The Joy of Upgrades.

edited March 2009 in Chit chat
Well, this weekend I am working on upgrading my computer and its gunna be a beauty.

3Ghz Quad Core,
4GB Ram,
16000 DDR2 Ram,
1 TB HD.
ATI Radeon GT4850.

I had loads of trouble getting the bits, now the new hard drive is currently formatting and its takinng what seems ages.

I've split it into 3 partitions. 315 GB for each one (with some slack left over).

I plan to have XP, Windows 7 and Linux.

Roll on the completion!! :D
Post edited by Scottie_uk on
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  • edited March 2009
    I've just built a new PC with a Dual Core 2.33Ghz, 4GB RAM, 1TB & .5TB HD's, GT9600GT and a external HD caddy so I can access my old HD's and retrieve the data. Stuck with XP, I'll wait for Windows 7.

    Awesomely fast, must be cos even Spud looks good on it.
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Well, this weekend I am working on upgrading my computer and its gunna be a beauty.

    3Ghz Quad Core,
    4GB Ram,
    16000 DDR2 Ram,
    1 TB HD.
    ATI Radeon GT4850.

    I had loads of trouble getting the bits, now the new hard drive is currently formatting and its takinng what seems ages.

    I've split it into 3 partitions. 315 GB for each one (with some slack left over).

    I plan to have XP, Windows 7 and Linux.

    Roll on the completion!! :D


    If you don't mind me asking, how much were the bits, I'm a bit out of touch on the price of componants.
  • edited March 2009
    3Ghz AMD Phenom Quad = ?198

    1TB Samsung Spinpoint 7200 RPM HS = ?85

    ATI Radion 4850 - 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI = ?115

    Memory DDR2 16000 2 X 2GB Strips by G-Skill ?49

    Gigabyte MA770-UD3 PCIe 16X, 12 Onboard USB Ports, 8 SATAII and the usual floppy, IDE and 7.1 High Def 7 Channel Surround Sound. ?69


    Brought from Novatech.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    I built a new games machine a couple of months back.

    Quad core 6600
    Radion 4850
    4 gig corsair XMS 800 ram
    Thermaltake Soprano case
    Asus P5KC mobo
    4 x 500 gig HD
    Arctic 7 cpu cooler
    Neo Vortex GPU cooler
    750W Hiper PSU
    Hauppauge Win TV Nova T 500 Duel TV Tuner
    DVD re-writer, Fan controller & card reader
    22" LCD widescreen monitor

    £579 for all the bits from the local computer fair.

    Overclocks happily to 3.6 and the 4850 runs at about 45' under full load at full overclock. Pulls about 20,000 on 3D Mark 06.

    Don't try and use 1066 ram in the P5KC mobo though, a real pain in the butt to get it running at anything like stable. That bad I took it back and got a refund.

    Scottie - I would strongly recommend you look at a new cooler for the 4850 or it will be running at over 80' (could reach over 100' at full load) - The Neo Vortexx is good and quite cheap, about £15

    Also the 4850 really hogs power - I hope your PSU can handle it under load.
  • edited March 2009
    "I should use simulator loosely 'cos I don't think it's quite like this on the beach with helicopters and fires and the jumping beach buggy" - paulisthebest3uk 2020.
  • edited March 2009
    True, very true but I won't be going for i7 for at least a couple of years when the price drops to something I can afford.
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Well, this weekend I am working on upgrading my computer and its gunna be a beauty.

    3Ghz Quad Core,
    4GB Ram,
    16000 DDR2 Ram,
    1 TB HD.
    ATI Radeon GT4850.

    All that for running an Spectrum emulator and Ff to access WoS and email??? :-?

    :grin:
  • edited March 2009
    aowen wrote: »
    Why only 4GB of RAM? Why not 64-bit Solaris? Which Linux?

    Why only 4GB?? Because I don't currently need any more than that.

    Why not solaris? Because I don't need it.

    As for Linux, well I'm not sure its out of Ubuntu or Fedora Codre.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Well, this weekend I am working on upgrading my computer and its gunna be a beauty.

