Searching for the white elephant?

[shathal]

Greetings folks - I'm back after a rather long stint of absence of ... gosh ... three years it must be now (though ... it feels far, far longer).

I've been faced with upgrading my PC for ... well - a year now (time flies when you get damn busy at work) and since the fan on my graphics card now starts packing in, I'm ... rather pressed to get things rolling.

To explain my usage scenario - I'm a gamer, love games, and primarily want a system that can perform well. I'm NOT an overclocker, through - and do value my ears (and peace) in my older age now .

I've been kinda thinking about building my next PC from components - carefully researched through the SPCR forums, the site and the fantastic community had guided me very well a few years ago after all (I still recommend SPCR with an utterly clear conscience to anyone who's serious about looking at quieting down stuff and getting A-grade advice).

But thinking about things, I wonder if it might not be just easier to buy a whole PC ... I loathe Dell, HP and other such OEM's as their design choices are ones I utterly disagree with. I'd like to know I have quality components in my PC thanks a lot, and would like to be able to actually replace stuff and have room for upgrades as needed.

Now - endpcnoise *seems* like an interesting shop, but one crux here is that I am in the UK, and it seems rather unclear whether they deliver to the UK or not (I've contacted them, but won't mind a response here either // will update as I get a response from them as needed).

Anyway - the challenge I am faced with is that I've not overly followed the hardware market over the last three years, and am now swamped with a wealth of information that's somewhat staggering as to "where to begin".

Are there any recommendations people can make here? There's a few things which I am definitely positive about (VERY few, admittedly) - that's mainly that I'm an Intel-CPU guy personally.

Other than that, I'm mainly looking for the "white elephant" once more (heh - pulled it off with SPCR's help once already) - a silent (or at least QUIET), performing high-ish end gaming-rig.

Anyone have good places for me to begin looking? I'm actually seriously considering full systems as well, not feeling like I HAVE to go through all the pains once more.

Don't be too overly concerned about price as yet - I'm not rich, but budget is the last thing I'm concerned about. At the moment I am looking for signposts more than anything .

Thanks all, and ... great to be back .

[jaganath]

Welcome back!

here is an example build from another thread:

Antec Lifestyle Solo
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
4 GB memory
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200
Scythe Ninja
ATI Radeon HD3850
Arctic Cooling Accelero S1
Samsung Spinpoint T HD400LJ
Seasonic S12-330
Pioneer DVR-212

of course the GFX card will vary based on how demanding the games you play are, and for PSU maybe upgrade to Corsair VX450 for a little more headroom. the 4GB memory probably isn't totally necessary either.

[FlorisNielssen]

Memory: might nog be necessary, but it doesn't cost a thing anyway.
GFX: The nVidia 8800GT seems to be very good money. Furthermore, nVidia's cards are better than ATI's nowadays, they can't keep up. Put a Accelero S1 on it and it's silent too.

I'd probably recommend 450W PSU before the 330W, because you want a gaming rig. And a 8800GT was about 200W I seem to remember.

[jaganath]

a 8800GT was about 200W I seem to remember

actually it's less than 100W: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 0gt_5.html

[jhhoffma]

More important than the total power consumption of the card is the current draw over one rail. Depending on the PSU (and how its power is distributed) you may need up to 18A on the 12V rail that your GPU is on.

Many lower wattage PSU have lower current allowances over each 12v line. Then again, most (not all) of these PSUs actually only have one true 12v rail with two main wires coming off of it.

That being said, I'd go with the 450W, just too avoid a 330W unit from ramping up in speed during high load situations.

[shathal]

*ponders*

The thing that worries me a tiny bit about the Ninja is the sheer weight of it ... esp. since (due to space) my system will need to stand as a tower.

Other than that - endpcnoise DO actually ship abroad - I've been looking at their offerings a bit. With the current ratio between £ and $ (2:1 - yay) this is actually interesting.

The thing that surprises me is that they use the Zaalman 9500 and 9700 - which I then checked up here and was rather disappointed. Granted, I can just "get the system built" (if need be) and replace the 9500 / 9700 with a Thermalright 120, or a Ninja (again, I'm somewhat concerned about the weight), but it'd be a few extra $$-s on essentially replacing something that should be done well the first time around. But oh well.

Cases are a bit of an interesting thing - but the Antec P182 seems to have had a very nice review, so that's already a bonus. They offer alternatives of a new Sonata and ... something else, but looks like the P182 is already nice. More research to be done then...

I'm more than likely going to go for 4 GB of mem - I only need 2-3 GB at the moment, but it'll be a bit of future-proofing .

It *looks* like I could probably get "most" of the work done by endpcnoise, and the Nexus PSU's they use *seem* good (I'll look into that a bit more in detail).

Also, they use the "Asus P5E" motherboard on the PC I'm looking at - I've never had Asus boards before, any particular comments here?

That said - does anyone have good / bad / "so-so" experiences with them? Granted, they're a sponsor of SPCR, so they can't be all that bad, but I always prefer having some sort of consumer advice.

