Building a PC.... help?

[RRSignal]

I only build my own rigs. A couple things:

Stay away from laptops. You'll get better performance for way less with a desktop, and you'll have the ability to upgrade if you so choose.

AMD versus Intel seems to be a wash, but I favor Intel.

At least one PCI-Express16 2.0 slot is a MUST, since the video card has to do so much processing. But you can find mobos with two for ATI CrossfireX support.

I'm an nVidia fan, but I won't badmouth ATI. However, nVidia's also support OpenGL natively while ATIs don't. But, whatever card you get, also be sure it supports PCIe16 v2.0, which has higher throughput than the original PCIe16. Beware: You'll still see lots of motherboards and video cards that are NOT v2.0-compliant. Although they will still work together, the throughput between the motherboard and video card (or whatever else is connected to the x16 slot) will be half what it could be. To get maximum benefit, your mobo must have PCIe16 version 2.0 and your video card must also have PCIe16 version 2.0 capability. There typically is no difference in price between a piece of hardware living up to PCIe16 2.0 specs versus the previous version.

RAID 1 can certainly help with performance as it can reduce disk read times, though that depends on the hardware. I like having a duplicate drive in case my system crashes.

It's a good idea to use an aftermarket CPU cooler as the ones provided by Intel are barely adequate (and, many would argue INadequate, especially if you overclock.)

Make sure your power supply is adequate. I don't consider anything less than 500w enough. Everything depends on your PS, and you'll have random crashes or drives kick out if your system is underpowered. Most PS' included with cases are underpowered and just plain crap.

Someone mentioned going with a barebones. That's not a bad idea, and you will (generally) get hardware known to work together, so if you are really, really worried about part incompatibilities, this can put your mind at ease. However, barebones are often made with mismatched parts (e.g. slower memory than the CPU and motherboard can handle), or bottom-of-the-barrel parts (i.e. cheapest, old, etc.), so you very rarely if ever will get the best performance you can get from a custom-built rig, but they do fill a niche, and can sometimes be a bit cheaper too.

I would avoid Newegg. I've had nothing but trouble. They are very popular because of their generous (ha!) return policy, but I prefer to deal with a vendor that gets it right the first time. Tigerdirect is good, though I wouldn't buy a hard disk from them. As for a case, if you need one, get one that's big and has a lot of fans and splurge on a separate, adequate PS.

Here's what will probably be my next rig. Note that I have selected two types of memory. The OCZ Reaper is tested and known to work with this mobo. The Platinum is not but there is probably a 99% chance that it will and I can always return it if somehow it doesn't. Note also that I did not included hard drives or a case, as I already have those.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4410102&CatId=13

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4389472&Sku=I69-7500

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5507336&CatId=3669

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4364398&CatId=2531

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3803377&CatId=2531

This will run XP 64 (since I own a few retail copies already) although I would not rule out Windows 7, if I determine Windows 7 can be run offline, without an internet connection (for security reasons, I don't let my PCs with sensitive stuff on them access to the internet; then again, I might just use the new PC as a gaming rig and just keep all my financial stuff on the PC I have now.)

 

[johnwhelan]

I only build my own rigs. A couple things:

AMD versus Intel seems to be a wash, but I favor Intel.

I'm an nVidia fan, but I won't badmouth ATI. However, nVidia's also support OpenGL natively while ATIs don't. But, whatever card you get, also be sure it supports PCIe16 v2.0, which has higher throughput than the original PCIe16. Beware: You'll still see lots of motherboards and video cards that are NOT v2.0-compliant. Although they will still work together, the throughput between the motherboard and video card (or whatever else is connected to the x16 slot) will be half what it could be. To get maximum benefit, your mobo must have PCIe16 version 2.0 and your video card must also have PCIe16 version 2.0 capability. There typically is no difference in price between a piece of hardware living up to PCIe16 2.0 specs versus the previous version.

RAID 1 can certainly help with performance as it can reduce disk read times, though that depends on the hardware. I like having a duplicate drive in case my system crashes.

It's a good idea to use an aftermarket CPU cooler as the ones provided by Intel are barely adequate (and, many would argue INadequate, especially if you overclock.)

Make sure your power supply is adequate. I don't consider anything less than 500w enough. Everything depends on your PS, and you'll have random crashes or drives kick out if your system is underpowered. Most PS' included with cases are underpowered and just plain crap.

Someone mentioned going with a barebones. That's not a bad idea, and you will (generally) get hardware known to work together, so if you are really, really worried about part incompatibilities, this can put your mind at ease. However, barebones are often made with mismatched parts (e.g. slower memory than the CPU and motherboard can handle), or bottom-of-the-barrel parts (i.e. cheapest, old, etc.), so you very rarely if ever will get the best performance you can get from a custom-built rig, but they do fill a niche, and can sometimes be a bit cheaper too.

Here's what will probably be my next rig. Note that I have selected two types of memory. The OCZ Reaper is tested and known to work with this mobo. The Platinum is not but there is probably a 99% chance that it will and I can always return it if somehow it doesn't. Note also that I did not included hard drives or a case, as I already have those.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4410102&CatId=13

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4389472&Sku=I69-7500

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5507336&CatId=3669

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4364398&CatId=2531

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3803377&CatId=2531

Comment one putting your country in your profile helps to see how relevant the information is when answering hardware problems.

