Blake Redfield

January 29, 2008

1.1 It All Starts with Planning

The purpose of this guide is to help you pick the components for a new computer in early 2008. I have assembled various guides here from sevaral websites, from which I have extracted only the essential information. In effect, I will be reviewing reviews, combining charts and prices and pointing out merits and downfalls of each component I consider. The reader is encouraged to read the original articles for more in depth understanding. (I will be assuming that the reader has essential knowledge of computer hardware to the extent that given all the parts, he/she could put them together and install Windows on it.)

I am actually building a new computer from these notes myself, so the notes and comparisons of equipment reflect my personal choices. Every computer is different and is a reflection of the purpose of the machine and the level of expertise of the owner. Below, I list what I want out of my new computer:

• Gaming: Very Good/Excellent gaming capabilities
• Tweakable: Overclockable and optimizable
• Resistant to Time: No upgrades needed for 2 years

1.2 Turmoil, Confusion, Despair

Where to begin. There are so many choices to make when building your own computer these days. I started my quest simply hunting for deals at TigerDirect or NewEgg, frantically "Adding to Cart" what I thought was the best deal I could find, only to finally realize that I have built a completely inoperable machine. I went back and read some guides, compared prices and built another computer. I bounced around from selecting a cpu, to mobo to video card and trying to reorganize the setup from different starting places. Then I came across an overclocking guide that changed everything I thought I knew.

Deep breathing, sleep, coffee and some more reading ensued. I decided to make a flowchart to guide me through the decision making progress. This quickly becomes complicated in itself, but also reveals the important steps and choices that need to be made. Lets make a start:

1.3 Everyone has their Price

This really is the biggest issue. If money wasnt a problem we would just buy the newest, insanely priced equipment we could find or get one of those custom gaming rigs from Alienware. Would be nice. I myself am not a rich man. Not yet anyway :) The price I am aiming for is $1000.

In fact I am thinking that by the time I end this document, I should be able to suggest a high and low end/price machine. I will be suggesting specific models for every component as I go along. Hopefully by the end of this, the decision will be made obvious if not at least easier to make.

The backbone of every computer. The type of mobo determines the processors and video cards that we will have available to make the rest of our choices, mainly the processor and graphics card. Having said that, every time a new component is favored the whole decision tree needs to be adjusted. I believe that this is the best place to start.

2.1 x16 PCI Express slot

Depending on the chipset some x16 PCI Express slots can run at x8 or even x4 speed when SLI/CF mode is enabled. This is very bad news as the descriptions can be confusing. I the reviews that follow, I have noted what the true speed of all the available graphics slots are. For a successful SLI/CF configuration, two x16 PCIe modes should be present.

As a deterrent I have added a list of the incurred penalties for using x4 and x8 PCIe slots. (Makes me wonder why x4/x8 still exist at all in current motherboards.) (Quake 4)

For completion, we must look into the capabilities of PCI 2.0 motherboards. Current video cards seem to lack the correct engineering to take advantage of the faster bus, as benchmarks show that PCI 1.0 and PCI 2.0 cards perform the same at the moment (only 0.9% difference). I doubt that PCI 2.0 will mature for at least another year or so, therefore I can leave those mobos out of the selection tree. In any case only a handfull of graphics cards, namely the Nvidia's Geforce 8800 GT/GTS 512 MB and ATI's Radeon HD3850 /3870 are already equipped with the PCI Express 2.0 interface. You can read this article for details.

In all honesty it would have been best to compare PCIe 1.0a x16x16 and PCIe 2.0 x16x16 performance in this graph, but having clearly established from the Tommy article I mention above that PCI 1.0a=PCI 2.0, I thought it more interesting to show how the technology has matured.

It is crystal clear that my video card must run on a pure x16 PCIe slot and that investing in PCI 2.0 is not worth it at the moment.

