy the cheapest card from a reputable company with a good warranty.

Endless choice is a nerve-racking thing it seems.

Just do what I did, do some research and wait for a sale on one or two of the items on your wishlist and impulse buy the rest.

[Foo]

From Intel I take it? Or were the AMDs any good?

Either or, as far as I know. I didn't really look at AMD this time round as Intel seem to be fractionally ahead of the game. AMD motherboards worked out more expensive for me, with less options to choose from, so I stuck with Intel. Intel's latest offerings of the i5 and i7 quad-cores are very solid performers, and there's 2 socket types to choose from, with the 1156 socket being really good value for money, and the 1366 socket offering an upgrade path in the future to drop an 8-core chip into the motherboard (but again, it's a bit like the SLi issue... you'll probably end up buying whole new components at that point)

RAM 4GB min
Interesting... does anything actually use that much RAM? Maybe the new Shader 3.0 games are RAM hogs, since I have 2GB I really wonder what could want to use 8GB of RAM. Good tip about using less sticks.

Yep, lots of games are starting to assume you'll have 4Gb+ of RAM now. GTA4 is a good example, as performance is way better on 4Gb. The same thing goes for graphics ram now too, GTA4 runs like a slideshow on a card with under 400Mb, but smooth on the 800Mb+ cards.

SSD / HD / RAID
"Don't trust desktop RAID for any kind of backup (mirroring). It's ineffective. More on backup further down."
Hmm... I have to admit RAID always made me nervous. That's the reason I tried to keep things simple, especially for backups. I use the really old Northon Ghost... but it works, not sure that would ever work with a RAID system. Hopefully a backup of a SSD will work with norton ghost?

I think I'd want to have 3 drives... the SSD, then one HD split in two with one partion the same size a SSD to potentially let me unpack a SSD drive mirror and boot from the HD if all fails. And a 2nd HD for data.

"Intel's X25 E and M models" / "longevity is in question"... so I would want to find a way to "backup" the SSD drive so that if things go all-out bad that I can boot from HD.

Windows 7 comes with built in backup that works properly now... so you can set it to output a complete system image to a secondary hard drive (or network share). The backup will only be as big as the data on the drive, so if you're only using ~20Gb of a 40Gb drive, your backup will be a manageable size. It even has the ability to restore that image to a virtual machine, so as long as you have a copy of that backup somewhere, your PC can be brought back to life even if it's crumbled to dust. No need for third-party apps on this one any more

Windows XP vs. Windows 7
Great tips here... the only down-side with a dual boot is that I'll have to reboot every time I need the "other" OS, but this would let me set up a working (now much faster) XP installation that gets me going, to then build a Window 7 version in parallel. The other downside... things you set up on one side, are not set up on the other... learning how Win7 works will be weird as is I fear.

BTW how does this "dual booting work"? Create two partitions on a HD? Or do both OSes use the same C:\ drive? The latter might be slightly ugly if XP starts messing into Win7 folders and the like.

Couple of pointers here:
- Install XP first (probably to the regular SATA drive), then Windows 7 (to the SSD). Win 7 will set up a boot loader that'll let you choose between XP and 7 on a menu when you boot. If you do it in the reverse order, XP won't configure that boot loader for you. When you run through the install for Windows 7, it'll detect the existing XP installation and ask you where you'd like to install. All you need to do is select a separate partition or disk from the XP install... they can't exist on the same partition.
- I'd keep the XP installation to the absolute bare minimum. Just the games that won't work on 7. That way, there's minimal extra config. I promise you'll love Windows 7 and will use XP as little as possible, anyway

I might look into the Win7 Business version... since I have been using XP Pro all the while, the more "professional" version for Win7 might be better (if I can afford it).

The chart on this page is handy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
I think your options are between Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate.

So I'll skip the Blueray thing for now, and get a "competent" DVD/CD burner (pretty much like "PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-116D"), and should be on the safe side. Hmm... are these also DVD/CD burners also available as SATA?

Yep, plently of SATA options on the market now. Really cheap, too. Samsungs are always a good choice.

