New Build Critique

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 8:49 pm

Hello all
First off thanks to everyone for the amazing wealth of info here.
I have just put together a collection of hardware for my first ever build, and would love to get feedback before i pull the trigger:

Antec NSK2480
Asus P5Q-EM *OR* Gigabyte GA-G45M-DS2H
Intel C2D E8400 Wolfdale CPU
4GB (2x2) Mushkin HP2-6400 DDR2
WD Caviar SE16 640GB HDD
LG GGC-H20L BD-ROM/DVD-RW *OR* Asus BC-1205PT
Doublesight DS-265W 26.5" S-IPS Monitor 1920x1200
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 / Linux Dual-Boot

I will use the system primarily for work - programming, statistical analysis, photo and video editing - and also for playback of DVD and BD media. No gaming. Maybe I'll try some modest overclocking (FSB to 400 max). May mod the case with quieter fans and a better CPU cooler if necessary.

Am interested in knowing whether you all think these are good choices. Especially interested in thoughts about which of the 2 Mobo's you think would be better. At this point i'm fairly committed to an Intel platform for performance/power ratios, but am open to strong arguments to the contrary. Also interested to know how quiet/cool you think i can get this system.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:42 am

Hello & welcome to SPCR,

Overall, it looks pretty good. Personally, I would not use Vista, but WinXP x64 instead. I have an older system with both 32bit and 64bit WinXP, as well as Ubuntu 64bit.

The critical parts of the motherboard is the quality of the power regulation, the layout of the major components (the ATX plug must be at the back edge! and clearances around the CPU and the video slot), and the flexibility of the fan and voltage controls in the BIOS; would be at the top of my list.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:19 am

For photo and video editing is a dual core sufficient? Might you consider a low end quad core? Most of the video/photo programs I've dealt with are multi-threaded, and I saw a bit of a boost going from 2->4 cores. Then again, I also changed brands, so that's probably half of the difference. As for the boards, why do you need the G45 versions? From what I understand the IGP in the G45 uses a bit more power than that in the G43, but the 43 lacks certain hardware dedicated abilities. At the same time, I've also read the G45 in general isn't as powerful as Intel had promised.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:20 pm

thanks for your replies.

neil: i hear you about vista, but unfortunately, from what i've read over at avsforum, intel does not support hardware decoding of blu-ray for the G45 under XP.

ryboto: i'm not sure about quad-core. the low-end 45nm quad (q9300) is about $100 more expensive. the older q6600 i think is around the same price, but considerably hotter. i had a chance to play with windows movie maker (or whatever it's called) on both q6600 and an e8400 machines and, while the 6600 was faster and encoding, the 8400 did pretty well. from what i've read, performance of the two chips for most apps is comparable, with the 8400 having a slight edge. and i won't be doing that much with video, so my choice was to choose $/watts over a slight performance gain.

as to why the G45 - well, it has (at least theoretically) hardware decoding of HD video - which seems like a good idea if i want to watch a movie while some processor intensive task is running in the background. as you say, the G45 appears not to be as powerful as the ATI/nVidia competition, but i don't care much about 3D performance, and once the drivers mature i think the HD performance will suit my needs, and enable me to stay with the intel processors.

out of curiosity - do you have any trouble cooling the quad-core amds quietly?

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:46 pm

wodenx wrote: as you say, the G45 appears not to be as powerful as the ATI/nVidia competition, but i don't care much about 3D performance, and once the drivers mature i think the HD performance will suit my needs, and enable me to stay with the intel processors.

out of curiosity - do you have any trouble cooling the quad-core amds quietly?

What I was referring to specifically was that the G45 says it has hardware decoding of HD content, but from what I've read, it isn't as powerful as Intel claimed.

As for the Quad core, I actually bought a Q9400, and with a DFI JR P45 board, it only consumed as much power as my X2 based system, which is impressive, but the board was quirky, and I feel it might have been a bit inefficient, so I'm looking for alternatives. It actually ran incredibly cool, loaded at 38C with the stock settings and a fan at 850-900rpm.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:17 pm

ryboto wrote: What I was referring to specifically was that the G45 says it has hardware decoding of HD content, but from what I've read, it isn't as powerful as Intel claimed.

My understanding from some of the threads on AVSForum is that with vista and the right player the HA is working well enough. It seems most of the issues are software related, which leads me to believe that things will improve over time. Just looking at the developments over the past month shows progress. Of course I have no first hand experience...

ryboto wrote: As for the Quad core, I actually bought a Q9400, and with a DFI JR P45 board, it only consumed as much power as my X2 based system, which is impressive, but the board was quirky, and I feel it might have been a bit inefficient, so I'm looking for alternatives. It actually ran incredibly cool, loaded at 38C with the stock settings and a fan at 850-900rpm.