2.1 SLI vs CrossFire

I would like my motherboard to have support for dual video cards, but its not a necessity. Even if I decide not to buy two right now, I would like the option of adding an extra one later when the prices drop. The performance gain has been shown to be around 35-50% and not 100% as might be expected, which is equivalent to a video card upgrade in some cases. This is something to look into that later.

For right now, I want to concentrate on selecting a class of motherboard, which means I must decide on the chipset, CPU support and if I want SLI or CrossFire. This is akin to deciding if I want to go with nVidia or ATi cards which is of course a pretty big deal. I will start with an overview of my options:

My research shows that selecting a motherboard does not restrict my decision on processor, as the indistry has several combinations of motherboard chipsets and CPU support.

Lets have a more detailed look at the two video chipsets now.

2.1.1 SLI with nVidia

SLI is available only to PCI Express cards and you need to have a motherboard with two x16 PCI Express slots and the motherboard must be based on an nVidia chipset.

The first true option here is the nForce 590 SLI, that has two real x16 PCI slots, which means that if/when SLI is used both of the cards will run at x16 PCI speeds. The 650i SLI is outdated now, and its x8 PCIe slots are simply a turn off.

Intel 680i LT SLI: The 680i and 680i LT have cought my eye on performace board reviews and setups, with the definite advantage of having two full x16 PCIe slots for the best SLI action. Turns out the 680i LT SLI offers almost all of the overclocking facilities that the 680i SLI has, short of some cap in max CPU and memory voltages. It also costs about $50 less than its bigger brother, so thats always good too. See this Legit Reviews article for details.

eVGA 680i LT SLI Motherboard : $170

• Active cooling on mobo chips, that ideally need replacing with better heatsinks and silent fans.
• ECC memory supported (passes timing information to motherboard)
• CPU Core 1.6V max (from 1.8V) and CPU FSB 1.4V max (from 1.5V)
• Tested with Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz ($171.99) O/C to 3.37GHz, 1.4625V on water.

2.1.2 CrossFire with ATi

CrossFire is available only to PCI Express cards and you need to have a motherboard with two x16 PCI Express slots and the motherboard must be based on an AMD/ATI or Intel chipset.

Intel P35: The Intel P35 chips are very popular, despite the single x16 PCIe slot, as the boards often come loaded with overclocking features. There are several models and a wide array of features to choose from. In addition, I often see these used as reference boards when comparing new CPUs as towards their overclockability, something very promising. The G33s are exactly the same as the P35s, but with the inclusion of an Intel IGP.

AMD 570X: Going up, it seems easy to shrug past the selection tree here, because AMDs are loosing the speed race to Intel at the moment. However, their pricing is extremely competitive. I would like to note the AMD 570X chipsets at this point and the rock solid customer reviews that boards such as the ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe have received. Paired with a top of the line AMD X2 6000+ processor, this board has a lot of power for less.

ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI: ($130)

• Used on Tom's CPU 2007 test rig for AMD processors, for AM2 socket processors
• Passive mobo chip cooling
• Excellent reviews from 1200 buyers, crappy on-board audio that would need replacing
• Simple installation and excellent hardware combatibility
• Great O/C abilities
• Paired with AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ ($160) is excellent performer (PCMark 6158) (OC?)

Other

Asrock is a spinoff company from ASUS. They are cheap and have very good performance results as reported by many users and definately worth a look.

Notes:

 

• ASUS P35-DS3 : Several versions exist: DS3R has RAID SATA support, DS3P has RAID SATA and SLI support. Used to overclock the Pentium D 805 1.8GHz to 4.1GHz with watercooling.
• ASUS P5K Premium* : Pushes the E6750's PCMark CPU test from [email protected] to [email protected]. Fast memory and cooling needed. Setup. The DDR2-1111 memory costs $800... Cheap Setup !!! 3750 MHz
• Asus P5E3 Deluxe, PCIe 2.0 (X38 chipset)
• ABIT IP35Pro
• DFI P35-T2R
• Gigabyte 965P
• Gigabyte G1976X : Used with the D 805 DIY rig.
• Gigabyte P35T-DQ6: Used with the E6750 O/C.