    3Ghz Quad Core,
    4GB Ram,
    16000 DDR2 Ram,
    1 TB HD.
    ATI Radeon GT4850.

    I had loads of trouble getting the bits, now the new hard drive is currently formatting and its takinng what seems ages.

    I've split it into 3 partitions. 315 GB for each one (with some slack left over).

    I plan to have XP, Windows 7 and Linux.

    Roll on the completion!! :D

    Sounds good, Scottie, but I'd have been tempted to go for three 500Gb drives. One for the OS's (you'd get all three on 500Gb). One for data and one for back-ups. You'd lose a hell of a lot of stuff if the 1TB drive fell over.
    Hal
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Well, this weekend I am working on upgrading my computer and its gunna be a beauty.

    3Ghz Quad Core,
    4GB Ram,
    16000 DDR2 Ram,
    1 TB HD.
    ATI Radeon GT4850.

    I had loads of trouble getting the bits, now the new hard drive is currently formatting and its takinng what seems ages.

    I've split it into 3 partitions. 315 GB for each one (with some slack left over).

    I plan to have XP, Windows 7 and Linux.

    Roll on the completion!! :D

    Do bear in mind that on XP, you won't have 4Gb of RAM available to you. Deduct how much RAM your graphics card has against your memory and that's how much you'll have left.
  • edited March 2009
    ZnorXman wrote: »
    All that for running an Spectrum emulator and Ff to access WoS and email??? :-?

    :grin:

    I agree ! My mates got a hi spec machine, doesnt run any games on it which really need it though and my machine which is half as powerful as his does everything i need. Its like buying a porsche and never going over 30mph !

    Reminds me of my missus who wants some high priced laptop just to frickin surf ebay/facebook !
  • edited March 2009
    Do bear in mind that on XP, you won't have 4Gb of RAM available to you. Deduct how much RAM your graphics card has against your memory and that's how much you'll have left.

    Well I don't know how much my graphics card will have on system memory. All I kniw is that it has 512DDR3 onboard.

    Plus with 4GB who cares if the Graphics card takes a little, XP will run fine enough on 2GB or even 1GB.

    The 4GB is for things like Windows 7, new linux distro's and such like that will take noticable advantage of it.
    Little Hal wrote: »
    Sounds good, Scottie, but I'd have been tempted to go for three 500Gb drives. One for the OS's (you'd get all three on 500Gb). One for data and one for back-ups. You'd lose a hell of a lot of stuff if the 1TB drive fell over.
    Hal


    It's a good point, I'm tepted to leave in my old Seagate 250GB IDE for my own files. Then maybe someday I'll get an aditional SATA drive.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    I'm tempted to ghost my existing XP installation over to my new HD would that be wise?


    Or would it compomise performance in a big way?

    Oh and don't worry I know how to do it safely
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    If you ghost it over you will take a lot of unneeded crud with it.

    Obviously all your drivers will need changing so your going to carry a fair bit of registry cruft which won't help.

    As you have plenty of spare space better to do a fresh install and then copy (not ghost) your old HD to a spare directory on your new setup so you can retrieve anything you need as and when.

    Trying to move an OS onto a new machine with different hardware is never a good idea unless your really desperate. Its only a 30 minute job to put a fresh XP and SP3 on so why compromise your shiny new toy with a cluttered old install.

    I always install new, put on my essential apps and then do a ghost image(1) of the new base system for future re-installs when everything is stable.

    (1) I use ping (Ping Is Not Ghost) rather than ghost - if your going for multiple OS's you might want to take a look at it. (Its open source)
  • edited March 2009
    Thanks I may do that. I was going to ghost it accross because I am being lazy.

    My XP installation has so much on it, it dates back to 2003 and much of the software I don't have install disks for. It would be nice not to have to reinstall all my development environments, utilities, games, Anti/Virus - Firewall etc.

    Still I think you are right a fresh install is what I need.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Well I don't know how much my graphics card will have on system memory. All I kniw is that it has 512DDR3 onboard.

    Plus with 4GB who cares if the Graphics card takes a little, XP will run fine enough on 2GB or even 1GB.