Nice. Are you using the stock intel cooler/fan? How is the noise level at that rpm?

pleb · Post by **pleb** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:59 am

wodenx wrote:i'm not sure about quad-core. the low-end 45nm quad (q9300) is about $100 more expensive. the older q6600 i think is around the same price, but considerably hotter. i had a chance to play with windows movie maker (or whatever it's called) on both q6600 and an e8400 machines and, while the 6600 was faster and encoding, the 8400 did pretty well. from what i've read, performance of the two chips for most apps is comparable, with the 8400 having a slight edge. and i won't be doing that much with video, so my choice was to choose $/watts over a slight performance gain.

Thank you for this. I'm in the situation where I'm making the exact same decision in relation to the same processors, though I may go with the 8500, but I haven't had the chance to get the hands on experience with them both like you.

I was originally going with the quad for its multi tasking potential and grunt for video conversion, but I'm leaning to the dual now for lower wattage in/heat out plus a faster clock speed for the money.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:22 am

I did some tests with 1920x1080 video encoded in h.264/AVC (playing from HDD, not BluRay). CPU util was in range of 15...30% with purely software based decoding using Q6600 G0 overclocked to 3.15GHz. So, a Duo with similar clocks should probably make the decode with approximately 30...60% CPU util.

I know it's good to have headroom for other processes to use but how much will HW decoding give? I initially bought GF6200 to ease CPU load on Prescott (since it really can't even play 720p without stuttering). It helped nothing because I didn't find proper player/codec that supported it! I mean, general purpose codecs like FFDSHOW (freeware) or CoreAVC (payware) usually don't take advantage of HW acc. Some players like PowerDVD may use HWA but they might refuse to play from HDD, or might not support all the containers (.avi, .mp4, .mkv, .ogm) or some audio codecs. So, the GPU helped nothing in my attempt to play 720p with a crappy Prescott. Overclocking helped more (but not much).

You want to save electicity by going for Duo as it's usually enough. And it really is. But then you want to waste electricity by using a powerhungry chipset to do HWA and give you the headroom you lack since you didn't go with Quad. And you need to make compromises with your OS, with players you use, codecs, everything. Good luck finding the software that actually lets you have what you want. You might have HWA for playing h.264 from BluRay, but to have the HWA for the video decode/encode tasks running in the background... hopeless.

If you really want to multi-task, then go for Quad. (That doesn't guarantee that encoding tasts won't bring CPU util to 100% occasionally as video editing software does usually support multicore. But it'll be done in half the time.) And go for XP if you like it better than Vista. Don't play by their rules - do what suit yourself best.

If Intels HWA is botched, there's only more reason to ditch the idea of taking advantage of it. Even IF it wasn't botched, it might still not be worth the sacrifice.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:48 am

hmm.. you've almost got me convinced. but a few questions...

i see you have a big fancy cooler on your q6600 - one which will fit neither in my case nor in my budget. did you try cooling it with stock cooler? do you have a sense of the power/heat increases for the quad at your oc rate? do you have any trouble running the fsb at 350 (as i'm guessing you're doing) with that processor? have you done any experiments with undervolting?

my main concern with the quad is heat, esp since i will have a smallish case. i would like neither to have to invest in an expensive cpu cooler, nor to have the cpu fan running high all the time.

ryboto: do you have any numbers on power use/heat dissipation differences between the g45 and g43 chipsets? or ANY integrated graphics chipset power consumption comparisons? i've been searching in vain...

edit: just found this http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=3288&p=1 for the g35 - now just need a comparison of g43/45 with g35...

also - do you know of any good uATX g43 boards? the asus ones list max fsb as 1333 (333) as opposed to 1600 (400) for the g45 boards, which leads me to believe they are lower-end in terms of quality.

btw - a (seemingly) pretty good analysis of the power consumption of the various cpus at stock speeds is at
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14573/15.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:14 am

wodenx wrote: ryboto: do you have any numbers on power use/heat dissipation differences between the g45 and g43 chipsets? or ANY integrated graphics chipset power consumption comparisons? i've been searching in vain...
edit: just found this http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... i=3288&p=1 for the g35 - now just need a comparison of g43/45 with g35...
also - do you know of any good uATX g43 boards? the asus ones list max fsb as 1333 (333) as opposed to 1600 (400) for the g45 boards, which leads me to believe they are lower-end in terms of quality.

Well, you're in the same boat as me. I'm looking for a low power mAtx intel board. I like that the G43/45 support PCIE 2.0, but I don't like their rated TDPs, here's what we have from this thread

G45: 24 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G43: 24 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P45: 22 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P43: 22 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P35: 16 W, 5.9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G35: 28 W, 11 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G33: 14.5 W, 5.75 W, with 333 MHz FSB

So, in theory, the G43/45 could consume more power than the previous generation, even though they're built on 65nm vs 90nm. I have yet to see a review of G45 or G43 boards like we saw with G33 and 35. Personally, I've been eying the Asus P5QL-EM, the G43 board from them, and it looks fairly decent quality. Horizontal SATA ports, which are absent from the higher end model, the P5Q-EM. So, I'm probably going to go with it.