Choosing a processor for a new computer could drive anyone up the wall. Everyone in this position should first go and read Tom's Hardware 2007 CPU roundup article. After that you will have adequate knowledge of the current state of the processor industry be in a position to understand the most useful cpu comparison tool on the net: The interactive 2007 CPU Chart.

The Intel Core 2 processors are definately faster and more overclockable than the AMD Athlon X2 processors. AMD knows this and has dropped their prices to such an extent, that even their flagships have radically low prices, making our decision all the more pliable. Its good to have options.

This situation will not change until new technologies are mainstreamed in mid 2008, which will reach maturity and affordable prices in 2009. Our options in this section are again wide open. I can choose either Intel or AMD processors for whatever motherboard I choose to go with in the end. Lets see what we can come up with to refine our options.

3.1 CPU Series Nomenclature and Performance roundup

Lets start with the basics. We need to be able to understand what each processor code implies. Here is a summary of what I've found. Celeron D processors suck, so I left them out.

AMD in the low end: with the entry-level dual cores Athlon 64 BE-2300 and BE-2350, or Athlon 64 X2 3800+ to 4200+ being very affordable

3.2 Cache Size

"Tom" said it best himself in this article. Cache size does make a difference that varies depending on the application. Since gaming is what we do, this table is worth a million words. The PCMark 2005 synthetic tests seemed to blur away the impact of higher cache, but most applications clearly benefit. We proceed knowing that synthetic benchmarks are insensitive to cache, but more is good.

Overall Performance Boost:

• 4 MB L2 cache (wrt 1 MB) : 5.0%
• 2 MB L2 cache (wrt 1 MB) : 2.4%

This table is a great resource in itself, as it contains the basic performance abilities of a Core2Duo processor at the average speed of 2.4GHz, with a "run-of-the-mill" Geforce 8800 GTS (nothing to sneer at of course) and a nice stable ASUS Blitz Intel P35 motherboard. It is also interesting to see how the testers balanced the speed of the three chips to make this table make sense. These are the processors used:

Thus these processors are equivalent when clocked at the same speed. They are all Core 2 Duo, 65nm process chips so that makes sense, you might say. What I'm really getting at though, is that with these chips, overclocking is exactly the same as having the more expensive processor. That means I'll be hunting for the best overclocker/price I can find, without worrying about potential differences that come from the class of processor.

3.3 FSB

Lets start with a description of what the Front Side Bus is and does. The FSB is the speed that the CPU communicates with the memory. DDR2 memory has the ability to carry 4 pieces of information, simply speaking. The system clock is multiplied by the FSB to give the speed of the processor. The graphics card is also affected by the FSB so in overclocking projects it is preferable to drop the multiplier for a higher FSB frequencies, if possible.

Example: The Core 2 Extreme Processor QX6700 (2.66 GHz, FSB1066) is called Extreme, because Intel was kind enough to unlock its multipliers, which allows us to freely choose FSB and multiplier combinations. Thus the tender speed of 2.66GHz can be reached in two ways:

• 266 MHz FSB x 10 multiplier = 2666 MHz, where the CPU sees 266 MHz FSB x 4 RAM cycles = 1033 MHz FSB
• 333 MHz FSB x 8 multiplier = 2666 MHz, where the CPU sees 333 MHz FSB x 4 RAM cycles = 1333 MHz FSB

In the current market, FSB800 processors are dropping greatly in price and are mean overclockers. Next we have FSB1066 and FSB1333. A nice and to the point Tom's Hardware article states that the average difference in their very comprehensive benchmark suite was less than 1%.