"Buy quad-core, at least 4Gb RAM, 600W PSU.
Buy an Intel X25-M 40Gb and a big SATA drive.
Buy Windows 7 and XP, and dual-boot."
Would you say 1500 EU to 2000 EU is enough?

Yep. My current build about 3 months ago was around that spec, all-new components plus a stupidly overpriced monitor and it all ran to $3100NZ which is about 1600EU. Plus, we pay way over the odds for electronics in NZ, so you'll find components cheaper than I could.

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Quick check on Amazon.de (not the cheapest site) :
EUR 196,85 - Intel SSD X25-M Postville 80 GB 2.5" SATA II von Intel
EUR 336,89 - Intel X25-E 32GB internal SSD HD (2.5")

The X25-E might be pushing it a bit... but depends on how much money is left over, and how the dual-boot actually works. Seems like I would love to install some of those games that load/save a lot of data on such a SSD as well.

The main difference between the Intel X25-M and the Intel X25-E is the write speed. The read speed on them is the same. So I would go for the X25-M and conserve some cash. I think there's a 40Gb model available, too, and it should be almost half the price of the 80Gb.

I take it these modern mainboards all have SATA II? And are compatible with the older SATA?

Yep. SATA III is also starting to appear on some motherboards, although drives that take advantage of this aren't around yet.

The 2,5" SSD would be placed in the disk drive "metal box" in the tower (seems not, since the disk drive about 4.1" wide)?

The SSD might come with a set of expansion rails but if not, you can by these separately. They just extend the size of the SSD drive so it'll fit in a 3.5" bay.

Thank you very much for those tips... this *really* narrows things down so that I can start checking up on each component. To get a feel for how much all this will cost.

No probs. Here's the breakdown of my order in January to give you a feel for a complete build:

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Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD161GJ, 160GB, 7200rpm, 8MB Cache, SATA-2 	 2 
EVGA GeForce GTX260 Superclocked Video Card, GeForce GTX 260, 896MB, DDR3, PCIe-16, TV out, DVI, HDTV, SLI ready 	 1 
Cooler Master Gladiator 600 ATX Mid Tower Case, 500W PSU, Black 	 1
Intel Core i7 860 2.80 GHz, Socket 1156, Retail pack with fan 	 1
Asus P7P55D EVO Motherboard, Socket 1156, 4xDIMM DDR3, 3xPCIe-16, 2xPCI, 2xPCIe-1, 14xUSB2, Firewire, Audio, 1xATA, 6xSATA, RAID, ATX 	 1
Samsung 2233rz 3D Monitor, 22" LCD, 1680x1050, DVI, Black 	 1
Samsung SH-B083A Blu-ray drive, BD 8R/DVD 16R/16W/8RW, Internal, SATA, Black 	 1
Corsair XMS3, CMX4GX3M2A1600C9, 2x2GB, DDR3-1600, PC3-12800, CL9, DIMM 	 1 
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, for 64-bit systems, OEM 	 1

Already had mouse/kb/headphones. I'm looking at an SSD drive in the next few months, just as soon as I see how much money I have left after tax

[Foo]

Back on what obs said about not dual booting - I'm kinda with him on that actually. Build the box as Win7 and if you find you need to dual boot at a later date, get a copy of XP and do so... you may well find you don't need to dual-boot at all....

[AEon]

CPU
Since Intels have been working well for me, I'll stick with the i7 920.

Windows 7 comes with built in backup...
That sounds quite promising, finally. If the tool actually uses compressing the backups should be even smaller by far. E.g. my C:\ is 14 GB of 35.1 GB data, and Norton Ghost will pack that to less than 4.5 GB (i.e. DVD size). Alas, as mentioned I have the suspicion that my 8-year-old Norton Ghost will not work with Win7 100%.

Windows XP vs. Windows 7
I'll probably get two smaller drives, i.e. 2x500GB SATA, because I really want to avoid large HHDs. If something should ever happen *all* the 1 TB of data would be done, so spreading the risk is my motto.