    The 4GB is for things like Windows 7, new linux distro's and such like that will take noticable advantage of it.

    Oh, don't worry, wasn't trying to scare you or anything! I too have 4Gb in my XP gaming system, and have 3.5Gb available to me. And it runs like a dream!

    Not too sure you really need to go to a Quad core though. I don't think you're gonna get that much of a performance increase over a top end Dual core - certainly not the the difference they cost to you.
  • edited March 2009
    Not too sure you really need to go to a Quad core though. I don't think you're gonna get that much of a performance increase over a top end Dual core - certainly not the the difference they cost to you.


    It's about future proofing. I hate doing upgrades and all the re-installs etc so I try and make my spec go on as long as possible.

    The last re-build of this PC was in August 2003. I put good bits in then too. As a result it has lasted me this long.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    It's about future proofing.

    quit your job

    throw all your money away

    hit your legs with a hammer till you can bearly walk

    jab your eyes till you go blind

    dye your hair grey

    and then you'll be ready for what the future has in store for you. :)
  • edited March 2009
    mile wrote: »
    quit your job

    throw all your money away

    hit your legs with a hammer till you can bearly walk

    jab your eyes till you go blind

    dye your hair grey

    and then you'll be ready for what the future has in store for you. :)
    Some of us are a little more optimistic...
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • edited March 2009
    karingal wrote: »
    Some of us are a little more optimistic...

    at your age i would be. :)

    (i'll wait for the official thread b4 i wish you happy birthday)
  • edited March 2009
    mile wrote: »
    at your age i would be. :)
    Thats not age but experience...
    (i'll wait for the official thread b4 i wish you happy birthday)
    Ta.
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • edited March 2009
    mile wrote: »
    quit your job

    throw all your money away

    hit your legs with a hammer till you can bearly walk

    jab your eyes till you go blind

    dye your hair grey

    and then you'll be ready for what the future has in store for you. :)

    That maybe your future, but it's not mine.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    It's about future proofing. I hate doing upgrades and all the re-installs etc so I try and make my spec go on as long as possible.

    The last re-build of this PC was in August 2003. I put good bits in then too. As a result it has lasted me this long.

    No, what I mean is that unless there is some major recoding of software, there's just not the huge difference in performance from a Dual Core to a Quad Core;

    www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html

    There are many websites that benchmark them with similar results. In some cases, performance is lower on a Quad Core.

    just something to think about :)
  • edited March 2009
    No, what I mean is that unless there is some major recoding of software, there's just not the huge difference in performance from a Dual Core to a Quad Core;

    www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html

    There are many websites that benchmark them with similar results. In some cases, performance is lower on a Quad Core.

    just something to think about :)

    Hang on, some of those stats are showing 30-60% improvements when a quad core is used.

    If you total up the scores (a = average, t = total) you will see that overall the positives far outweigh the negatives and this is with current software. As software developers learn to take advantage of multi core architectures this gap will widen.

    Pos        Neg
    ===        ===
    
    15         -3
    30         -16
    5          - 9
    33         -8
    49         -15
    63         -7
    5          -12
               -16
    	   -4
    	   -5
    
    Total     Total
    ====       =====
    T = 200	    T = 95  
    A = 29%     A = 9.5%   
    

    I think that your link actually provides evidence that quad cores are better, but it is true to say that for low pressure tasks double the cores does not mean double the performance and yes true the overhead of having 4 cores is sometimes not worth it.

    As one commenter put "It depends on if you one a single app to go faster, or many".

    Imagine a game, graphics on one core, sound on another, user interaction on the third with the fourth for the OS. Now you telling me that is not advantageous.

    I use allot of applications at one time, placing each one on separate cores will do wonders especially with my dual screen set up. However, I do think there is credence in what you are saying and probably 3-4 cores is enough for anyone as most apps do not use up processor time when minimised useless you are rendering videos and sound files concurrently whilst doing general office based tasks.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    so what's the first thing your going to do on your new PC? play Manic Miner?
  • edited March 2009
    Well, I dont know. I have a load of work to do so I cannot play on it properly untill next weekend. You'll laugh but the first things I'll be doing on it will be using WORD, Adobe Acrobat and a web browser and maybe JDeveloper 10G.