The Gigabye offerings might be more along your needs though. The asus supports PCIE x16 2.0, while the Gigabyte are limited to x4. In theory this would imply limited PCIE bandwidth, so the PCIE bus would use less power. If you're not going to get a discrete video card, it might be a good choice.

pleb · Post by **pleb** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 1:57 am

going back to the CPUs for a sec, I am planning to run one VM occassionally, and I came across this on arstechnica which is quite relevant.

Prototyped wrote:It's been mentioned on these forums before that the 45 nm processors' VT implementation is superior to that on the 65 nm processors, so a 45 nm quad-core processor with VT such as the Q9400 would be superior to the Q6600. (It would, however, also cost $70+ more.)

I'd agree with the previous posters; for one to three VMs, I'd prefer the E8500, whose 766 MHz clock speed advantage coupled with ~10% better performance per Hz and better VT implementation would allow it to exceed the Q6600's performance. For more VMs, I'd prefer the Q6600, where the parallelism inherent in running multiple VMs would better exploit that processor and likely outperform the E8500.

A Phenom X4 9950 will likely outperform the Q6600 handily on virtualization tasks, not least because it supports Nested Page Tables and has a higher clock speed. Do beware of the fact that it isn't the most efficient processor, although a more efficient stepping is expected to be launched by the end of the quarter.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:25 am

ryboto wrote:
G45: 24 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G43: 24 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P45: 22 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P43: 22 W, 9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
P35: 16 W, 5.9 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G35: 28 W, 11 W idle, with 333 MHz FSB
G33: 14.5 W, 5.75 W, with 333 MHz FSB

Thanks for this - very interesting,assuming tdp has some relation to the real world. But if i am reading this right, the g43 and g45 are equivalent, and both are better than the g35. if that's right, why do you favor the g43 board? excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage of horizontal sata ports?
i looked at the asus g33 board (P5K-VM, i believe) - but it lacks both dvi and hdmi, and doesn't support hdcp, so it's out for me.

i did see one (negative) review of the gigabyte g45 board - can't remember where - i'll look for it and post later. as i recall, it focused on the shortcomings of the chipset, some of which have been remedied since in software. there is a lot of information on the offical threads at avsforum.com.

do you really think the pci-e x16 bus will eat much power with no card installed?

at the moment i'm leaning towars the asus board mostly bc it has one extra fan header, and both cpu and chassis fan headers seem to be software controllable.

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:31 am

wodenx wrote: Thanks for this - very interesting,assuming tdp has some relation to the real world. But if i am reading this right, the g43 and g45 are equivalent, and both are better than the g35. if that's right, why do you favor the g43 board? excuse my ignorance, but what is the advantage of horizontal sata ports?
i looked at the asus g33 board (P5K-VM, i believe) - but it lacks both dvi and hdmi, and doesn't support hdcp, so it's out for me.

do you really think the pci-e x16 bus will eat much power with no card installed?

at the moment i'm leaning towars the asus board mostly bc it has one extra fan header, and both cpu and chassis fan headers seem to be software controllable.

I wont be using the integrated video, I'm going to be installing a discrete video card, so the HDMI and av connectors aren't of much concern to me. The horizontal SATA ports just make cable management easier, at least in my case, and their location means they'll be out of the way of a video card cooler.

The G45/43 are rated at a lower TDP than the G35, but a lot of the P45 reviews have show P45 based boards to consume more power than their P35 brothers. Since we have no hard numbers on the G4x generation, I was just using the P45 as an indicator of their possible power draw.

As for the PCIE lane power, I really don't know, it was just something that another user suggested. It makes sense, since the bus is operating at a higher bandwidth, but I wonder how much of a power requirement that bandwidth really is.

whiic · Post by **whiic** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:28 am

wodenx: "i see you have a big fancy cooler on your q6600 - one which will fit neither in my case nor in my budget. did you try cooling it with stock cooler?"

Probably. I'll try to see if I find any notes on temperatures using stock cooler. My notes are a bit messy so I'm not sure if I'll find them. But anyway, stock cooler was too noisy, even at reduced rpm (PWM or undervolt). Stock coolers are always bad. (Though the stock cooler that came with my Quad is a lot quieter than stock cooler of my Prescott.)

"do you have a sense of the power/heat increases for the quad at your oc rate? do you have any trouble running the fsb at 350 (as i'm guessing you're doing) with that processor? have you done any experiments with undervolting?"

