Building A New Computer

[crockett]

Hi,

I want to build a new computer myself (for the first time). This machine should give me 3-4 years peace of mind without any major upgrades required. I am not a gamer, but rather do a lot of video editing and graphics (Photoshop). Below are my ideas about the components which I want to use. It would be great if you gurus out there could give me any comments on this (especially on mainboard, graphic card, memory and psu). Am I over-doing it or where do I need to improve?

Thanks & cheers

OS

Windows XP Pro SP2

Mainboard

Gigabyte GA-X38-DS5 Intel X38 Express Chipset

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz, FSB1333MHz, 6M, LGA775

Memory

Geil Value Series 240 Pin 2GB (2x 1GB) DDR2 800 PC-6400

Model: GX22GB6400DC

Geil Value Series 240 Pin 1GB (2x 512MB) DDR2 800 PC-6400

Model: GX21GB6400DC

Case

Coolermaster CM 690 (RC-690)

PSU

Thermaltake W0117 750W

Graphic Card

Galaxy 8600GT 256MB DDR3 128-bit /TD

HDD

1x Seagate 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 16MB Cache S-ATA II NCQ

1x Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 32MB Cache S-ATA II

DVD-RW

Pioneer SATA 215BK

DVD-Rom

Asus "DVD-E818A3" Dual Panel 18x

Monitor

Samsung SyncMaster 2232BW 22"

[cali]

Looks pretty nice. I love that CPU, that is a beauty.

1. If you did want to increase your graphics capabilities, Nvidia just released the GeForce 9600GT ($180US). It has pretty nice price/performance for the mid range. Still DX 10.0 however. But if you don't need much graphics umph, 8600GT should do.

2. I suspect you are careful to get a 32-bit OS with 3GB of RAM because you know it is maxed out. Why not get 64-bit XP and 4GB so you have an extra gig with negligable cost and ease of headroom down the line. Get 2x2GB now, then years down the road drop another 2x2GB in the other 2 free DIMM slots saving your original investment and no need to upgrade the OS.

3. I would opt for a 24" monitor as they are 1920x1200 res / 1080p for movies, but perhaps too expensive and rare if you are restricted to shopping in Thailand.

4. 750 watt PSU??? I don't see why 400 watts wouldn't easily fulfill your requirements. You have a power efficient CPU and graphics card which typically are the ones that would require bigger supplies. No reason to generate more heat, noise, and electricity waste than necessary.

[DragonQuest]

Blu Ray, where is it? It won the war on formats , my next computer will definetly have one, although Im gonna wait till the price drops , kinda pricy now.

[crockett]

Looks pretty nice. I love that CPU, that is a beauty.

1. If you did want to increase your graphics capabilities, Nvidia just released the GeForce 9600GT ($180US). It has pretty nice price/performance for the mid range. Still DX 10.0 however. But if you don't need much graphics umph, 8600GT should do.

2. I suspect you are careful to get a 32-bit OS with 3GB of RAM because you know it is maxed out. Why not get 64-bit XP and 4GB so you have an extra gig with negligable cost and ease of headroom down the line. Get 2x2GB now, then years down the road drop another 2x2GB in the other 2 free DIMM slots saving your original investment and no need to upgrade the OS.

3. I would opt for a 24" monitor as they are 1920x1200 res / 1080p for movies, but perhaps too expensive and rare if you are restricted to shopping in Thailand.

4. 750 watt PSU??? I don't see why 400 watts wouldn't easily fulfill your requirements. You have a power efficient CPU and graphics card which typically are the ones that would require bigger supplies. No reason to generate more heat, noise, and electricity waste than necessary.

Thanks for your detailed comments cali.

1) I will definitely take a look a the 9600 GT, only wonder if it is already available in Thailand (e.g. the Intel 8400 will be in stock only from next month onwards)

2) I'm a bit afraid about drivers and application compatibility for the 64-bit XP. For now I prefer to use 32 bit XP and probably upgrade to Vista at a later stage.

3) Exactly, expensive and rare. For now, I think the 22" will be ok.

4) Thanks for that. Especially for the PSU I was not sure which one to use.

cheers,

crockett

[crockett]

Blu Ray, where is it? It won the war on formats , my next computer will definetly have one, although Im gonna wait till the price drops , kinda pricy now.

Right, forgot that. Since HD-DVD is out I will need to consider. But, as you said, still way too expensive. I'll better wait.

[LivinLOS]

Been waiting for 4 weeks to get an E8400 here in thailand.. all the suppliers just keep repeating the next week mantra so I ordered it from UK (my bro will bring it in a couple of days). Oc'ers getting + 4ghz out of this.