Choosing a processor for its higher FSB doesnt make sense, especially since several motherboard bios updates are adding 1066 and 1333 support to older chipsets. Therefore, the FSB is not something that is going to strongly affect your decision (or mine) so we can just ignore it and concentrate on something more important, such as how overclockable it is.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Socket AM2: $160, PCMark 6158

• 4x customer award winner by Newegg, 5 eggs from 925 reviews.

Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz Conroe 4MB L2 : $190, PCMark 6835

• Multiplier is locked, so only O/C through FSB.
• 4MB Cache, will have to find review again to see if any difference
• Extreme FSB: Taking the E6750 Beyond 4 GHz (Toms Hardware)

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz: $171.99, PCMark 4794

• Decent Overclocker, will get close to 3GHz with good air

Pentium D 805 2.66GHz 1 MB L2:

• Hard to find these days. Intel Core2Duo are much faster.
• Overclockable to 4.1GHz.
• A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130 - Can it be True? (Toms Hardware)

nForce 680i - P31 Bios
Q6600 2.4GHz @ 3.6GHz (9 x 400) - 1.419 V
2 Gig Kingston HyperX memory 8500 @ 800 (Lync and Sync) (4-3-3-10, 1t)
2 x 320Gb WD Caviar 7200prpm in RAID 0
Win Vista32 Premium
2x EVGA 8800 GT KO Edition in SLI (735/1835/975)
Thermaltake 760i Bigwater CPU H2O cooling
Antec P180B Case
Corsair 750watt TX PSU
3DMARK06: 11185 (18256 OC)

Antec 900
Q6600 G0 @ 3.4ghz w/Tuniq Tower
XFX 780i mobo
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 (4-4-4-12)
XFX 8800GT (24/7 650/1625/1900, 700/2000 benchmark)
WD Raptor 150GB
PC Power & Cooling 750w Silencer
3dmark06: 14695

Check this out guys:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/23/crossfire_meets_pci_express/page13.html

They compare everything together to see if 2.0 makes a difference (hint: for crossfire it appears to make a difference). Also, it looks like if you are planning on going SLI with a GTS or a GT, you might as well save your money and go for 2 8800GT's, because they are almost the exact same in EVERY test, so the extra 150-200 doesn't appear to be worth it. I plan on getting a second GT within a couple weeks, specifically an EVGA one, in case there are any new cards worth stepping up to in the coming months!! Have a good day guys, just thought you would be interested in seeing this!!!

Intel Pentium E2140 Allendale 1.6GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775

• Price: $74.99
• Pros: I have had this for about 2 weeks now it plays everything I throw at it. I have it currently running at 3.0 Ghz (375x8)(thats a 87.5% overclock, thats nuts!) no problem, on stock voltage, the memory is at 937. Havent been able to get it to 3.2 on stock voltage, havent really tried. there's no need though, this thing flies.
• Other Thoughts: On PCmark05 I scored a 7600 on the cpu benchmark. If you go to toms hardware guide look at where that puts this cpu on the chart! Amazing!

Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz Allendale 2MB L2 LGA 775:

• BlackSite Area 51: The 8800 GTNvidia cards are faster, with SLI mode giving a 35% improvement. Worth it or not?
• Call of Duty 4: Here the roles are reversed and the HD2900 XT, in CF mode is the fastest for COD4, with CF giving an 80% boost over single mode operation.
• Crysis: The SLI Nvidia cards are all faster, with a distinct advantage over ATi.
• Half Life 2 EP2: The ATi cards are all faster. In fact the Nvidia cards even take a penalty in SLI mode! Is VALVE deliberately coding against Nvidia?
• Microsoft Flight Simulator X SP1: Nvidia cards win. However, SLI doesnt boost performance, with Single Mode 8800 GT/GTS winning the race.
• World in Conflict: Nvidia cards are again faster, but SLI is again ineffective.

• Used on Tom's 2007 CPU test rig.
• sc

• Thermaltake Bigwater SE Cooling Kit
• Koolance Exos AL
• Corsair Nautilus 500
• Zalman CN