Yes. No. And Yes.

Yes, I have an idea of how much power it uses. And it's a lot. Stock TDP is 95 watts for G0 stepping (slightly lower than 105 watts of B3) and that's 2.4 GHz at 1.275 vcore. I run 3.15 GHz at 1.275 vcore so I'll be around 125 watts. Well, I don't think TDPs should be trusted so it just an approximate. And those vcores are set vcores, not real vcores. I've done vdroop mod for motherboard so that vcore doesn't drop on high utilization. That means I can obtain more economical idling that otherwise possible.

No. No problems. Cooling with this heatsink (even though it's the old version of Noctua's full size HS) has never been difficult. I've run this computer without CPU fan when using lower clocks... and currently I'm running high clocks without CPU fan. All it needs is ducting to PSU and exhaust fan. (Noctua HS is relatively good for passive cooling. Not as good as Scythe Ninja or OZC Vindicator, but good nevertheless. Wide fin spacing is good.)

Why did I remove CPU fan? Removing it didn't reduce noise level because exhaust and PSU fan were noisier. I did it to improve chipset and VRM cooling as all air drawn through CPU HS was substracted from air passing below CPU HS. If I want this system to become perfect, I'd have to replace my undervolted (3.6v) YateLoon high-rpm exhaust fan to something with sleeve or fluid dynamic bearings and do the fan swap for Corsair PSU as well. The ball bearings on both fans make a hissing noise no matter how slow they turn. But I'll probably leave them as they are as PSU has 5 years of warranty and because the computer is stuffed full of harddrives. It'll never become inaudible so I'm satisfied with it being quiet.

Yes, I've done undervolting experiments. Not just experiments. I run them at motherboard's lowest supported vcore during summers. That's stock clocked undervolt at 2.4 GHz @1.1vcore. According to my calculations, 70 watts of power consumption compared to stock 95 watt TDP (or 125 watt OC). I could undervolt further but just reducing clock wouldn't reduce power consumption that much. If I could drop voltages further, that would be sweeeeet.

The reason why I drop clocks during summer isn't because I have cooling problems... at least within my computer. My computer room has a cooling problem: it has no AC. That is, my computer acts as an electric heater. During winters, there's no reason to save electricity as the whole appartment is heated by electricity. It's wasteful but as it's wasteful, I can at least leave the computer on and Fold and know I don't waste any electricity that wouldn't be wasted otherwise. Extra watt used by a computer is one watt less heat needed for the heaters to turn electricity into heat. Folding to warm up a house is a good thing. Of course buying a heat pump is good too but as heat pumps are expensive they'd be located in a place where heat is best spread around. In the faraway corners of the house, heaters are still needed.

Newer 45nm Quads are cooler.

"my main concern with the quad is heat, esp since i will have a smallish case. i would like neither to have to invest in an expensive cpu cooler, nor to have the cpu fan running high all the time."

Stock fans suck ass. I'd try to find a low profile heatpipe HS. Ninja Mini ("Minja") for example. Though even it might not be small enough...

I do have a similar problem at hand: I want to fit my Prescott system that has been hanging on the wall (literally) recently into a box case that is divided into two sections. Vindicator HS won't fit. I need to cut the wall between sections and I need to either cut part of PSU away or shorten the fins on one side of HS to fit it. But I hope it'll be a nice build in the end even though it'll be a difficult one.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:24 am

just wanted to say thanks to all! at this point i'll probably stick with the e8400 both for $ and cooling. i might go with the q9300 if my budget allows.

ryboto: just out of curioiusity - if you intend to run a discrete graphics card, then why are you looking for a mb with igp? oh - and i nearly forgot - are you using the stock fan/cooler on your q9400? how is the fan noise? thanks again!

whiic: you've given me a lot of ideas - thanks!

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:54 am

wodenx wrote:
ryboto: just out of curioiusity - if you intend to run a discrete graphics card, then why are you looking for a mb with igp? oh - and i nearly forgot - are you using the stock fan/cooler on your q9400? how is the fan noise? thanks again!

Aside from the DFI JR board, which I've already tried and had issues with, can you name me one mATX board that doesn't have an IGP? I need mATX, not full size, my case wont fit it. As for the Q9400, I've only used it with an HR-01+ with a 900rpm fan. Under full load, the chip hit 38C at the stock speeds.

wodenx · Post by **wodenx** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:10 am

ryboto wrote: Aside from the DFI JR board, which I've already tried and had issues with, can you name me one mATX board that doesn't have an IGP? I need mATX, not full size, my case wont fit it. As for the Q9400, I've only used it with an HR-01+ with a 900rpm fan. Under full load, the chip hit 38C at the stock speeds.

aha. i guess i've only been looking at IGP boards, so didn't know this.
thanks again

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