Comment two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

I'm unable to think of a single example where RAID1 would help performance.

Comment three Intel versus AMD cpus tomshardware.com would disagree with you.

Comment four read up on OpenGL sometime and you may discover just how much of a "standard" it is. Thing to note is it allows proprietary extensions so it's actually very difficult to say that one implementation is wrong.

Have you noticed that no one is talking about the new features and performance benefits of OpenGL 3 even though its been released?

nVidia have their own GPU instruction set which I think you'll find is not OpenGL. OpenGL is a higher level language. ATI implemented much of the DirectX instruction set in silicon which gave them a performance advantage over nVidia but these days nVidia have optimised their directx performance.

Cheerio John

 

[RRSignal]

Comment one putting your country in your profile helps to see how relevant the information is when answering hardware problems.

Comment two http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

I'm unable to think of a single example where RAID1 would help performance.

Fixed the country thing. I never even checked to see if my country and state was listed or not!

As for RAID 1, it depends on the implementation. That's why I said it may increase performance on reads. In some implementations, it can stack commands independently for each drive in the array, allowing both to work at the same time.

Part of the reason why I prefer RAIDed chipsets is because stock, non-RAID southbridges do not support AHCI, so they do not support NCQ. That has an impact on performance. I like the Gigabyte due to it having the ICH10R.

I, frankly, do not know for certain whether I'm getting good performance due to the RAID itself or due to the NCQ. I suppose I could get my hands on a good analysis suite but I never really bothered: I'm not nor have I ever been out to build a top-of-the-line system, but, rather the best one I can for under $500-$600. FWIW, I also get good performance out of my single-drive builds, though I still prefer RAID for redundancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_1#RAID_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_Controller_Hub

 

[RRSignal]

...This will run XP 64 (since I own a few retail copies already) although I would not rule out Windows 7, if I determine Windows 7 can be run offline, without an internet connection (for security reasons, I don't let my PCs with sensitive stuff on them access to the internet; then again, I might just use the new PC as a gaming rig and just keep all my financial stuff on the PC I have now.)

Edited to add: This looks like a nice PS at 650w -> http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3276573&csid=_25

Also, if you build, make sure you use a grounding strap or otherwise control static electricity.

Oops, I replied to my own post rather than edited. Sorry.

 

[johnwhelan]

Fixed the country thing. I never even checked to see if my country and state was listed or not!

As for RAID 1, it depends on the implementation. That's why I said it may increase performance on reads. In some implementations, it can stack commands independently for each drive in the array, allowing both to work at the same time.

Part of the reason why I prefer RAIDed chipsets is because stock, non-RAID southbridges do not support AHCI, so they do not support NCQ. That has an impact on performance. I like the Gigabyte due to it having the ICH10R.

I, frankly, do not know for certain whether I'm getting good performance due to the RAID itself or due to the NCQ. I suppose I could get my hands on a good analysis suite but I never really bothered: I'm not nor have I ever been out to build a top-of-the-line system, but, rather the best one I can for under $500-$600. FWIW, I also get good performance out of my single-drive builds, though I still prefer RAID for redundancy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_1#RAID_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I/O_Controller_Hub

I love the idea of a good Raid controller with a UPS and fast drives but reality is Trainz should run fairly well on a single drive. With a mirrored drive you are basically reading from a single drive anyway and writing to two. Trainz is only reading so the performance is roughly the same as a single drive.

Cheerio John

 

[kin3]

Here is what I built and I'm happy with it. It runs all my games on the highest settings. But this is just me.

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D Deluxe P55 1366

Graphic Card: XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCIe DDR5

Monitor: Dell 2407WFP-HC

DVD: LG GH22NS50 22XDVD-RW SATA

Sound: onboard

Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC

CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core

CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Silent 1156 CLP0552 92mm CPU Cooler For Intel Socket LGA1156

Memory: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M4A1600C9

Hard Drive: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM

Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

OS: Win7 Home Preium 64

 

[RRSignal]

Nice setup...that's one sweet gaming rig! :udrool: Unfortunately, it's more than 3x the cost of what the OP or I are looking to spend. As I understand it, you can get away with lower-end hardware with Trainz than you can with some of the newer games. Maybe because Trainz only requires DX11?

 

[saintjimmy]

DX11? I sure wish! As far as I know, the Trainz Jet program code is DX9. We can only hope that sometime we will get a new code with DirectX 11. That would improve performance & visual quality immensely!

 

[RRSignal]

I think, though, that problems arise when doing a half-a$$ed job at maintaining backwards compatibility. I have Microsoft Flight Simulator X, which originally was designed for DX9. It DRAGS like nothing I have seen before! But, from various sources, I understand that it really needs DX10 to not run like crap, because M$ really coded it to try to use DX10 (I suppose, in order to force people to upgrade to Vista, etc.)

I have what was at the time FSX was released was a pretty hot rig and FS9 a.k.a. Flight Simulator 2004 absolutely flies on it (pun intended), so I suspect there is a lot of truth to this.

Of course, unlike M$, Auran does not have a vested financial interest in forcing people to use a new API. If anything, I'd think the opposite would be true.