Thanks so far for any feedback, more comments are always welcome .

[klankymen]

it's really not that hard to make a quiet powerful PC these days. With intels new Penryn processors (e8X00 series) idle power draw has dropped to 5Watts and below. Definitely put a ninja on it, the retention is very stable, and I had no problems using it in a tower case.

4GB ram is a given these days, DDR2 is next to free.

I would look at the new Sonatas (the ones that look like the p150), since if you get a p182, you'll be thinking - why do I have this huge monster, there's so much empty air in it.

If you do order from the US, bear in mind there will probably be some tax fee due at customs, in relation to the value of the computer, which might negate the exchange rate benefits.

[shathal]

It's less about the "hard" - it's more about the "doing it".

I'm pretty busy with work, and wouldn't mind having less hassle, as it were the ideal concept of "order components - it all comes assembled and good to go" so to speak.

It's not that I can't do it / that it's hard, it's just that it all eats up time (and bruises fingers, etc, etc.) .

On the side, I've just read about the Wolfdale CPU's and they look VERY tasty (well - a die-shrink will do that) ... damn, knew that would happen ... I'm drooling again. Gah .

And yeah, I'm aware of customs. Problem is that (for whatever reason) I can't seem to find a retailer who provides a similar offering in Europe ... one would think that one of them might open a european branch / someone in Europe might specialise in selling quite systems.

But oh well .

Thanks on the pointer of the Sonata - I'll make sure I'll read up on it .

P.S.: Happen to have gotten myself a BenQ FP241W as well just last week ... VERY nice screen .

[klankymen]

OH yeah, I've been using it for over a year now (since when it was released), and it's probably the most useful computer component (also the most expensive) - although I'm kind of regretting not having gone with the Dell FP3007W, which would have been 400 euros more.

As for not hard, I'm not referring to the putting together work, I'm referring to the chosing the parts. basically, just pick any 40nm intel, slap a ninja on it, and it's quiet. no looking for low voltage components or undervolting or anything. throw in a 8800GTX, which people claim are pretty quiet, a corsair PSU, and there you have it.

Back when I got my system in the days you really had to research

[shathal]

Hehe - well I stil do, I'm a stickler for detail and getting things right first time.

The system I built 3-4 years ago (in the sig) took me 1-3 months to research + put together,

This is why I'm contemplating the whole thing of "Meh - just get the whole thing done for me" - makes life easier, and since I'm working quite a bit, I'd prefer to deal less with the hassle.

Hmm.

I suppose I could try and cost up how much the components would cost roughly in Europe... *ponders*.

[murtoz]

Why not see if you can find a local computer shop that will build a pc for you to your specifications? I have no idea how much that would cost extra, but if you're lucky it may be less than customs!!

BTW, i have an 8800GTX and it is great! It is quiet enough that when it's idling i can only just hear it at night when all's quiet. If that isn't quiet enough, get an accellero or a thermalright hr-03.
For an excellent comparison of current high end cards from both nVidia and ATI, check out this bit tech article. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions .

<edit:>
Ah, one more thing - definitely go for 4GB of memory since it is very cheap (except maybe ddr3), but make sure you have a 64bit OS if you want to use it all. With any 32bit OS, the maximum addressable memory is 4GB, but since it also needs addresses for your video memory it will overlap this from 4GB down. In practice, this may mean that your OS sees anywhere between 3.5 and 3 (some even say less) GB of memory.

[shathal]

Yep - no worries there, don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I work in the industry myself .

Hrmpf ... now the thing's gotten more complicated, with the coming out of the new generation of NVIDIA cards scheduled for the next month or two ... argh. Well - suppose may as well go with them, but it causes a bit of delay.

Oh well.

Damn IT industry, but about time they come out with the next generation .

[smilingcrow]

Maybe you could find someone on the forums to build you a custom spec PC?
If I still lived in London I’d be interested but I’m about 150 miles from Reading at the moment. If my planned move to Stroud comes off soon then maybe we could do something!

[shathal]

*ponders*

There's an idea. Not sure how many europeans (let alone UK-residents) are floating about, but it's certainly an idea.

Tell you what - Send me a PM with the sort of thing you have in mind, and a few pointers/guidelines, and we'll see where we go from there.

Hadn't actually considered that before, but it's certainly a possibility.

Interesting thinking, have to admit that .

[jaganath]

I live in London and could certainly make the trip down to Reading if required. just one thing, do you want Vista on your new machine?

[shathal]

No OS, as such to begin with (one of the first things I do with OEM systems is blowing away their OS), as I prefer setting the boxes up myself, most commonly to dual boot XP/Vista and/or Linux. Depends.

I'd just need the hardware set up ... but with the new series of NVIDIA cards "around the corner", I'll wait for them to come available. Should be coming out in Feb/March after all .

Feel free to PM me though with rough idea of prices and such, if you want though, I'm more than happy to listen to fellow SPCR folks .

P.S.: Either shipping or "coming around by car" would be great. My motorbike might be a BMW tourer, but it's not really up to hauling a whole computer around .