    This will probably be my last WOS post from the old machine. It's been a goodun. :cry:
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited March 2009
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    Brought from Novatech.

    They use the cheapest, crappiest power supplies. Your new machine is going to want to suck down lots of power, I suspect. Make sure the power supply is actually up to it! (Not just the rating, but built with decent components). Otherwise you might want to replace it with something decent in fairly short order. In the _Art of Electronics_, the observation is made that line powered switch mode power supplies are finicky beasts, and can expire with a bang. And indeed, they do - it's happened to me! (Killed the motherboard, graphics card, both hard discs, CD-RW drive, memory, CPU. It went off with a very loud bang, followed by little tink-tink-tink noises which were the remains of chips being blown off the motherboard).

    Incidentally, on the idea of getting a machine to last that you mentioned, that's what I did in Jan 2003 with my current desktop PC, and I have no intention of replacing it (still) any time soon. Once PCs used for general tasks got fast enough to show full screen full motion video, they were fast enough and the reasons for upgrading every 18 months evaporated. I also play games on the machine (mostly Enemy Territory) and it runs that at over 60fps at 1600x1200, which is good enough I think!
  • edited March 2009
    When I was deciding if to go for 2 or 4 core for my system I went for 4 core (and especially the 6600) for a number of reasons.

    The 6600 is famous for its overclocking ability and this was something I wanted to play with.

    The serious software I have on the machine is already coded for multicore - Mostly CAD software.

    The cost difference between a 6600 and a half decent duel core was next to nothing or in a lot of cases the 6600 was actually cheaper. (I paid ?105 for the CPU)

    Its obvious that with the exception of netbooks more or less every machine shipped is going to be multicore for the next few years so new software will be written to take advantage of the extra cores.

    Even running on one core the CPU will handle most games and overclocked to 3.6 will handle anything on the market at the moment. As publishers start utilising multicore better it should give some decent future proofing.

    In other words looking at cost/performance and future proofing there didn't seem to be much of a choice. Even when this gets old and decrepit (like its builder) it will still be a good database and webserver machine.
  • edited March 2009
    Winston wrote: »
    They use the cheapest, crappiest power supplies. Your new machine is going to want to suck down lots of power, I suspect. Make sure the power supply is actually up to it! (Not just the rating, but built with decent components).

    The 4850 can draw nearly 400W under full load (not overclocked) so your looking at at least a 700W PSU with good steady output on all the rails for it to be a stable machine under heavy load.
  • edited March 2009
    Winston wrote: »
    They use the cheapest, crappiest power supplies. Your new machine is going to want to suck down lots of power, I suspect. Make sure the power supply is actually up to it! (Not just the rating, but built with decent components). Otherwise you might want to replace it with something decent in fairly short order. In the _Art of Electronics_, the observation is made that line powered switch mode power supplies are finicky beasts, and can expire with a bang. And indeed, they do - it's happened to me! (Killed the motherboard, graphics card, both hard discs, CD-RW drive, memory, CPU. It went off with a very loud bang, followed by little tink-tink-tink noises which were the remains of chips being blown off the motherboard).

    Incidentally, on the idea of getting a machine to last that you mentioned, that's what I did in Jan 2003 with my current desktop PC, and I have no intention of replacing it (still) any time soon. Once PCs used for general tasks got fast enough to show full screen full motion video, they were fast enough and the reasons for upgrading every 18 months evaporated. I also play games on the machine (mostly Enemy Territory) and it runs that at over 60fps at 1600x1200, which is good enough I think!

    My power supply is quite good. It's a 580 Watt Hyper (HPU-4M580-PU). I did a little reading before buying it. I think its upto the job.

    It's currently been running 4 hard drives two CDRoms and my mobo with no problems durring. Recently all four drives have been chugging away while I back up my files and format another.


    Quite a nice look PSU too.
    8047.jpg
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
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