Per se installing XP on a small 500 GB SATA (e.g. 30 GB Partition), maybe even spare another Partition for Win7 should not be too much work. Just in case. I looked into SSD drives some more:

• 100,42 € 40GB Intel X25-V G2 Postville 2.5" SATA Retail [40 GB, 170 / 35 MB/s]
  194,71 € 80GB Intel X25-M G2 Postville 2.5" SATA Retail [80 GB, 250 / 70 MB/s]

It seems the M vs. the V version somewhat doubles the speeds and the E versions double M. Alas about 400 € for a E drive is a bit on the expensive side. But a M drive should be fine, alas I don't seem to be able to find a 40 GB M drive.

The 80GB Intel X25-M drive, on the plus side, would let me use two NTFS partitions, e.g. one for XP and one for Win7, or one for Win7 and one for a current game I really want to load/save quickly .

Dual Booting - General Thoughts
Let us say I partition the SSD in two parts, making them C:\ (primary) and D:\ (secondary) (for now we assume I have no other HDD) in the system. Installing XP on C:\ should be straight forward (I hope), just as if the SSD was some normal NTFS formatted HDD. Now to get Win7 installed on D:\... this makes me wonder, I always though the OS *has* to be on C:\... i.e. only C:\ (a primary partition to be exact) had a boot block? When booting Win7... does the XP C:\ simply get hidden?

DVI-I x2
From reading up on your above link, I'll need a DVI-D kabel, and the 5meter of it should not be an issue, if you get a better one. So I should be be able to place the new PC in the next room, to work in absolute peace and quiet in my own room.

I'll be looking through your explicit list of hardware to get a feel for "good stuff". I have started to look through all the stuff I would need.

The only thing that *really* makes me nervous is that gigantic cooler obsidian suggested for the i7 920... woha... and working with the "CPU contact paste" (i.e. properly applying it) also makes me nervous. Or did the cooler come with such "paste"?

BTW, what version of Win7 do you folks have?

[Foo]

If you're not clocking, the stock cooler that comes with a retail i7 chip is fine.

[AEon]

If you're not clocking, the stock cooler that comes with a retail i7 chip is fine.

Those were the so called "Boxed" versions of the chips right? Are those already "mounted on the chip... how could they I guess... so the boxed version should have some "CPU contact paste" included, I hope.

But good point... I might save some money by not getting such an extreme CPU cooler, and stay away from over-clocking. Then again, our home is usually very well heated in winter, so that a normal cooler may not cut it with 26°C+ in the rooms.

[bitWISE]

I've been using the stock cooler on my E8500 Core 2 Duo and it works like a charm.

[obsidian]

Try running just Windows 7 and skip the dual boot mess. You are unlikely to need XP ever again. If you're concerned, get Windows 7 Business (or Ultimate) and run old programs with XP compatibility mode. Worse case scenario, run the program in Virtual PC. Regardless, you can skip the dual boot setup and save yourself from buying another copy of Windows XP that you don't even need.

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (I only got the Ultimate because it cost me $10 through Microsoft, shipping included). Business edition will do fine. Comes on two DVD's for 32 and 64-bit installations.

Coolers: I don't remember why I bought that massive thing. Probably because it was shiny.
The stock cooler should do fine and comes with some paste. Just keep it dirt free and spread a thin layer of the goop on the top surface of the CPU.

[AEon]

"Business = Enterprise" right? And since those versions should not be available for retail or OEM, it would have to be "Ultimate" according to Windows 7 editions (wiki). I checked the list feature compare list, Win7 Professional (includes "Windows XP Mode") seems to be "my" version. (Just checked for € 164,90 I could also get the ultimate version 64-Bit).

Something I don't understand yet though is what a "SystemBuilder" version of Win7Pro (or the other versions) is supposed to be compared to the "Full Version". The former costs about 125 EU and the full version is around 300 EU. Possibly the SystemBuilder version is missing all the manuals? Hmmm... strange. (Might be the OEM version).

OK, you have me convinced I'll go all-out Win7Pro and see how that goes.

Obsidian,
about the CPU cooler... I'll just try the "default" cooler and see how that works, if I have the feeling the temperatures are getting to high, I can always get your "extreme" cooler