Depending on useage a quad also looks interesting but I felt the E8400 was the sweet point.

I also went ATI on cards.. They have HDMI cards now and the passive cards are ideal for a Hidef media PC with low gaming use.. ATI fcus much better on the media playback performance than nvidea IMO.

I liked the P5K series MB's.

[Richard-BKK]

I wonder why you not change to two the same Seagate 320GB or 500GB hard drives, you can use them as RAID and that will increase your transfer speed.

Personal we use almost for all our systems 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 (16mb cache), very good experience with it. If you buy your HDD make sure it has a Dcom or Synex sticker otherwise you could get into trouble with warranty (Dcom or Synex do 10 minute swapping if you have problem)

[crockett]

Been waiting for 4 weeks to get an E8400 here in thailand.. all the suppliers just keep repeating the next week mantra so I ordered it from UK (my bro will bring it in a couple of days). Oc'ers getting + 4ghz out of this.

Same here. In Fortune Town, many dealers have the E8400 already on their price list (7,900-8200 Baht), but when you ask, they don't know when it will be available. Panthip same same.

[crockett]

I wonder why you not change to two the same Seagate 320GB or 500GB hard drives, you can use them as RAID and that will increase your transfer speed.

Personal we use almost for all our systems 320GB Barracuda 7200.10 (16mb cache), very good experience with it. If you buy your HDD make sure it has a Dcom or Synex sticker otherwise you could get into trouble with warranty (Dcom or Synex do 10 minute swapping if you have problem)

I have to make myself a bit familiar with RAID (never used it). What I understand is that it increases speed but you have also a certain risk of data loss. Anyway, good point, I will look into this.

Thanks for the Dcom/Synex tip as well.

[regedit]

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz, FSB1333MHz, 6M, LGA775

I was thinking of the same CPU but was advised to go for a quad core, even if it's less than 3Ghz, since for video editing you'll be more interested in running several programs at a time rather than the speed at which one task is done.

[crockett]

CPU

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.00GHz, FSB1333MHz, 6M, LGA775

I was thinking of the same CPU but was advised to go for a quad core, even if it's less than 3Ghz, since for video editing you'll be more interested in running several programs at a time rather than the speed at which one task is done.

Yes, but as far as I know, XP 32-bit cannot fully utilize 4 cores so it would not make sense.

[Ludacris]

I built a new computer 2 weeks ago so I've done a lot of research recently.

First off, I would stay away from the Samsung 2232BW. If you do a search on the internet you'll find that Samsung out-sourced some of the production of that model and if you're unlucky and get one not made directly by Samsung it will have a slight color imbalance, which is probably important to you if you're going to do video editing. Spend a couple thousand more and get the 2232GW which has gotten excellent reviews. The GW has a glossy screen so you need to be careful where you put it so there isn't too much reflection though. I got one and I can't believe how good the picture is. My Samsung 17" at work looks blurry now.

I found an E8400 after a lot of looking around at Panthip. You might want to look at a quad-core though if you're mainly doing video editing. If you do get the E8400, I would definitely upgrade from the stock cooler since there's almost no metal to it. I got the Asus V60 and it's over 10C cooler under load. I upgraded the motherboard bios before installing the E8400 so I didn't experience any of the temperature problems that have been reported with that cpu. I've got it overclocked at 3.6 and it's totally stable.

With that much memory make sure you run memtest over night soon after building your computer. Both my brand new Corsair 1GB sticks had errors and I was able to exchange them with no questions asked (lifetime warranty). There's been tons of problems with 2GB dual channel kits - lots of sticks being reported DOA.

Do you really need the X38 chipset? Why not save 50% on the motherboard and get one with the P35? The X38 looks like a ton of more money for very little performance increase to me. I even saw one review where it performed worse than the P35. The Asus P5K is a good board the price.

I totally agree the 750W power supply is overkill for your system. You don't need anything more than a 450W or 550W, so save some money there.

The 8600GT sounds fine, as long as you're not looking for a card that will play games years into the future. The 8800GT is the best bang for the buck right now though.

[Crushdepth]

First off, I would stay away from the Samsung 2232BW. If you do a search on the internet you'll find that Samsung out-sourced some of the production of that model and if you're unlucky and get one not made directly by Samsung it will have a slight color imbalance, which is probably important to you if you're going to do video editing.

The 2232BW's on sale in Thailand are made in China. The colour cast problem was reported for models from somewhere else (I forget where). Anyway, I have a chinese made one and the colour is good. You have to adjust the colour balance to get it right (like any other monitor), it comes with a program for doing that or you can use Adobe gamma etc.

[Ping]

Downspec, put the quids aside and update again in eighteen months. Repeat the exercise as required. Paying top whack for something that will be middle of the road in 18 months doesn't make sense unless you really need the oomph. Why XP and not Vista? Vista is going to be useful to you a heck of a lot longer and apparently with SP1, it is going to be comparable in performance to XP.

[crockett]

I built a new computer 2 weeks ago so I've done a lot of research recently.

First off, I would stay away from the Samsung 2232BW. If you do a search on the internet you'll find that Samsung out-sourced some of the production of that model and if you're unlucky and get one not made directly by Samsung it will have a slight color imbalance, which is probably important to you if you're going to do video editing. Spend a couple thousand more and get the 2232GW which has gotten excellent reviews. The GW has a glossy screen so you need to be careful where you put it so there isn't too much reflection though. I got one and I can't believe how good the picture is. My Samsung 17" at work looks blurry now.

I found an E8400 after a lot of looking around at Panthip. You might want to look at a quad-core though if you're mainly doing video editing. If you do get the E8400, I would definitely upgrade from the stock cooler since there's almost no metal to it. I got the Asus V60 and it's over 10C cooler under load. I upgraded the motherboard bios before installing the E8400 so I didn't experience any of the temperature problems that have been reported with that cpu. I've got it overclocked at 3.6 and it's totally stable.

With that much memory make sure you run memtest over night soon after building your computer. Both my brand new Corsair 1GB sticks had errors and I was able to exchange them with no questions asked (lifetime warranty). There's been tons of problems with 2GB dual channel kits - lots of sticks being reported DOA.

Do you really need the X38 chipset? Why not save 50% on the motherboard and get one with the P35? The X38 looks like a ton of more money for very little performance increase to me. I even saw one review where it performed worse than the P35. The Asus P5K is a good board the price.

I totally agree the 750W power supply is overkill for your system. You don't need anything more than a 450W or 550W, so save some money there.

The 8600GT sounds fine, as long as you're not looking for a card that will play games years into the future. The 8800GT is the best bang for the buck right now though.

Great advice Ludacris, especially for the monitor and CPU cooler. I will also take a closer look at the P5K. Thanks a lot.

[crockett]

Downspec, put the quids aside and update again in eighteen months. Repeat the exercise as required. Paying top whack for something that will be middle of the road in 18 months doesn't make sense unless you really need the oomph. Why XP and not Vista? Vista is going to be useful to you a heck of a lot longer and apparently with SP1, it is going to be comparable in performance to XP.

Many of the application I use do still not work with Vista. XP is stable and works great for me so I prefer to stick to it. I can upgrade to Vista anytime.

[Richard-BKK]

I also think that it is a good idea to hold on Windows Vista, Windows XP Prof can do everything Vista can and does it faster, in our IT road plan we skip Windows Vista totally. And will take in 2009 a look at MS Windows 7 which is said to be introduced in 2009.

For us, Windows Vista is nothing more then Windows ME, it only lives one year and is full of bugs and leaks actual performance benefits...

[crockett]

I also think that it is a good idea to hold on Windows Vista, Windows XP Prof can do everything Vista can and does it faster, in our IT road plan we skip Windows Vista totally. And will take in 2009 a look at MS Windows 7 which is said to be introduced in 2009.

For us, Windows Vista is nothing more then Windows ME, it only lives one year and is full of bugs and leaks actual performance benefits...

The pace that Microsoft is pushing Windows 7 with makes me think exactly the same thing.

[cali]

Windows 7 which is said to be introduced in 2009

Seriously, don't be surprised when you are still waiting in 2011. Microsoft was jumping up and down in 2003 that Vista, already in development for years, would be out in early 2005.

Edited February 24, 2008 by cali

[MorrisMerryweather]

Downspec, put the quids aside and update again in eighteen months. Repeat the exercise as required. Paying top whack for something that will be middle of the road in 18 months doesn't make sense unless you really need the oomph. Why XP and not Vista? Vista is going to be useful to you a heck of a lot longer and apparently with SP1, it is going to be comparable in performance to XP.

Many of the application I use do still not work with Vista. XP is stable and works great for me so I prefer to stick to it. I can upgrade to Vista anytime.

Which apps do you use which don't work with Vista ?

[crockett]

Which apps do you use which don't work with Vista ?

Not the bigger programs of course, they are all updated by now. I am talking abot many little

freeware utilities which I use for certain tasks.